You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) (13 page)

The director sat in the middle of the tiny room with a tripod and camera next to him. He was wearing a dirty T-shirt and dark wraparound sunglasses. The room had no windows, so the shades thing
seemed excessive, but it was Hollywood. I assumed important people looked douchey.

“Okay, okay, stand there . . .” He had a French accent and waved me into the middle of the room. The Omaha “casting director” squeezed in to read with me. With no preamble, the director started the camera and crossed his arms.

“Go.” Huh? Oh, that was his version of “Action”? Right.

I performed the scene.

I was adequate.

“Good good.” A long pause. “So, what I feel strongly for this character is we will have a shower scene, yes?”

I was confused. “A what?”

“A scene. In shower. To show character. Are you comfortable with shower scene?”

“Uh . . . you mean naked?”

He made a minimizing gesture. “Just breasts.”

Okay, well, HOLD ON! I’d prepared myself for something like this before my move. I’d heard about casting couches and naked switcheroos and Hollywood tainting and corrupting innocent girls’ souls, and I’d vowed to myself and my dad, “I’ll make it in Hollywood, but I’ll make it clean!” I would never show my breasts. Except for Scorsese, or Spielberg, or two dozen other exceptions. But no, Sir Wraparound Shades, no! You will not have my boobs.

I gathered myself proudly. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Will be beautiful, very artistic. Only to learn about character . . .”

“No, thank you.” I could tell he was less interested.

“Okay, scream.”

I screamed. It was a good scream. A silent “thank you” to my probably-dead-by-then singing teacher Miss Hilda.

“Thank you. Go.”

And I left, head high, knowing that I’d dodged a bullet. I would NOT be working for that exploit-y French guy, ever!

Except I did. I was hired the next day to be the non-boob-showing friend of the lead girl in the ultimately titled
Serial Killers
.

Of course, I took the job. But I wore very unattractive underwear to the set, just in case they were trying to trick me with infrared cameras or something.

The movie was shot in houses all over Reseda, a porn suburb of LA, and I found out later that the director primarily made soft-core cinema to pay the bills, so that added up.
Serial Killers
was his attempt at breaking into more “artsy” content. But still with lots of titties.

I worked three days on the movie, knowing the whole time that the girl I was acting opposite was eventually gonna show her boobs in a “character shower” scene, and I treated her with a touch of pity. We never talked again afterward.

Despite the rough experience, I was paid $90.00 in the form of a check for five days’ work, and I was thrilled. I had MADE MONEY acting just two months after moving to Los Angeles! This whole crazy leap of faith was really gonna work out for me!

The day after I went to the bank, I got a call.

The check had bounced.

I called the film production number, but everything had shut down and disappeared, and in the end, I never got paid. Yes, the first dollar I’d ever made acting never existed.

I was mildly upset, then cheered myself up by spending $150 of my paltry savings on an ornate, rococo gold frame. I hung the framed check in my office so that I could one day relay the story to James Lipton on
Inside the Actors Studio
.
A perfect representation of my ignoble first job in Hollywood. I was sure ol’ James would eat the story up.

I limped from tiny project to tiny project after that, but there were no more bounced checks. (Good thing: I didn’t have the framing budget.) The next few years were incredibly slow and frustrating, but I never thought about giving up on acting. Coming from the academic world, I had faith that whatever the obstacle, I could push myself further and harder than anyone else and I would eventually win.

Oh, you naïve, cute child.

Between the long “no jobs in sight” stretches, I concentrated on what I could control myself and attacked the task of “Let’s be the best actor ever!” with as much pluck and adorable gusto as I did learning mathematical Group Theory. (Which I had completely forgotten the minute I graduated. But people were super impressed in auditions when I said, “I have a math degree,” so: semi-worth it.) I took acting classes everywhere I could. The one I recall most was with a guy whose name I will change to Grant, because he was the embodiment of a human turd.

Grant was about five feet tall and had a very large head, which is supposedly good for TV acting. Large heads, not shortness. I guess
he pegged me as a problem when I first entered class. I was too fresh and friendly and looked like I needed to be psychologically assaulted? Something like that.

Whenever I asked a question or had a comment in class, Grant would act like I was an idiot. “Of course, it’s not like Pinter. Did you actually READ the plays?” If I performed a scene, he would tell me I was terrible in a pretty straightforward “Felicia, that was terrible” sort of way. I remember he once said, “You aren’t good at comedy, don’t even try. Concentrate on being a victim, it’s a better casting for you.”

I couldn’t understand what the problem was. I was
always
the teacher’s pet, it was my
specialty
. What was WRONG with this guy? Missing an opportunity with an A+++ suck-up here, hello!

I didn’t realize that there are places in Hollywood that prey on impressionable young people, aiming to break them down in order to build them up again. Run away from any teacher whose biggest acting credit is “Banker” in a Lifetime movie of the week? No, I was new to town, I figured since this person had purchased advertising in the back of a trade magazine saying that they were an acting teacher, it was my problem! The fault was obviously with me and my crappy abilities.

The last straw was when I performed
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
in class. It was the scene where Audrey Hepburn goes upstairs to George Peppard’s room and sings “Moon River.” I thought because of my beautiful singing voice, I would finally get a compliment out of big-head Grant. But at the start of the scene, the actor playing opposite me came out from backstage, said his first line, and he was . . . STARK NAKED. Like, his junk was all out and dangling like a turkey head.
Never rehearsed, never discussed with me. And . . . yeah. I was a bit thrown.

“Keep in the scene, Felicia, my God, be an actor!” Grant’s huge mouth flapped at me from the sidelines like Terrance and Phillip from
South Park
.

I kept saying my lines, but it was very hard to keep the warble out of my voice with the other actor’s bait and tackle hanging out. I stumbled through the scene, shrinking in anticipation of what the teacher would say to me afterwards.

We sat on the stage for evaluation. Grant turned to my scene partner first. “Nick, that was fabulous, so brave. You really went there. Everyone applaud Nick.” Everyone applauded. Then Grant turned to me. “Why are you here? You were given an opportunity to use Nick’s gift to you and you ruined it. Audrey Hepburn would be ashamed.”

Well, I’m pretty sure Audrey Hepburn wouldn’t want to see her scene partner’s dick hanging out for no apparent reason—she was pretty classy—but I wasn’t sassy enough at the time to say that, and I broke down crying.

“Where was THIS in the scene? Dismissed.” Annnnd class was over.

I went home, my self-confidence crushed.

And I kept going back for another month.

Yes, I was a total idiot, but there was a weird, cultlike atmosphere in the class, and I had recently moved out of my mom’s house and didn’t know any better. Every day Grant’s assistants told us if we quit, we’d never make it in Hollywood. They used that old cliché line AND I BOUGHT IT. Clearly, they were right; I mean, the girl who told me that had two whole lines on
Will & Grace
!

I finally wised up after a more experienced actor told me, “You probably shouldn’t be paying three hundred dollars a month to go home crying every night,” and I decided Grant wasn’t gonna teach me to be good by abusing me OR being nice to me. I called up to quit class.

His assistant heard me out, then said, “You can’t quit.”

“Yes, I can. I just did.”

“No, you have to have an exit interview; it’s in the class rules. Come down and talk to Grant tonight.”

“Come down tonight to talk?” I was holding my then boyfriend’s hand because I was so scared to confront these people and looked over. He shook his head vigorously.

“No, I don’t want to do that.” My voice trembled. Lame.

“Do you want to work in this town as an actor?”

“Yes.”

“Well you better . . .”

STOP, FELICIA! It’s a trick! RUN! “No. Wait. Good-bye!”

I hung up, and they immediately called back. Again and again. All afternoon, and later that week. I didn’t have to cancel my phone number because they stopped calling, eventually. But I’m not going to lie. I weighed it as an option.

That wasn’t the ONLY bad situation I encountered taking classes around LA, but it was definitely the worst. Anyone can put a sign up and call themselves a teacher. Hell, one time I went to an audition class INSIDE a laundromat. But after the Grant thing, I learned that the most important thing about taking classes is to find a place
you look forward
to going to. That way you actually get better at what you love and don’t want to retire and become a barista every time you walk out the door.

Also if you want to start a new profession, it’s better to get some references on your instructors and not pick them out of the back of the classifieds section.

[
 I Need a Job, Please! 
]

Education mastered (slightly), I decided I needed to conquer the other side of Hollywood: the business of getting work. Specifically, I needed acting work to pay my bills. And to get acting work, you need an agent. To get an agent, you need to prove you have worked as an actor. It’s like a set of Russian nesting dolls, stabbing each other from the inside with tiny needles.

For a year after I moved to LA, I searched for someone to represent me. That’s a great process, because it makes you want to shoot yourself. The few agencies that would meet with me gave me amazingly blunt and contradictory opinions.

“Fix your teeth so you don’t look like a rabbit.”

“Your smile is charming, your best asset!”

“Lose some weight, and you could be a lead.”

“Gain weight; you’re too bony.”

“The red hair isn’t working, make it darker. No one likes a ginger.”

“Love the hair, very unique. But pad your bra. It’s very flat up there.”

(No one contradicted that last piece of advice.)

My favorite was, “You’re pretty, but you could use a . . . *shoop*, you know?” The agent made a gesture down his nose with two of his fingers, accompanied by a slurping sound. I think he meant a nose job. I also think he was an asshole.

It was hard to hear all the criticism, but I was still relatively fresh
off the boat and naïvely self-confident, so I spurned it all. I knew by being myself, I had achieved some awesome things in life. Like local theatre awards and two Real Degrees. I was studying hard, I was doing all the right hard-work things, I was a unique and precious unicorn and FINE exactly the way I was!

Also, I couldn’t afford a nose job. I would just have to work hard to make up for the ugly face.

After my five millionth interview, I got an agent who didn’t want to rebuild me from scratch, and I started auditioning for television commercials, which was great, in a metaphysically soul-searing kind of way.

As a commercial actor, you get sent out on appointments several times a day with no preparation. Just audition over and over for the opportunity to become a human prop. A prop in a car ordering donuts, a prop being startled by a Transformer, a prop eating limited-release KFC panini sandwiches over and over until the prop pukes . . . I’ve done it all.

I have a great “love to please you!” attitude and look good in polo shirts, so over the next several years of my career, I did amazingly well in this area. If you are persistent enough, you can make a hell of a good living and work only two days a year doing television commercials. Half my nose snuck on camera for an Old Navy commercial during the 2004 Olympics, and I made more money than I’d ever made in my whole life. And the variety is fun, if you can remove yourself as an actual FEELING PERSON from the process.

On different projects I got to skydive, play with parrots, and eat five bags of Cheetos in an hour (FYI, it isn’t how I suspected. If you eat enough Cheetos you will NOT actually poop an extra-large Cheeto).
I got hired to walk down a street thinking a whole monologue of silent thoughts about weight loss while drinking liquid yogurt. Later, they asked me to audition to be that same monologue voice in the commercial.
Which I ended up LOSING OUT to someone else.
Yeah, I lost a job to be my
own inner voice
. Strange, because I sound exactly like my own voice in my OWN HEAD when I think about liquid yogurt. But I got paid extremely well, so the empty feeling of being treated like a puppet was fine? Sort of?