PHOTO BY RUBEN V. NEPALES
LOS ANGELES—“It feels very touching,” Justin Theroux beamed when asked in our recent chat how it is being able to call Jennifer Aniston his wife. The actor-screenwriter, dressed in a black suit and tie, talked about his life so far with Jennifer since they wed last Aug. 5 in their Bel Air, California, home. “I can’t remember the first time I said it. It feels fantastic. It’s a more comfortable term.”
With a laugh, the lead actor of HBO’s “The Leftovers” dished, “I was getting tired of saying fiancée which is adorable for about six months and then you go, okay, we got to make some time for this.”
It’s the first marriage for Justin, 44, while it’s the second one for Jennifer, 46, who was married to Brad Pitt for five years. “It feels good, natural, right on time and perfect,” said the actor who wrote “Zoolander 2” (he reprises his Evil DJ role), “Iron Man 2” and “Tropic Thunder.” “I don’t know how to explain it.”
Justin, whose acting credits include “Parks and Recreation,” “John Adams,” “Six Feet Under” and David Lynch’s “Inland Empire” and “Mulholland Drive,” added about being a married man: “I feel like I have earned it, in a way. I appreciate it and I look forward to being good to her. So if anything, it’s hard to explain. It’s a nice feeling—a settled feeling. It feels really good.”
Truthful
Pressed for his idea of a good husband, Justin answered, “Oh boy. It’s being kind to one another, truthful to one another and talking it through when something else is going on.”
The couple somehow managed to keep their wedding a surprise. The guests thought they were attending a birthday bash for Justin, whose birth anniversary is Aug. 10. Instead, they witnessed the pair’s backyard ceremony officiated by Jimmy Kimmel.
On how they pulled off the surprise, Justin said, “You want your special moments in life to be as special as possible. So it wasn’t hard. There was a lot of logistics [and planning] that went into it.
“The only hardship was that when I was on the (‘The Leftovers’) set, I wanted to tell the crew and the cast. I wanted to keep people in the loop on what was happening.”
“Every part of it was fun,” Justin stressed about the ceremony, which included a reception that lasted till the wee morning hours. Sia crooned her hit, “Chandelier.” “Nothing was not fun.”
THE COUPLE went on their honeymoon with friends.
Excitement
Justin admitted, though, that keeping the ceremony a secret meant that they couldn’t share with others the excitement of their preparations.
“But the best part of the wedding was obviously being able to stand across from someone and say some things that meant a lot,” Justin said.
“And to have all of your friends there or many of them, in support of that. There is something very beautiful about that ritual.
“And also, just as my mom pointed out, there are two times in life when people say really nice things to you.” Laughing, Justin continued, “She said one of them is when you are dead. So she said to enjoy it (the wedding) and I did enormously.”
He explained why they brought along their friends, including stand-up comic Chelsea Handler, to their honeymoon in Bora Bora: “It’s just that we adore our friends and we are not 22 (years old). So it’s not like we have to sit awkwardly across a table and wonder what we have done. We wanted to share our experience with all of our friends and their children. We just had a blast. It was more of a continuation of the celebration but in a more relaxed setting.”
The pair, who starred in the 2012 comedy “Wanderlust,” contemplated having tattoos in Bora Bora, noted for its tattooing arts tradition.
“In Polynesia, I looked into it and had we scheduled it before, it would have been possible,” Justin said. “The tattoo artist we were looking for was well-known. We just couldn’t get him onto the island.”
Barely two months into their marriage, Justin and Jennifer are already facing rumors of a divorce and that she is pregnant with twins. “Well, it didn’t take long, I guess,” Justin said, laughing. “Inaccurate, both of them.”
On whether Jennifer has given him tips on how to stay unruffled amid the media frenzy about their union, Justin answered, “I don’t think anyone has any advice. Everyone has their own ways of doing it. I think the best way is to tolerate it.”
As to what he likes to do in his quiet time away from the media glare and work, Justin said, “I write a lot at home… a screenplay and a television show… In Austin, at least on weekends, I draw a little, but nothing extraordinary.”
The actor, who belongs to a family of writers (his mom Phyllis and uncle Paul Theroux are novelists while a couple of his cousins are journalists), admitted that going back to “The Leftovers” set after his honeymoon was tough.
IN “THE Leftovers,” the actor plays Kevin Garvey Jr., a cop who deals with the consequences of mysterious disappearances.
Mysterious event
In “The Leftovers,” based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta—who also writes the drama series with Damon Lindelof—Justin plays Kevin Garvey Jr., a police chief in Mapleton, New York. Garvey’s wife has joined a cult. A mysterious global event, termed as the “Sudden Departure,” caused the disappearance of 140 million people or 2 percent of the world’s population.
The series also stars Carrie Coon, Amy Brenneman, Liv Tyler, Christopher Eccleston and Regina King.
In Season Two, “The Leftovers” finds the Garveys moving to a Texas town, named Miracle, where there were zero Sudden Departures, at least initially. Then somebody vanishes. “The first season was about grief and loss,” Justin said.
“Our second season begins with hope and, excuse the pun, the departure from Mapleton in order to go to a new place,” continued the Washington, DC native. “When I first heard about the show, I was like, oh there will have to be some religious elements to the show, the bad version being those terrible rapture books and the good version being something that explores a little more realistically about people having to define their belief system.”
(E-mail the columnist at rvnepales_5585@yahoo.com. Follow him at https://twitter.com/nepalesruben.)