Accidental It Girl (26 page)

ETHAN WYATT GETTING A
SLICE OF THE APPLE

Recently reformed bad boy Ethan Wyatt is finally putting down roots in the Big Apple. He's come out of hiding to sign on for the Broadway debut of
My Favorite Wife.
He'll fill the role made famous by James Garner in the film
Move Over, Darling,
with Doris Day. He must think it's a winner, too. He's been seen tooling around Manhattan in a fully restored 1979 Camaro, going from one prospective apartment to another with his girlfriend of five months, Sadie Price. There's no official word on whether the duo will be cohabiting in Wyatt's new digs. Wyatt and his reps have been tight-lipped about the pair since their splashy beginnings. But psychiatrist and love expert Dr. Abigail Dalton gave us her two cents: “Soliciting consultation from a significant other on big-ticket purchases, such as a home or car, clearly indicates that the couple is taking things to the next level.”

(Or, Sarah Bushweller and Emily Morris sit down and force themselves to discuss their latest work instead of what they just read in
Us Weekly
.)

 

EMILY: Hmmm. So we're really not allowed to discuss Tom & Katie, Nick & Jessica, or Brad & Angelina, is that it?

 

SARAH: Correct. We must only discuss
Accidental It Girl
.

 

EMILY: Well, then…

 

SARAH: Yes. Well, then…

 

EMILY: Can we talk about what they were wearing in the pages of
Us Weekly
?

 

SARAH: No.

 

EMILY: Oh.

 

SARAH: How about this: How did you first get the idea for Sadie and the unusual situation she gets herself into?

 

EMILY: Oh good, an easy one. Thanks.

 

SARAH: No problem.

 

EMILY: Okay, it started many years ago when I caught a report on
Entertainment Tonight
about JFK Jr. getting ticked off at a photographer who was following him around Central Park. JFK Jr. went and got himself a camera, followed the photographer's car, and hounded the paparazzi right back. I started to wonder about what would happen if a celebrity really took this to the extreme and tried to get back at a photographer who'd wronged him. Like I always do, I sort of filed the idea away in the back of my mind—and in my master book of ungerminated ideas. Finally, a couple of years after the initial spark (sometime around 1999 or 2000, I think), I was doing a screenwriting workshop with Lew Hunter as part of my college coursework and I developed the idea further.

 

SARAH: You started a screenplay but didn't finish.

 

EMILY: Thanks for reminding me.

 

SARAH: No, I just mean that the plot was a lot different from the one we developed into
Accidental It Girl
.

 

EMILY: Yeah, originally it was much more of a farce. It was a sort of morality play exploring the silliness of Hollywood culture and the American obsession with celebrities.

 

SARAH: That's why we decided to develop it into a novel. We're both completely obsessed with the famous and infamous—and a bit confused as to why.

 

EMILY: It's fascinating. On the one hand, we say, “Of
course
celebrities are just people, there's nothing really special about them.”

 

SARAH: And yet my favorite tabloid section is the “Stars—They're Just Like Us” page. I laugh about how the magazines say “They walk their dogs!” and “They try on shoes!” like we should all be shocked that famous people also have feet and need to try on their shoes. The tabloids treat celebrities like they're these aliens who don't eat, sleep, or breathe like the rest of us.

 

EMILY: Right. We laugh and say how silly it is. Yet, that's the section of the magazine we turn to first. What's even more intriguing is that you and I, having researched and written all about Sadie and Ethan, have really delved into what it feels like to be followed and watched twenty-four hours a day. We've come to the conclusion that it's infinitely harder than it looks in the magazines, and just as frustrating and frightening as the celebrities claim.

 

SARAH: But we still buy the magazines, and delight in the fact that we get to see those images.

 

EMILY: Right. The whole thing is just beyond complex, and still totally fascinates me—on a personal level (in relationship to my own questionable sanity) and when looking at the culture as a whole. I mean, I don't think we solve the mystery of these phenomena with Sadie or anything, but…

 

SARAH: The thing with Sadie is that she gets an entirely new perspective on just how similar the famous and unfamous are—how celebrities really are “just like us.” She and Ethan have led parallel lives, in a way. They both set out to have a career—a life—that meant something, and slowly lost touch with that.

 

EMILY: In a way they're both paralyzed by a public image, Sadie as a tough, no-nonsense paparazzi, and Ethan as Hollywood's hottest bad-boy action hero. It's like that old adage: “Don't believe your own press.” Really, Sadie and Ethan both have. Deep down, each of them knows that they are more than the image they've been stuck with, but neither of them has done anything about it. Sadie resigns herself to the fact that people hate her, and Ethan has resigned himself to being a walking, talking action figure.

 

SARAH: Until Ethan's big scheme puts Sadie back in touch with the person she always hoped she'd be. And Sadie sees the kind of person Ethan really is—and how she's helped to perpetuate this ridiculous bad-boy image he has.

 

EMILY: Man, I love Ethan.

 

SARAH: Me, too.

 

EMILY: Oooh, here's a question I get asked a lot: Is Ethan Wyatt based on any particular celebrity?

 

SARAH: Nope. Unless you count the many idealized versions of celebrities we've concocted in our heads.

 

EMILY: Yeah, Ethan could be any number of famous guys you and I have had a crush on over the years, I guess. Successful, debonair, perfectly imperfect.

 

SARAH: Outrageously good-looking.

 

EMILY: Yeah.

 

SARAH: Okay, let's close this on a fun one. What would you say is your favorite movie about the movies?

 

EMILY: Hmmm, that's a toughie. Oh, you know what movie I love? Albert Brooks's
The Muse
with Sharon Stone. I think I probably love it so much because I can relate to the main character's frustration as a writer. The movie is freaking hilarious, and shows all too accurately how being a writer can make a person go completely nutso. How about you?

 

SARAH: I really like
The Player
. You have to love a movie that makes you root for such an evil main character. It's just so…Hollywood. But my favorite movie about the movies has to be
Singing in the Rain
—love all that singing and dancing. Or, it could be because Gene Kelly was a total fox.

 

EMILY: Oh, Gene Kelly. He was dreamy.

 

SARAH: Yeah.

 

EMILY: Hey, Sarah, are we, uh, done interviewing now, because, for some reason, I really feel like going to Blockbuster.

 

SARAH: Let's go. I've got the pickles and popcorn!