Ace Goes to Hollywood: Episode 6
by Jack Pendarvis
Ace Goes to Hollywood is a continuing transcript of a ride from Oxford, Mississippi, to Memphis, Tennessee, during which Jack Pendarvis interviewed Ace Atkins about his work on the Pauly Shore film Jury Duty.
Episode 6: I Want to Talk About Mayonnaise
JACK: I’m already running out of questions about Jury Duty. I really thought, “There’s no way we’re going to fit everything in.”
ACE: I’ll tell you one of the big things. We shot most of the interior stuff—the jury room, the courthouse scenes, all of that—exceptionally boring. And then we get to go shoot on location.
JACK: Right.
ACE: That’s where things got interesting. We shot on location at the Ambassador Hotel, which was an iconic fixture in Hollywood. It was a massive complex. And if you watch the movie The Graduate, that’s where Mrs. Robinson has her bungalow. Countless movies have been shot there. Robert Kennedy was assassinated in the kitchen there. It’s an iconic location. And when I was there in the early ’90s, it no longer existed. It was abandoned—not abandoned, but an empty hotel, used only for filming. And we were there for at least a couple of weeks at the Ambassador Hotel.
JACK: So what was that like? Was it haunted?
ACE: It was definitely haunted. The crew—you have these crew guys, you know, they were a pretty jaded lot. One of their favorite things they liked to say was, when people would come up and ask, “What are you shooting? What movie are you making?” they would say, “A mayonnaise commercial.” They said that was always the way to get people turned off completely.
JACK: I would be like, “Oh, boy!”
ACE: [Laughter.]
JACK: Because you know what? I miss mayonnaise. I can’t have mayonnaise.
ACE: Well, that was supposed to—
JACK: I want to talk about mayonnaise for a second.
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