Anne Heche’s ex, James Tupper, is grateful for Heche’s Men in Trees co-star Emily Bergl’s kind tribute to Heche following her death. In a lengthy post on her Instagram, Bergl honored Heche, taking issue with those who have described the late actress as “crazy.”
“‘You worked with crazy Anne Heche?’ ‘So how crazy was she?’ I worked with Anne Heche for two years on the TV show Men in Trees, and this line of questioning was usually the first out of people’s mouths,” Bergl, 47, wrote alongside a photo of the late actress.
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“She elicited more curiosity than any other famous person I’ve ever worked with. I’d like to give you the answers to the questions I most received about Anne, answers that I gave many, many times,” she continued. “Anne was not only a genius, but one of the most astoundingly focused and prepared actors I’ve ever worked with. I don’t think I ever saw her miss her mark. I imagine she may have called for her line once or twice but I can’t recall her ever needing it. I asked her what her secret was, and she told me her first job was playing twins on Another World, so she had to memorize up to seventy pages of dialogue a day.”
“The only joke I did make about Anne was that it’s likely she didn’t have a psychotic break, but really was an alien, because her strength seemed super human. She would work for twelve hours, invite everyone to the bar, drink a couple of doubles, and be back at work at four AM,” she continued.
“As I would roll in feeling barely human, she would walk into the makeup trailer, always on time, her smiling face luminous without a lick of makeup. Scene after scene, her work would be flawless, and yet always remained spontaneous. I don’t think she was capable of phoning it in. And then she would do it all again the next day,” she added.
She said that Heche seemed to embrace the descriptor of “crazy,” having incorporated the word into the title of her memoir. “It’s no wonder Anne titles her brilliant memoir Call Me Crazy, she beat everyone to the punch,” Bergl wrote. “She was talking about mental health before it was acceptable to talk about those struggles.”
“She was raped by her father, her brother killed himself, and her mother told her she would burn in Hell for loving a woman. But despite a sometimes harrowing life, she was so much fun to be around. She was insouciant, joyous, insightful,” Bergl wrote.
She concluded, “We so rarely investigate the abuse, the gaslighting, the misogyny, the homophobia that drives people to finally take up the ‘crazy’ mantle that’s been placed upon them. I would tell you to read Call Me Crazy, but it’s now $200 on Amazon. I paid it because I want to read it again. She was a true genius, and I miss her. #ripanneheche.”
Tupper, with whom Heche shared a son (her second child and his first), praised the post. “Oh god thank you for writing this. Is all completely accurate and true. love you e,” he wrote in the comments.
Heche was rushed to the hospital on Aug. 5 after crashing her Mini Cooper into a home, which went up in flames. She suffered severe burns and a brain injury and was declared braindead a week later. On Sunday, she was “peacefully” taken off life support after recipients were found for her organs.
