The entertainment industry is in an existential crisis: less content is being produced and there are significantly fewer jobs. Fortunately, Eric Roberts recognized this state before anyone else, before we were watching TV shows to be proud of ourselves. “Nowadays there is no time to rehearse and you get paid less,” says Roberts, who is best known for his suspense-filled films. “You can’t sit around and wait for the big payday anymore.”

As Roberts writes in his new memoir, Runaway Train: Or, the Story of My Life So Far – out now – he fully adjusted to this new normal years before anyone else scrambling for scarce jobs. Roberts feels the pressure too, which is why he says “yes to everything.” “We’re often overextended, broke and scared. I know people who were part of the cast of Titanic who can’t pay their rent,” Roberts writes in his memoir.

But Roberts has no use for fame anymore; he just wants to work. In the book Roberts wrote with journalist and novelist Sam Kashner, he boasts of having 750 credits on his IMDb page. When he sat down for this interview in August, that list had grown to nearly 850. “I’m an actor first,” he says. “Everything else is secondary.”

Roberts was one of the most outstanding actors of a generation of New York stage actors who moved into film in the 1970s. He came to public attention in Bob Fosse’s 1983 biopic Star 80 as Paul Snider, the murderous husband of Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten (played by Mariel Hemingway). Roberts thrived in the role, a manipulative petty criminal whose self-loathing turns to murderous rage.

More high-profile roles followed, such as that of the fugitive Buck McGeehy in Andrei Konchalovsky’s 1985 action thriller “Runaway Train.” The actor received an Oscar nomination for the role and landed himself on talk show couches and tabloid covers. Roberts was wealthy and comfortable, and bought a penthouse apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and a house in Greenwich, Connecticut. He also began abusing cocaine. Over time, he lost the apartment and the house; the drugs remained.

But Runaway Train is not a tearful atonement for past sins, a Hollywood redevelopment project designed to revive a once-successful career. Roberts knows all too well that he made terrible choices, that his erratic behavior damaged his relationships with friends and family, including his sister Julia Roberts (their relationship remains questionable; Roberts insists that “we agreed not to talk about each other’s careers”). Still, Hollywood is rife with addicts who have found success despite their bad habits, and for a time Roberts walked that tightrope.

As Roberts describes in embarrassing detail in his book, his fall from grace came gradually, then all at once. He repeatedly wrestled defeat from the jaws of victory and talked his way out of roles with Quentin Tarantino and Oliver Stone, among others. “I was high when I went to my audition with Ron Howard,” says Roberts.

Roberts was undoubtedly an unpredictable madman, but much of what he learned about the dark art of self-immolation came from his father, Walter, a screenwriter in the heyday of radio drama who later opened his own theater in Atlanta, where Roberts grew up. Walter, a bitter, arrogant nerd, encouraged his son to act but then criticized him viciously, which confused and angered his son.

Roberts’ father was a petty crook and once tried to persuade him to rob a pharmacy for much-needed money. At night, Roberts’ mother would often beat him with a dowel. A blessed relief from the beatings came when Roberts’ parents separated. Walter was awarded custody of Roberts; sisters Julia and Lisa moved in with their mother. Walter continued to groom his son. “My father taught me a lot about how to be a professional actor, but he denigrated me at every opportunity,” Roberts says. “It was very difficult as a child. How do you deal with a father like that? It was hard to process.”

Even when Roberts somehow scraped together the money to move to New York, his father continued to hound him with an endless stream of letters, alternately calling him an underachiever, praising his talent, asking for money, and accusing him of neglect. “I still got thousands of letters,” Roberts says. “I still have them. It was crazy, dude! Eventually I realized that you have to love people for who they are, but you can’t let them walk all over you. Even if it was sincere and loving, it felt out of place and mean.”

Despite this epic “mind control,” Roberts pressed on, landing his first television gig in 1977 on the soap opera “Another World.” Roberts’ smoldering, glaring intensity caught the attention of New York theater bigwig Joe Papp, who cast Roberts in a Public Theater production of the Civil War drama “Rebel Women.” Roberts earned his Actors’ Equity card, then landed his first film role in 1978 as Dave Stepanowicz, scion of a New York crime family, in “King of the Gypsies.”

But while Roberts endeared himself to a wider audience, he infuriated directors by insisting on staying in character 24/7. “I would yell at people for no reason, lock myself in the trailer and kick the door violently from the inside,” Roberts writes of “Star 80.” “I began to manifest (Snider) in a way that threatened the entire production and infuriated Fosse.”

After that, it was hard to shake off the label of “problem actor,” especially given the eccentric outbursts he portrayed so convincingly in the film. Roberts’ drug addiction didn’t help much. “Coke was everywhere,” he says. “I mean, if you go to the prop truck on set, they have a big bowl of cocaine for everyone. How could I possibly work?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure how it all worked out for me,” says Eric Roberts. “If it weren’t for my wife, I might be dead right now. I know that sounds dramatic, but it’s a fact.”

(Deborah Feingold Photography)

Roberts’ private and public lives merged, as if he were using Stanislavski’s sensory memory in reverse, conjuring up strange scenes from his films as material for his own personal use. His stepson Keaton, whom Eric helped raise, moved out as a teenager, unsettled by Roberts’ erratic and often violent behavior. In 1995, Roberts was arrested for shoving his wife Eliza against a wall.

Suffice it to say that he did not simply go to rehab, but was ordered by the court to stay there for 18 months.

When he emerged, somewhat freed from his self-loathing, Eliza was waiting for him. She pulled him up, shook him off, and guided him into a life where he would turn his addictive impulses into steady work. She is Roberts’ manager and consigliere, and the partnership has paid off handsomely. This year alone, Roberts has starred in 73 productions — a Western miniseries, a couple of low-budget sci-fi films, and something called “My Redneck Neighbor: Chapter 1 – The Rednecks Are Coming.” He is also a contestant on the new season of “Dancing With the Stars,” which premieres Tuesday.

And Keaton came back. He later worked with Roberts as a singer-songwriter and composer for television and film. As for Emma, ​​Roberts’ daughter with his former partner Kelly Cunningham, Roberts says their relationship is “warm and supportive but not close,” considering they are not involved in each other’s lives and do not communicate much.

Given the many attempts Roberts made to sabotage his life and career, he is well aware that things could have turned out differently. “Honestly, I’m not sure how it all turned out for me,” he says. “If it hadn’t been for my wife, I might be dead right now. I know that sounds dramatic, but it’s a fact.”

Eric Roberts will be signing copies of his memoirs “Runaway Train” on September 25th at 7 p.m. at the Barnes & Noble at the Grove in LA