Grin and Bear It: How to Be Happy No Matter What Reality Throws Your Way (3 page)

“Hey, it’s me, Pulos!” I said through the pain.

Later that night, the same group of kids picked me up and threw me in the hoop to celebrate our big win. Imagine me still in costume, stuck in the net, just hanging there. I wasn’t embarrassed, I felt popular; they were torturing me but I just
knew
this meant they cared.

In addition to being with my family and friends in Scottsdale, I also enjoyed spending time with my sister, who was living in Los Angeles after graduating from UCLA. Although there is a twelve-year age difference between us, Krisann and I have always been close. I forgave her for being “perfect” and thin because she loved performing as much as I did. To this day, my mother blames my talented sister for “leading me astray.” I loved hanging out with her and telling all her friends that I was going to be a big star. I was so desperate to have people see me as being special that I once made up a story that Krisann and I met Ricky Schroeder in the mall and we went to lunch with him. I told everyone he gave me a stack of black rubber bracelets like the ones that Madonna used to wear. I bought the bracelets on Melrose and hoped no one saw me.

This is one of the lame ways I used my creativity to help me deal with my parents’ difficult and painful relationship, which no one in my family has ever really recovered from—mostly because we never talked about it. There was so much pain, we didn’t know how to feel. My mother, sister, and I had no coping skills and as a result, there was a lot of silence. Very often the only time we’d ever hear my mother was when she was being critical of someone—usually me. My mother wasn’t the type of person who would ask if she could give you some advice, she’d just dive right in. Sometimes she was right; other times she was wrong. But always she called things as
she
saw them. So much of what I heard at home made me feel “not good enough.” These three very powerful words—the “Big Three,” as I started to think of them—became the foundation of the wall I built around myself, a wall I disguised with humor so no one could ever see how fragile and unsure I really was.

They won’t hurt me if they’re laughing
was my motto. As a way of reaching out, I started performing, and it wasn’t always pretty. One year a group of friends and I did a lip-synch in high school to the song, “Going Back to Cali…” I was wearing a bikini top, which slipped and fell off to one side. I could hear my mother in the audience scream out in horror. That wardrobe malfunction earned me the name, “Silver Dollar” because I had silver dollar-sized nipples. That nickname stuck with me for the rest of my years in school. But it was okay. To this attention junkie, “silver dollar” sounded much better than “big brown areola.” They laughed, I laughed with them … and I felt accepted.

Looking back, I spent my childhood desperate to get my parents’ (and really, anyone’s) attention in every way possible. I always needed drama. When I was three, my mom felt my pacifier and I had to go our separate ways. We baked a cake and gathered the whole family to support me with a journey to the Grand Canyon where my blue pacifier would be hurled into its final resting place. A solemn ceremony was created for me to star in. My mother knew the needed good-bye would not take place unless the parting was an over-the-top event with an audience of sobbing family members.

My mom’s way to put our household Greek dramas on hold was turning on the television to feel better. I noticed how those funny people on TV could make her laugh—especially Jim Carrey. She looked so happy, even if it was only for a moment. His zaniness spoke to her heart and I could see and feel her spirit lift.

“Please go do this for other people, Jennifer. Make them laugh. Love is so painful,” she once said.

I wanted to be that person, the one who makes people happy. In truth, it was my mom I wanted to make smile, because then I might finally hear her say something like
“Jennifer, that was incredible.
You
are incredible!”

A girl can dream …

On her last show, Oprah said that over the course of twenty-five years doing interviews the one thing that all of her guests seemed to have in common was a need to be acknowledged—translation, “seen.” This is something we all want.

A lot of actors go into performing because they want to be someone, something, or somewhere else. I wanted all three. Many actors would agree that hiding behind a character is the goal; it’s easier to become someone else than it is to be who we really are. I wanted to be seen and hide all at the same time. What a mess.

When I was in the fifth grade, I starred in my school play,
The Most Amazing Snowman
. My character’s name was, ironically, “Happy.” From the time I landed that first role, I genuinely believed that becoming famous would be the answer to my prayers. Little did I know, that if you want the real you to be invisible, become famous. Your various images get the attention and you get to be ordinary in an extraordinary situation.

I’m barely famous and I’m not complaining. There are a lot of fringe benefits, but …

TEN THINGS FAME
CAN’T
GIVE YOU:

  1.  Unconditional love

  2.  Self-esteem

  3.  Real friends

  4.  An accurate mirror

  5.  Free stuff (You always have to pay)

  6.  Health

  7.  Peace of mind

  8.  Sanity

  9.  Money (You
can
be famous and poor)

10.  One extra second on this planet

2

The Wannabes

From as long as
I can remember, I
loved
comedy, and I was obsessed with
Saturday Night Live
. My favorite characters were Chevy Chase’s “Land Shark,” Bill Murray’s “Nick the Lounge Singer,” Gilda Radner’s “Babwa Wawa,” and Eddie Murphy’s “Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood.” Thanks to them, I started doing solo sketch comedy. The show first aired in the fall of 1975. I was almost four years old. The television had a steady gig as babysitter at Arizona Casa Pulos and I was ready for action every Saturday night. I would go up to the television and kiss Gilda Radner and do my best to copy everything she did. Through the years, I bought every book, read every article, and coveted all things SNL, from T-shirts to coffee mugs. My goal was to be gainfully employed at 30 Rock, and be the
next
Gilda Radner. She managed to make her underdog characters champions and I wanted to learn how to do that.

Following in my big sister’s footsteps
,
I chose UCLA, where I studied theater, film, and television. As a freshman, my days were all about studying, but my nights were spent taking classes at the Groundlings, a legendary L.A. sketch comedy and improvisational theater group. The school has been the foremost comedy training ground in Hollywood and the springboard for countless careers, including Phil Hartman, Cheri Oteri, Laraine Newman, Jon Lovitz, and so many more who would eventually appear on
Saturday Night Live
.

As you know, I had battled my weight in my younger years, always feeling like I wasn’t as pretty or as skinny as the other girls. My anxieties were magnified by the beautiful California hotties I was surrounded by every day on campus. I joined the Pi Beta Phi sorority, which only heightened the pressure to be very thin. I went on an extreme weight-loss program consisting of eating nothing but white rice, running four miles a day, and purging whenever I could. I didn’t do it all the time, but there were plenty of occasions I found myself with my head in a toilet or pulled over on the side of a road or at a gas station puking my guts out.

Throwing up made me feel like I had some control over my life, which had otherwise been spinning downward for years because of my parents’ split, my dad’s drinking, and my mother’s habit of using criticism as support.

Within a couple of months I dropped to ninety-eight pounds. At five feet, five and a half inches tall I definitely looked anorexic. When I went home to Scottsdale for Thanksgiving, my family immediately noticed my frail appearance. Even though I felt good, I had taken “thin-spiration” way too far. Deep down, I was aware of my eating disorder. But I didn’t care. I had gone to California to prove I could make it as a performer. I was terrified that if I ate I wouldn’t fit in with the rest of the girls, even if they didn’t have aspirations to act. So many girls in my sorority had weight issues that my behavior actually felt normal.

I now know that my eating disorder wasn’t just about my feelings regarding my parents’ divorce, it was also my insane desire to be famous, no matter the cost. I was so starved for attention that I actually starved myself to get it. I liked people telling me I looked thin—too thin. I felt like I was finally being “seen”; but it was for the wrong reason. I never told anyone about my eating disorder and until now, have never spoken about it. When I sat down to write this book, I realized how damaging my actions really were.

You know what finally changed everything? I fell in love for the very first time with a fair-haired all-American boy; someone I’d dated on and off for six years. Feeling special, loved, attractive, and desired I thought
This is the man I’m going to marry
.

The movie
Braveheart
changed all that. After my boyfriend saw it for the nineteenth and twentieth time, I started getting concerned he was going to change his name to William Wallace, the unlikely hero whose courage and honor changed his country’s history. One man making a big difference is, I’m sure, what inspired him to go to Zimbabwe or Uganda to teach. That’s when I got a “Dear Jenni” letter from one of those countries that said something about how he needed a princess he could sweep off her feet and I was not that girl.

How many times can you hear “not good enough”? Over the years, I would hear it on a loop: “The Big Three.” Let me give you an early example:

You’d think that the experience I had as the mascot back in high school would have been enough to keep me from ever doing it again, but I was determined to keep my mascot dream alive. As a way of showing my true school spirit, I set my sights on becoming UCLA’s mighty Bruin Bear. I thought to have any chance, I would have to do something so crazy and outrageous to get their attention they’d have no choice but to award me the coveted bear suit. I had a brilliant idea. When I got in front of the judges, I pretended to pee on our rival, the USC Trojan. Yes, this Bruin Bear wannabe gave an imaginary Tommy Trojan, the revered symbol of USC, a golden shower. Why didn’t they select me?

All this time I absolutely believed that I was destined to appear on
Saturday Night Live.
This dream kept me going, and eerie connections to the show were everywhere. I had dated Will Forte in college for a couple of months. (Of course, at the time, I didn’t know he would end up on
SNL
!) Not long after Will and I broke up, I was fixed up on a date with a guy who told me his brother was going to be on
SNL
while we were riding a Ferris wheel.

Lambda Chi date party—UCLA with Will Forte. Which one of these people will end up on
Saturday Night Live?

“I’m going to be on
SNL
, too!” I blurted out, totally believing it.

A few weeks later, his brother made his official
SNL
debut. It was Will Ferrell. Seeing him on the show and recognizing his immense talent motivated me more than ever. His comedy fearlessly flew without a net in skits like “Dissing Your Dog Pet Training Video,” “Janet Reno’s Dance Party with her D.O.J. (Dances of Janet),” and the unforgettable “Spartan Cheerleaders of East Lake High” who cheered on the ping-pong and chess teams. I was going to find a way to someday share the stage at the infamous NBC Studio 8H.

Around my junior year, I thought that I’d spent enough time working my way up at the Groundlings and it was finally my chance to be a part of the troupe.

To become one of the thirty official members, you had to audition. My hopes were high of joining this company whose members write and perform in their theater shows and teach classes at the school. One of the instructors there decided to crush my dream. For the audition, I had created a character called Carol Pitts. She was a talkative, nerdy office worker whose life revolved around sex and syntax errors. She would have imaginary orgasms with her imaginary boyfriend in her very real office cubicle panting, “I love him. I hate him. I love him. I hate him.” It didn’t go over well.

“Lorne Michaels would love you because you have big tits and a high squeaky voice, but you’re not funny!” the teacher said after I finished my scene.

Ouch.

Maybe she didn’t like other funny women?

Surely she didn’t really mean what she was saying.

How could she?

Chris Kattan, who was already in the company, leaned over and whispered, “Hang in there…” as I slouched my entire body until I looked like a small hedgehog and scurried back to my seat. Truth be told, I was mad. I thought I was funny. If you are going to tell me I’m not funny, at least give me some solid reasons why you feel that way. There was nothing constructive about her telling me how she really felt, except, perhaps … could it be, she was telling me the
truth
? I sat there for the rest of the performances, spinning her reaction over and over in my head. Why was I attracting such a negative response from this person?