You Look Like That Girl: A Child Actor Stops Pretending and Finally Grows Up (23 page)

When class began, the teacher stood in front of the stage as we all took our seats in the audience. She went over some general news; class was cancelled for next week, as she had to travel to New York (murmurs from the class speculating which famous client she was going to coach in New York) and then she announced that there was a guest in class today.

All eyes turned to me and I panicked, being singled out and examined by this room of strangers. They wanted me to talk. As myself. There was no character to hide behind, no scripted lines to memorize. It was just me, with the clothes and words and ponytail that I picked out myself. Wearing around other people’s choices was so much easier than this.

I felt a hand under my arm, pushing me to stand and be welcomed as my face burned and I swallowed down the bile that had risen to the back of my throat. I heard my voice introduce myself and say how long I had been acting. When the guru prodded me further, I rattled off part of my resume, to the nods of recognition from the other students. I ran out of air before getting to the end of my sentence and took an awkward gasp in the middle of a word. It was not a good beginning. Then my mind went blank so I just completely lied and said that I was happy to be there and thank you so much. As I collapsed into my seat, one of the brown rice girls waved her arm maniacally, her bony elbow flying in her neighbor’s face.

“Stephanie? You have something to share?”

Stephanie stood up with much more grace and poise than I could even imagine and announced that she got a callback for the TV movie with Scott Bakula. You would have thought that Stephanie was receiving the Peace Prize by the audience reaction. Apparently, she had worked on her audition scene in class the week before and the entire group felt invested in her accomplishment.

When the excitement died down, it was finally time for class to begin,
and we were asked to stand and do some group warm-up exercises. We stood in a circle, Brown Rice holding hands with Troll who was holding hands with Dark Poet, who, electrifyingly, was holding hands with me. We then launched into voice and tongue exercises that included saying “red leather, yellow leather” over and over again. I tried to give a cute smile to Dark Poet but he was intensely focused and had no interest in The Guest. He was only here to pursue his craft.

We sat for hours and watched talented and devoted actors get up on stage and pour their guts out for all of us to see. They pantomimed and improvised and cried until spit dripped from their mouths in long, slow strings. They got angry and threw things and collapsed to the ground in exhaustion. They laughed and kissed one another. They changed their postures and walks and facial expressions. They lived other people’s lives and they thrived there. It was beautiful.

The guru asked if I wanted to prepare a scene. I declined as politely as possible but I might have been yelling as I said, “No, thank you.” Dark Poet did a dark scene, Troll did a quirky one and Brown Rice worked on her Scott Bakula callback material again. I wondered why I couldn’t just jump in the thespian waters and be like them. Why could I not feel excited about going to the acting studio in a strip mall and dissecting the motivation for a scene pulled from
The Godfather
? Why couldn’t I work on creating a whole background and history for a character? Why couldn’t I get in there and dig deep and decide that in 7
^th
grade, my character’s best friend had kissed the boy she liked and now she was scarred for life? Why could I not join this group, be like Dark Poet and just become one of the real actors? I wanted that. It seemed legitimately rewarding for them, but all I knew was that every time I tried, I felt like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

I went home and realized that I had been cast in the perfect role: The Guest. That was not the right club for me; it had felt just like being back in high school. I was not a member of that tight-knit group that discussed Stanislavsky’s theories on emotion memory and modes
of inquiry for character building. The problem was, I wasn’t sure a place existed where I could be anything other than The Guest.

“Is someone boiling dirty laundry on set?”

I was about eight and Mom and I were walking down the hallway of the production offices of some TV show. I fanned my hand in front of my face.

“Yuck. It’s so smelly.”

“That’s marijuana,” Mom said. “It’s gross.”

All kinds of pharmaceuticals are easy to get when you are an actor. On some sets, they were practically lying out on the craft services table next to the bowl of Gummy Bears. I attribute my lack of drug use to that accessibility. It would be nice to say that I just possess a great deal of personal character and inner strength, that I saw it ruin the lives of co-workers and I made a life-long vow to shun destructive substance, but it just didn’t go down that way. My lack of drug use isn’t profound and it doesn’t make me heroic. I have never done drugs. I have also never eaten a Fig Newton. They were both around and neither looked appealing.

In fact, I have a certain amount of shame about the fact that my mother’s rather casual assertion that pot was “gross” was enough to keep me away from it entirely. It feels as if I have somehow not lived up to my reputation as a child actor, like I couldn’t even do that part right. But some other actors like the drugs. There’s no judgment, but I tend to extricate myself from the area when they partake because of my unrelenting fear of getting in trouble.

I was working on a show in which a couple of the other actors were looking for some recreational substances. They zeroed in on a local girl who had been hired as background for a crowd scene and apparently had some sort of drug hook-up. This girl was more than happy to oblige the guys, who had presented themselves as The Next Big Thing movie
stars. That was not at all true, but she was easily convinced otherwise and did the thing that people do for actors: offer favors.

People seem unfathomably eager to do favors for even vaguely famous people. It’s truly absurd. Actors are one of the few groups of people who can afford to have no favors done for them. They have the money to buy stuff and the time to wait in line and yet they are the only ones who never do. However, favor-givers seem to whole-heartedly embrace the role of giving more stuff to the people who already have access to everything.

Local Girl had agreed to meet one of the actors in the lobby of the hotel we were staying in and deliver the drugs. I didn’t know that a low-level drug deal was going down when I agreed to get dinner after work with the guys. It was presented as, “I just need to pick up something in the lobby before we go,” as if he was going to grab one of the complementary cookies from under the glass dome at the front desk. Local Girl was waiting in one of the puffy upholstered lobby chairs, just thrilled to be part of it all. After a quick but undoubtedly thrilling hug with the actor, she clandestinely handed him the goods. In return, he offered her some crumpled bills. Oh no, she refused, it’s on her. Apparently it was enough of an honor just to help this B-level actor get high; she couldn’t possibly take money, too. With thanks and a kiss on the cheek from the actor, Local Girl giggled and was on her way.

“Let’s go back up to my room for a second,” he said. “I need water.”

We went back up to his room and he distributed the spoils with the other two actors who had joined us. I must be honest and admit how much of a loser I am: I don’t know what kind of drugs they were. They were little pills, they were white and you needed water with them. I was offered my share.

“I’m good, thanks.” I waved him away.

They divvyed up my portion of the Drugs You Need Water With. There was only one sink and one glass in the room so the three actors lined up one at a time to take the pills. They looked like little boys waiting
to brush their teeth. I wondered if it was smart to be in a hotel room with three stoned men I had only known for a couple of weeks. They had always given me a protective, brotherly vibe, even the guy who spent his lunch breaks kissing me, so there didn’t seem to be cause for concern.

I sat on the couch and tucked my feet under me. The situation was slightly uncomfortable but more than anything I was hungry. It had been a long day of work. I was wondering if the restaurant would be busy and if there was a wait, maybe we would sit at the bar and order mozzarella sticks or something. Suddenly, there was a loud banging on our hotel room door. The boys stood up tall, their eyes wide. Only two of them had swallowed the Drugs You Need Water With and there were still several pills on the counter, along with the bottle. We all looked at one another.

“Maybe it is the maid or something. Did you request extra towels?” I offered.

“We know you are in there. Open up.” A booming voice demanded from the other side of the door. He didn’t sound like a maid.

“OhShitOhShitOhShit.” The boys raced around the room like they were in a Buster Keaton movie.

“Flush it. No, wait, don’t flush it, they can’t search without a warrant.”

“Is that true?”

“I dunno, I think so.”

“Put it in your pocket, they can search the room but not you.”

“Is that true?”

“I dunno, I think so.”

(Never ask people who watch too many movies about the nuances of the legal system.) More banging. Fists were about to bust through.

“Open the fucking door!”

My heart raced. They were swearing. They were mad. They were going to yell at me and take me to prison. My one phone call would have to be to the Assistant Director to tell him that we might be late to work the next morning. I hate being late. Something told me that I would hate
jail even more.

“We know you have the fucking ice, open the fucking door!”

Apparently, the Drugs You Need Water With were actually “ice,” and I was definitely going to jail. This was just like it happens in the movies. I stood up on the couch and flapped my arms uselessly, as the boys started to get cool and collected. I was not sure if they were calm under pressure, or if the ice was starting to take effect.

“Guys, chill. They can’t do anything without a warrant.” One of them slowly walked to the door.

My heart was pounding in my ears and I couldn’t hear the first thing the actor said when he opened the door. I grabbed a decorative pillow and clutched it to my chest like some sort of tasseled bulletproof vest. A cop and a hotel security guard stood on the other side of the door. Both large men, physically appropriate for their chosen careers.

“We know you have the ice. Where is it?” The two men started searching the room. Flipping the comforter off the bed, kicking the bottom of the curtains.

“You can’t do that without a warrant,” said the guy I liked to make out with.

“Bullshit.”

So much for mounting that defense. This cop was having none of that legal mumbo jumbo.

They continued walking as the actor spouted off what must have been one of his lines when he guest stared on NYPD Blue. Another actor interrupted him and started to explain “who we are,” and offered to call the producers to vouch for us. The cop ignored him and started moving the furniture. They were serious. The other guys paced the room, saying whatever they could think of to convince the cop there was nothing going on. I started to tear up and rubbed my wrists, wondering how much handcuffs really hurt, when the security guard’s radio crackled. He took the call, and proceeded with a short exchange that contained more static and numbers than words.

He then looked up at us and smiled. There was a certain levity in his face that had been lacking until this point.

“Sorry about this folks. Someone has been throwing ice out the window and hitting people walking on the street. It turns out it was in the room directly below yours. They got the kids now. A couple of twelve-year-olds, if you can believe it. Sorry for the inconvenience.” He patted one of the actors on the back and he and the cop left.

When the door closed, the guys burst in to laughter as I just sat there, eyes full of tears. My not quite Next Big Thing friends washed down the rest of the pills, and put on coats. They handed me mine.

“Ready to go?” they asked me.

We really were untouchable. Just like we thought.

As I pondered the possibility of going to jail with my castmates, it occurred to me how quickly actors create a strong bond on set. It’s a phenomenon that was so eloquently explained in the film
Speed
; when people experience a traumatic event together, they tend to be drawn to one another due to the shared experience and unique level of understanding. A deep connection is forged and the combination of anxiety and adrenaline causes an avalanche of emotion that may or may not be truly appropriate for the couple involved.

Every film is like its own little traumatic event. You have very little freedom on set. Your time, your body, and your words don’t belong to you. You are working long hours, often in a foreign land. By the end of the shoot it’s likely that you’ll end up in a passionate embrace with at least a couple of fellow captives. Yet, at the time, it never feels like a temporary hook-up. We are convinced that this is
Love
. This is someone who finally understands this insane life, and by all its extensions, you and the essence of your being. I have found this love with an assistant director in Prague, a camera guy on the windswept plains of Alberta,
and costars of various films on three continents. Every time, I thought it was real and we would live happily ever after once the credits rolled. Emotions are amplified in the way that the camera adds ten pounds.

It’s not about sex. It’s about having someone who gets it. Someone who gets that your “weekend” is actually just a Wednesday afternoon, because you are switching to nights so you have to be at work at 10 PM on Wednesday, even though you just finished at 2 a.m. on Wednesday morning. It’s about someone who knows that the most romantic thing they can do is sit with you at the local Fluff ‘n’ Fold while your one pair of jeans circles the dryer, because they are the only thing other than 18th century gowns that you have worn for the last three weeks. Someone who knows that here, in this strange location where you don’t know anyone and don’t speak the language, walking three hours to find the closest pizza place is a high-quality use of time.