By Terry A. Kirkpatrick

When he was growing up on the streets of Hoboken, New Jersey, Joey’s friends couldn’t pronounce his last name, Pantoliano, so they called him “Joey Pants,” and it stuck. He believed that his route out of the projects was Hollywood – he would be a star – and at age 17 he crossed the Hudson River into Manhattan and began his training as an actor.

It would not be too many years before he did make it to Hollywood, and we would all get to know Joey Pants through such films as The Matrix, Memento, The Goonies, Risky Business, Bound and The Fugitive. In 2003 he won an Emmy for his role as Ralph in The Sopranos.

In 2010 he made a different kind of film – No Kidding, Me Too! – about mental illness and the stigma attached to it. Three years before that he had announced that he suffered from clinical depression and that he was speaking out about it to try to counter the prejudice against brain disease.

This year he is publishing his second book — Asylum: My Hollywood Tales from the Great Depression: Mental Dis-Ease, Recovery, and Being My Mother’s Son (Weinstein Books, March 2012). In a way, the book is a continuation of the documentary, but it’s a lot more.

Together: What is serenity?

Joey: I just think it’s peace of mind, where my mind is not wasting away with anxiety about the future or thoughts of my past jumping out of dark corners at me. Just now I’m reviewing the book from the copy editor, and I was looking at what was wrong with me. My wildest dreams had come true. I was one of only 700 actors in a union with 120,000 members making a living at what I love to do. I didn’t have a shot at the brass ring — I had the brass ring. It was in my hand. Then why was I so miserable when I was surrounded by goodness? It wasn’t my mother’s fault, it wasn’t my father’s fault, it wasn’t even my fault.

Actually I know what the lack of serenity feels like way better than what serenity feels like. The seven deadly sins – envy, sloth, the sexual desire; you see a pretty girl and you’re living in this moment of wondering what it would be like and you wind up feeling guilty. When am I going to be old enough that these feelings disappear? I know it’s not sixty.

How did you try to find serenity?

In the tenth grade, when I went to high school in Cliffside Park, New Jersey, it was the first time we actually had an exterior playground, so running was my first experience with a feeling of wellness. I started jogging in high school and then made a career of running three to five miles, four to five times a week to help me to feel good.

Acting helped me to feel good. I was somebody else. I knew my character. Being my character was way better than being me. It was the only time that I knew who I was, where I was, where I was going. I had this unusual freedom between the times the director would say “action” and “cut.” Or when the curtain went up and the curtain came down. Acting was an outlet, a joy and pleasure, especially when it felt right.

It was because I had better information, better intel. Real life is kind of scary, because you don’t know what’s going to happen next. And there was this terrible beast inside of me, this terrible person. So early in my career I went to group therapy to try to make it go away.

What really was inside me was that I only had one interest in life, one thing I really cared about, and that was Joey Pantoliano. I put Joey Pantoliano in front of everything and everyone I knew. In front of my mother, my father, my children. Joey Pants was the love of my life. I loved him more than sex drugs and rock and roll.

But serenity eluded you, even though you looked for it. In the book you talk about the “seven deadly symptoms.” What are they?

1. Food, either overeating or starving myself to feel better, feel serenity.
2. Vanity, being the popular guy, respected by everyone.
3. Shopping and shoplifting, compulsively spending to feel better or going with the “five finger discount.” And then bragging about it.
4. Success — fame and admiration to avoid nihilistic thoughts.
5. Sex.
6. Alcohol. To wind down.
7. Prescription drugs to avoid my pain and avoid the calories the white wine spritzers would give me. To help me enjoy success and make myself too tired to worry about losing what I had. To kill the psychic pain.

But I never knew serenity. The first time I ever heard the word serenity was in the 12-step program. I thought death was the only way to achieve serenity. And the only way to achieve death was to die.

You’ve found something different.

I didn’t go to the 12-step program to stop using substances. By the time I got there I had stopped drinking for three years and I had come out of rehab for prescription drugs. What was appealing to me was the ability to share the sickness inside of me and not be judged. These people share theirs with me. A friendly agreement is made that what you hear there stays there.

I’ve just been offered an opportunity to be in a movie, but there’s all this secrecy around this movie, so before I can talk with the director and producer they want me to sign a confidentiality agreement. I’m having a hard time understanding why they want me to sign some legal document to keep me from opening my trap. They could just say, let’s keep this to ourselves, like they did on The Sopranos. I never had to sign a piece of paper for The Sopranos. David Chase, the producer, would say we worked really hard and our audience is dedicated and likes being surprised, so please don’t share this information with any of your family members. Just keep it to yourself. It’s fair to our customers. That I understand. That’s standup. Not some piece of paper.

Do you experience serenity today?

Well, I feel pretty good talking to you. I just went downstairs and held my newborn grandchild and had a nice talk with my daughter. Right now I have it. I’m pretty good. I’m sitting in my chair looking at the computer. I’m talking to you. I’m listening to Bogie (a Soft Coat Wheaten Terrier) who is on the chair next to me in my office. I hear him. He’s snoring. That’s good, too. It’s a nice place to be.

Being in the moment.

Uh huh. My daughter and grandson. More important than Joey.

How do you manage your serenity?

I had all of these negative behaviors that in the beginning gave me an imitation of the effect, an artificial feeling. And then I needed to do more of it, take more of it, to make the bad feeling go away. What I found most in the 12-step program, the number one thing, is the presence of God in my life. There’s nothing I do in the 12-step program that I didn’t do in group therapy. Except the 12-step practice is kind of my religion. I love the idea that I can go to a place where everybody has their own understanding of God.

I no longer wake up in the morning with my first thought being, “Shit, I’m still here.” Now I think, “Your will be done.” I make a daily agreement with this power, the power of the universe. “I’m going with your flow,” I say. “I’m not going to try to get in the way of it. Your will be done.” And I take a minimal amount of antidepressants, a baby aspirin, I brush my teeth, I go to a 12-step meeting, and I go to yoga three or four times a week.

Why did you write the book?

I needed the money.

Uh huh.

I have this idea in my head that I can share with others what I’ve gotten out of the 12-step program. And it’s a continuation of the documentary. I wanted to set the record straight, because I was diagnosed with this particular brain style, which in the field of science is called clinical depression, which consists of my brain not producing equal parts of serotonin and dopamine, thereby rendering it kind of unbalanced. I don’t have enough of it so I have to produce more to be balanced and have a peaceful and serene mind.

It seems that everything my body does, everything that I do, comes back to feeding my brain. My brain’s very sensitive. It reacts to the caffeine I put in my body, the sugar, the air I breathe. I have to eat balanced meals. As far as alcohol was concerned, it wasn’t the alcohol, it was the sugar inside of it that took me up and then came the crashing low. I found out not drinking alcohol that if I just took Vicodin it would help me curb my appetite. So when I stopped doing that and started going to the 12-step program the first thing I did was put on 40 pounds.

So now I’m going to Alcoholics Anonymous and Over Eaters Anonymous and then I started spending uncontrollably and so I’m going to Over Spenders Anonymous and then I started wanting to shoplift again after all these years – my first impulse in 30 years. I resist it, of course, but the impulse is there. They don’t have Shoplifters Anonymous. So if there’s anyone reading this article who has one going on please contact me.

I’m trying to get into meditation. If I am exposed to some kind of traumatic experience as a child or as an adult it’s going to affect me. A parking ticket or someone giving me the finger on the Merritt Parkway. Today instead of having a drink I’ll say a prayer.

I heard a guy who believes he has to get on his knees every morning to pray. And thank his Father. That’s the God of his understanding. Our Father. Everything is “we,” Our Father, and he tells Our Father he’s going to try to go His way.

So what he does is he throws his wallet under the bed so he has to get on his knees every morning. Is that brilliant?

Do you do that?

No, because I have nothing in my wallet. I certainly do get on my knees every morning, however, because I gotta get out of bed, don’t I?

Terry Kirkpatrick is the Editor in Chief of Together.