Here
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7357116/
is the text of interview and the short video clip.

Tom Sizemore on the defensive

Actor talks exclusively to Dateline about his drug use, conviction
and fall from Hollywood grace

By Keith Morrison
Dateline NBC
Updated: 7:51 p.m. ET April 1, 2005

It's a nightmare, he says, he wouldn't wish on anyone. Actor Tom
Sizemore has come a long way since he was on Hollywood's A-list,
working with directors like Steven Spielberg and Ridley Scott. His
chronic drug problems, repeated run-ins with the law, and bizarre
public meltdowns have derailed, for now, a once-promising career. He
spoke out in his first primetime interview since a judge sentenced
him to jail for violating his probation. It's an interview he almost
didn't finish.

In every man's life, there comes a time when he must face reality;
even if his business is fantasy, even if he plays the tough guy.
Here was Tom Sizemore, squirming under a tabloid spotlight, coming
to Dateline to explain himself.

Tom Sizemore: "I don't want to be in the business of ruining my
life. I've done enough damage."
Keith Morrison: "Basically you're just a guy with a drug problem
right?
Sizemore: "I'm clean and sober right now. I'm in treatment. Right
now. This very day.
Morrison: "How many days do you have?"
Sizemore: "Sober? Eighteen."
Morrison: "What's your longest period of time without."
Sizemore: "Doing any drugs at all? From '95 to 2001. It's not a
coincidence they're the most prolific years, and my career was
building."

Building? Exploding actually. Sizemore made millions playing
hardscrabble tough guys in blockbusters like "Blackhawk
Down," "Heat" with Robert DeNiro and "Saving Private Ryan" with Tom
Hanks.
Sizemore: "I'm a nice middle class kid from Detroit who likes
sports, who loves to read and was happy doing what I was doing,
playing second fiddle to Tom Hanks. It was terrific."
He was so close, on the cusp of superstardom, with paydays of $10 to
15 million, even starring as a cop in his own TV series, "Robbery
Homicide Division." And then it all went bad.

Sizemore: I made egregious mistakes in the choices I made. And for
that, your honor, I am sorry.
He was in L.A. Superior Court, begging a judge not to send him to
prison:
Sizemore: I never thought I'd break my father's heart. Or my mom's.
Or mine. But I have. And I'm to blame for that, what I did was wrong.

It's a long story, these things usually are, but the heart of it was
truly unseemly. It began with a nasty breakup with his girlfriend,
the famous Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss. Then, a spate of
emasculating phone messages she admits leaving for him and, Fleiss
alleges, a face full of bruises caused by him.
Convicted two years ago of beating and repeatedly threatening
Fleiss, Sizemore was placed on probation and ordered to take regular
drug tests. And it was, prosecutors say, his repeated failures of
those tests that landed him back in court last week, to be sentenced
for violating probation. His was a life in freefall which had been
so promising.

Sizemore: "All of those things that were my life became obscured by
four words: `Tom Sizemore hit me.'"

He still can't get past the incident with Fleiss. The photograph,
the charge, the whole incident, he says, was faked. It probably
didn't help that he once pleaded no contest to punching another
woman, though he still says he never actually did that.But Fleiss,
he contends, made things up to get back at him.

Morrison: "So did you hit her?"
Sizemore: "I never laid a hand on her."
Morrison: "You didn't do that to her face?"
Sizemore: "I swear on my life that I did not do that to her. I loved
her."
Morrison: "You didn't touch her?"
Sizemore: "I didn't touch her. I never touched her. I never touched
anybody."
Morrison: "You know you look like sort of a tough guy."
Sizemore: "I'm not tough at all."
Morrison: "But is that why people believe that you would hit Heidi
Fleiss?"
Sizemore: "I don't know why people would believe it. I'm an actor. I
pretend. I wear make-up for a living. I'm a sissy."

...

Morrison: "You're an actor. You cried in court. And then you know
you gave the finger to the press outside."
Sizemore: "F*** the -- excuse me."
Morrison: "But you cried in court. Was that acting?"
Sizemore: "I'm not acting right now. I said f*** the press."
Morrison: "I know. Go back to court. How were you?"
Sizemore: "I was broken hearted. My poor mother and poor father out
there and they're both aging, and my mother's almost dead watching
their eldest son be -- f*** the press. I'm done."
Morrison: "Whoa! Careful, careful. You're going to carry the chair
with you all the way."

At this point, Sizemore rips off his microphone and stalks away.
Moments later, after we spoke off camera, he returns, contrite,
embarrassed.

Sizemore: "I'd like to apologize."

He was willing and ready to talk about the immediate attraction to
drugs that first time he tried them, years ago. When, he says,
suddenly for the first time in his life, he felt normal. Until the
habit sucked him down.

Sizemore: "My poor judgment, the drug abuse. I take full
responsibility for. I wish I hadn't done it. I couldn't believe it
was happening to me. It's that simple. I don't want to die. Already
my mother hasn't slept for three years."
Morrison: "Well, she thinks you're going to die."
Sizemore: "I'm doing better now. And I'm seriously going to do
better. This is it."
Morrison: "What is it like to be in there, to be inside Tom
Sizemore's body?"
Sizemore: "I wouldn't want anyone to have gone through what I went
through. I wouldn't wish it upon anybody. I never really had
anything nice in my life, except for my parents. This thing has been
a nightmare of epic proportions. I've lost everything I've ever
worked for."

Everything, he says. A promising TV series, canceled before its
time; by his own estimate, a total of $18 million in cash; and his
home, once owned by the legendary actor Gary Cooper. It was sold to
pay back taxes and legal fees. All of these things were taken away
by drugs.

Morrison: "Tell me about your house. The house you had."
Sizemore: "I'd rather not. That's too –"
Morrison: "Gary Cooper's house, huh?"
Sizemore: "Coop lived there for a while. I lived there 10 years. I
don't want to talk about how much I've lost. It makes me very sad. I
was living in a garage three and a half weeks ago."
Morrison: "Huh?"
Sizemore: "A garage. You know, not as nice as this warehouse. But I
put insulation in and an outlet. I have a pregnant girlfriend. No
money. I'm lucky I come from poor beginnings because I was able to
weather that storm. I weathered that storm."
...

Morrison: "Was any of this your fault?"
Sizemore: "No. The drugs were. But being arrested, being falsely
accused, unjustly brought to trial. I've been -- I didn't do it."

His appeal of the assault charge is pending, and while he waits, he
works on gritty little independent movies, with paydays that would
once have been nothing more than pin money. What choice does he
have, he asks, stuck in tabloid purgatory, where he waits, so
impatient, for something that feels like a life.

Sizemore: "Lots of people have problems. And if we're lucky, we're
able to right ourselves, and become our better selves, right our
lives, and continue on. That's what I'm hoping for myself. I'm as
tough an S.O.B. as you're ever going to meet, mentally. I'll get
through this. Will Hollywood forgive me? Of course they will. But
only if I stay clean and sober."

Tom Sizemore is scheduled back in court in two weeks. Prosecutors
say he'll have to show that he's enrolled in a court-approved drug
treatment program. If he violates the terms of that program, the
judge could sentence him to up to three years in state prison.
We contacted Sizemore's ex-girlfriend, Heidi Fleiss, for her
response to his claim that he never hit her. She had no comment.

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