If you’re anything like me—Adam Driver, two-time Academy Award nominee, NBD—you’d better know how to tip!
Funny story: I was in the 2019 Broadway revival of Burn This—for which I received a Tony nomination, NBD—and one night after rehearsal I was dining with my co-star Keri Russell (winner of the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series—Drama, NBD) at New York’s posh Eleven Madison Park (winner of seven James Beard Awards, NBD) when I noticed Keri had tipped the sommelier 25 dollars! Now, some might argue that a good somm can be tipped upward of $50-100, especially if they’ve recommended a well-suited vintage… but I disagree.
“Here’s a fiver, courtesy of Adam Driver,” I told him, slipping $5 to the sommelier. (BTW, this same somm recently stopped me on the street and had nothing but raves regarding my performance in Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story—which, incidentally, was also praised by noted critic Matt Goldberg who called my work “astounding” and “the best performance of the year,” NBD).
Another funny story: Just after I finished Girls (for which I received three consecutive Emmy nominations, NBD), I accepted a groundbreaking role in BlacKkKlansman. (Did I mention I got Oscar and Golden Globe noms for that? In any case, NBD) We filmed in Colorado Springs and stayed at the Garden of the Gods Resort & Club (a four-star hotel as determined by Yelp, NBD), and director Spike Lee (who won the Grand Prix at Cannes, NBD) wondered aloud how much he should tip the hotel concierge for not only picking up and delivering his dry cleaning but going back to the cleaners and demanding starch in his collars.
“Common courtesy dictates tipping at least $20 for one trip to the cleaners,” Spike noted, “but two trips? I’m thinking $50-75.”
“Or you could tell him you’re Adam Driver,” I told him, “and tip him a fiver!”
He thought that was funny. I’m not sure why. I’m Adam Driver, and I tip everyone a fiver.
In fact, once I told an Uber driver to wait for me outside the Hollywood mansion of Joaquin Phoenix (who just won the Screen Actors Guild Best Actor award for Joker, NBD) so I could quickly drop off a basket of bloody thorns—which I commissioned from conceptual artist Yayoi Kusama, at a cost of $1.2 million, NBD—and ended up making the driver wait 17 hours. (We were doing some stuff.) Long story short, I apologized profusely, and said, “For being so patient, I’d like to tip you $500… but I can’t. I’m Adam Driver, so here’s a fiver.”
Here’s my point: It’s easy to overthink gratuities! So the next time you’re wondering, “How much should I tip my Christmas tree stylist or coffee enema barista?” Don’t deprive her! Tip her a fiver. My name’s Adam Driver.
you may have just started a campaign slogan! genius!
So, what if my last name doesn’t rhyme with “fiver?”
Tell me something Adam I do wonder judgeing by the relatively disjointed organization and tone of this piece either you are suffering from undiagnosed or diagnosed ADHD or wrote the piece while high on illegal narcotics or writing isn’t your strong suit. Either way I’m not sure what the problem is. What I do know is drivers and waitstaff and hotel employees such as concierges survive off of tips and their jobs are hard so your comment to across the board tip $5 was in very poor taste. As for making the driver wait 17 hours and then giving him $5 also in poor taste. I liked you better when all I knew about you was your characters.
“As for making the driver wait 17 hours
and then giving him $5 also in poor taste.”
Adam’s just BS’n everybody — it was only 16 hours AND he set me up with a great ‘date’ (no clap, yet) and a Giant eightball. He not only tipped me, he freakin’ SIGNED it (I have it up on the wall over my bed, framed).
My gawd — in ten years time, do you have any Idea what that ‘fiver’ is gonna be worth?!
(around ten cents if trump’s still “prez”).
[Update 2030: he’s on Every bill now].
He’s SO Handsome!
[you Hafta say that now]
On that note Adam, something else I wanted to take up with you with regards to your portrayal of Kylo Ren in the star Wars movies, I do think you are a good actor. However, I regard Star Wars as “space porn” that glamorizes religious extremism and totalarism. Both Darth Vadar and Kylo Ren are religious extremists heading up totalarian regimes. The parallel to their regimes is actually ISIS, the Taliban and also al Queda in Iraq. Also the Lord’s Resistance Army in Africa. A parallel for Kylo Ren is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. If you had done your homework properly you would have realized this. Kylo Ren and Darth Vader are killers and psychopaths who justify their bad behavior in God’s name and to quote XTC “people have no place in their solutions (Reign of Blows). Everybody has a little bit of good in them. Serial killers have a bit of good in them.
What I will ask you is do you think al Zarqawi could be reasoned with? What about the Lord’s Resistance Army or ISIS? You had to watch your portrayal of Kylo Ren because you knew your character didn’t make sense. And your character didn’t make sense. Would he have teamed up with Rey to kill snope and also palatine? Absolutely because he found out from them that he was a pawn and would have killed them to take over. Then he would have killed Rey if she didn’t go along with what he wanted or let her die because she was stronger than him so would have been seen as a threat. Kylo Ren killed his father similarly because his father he saw as a threat to his getting into a position of being in charge of everything. Al Zarqawi had the same mindset and what I ask you is do you think that it is realistic to expect a religious extremist who killed his father to basically just give all of that up and make an about face? People like Kylo Ren because you made him likeable and also because you are attractive and took your shirt off in the movie. That’s an interesting idea that religious extremists can be converted back to something more normal but not realistic. People like that they have a lot to gain by adhering to extremist and very little to lose, are typically asociocial, psychotic ,what drives them is aggression and control and are basically just criminals. You can’t reason with people like that nor should you. The appropriate response is to kill them or incarcerate them. My take on Kylo Ren is Luke should have killed him when he had the chance.
People also like Darth Vader for the same reason. Neat costumes. Anyways what should have happened here with regards to Star Wars is psychological workups on all of the characters to make sure that their behavior made sense, which I don’t think happened. You and the rest of the movie industry should learn from this example to avoid glamorizing extremism and also to produce movies that make sense.
If you need any help with regards to figuring out how to do psychological workups on your characters for the purposes of making them as realistic as possible please let me know.
This is not helpful for his image, whether it’s meant to be comedy or satire. There are those insulted by this, I’ve read. Not respecting drivers and wait staff in this day and age is simply unacceptable.
Glad to see someone agrees with me. As for the trolls and Adam look we are all ambassedors for companies that we work for. The internet is not anonymous if you harass people cyber bully them mouth off you can and will be found out and you can be prosecuted and sued and fired. Adam should learn from Roseanne Barr’s example.
Of interest with regards to Star Wars the parallel to the empire and sith such as kylo ten other parallels to these sort of regimes are nazis the Roman Empire the crusades and to a lesser extent the taliban also joseph Stalin the reason why mankind is basically not doing this sort of thing anymore is because of things like freedom of speech and free access to alternative opinions through the press so the public is less likely to be duped into cooperating with the government if people in charge decide they want to engage in world domination. A good song to listen to which is pertinant is heresy by n i n and also reign of blows by x t c this is also what is not very realistic about Star Wars which is that the sith could dupe human race into cooperating with their dark quest of domination and totalarianism. As history has taught us the only way that would happen is if they hid their true intentions from those in their organization also a complete lack of security to tamp down on what amounts to militarized cults. The USA has a problem with gangs and militarized cults but they don’t get very far because the government is strong enough militarily to keep that hat problem under control.
In contrast in Africa the lords resistance army ran amok for years because the government lacked sufficient infrastructure to shut them down. In Iraq same problem. Also tribalism and terrortorial disputes drive entitities like Saddam hussain’s regime being able to get and stay in power. Saddam Hussein was able to stay in power because he paid off the baa Th party on an ongoing basis and the taliban was the same way. Hopefully this gives readers some insights into the reality of the human condition. It is not very realistic that a regime like the empire would rise to prominence because Human race in Star Wars is very advanced and advanced enough that likely they wouldn’t buy into the empire’s nonsense the empire was very heavily funded hence its weapondry and it is not very realistic that they could get people to buy into their totalarisn regime mentality and brutal ruling bend.
As for why I am posting in here it is because I wish to have my opinion heard in an environment which prohibits harassment. This is a bit safer way to test the waters before doing things like setting up a YouTube channel.
I guess not many people can see the satire, and that he is possibly bringing awareness to those who leave shitty tips. I, for one, think it’s pretty funny.
The bigger question is whether or not Adam will lose out on acting gigs whereby he is supposed to be a waiter or Uber or taxi driver or a character in any sort of job which is normal to receive gratuities as a result of writing this column and making comments that some see as humorous and other people get offended by? Anyone want to poll the public on this point? Better yet poll directors!
damn the trolls did it up in here