It’s a crazy, stressful time, and the past few months have been a bit of a wild ride, a real roller coaster. Despite all that, my life is pretty good. In making You Cannot Kill David Arquette, I went through a lot right before the pandemic hit, so by the time everyone was locked down, I already had a pretty good grip on my issues. But it’s still been a lot to deal with, for me and for so many other people. I can't even begin to think about what some people have gone through; it really breaks my heart, what's going on.
I feel lucky that I’m safe in this moment, and that I'm doing well now in terms of my mental and physical health. Through the process of the film, I learned a really valuable lesson – that I just can’t keep on beating myself up. I was repeatedly doing things to put myself in positions that would cause pain and drama and resulted in me attacking myself again. Since I’ve come to terms with that, it's been much better. I read the books Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It by Kamal Ravikant and The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael Alan Singer, both of which were really helpful in allowing me to stay on top of my emotions.
I also started taking a lot of different homeopathic enzymes and hormones that were missing in my system, and an internist who specializes in holistic medicine did a bunch of bloodwork to get my levels right. I’m lucky to have the money to be able to do that without insurance, but I feel so bad for all the people who don't have the opportunities to be able to get that kind of help. I really hope we start addressing issues like that soon, especially with all the challenges we’re faced with in the world right now. There's so much stress, so much depression. It's hard for everybody; I had a friend who committed suicide recently. It's a really tough world, and we just need people to be kinder and more loving to each other. It makes life so much easier.
I make sure to exercise every day. It’s so important, even it's just in my house, doing push-ups or sit-ups or burpees. Exercise, yoga, meditation – any kind of self care – is really important, just to keep me going. I also try to watch a lot of comedies, because it helps my heart stay light.
During COVID, my wife, Christina McLarty Arquette, and I worked with the production company HCT.media to shoot a film called Ghosts of the Ozarks, which will be out next year. It was a really interesting experience, and it was good for me to be able to go on set and act and express myself. We also recently started a documentary company called XTR with Bryn Mooser, who's an amazing entrepreneur and filmmaker with incredible taste in film. We've been trying to develop a lot of different films at XTR, although in Hollywood, half of the time is spent on trying to get projects off the ground. Whether they ever become a reality or not is a whole other thing, but when they do, it's really exciting.
The future of film seems a little tenuous at the moment, but I think everything ultimately is going to be all right. The industry will change because of the pandemic, but I think it's more going to have a lasting effect on how people see films, rather than on how we make them. I think movie theaters will come back, and it’s really exciting to me that drive-in theaters are back again too.
We really made You Cannot Kill David Arquette to entertain people, so hopefully it can be a nice escape for them. The big thing I want is for audiences to get emotionally invested in it and feel like they went on this journey. In the film, I’m very open about my struggles, and maybe seeing that will help people not feel alone in their struggles. I had to go through all this to believe in myself, to really love myself and not beat myself up anymore. I want people to learn that life is really a lot easier when you're not your own worst enemy!
