USA TODAY International Edition
Winkler is eating dinner at 3 o’clock
Going stir- crazy in quarantine? You’re not alone. Celebrities are cooped up in their homes across the country just like the rest of us. As we collectively navigate this uncharted territory, USA TODAY presents Quarantine Diaries, which give readers a peek into how our favorite stars are spending their time at home.
Today’s diarist is Henry Winkler, who gives a commencement speech in the May 15 iHeart Radio podcast “Commencement: Speeches for the Class of 2020” and is featured in the May 12 ABC special “The Happy Days of Garry Marshall.” Here’s what a day of Winkler’s quarantine is like in Los Angeles, where he’s quarantining with his wife, Stacey, and avoiding runners without masks. – As told to Andrea Mandell
6: 30 a. m. I wake up 6: 30 to 7. The two puppies that we have, the Goldendoodle who came to us in July, and our Labradoodle, who is a year and a half old, sleep on the bed. They come over and look at me ‘ cause they’re hungry or need to go out. Yesterday, I went out to get the Sunday Times edition, and I picked up the newspaper and realized it was Thursday.
7: 30 a. m. I make a cup of coffee – well, I make six cups so that my wife will have some when she wakes up. I like it with two ( packs of) Splenda and heavy cream. Then I look at the news of the day. I love Twitter. It completely relaxes me. I take it with a grain of salt and when I see enough of the same story ( shared) by very reputable reporters, then I start investigating.
9 a. m. I had a video conference with our doctor, and the last thing he said to me was, ‘ Get dressed’ ( every day). It is so easy to fall into a disintegrated schedule of any kind. For my mind, in structure comes freedom.
10 a. m. Breakfast varies. Not only in time, but also in content. I sometimes have granola with almond milk, or I have cinnamon raisin toast with butter or cream cheese and jelly.
On puzzling: We did a jigsaw puzzle and my wife was obsessed. Her neck,
her back hurt, leaning over the table for hours. I put four or five pieces together and took a nap.
3: 30 p. m. We have our big meal of the day in the afternoon. I’m trying to maintain some sort of being able to fit in a shirt. I had delicious pasta with a creamy mushroom sauce and a ( takeout) salad ( from Chinois) because we try to order out once in a while from a local restaurant.
On the future of “Barry”: ( In March,) we were at the table reading the scripts for “Barry’s” new season, Season 3. We haven’t been together for two years because one of the executive producers had to do the last season of “Silicon Valley.” We’re at the table, we’re reading the first two scripts. A few of us went out to lunch, never to be seen again. ( They say we’ll shoot) late summer, but I would really like to know how they’re going to figure out a hundred people on a soundstage this close doing a scene: ( People) holding the boom, the camera, the dolly grip, the director. That’s meshuggah. It’s a Yiddish word for crazy.
5 p. m. I think about walking on the treadmill several times a day. It’s incredible. ( Grins) No, I’ll walk on the treadmill. We take walks in the neighborhood. And I have found myself being really angry ( seeing) people who are jogging with no mask. Don’t wear a mask? Don’t run with a lot of people around. Because I found in my neighborhood, if you sneeze, if you cough, it’s like an atomic bomb went off.
9 p. m. I have a nine o’clock snack, which is an Uncle Jerry’s burnt pretzel. You can get them regular or burnt. And either a fun- size or two of a Three Musketeers or a Butterfinger.
What I’m streaming: Besides “Barry”? There are two procedurals: “Line of Duty,” ( an English series); and the other one is in French, subtitled, and it’s called “Spiral.” There are the judges, the lawyers, the police, the bad guys – everybody in the show is broken. They are all psychologically damaged, these people, but they’re great at what they do. “Money Heist” ( a Spanish- language drama series). “Fauda” is great from Israel. And (” Bad Education”), the new Hugh Jackman HBO ( movie).
How I’m feeling: I think no matter who you are, no matter what we are doing in our lives before this started, no matter how old we are, eventually, we are all feeling exactly the same. You’re up for a moment. You are down for a moment. You make the mistake of watching the news and you crash.
The first thing I’m going to do when quarantine ends: Hug my family. Hug my grandchildren. The fact that I cannot touch them, it’s unspeakable. ( I’m) going to the movies or the theater. And fly fishing for trout. I think they are so majestic. I won’t even eat a trout in a restaurant. I give it a kiss, I take a picture and I put it back.