I was pretty excited when I heard that Eric Roberts was going to do a live chat on AOL. I was excited partly because I always look forward to any news about him and partly because I think that a few of the people who have interviewed him in the past have been pretty dim bulbs. I thought that if fans were asking the questions, it might be more interesting.

Well, I liked Eric Roberts' part of the interview but I was disappointed with the way they did it.

There were a couple of interesting questions. One was "What type of music do you listen to?" Good question because Eric Roberts hasn't said much of anything about his taste in music in interviews that I've seen. He answered "R&B is my favorite. Like BB King just makes me weep. I love him. My CD player right now, who's that who just came out with a new CD? When I don't know an answer, I ask my wife. I'm asking my wife now. I like Jewel. I like the Allman Brothers too. But I can't remember who is in my CD player now."

Another good question that somebody asked was "What was the last book you read?" Eric answered "The last book I read I will talk about would be Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier. Brilliant book, brilliant writer. There's also Snow Falling On Cedars, which I'm reading now, and it's good. I hope it has a good ending, because if it doesn't I'll be really mad. Now, I have to say something else about Snow Falling On Cedars. It's got a lot of like, you know, romantic stuff. It's a little romantic."

Well, needless to say, I rushed straight to the library and checked out Cold Mountain and it was a really good book but it certainly wasn't light reading. It's about a couple separated by the Civil War. It's about all the bad stuff that happens to the girl while she's waiting for the guy to get home from the war and what happens to the guy that's preventing him from getting home. Bears a certain resemblance to The Odyssey actually.

I intended to read Snow Falling On Cedars next but then I decided I needed time to recover from Cold Mountain. Snow Falling On Cedars is about another couple and another war (WWII). I was already pretty bummed out by the Civil War.

Another question they asked was "Are you a big Internet guru"? Eric answered "I don't know what an Internet guru is. Web savvy? I'm kind of a babe. I'm kind of new at it, but yeah, I'm getting there."

This sort of semi-answers one of the questions that people keep asking me. Although he has been seen with prop-computers (alotta Macs in Hollywood apparently) in several movies, I don't think that Eric Roberts was very interested in the web until fairly recently when I heard that he was visiting web pages about himself. Wouldn't it be great if he had his own official web page? I know from my own experience that his former agent was extremely anti-web. I don't know anything about his new agent but he's been on AOL so maybe there's a web page in his future. (This is so old! Now of course he has an official web page!)

When they asked him "What's next for Eric Roberts?" he answered "Well, I haven't decided yet." To the question "Any chance you'll do another series?" he replied "Only if it's funny". So can we look forward to seeing Eric Roberts in a sit-com?

I haven't typed out the transcript of the whole AOL chat because I'm afraid that AOL will sue my butt. Oh, that reminds me, when describing his character in La Cucaracha Eric Roberts says that the guy has very little testicles. And then he said that he had to say testicles to get away with it online. So what's the word you can't say online? Balls? Rocks? Nuts? Cajones? He really is a babe.

If you hate to hear me whine, stop reading here.

I signed on to AOL several days before the live chat just to make sure everything worked. I checked 24 hours before the live chat to make sure the time and date were correct and to check the phone lines at that time of day for busy signals -- I really didn't want to miss it. Then I dialed in on the correct time and day and, after a little trouble with my password, got on for the live chat. That's when I discovered that sometime earlier AOL subscribers had been invited to submit questions in advance! This was a really bad sign because I had been led to believe that AOL chats with celebrities were LIVE, as in LIVE AND IN PERSON. Interactive. Instead it looks like the interview was prepared in advance and that those of us who logged on at the announced time had already missed our chance to submit questions.

For those of you who missed it, the way that AOL had this set up was that fans were sitting in "rows" in an audience. Everyone in the audience could see the questions directed to Eric Roberts by the OnlineHost and could read his replies. However, members of the audience could not see all questions or remarks made by other members of the audience except for other people in the "row" in which they were sitting. AOL says that this prevents overloading the screen with thousands of questions and comments. Yeah, why bother showing us questions he can't answer anyway because he did the interview over the phone at about 10 am this morning?

At first there were numerous comments from others in my row but after a while they all left. The ones who commented felt that it was a pre-recorded interview. That was my feeling too and I'm really sorry that I didn't write down the screen names of the AOL subscribers whose questions were used. I would have emailed them and asked them how far in advance they had submitted their questions. When I looked at the transcript later, AOL had removed all of the screen names.

Needless to say, when I asked AOL, they insisted that everything is live and interactive and that fans get to ask questions during the interview. The guy I talked to sounded indignant when I asked if the live chats were prepared ahead of time. "No one has ever complained about that before!" he said "You're the first person who has ever suggested that the chats aren't live!" Oh, yeah? I'm not the first because it was suggested by a reader of USA Weekend in the April 18, 1999, issue and AOL replied to them that chats were live.

There was one other thing that I wondered about that the guy at AOL wouldn't tell me. How is a "live chat" accomplished? Are they online or by telephone? When Eric explained to the OnLineHost "I'm asking my wife now" it sounded like someone at AOL was typing a telephone conversation. And I don't believe Eric Roberts typed "like, you know"? I say it twice in every sentence but I've never typed it in a chat room. More evidence of this was the shortage of misspelled words. I'm not talking about the edited transcript that was available later, I'm referring to the "live chat". Even fairly good typists tend to misspell words when they're typing as they go rather than copying from something else.

Anyway, it was good to hear from Eric. Next time I hear though, I hope the news is that there is a new movie, a new series, or that he has his own web page.

This page was written in 1999. From here you can go to the Updates page or go home to the Absolutely Unofficial Eric Roberts web page.