Hollywood and heartbreak: Griffin Dunne delves deep into “The Friday Afternoon Club” at the Aspen Ideas Festival

Griffin Dunne has had a distinguished career as an actor, director and producer. He first rose to prominence for his roles as Jack Goodman in An American Werewolf in London (1981) and Paul Hackett in After Hours (1985). More recently, he starred in the Max original series Girls on the Bus.“

In addition to his acting career, he has directed notable films including Addicted to Love (1997), Practical Magic (1998) and the documentary Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold (2017), which explores the life and work of his aunt, renowned author Joan Didion.

But despite the outward success and apparent privilege, his life was anything but idyllic. And now he is ready to talk about it.

On Tuesday, he appeared at the Aspen Ideas Festival alongside actor, director and producer Fisher Stevens to discuss “Raised by Hollywood.”

The close friends shared insider stories from Hollywood full of professional and personal mishaps that provided hilarious moments throughout their careers and friendships, as well as for the audience in attendance.

The two met when Dunne, then 23, cast 16-year-old Stevens in the role of actor in “The Chilly Scenes of Winter,” the first film Dunne would produce.

“Fish was cast as Jewish boy number two,” Dunne said with a chuckle. “Robert Downey Jr. was Jewish boy number one.”

The focus, however, was a discussion about Dunne’s memoirs “The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir.”

Dunne is used to being surrounded by talent. His father, Dominick Dunnewas a producer and later an author and investigative journalist for Vanity Fair; his uncle, John Gregory Dunnewas an accomplished author of essays, novels and screenplays; and his aunt, Joan Didion, was one of the most distinctive and famous American writers of our time.

His life is intertwined with numerous iconic figures and unforgettable encounters in Hollywood and beyond. From his childhood best friend Carrie Fisher, with whom he shared a close bond, to encounters with legends like Sean Connery and Truman Capote, to encounters with Harrison Ford before he rose to fame, Dunne’s experiences reflect a multitude of connections to wider pop culture.

However, “The Friday Afternoon Club” is not so much about his career or the fame that surrounded him, but rather a deep dive into all the chaos of life: tragedy and loss, punishment and redemption, humor and, above all, love.

Since almost all of the people in the book, with the exception of his brother Alex, have since died, he felt that now was the right time to make everything public.

“I called my brother before I started and said, ‘Alex, I want to write this family memoir, and I want to write about you, and it’s an ensemble, but I also need to talk about some of the struggles you’ve had.’ And he said, ‘Griffin, you can write anything about me as long as it’s out of love.’ And that gave me so much freedom,” Dunne told the crowd.

With no holds barred and a dark sense of humour, it explores his father’s struggles with his sexuality and alcoholism, the impact of his mother’s multiple sclerosis diagnosis, his brother’s mental health and, most poignantly, the murder of his sister Dominique Dunne in 1982.for the first time at the hands of an ex-boyfriend and its lasting effects.

“I’m still very emotional, and I didn’t expect this; it’s never gone away,” Dunne told the audience in Aspen, choking back tears several times. “The saddest thing about finishing the book was not having their company; now I have their company again because I’m talking about it. I’m in service to the memory of my parents and my sister, and I’m just so proud.”

A few days before Dunne’s appearance in Aspen, Sarah Girgis, arts and entertainment editor of the Aspen Times, spoke with him about the timing of his memoir, the influence of his upbringing on his approach to fatherhood, and the balance between humor and unspeakable loss.

The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Sarah Girgis: I assume you have been writing and thinking about these stories for a long time. Why did you decide that now is the time to bring them out into the world?

Griffin Dune: It was on my bucket list, along with Spanish and learning a musical instrument. So that’s done, I need two more before I’m cool.

My literary agent, David Kuhn, said long before he became my agent and friend, “You have a book in you,” and that secretly spurred me on. I wrote in secret and let the pages pile up, and one day, about two years ago, I just gave him 50 pages and he went on.

SG: You write extensively about your sister’s murder and the trial, but you keep your sense of humor. Was that intentional or is it just your nature?

GD: I think that’s my natural way. It’s something that everyone in my family, on both sides of my family, would find humor in pretty unusual situations, no matter what was going on. When we were kids, our mom told us the pretty devastating news that she had MS and was going to be in a wheelchair, and that she was going to get a motorized wheelchair on the stairs. We had just heard that news, but we also thought, “Oh man, an electric motorized wheelchair.”

SG: Looking back, you make so many remarkable connections in your book. Were you aware of these as you were writing? Even when you were invited to Aspen Ideas by Tina Brown, who discovered your father as a writer, it seemed like you had come full circle.

GD: I wasn’t aware of it when I wrote it, but I saw connections everywhere. Things and people would reappear later and become significant. Like Harrison (Ford) the carpenter is now Harrison the actor. I think we all have these recurring connections if we’re aware of it. I noticed that with my father it happened so regularly that it almost seemed like some kind of magic spell had been cast. Once you’ve seen it, you can’t forget it.

SG: Your relationship with your father and all the secrets he kept from you are a big part of the narrative in the book, and yet you are so kind, gentle and forgiving. How has your relationship with him influenced your approach to fatherhood?

GD: By the time I became a father, my father had already been through hell, survived, and emerged stronger. In the early 90s, when my daughter was born, he was a famous crime reporter and deserved everything.

And then something very strange happened: I was incredibly proud of him and impressed by his achievements, but at first I was irrationally angry at him and a little bit at my mother. … I felt so present as a young father in my father’s and daughter’s lives that it somehow highlighted my parents’ absence. So I thought, “I’m going to be a different father.”

SG: You come from a family of literary heavyweights, not just your father, but also your uncle John Dunne and of course your aunt Joan Didion. Did this legacy make you afraid or anxious about writing?

GD: I wasn’t intimidated. When John, Joan, and my father were alive, they had seen my writing. They had seen first cuts of films I’d directed or acted in, or early drafts of screenplays. I was used to and appreciated their blunt assessment. So I didn’t have intimidating ghosts hovering over me, but I felt their presence in my writing and was inspired by how honest they were about themselves in their personal essays.

SG: What did you learn about yourself during this process that surprised you?

GD: I’m 69, but I’m one of those people who doesn’t believe it for a second. I’ve always been very quick on my feet, an energetic tennis player and I feel very youthful. When I finished the book I was quite surprised at how much I’d experienced and been through and it made me seem older somehow. I thought, “Oh yes, I’m 69 – that’s another 30 years to 100.” This was never more clear to me than when I was reading my audio book. My whole life told in four days; it’s an overwhelming feeling and quite emotional.

Sarah Girgis is arts and entertainment editor for The Aspen Times. Reach her at 970-429-9151 or [email protected].