I Don't Know What You Know Me From: Confessions of a Co-Star (17 page)

Speaking of popularity contests, the red carpet is just about the worst place to take a stroll if you are having a low-self-esteem day. I have been on the red carpet for projects I am
in
, and the photographers are screaming out the names of the people walking up behind me. For the premiere of
Arrested Development
, I was behind David Cross and Amber Tamblyn on the carpet, and the rows and rows of photographers were screaming for her. They
screamed, “Amber! Amber! Over here, Amber, OVER HERE!!!” I was standing right in front of them, and their cameras were pointed in the complete opposite direction of my face, and I was actually
in Arrested Development
. I know Amber Tamblyn is more famous than me, she wasn’t doing anything wrong, but doesn’t it mean anything that I had acted in the TV show they were there to report on? I am so shy on the red carpet that to have to fight for the photographers’ attention is just not my style. I’d rather just go in, get some popcorn, and wait for the show to start.

One last thing I feel compelled to share (and will probably regret doing so), something that totally shocked me because I am, apparently, totally naive. Maybe you know about this, but my friend just told me that in those magazines you read in nail shops and hair salons, the magazines with all the blondes and Angelina Jolie on the cover, that famous people are sometimes paid to walk around carrying or wearing the stuff they are walking around carrying and wearing!!! Like if you see a photo of a celeb walking down the street holding an Arby’s shake, first of all, those shakes are delicious, so celebrities should walk around with them, but second of all, they were probably paid by Arby’s to do it. They, most likely, had their hair and makeup done too, and I’ll bet you my entire brass snail collection that there is water in that shake cup (Smartwater because Coca-Cola has deals with celebrities, and celebrities don’t eat dairy). I know that some oft-papped stars drive miles and miles out of their way so they can be photographed at prearranged locations Yes, I’m whistle-blowing here, and most likely ensuring that I will never get one of these lucrative offers, but I couldn’t believe it when I found out that those photos weren’t real, that Kim Kardashian didn’t really love (insert beverage name she was last photographed carrying here). Yes, me dumb.

I recently read in one of my favorite beauty blogs,
Into the
Gloss
, a post about Liv Tyler (she’s so cool too, by the way). She talks about how publicity and red carpets used to be different. She used to just wear something from her closet and do her own makeup for movie premieres, but with so many more paparazzi now and all the scrutiny actors are under to look perfect, it’s impossible! I loved reading that; it made me nostalgic for those times, when we were all on a more even playing field. I want to go back to simpler times, when people were famous for their specific talent, when actresses looked more natural, when their faces moved, when I knew the names of the people in the magazines. Jesus, I sound a hundred years old. Sorry, I’ll put away my walker and rotary telephone. I guess I just miss the times when people could just look how they looked and it was personality, talent, and charisma that mattered most, not who wore it best, because I already know the answer to that question—it’s the one with the most Twitter followers.

WE SHOT UNTIL LATE LAST NIGHT, SO TODAY I WOKE
up around 11:00 a.m. I didn’t stand up until after 2:30 p.m. I got all my food by crawling across my bed and reaching the mini fridge without getting vertical at all, it’s a small room, and most everything is within reaching distance of the bed. I ate Fritos for breakfast. I had hummus as a snack straight from the container using my index finger as a utensil, and a KIND bar for lunch because I didn’t feel like walking to one of the seven fast-food options surrounding the hotel, and the Days Inn doesn’t offer room service. I was irritated because I was watching
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
on my computer and I couldn’t hear the episode because the sound of the Fritos crunching in my mouth was too loud.

Eventually, I put on the same jeans and sweater I have been
wearing for several days in a row and walked to the Liberty Diner to write. You can wear the same outfit for days on end when you’re working on location because you only really wear your clothes for the drive to and from work. I ordered my usual at the diner, a Greek salad (still obsessed with feta!), no anchovies, and a side of scrambled egg whites. This is what I eat almost every day here. I wrote for a while in a booth, but mostly I just people watched. A woman was sitting near me with her two kids; one was about five and had a Mohawk. Her mom was one of the waitresses. A man came in and sat at the bar, and for some reason the Mohawked boy really wanted to sit on his lap. The boy’s mom seemed to know the man and didn’t act like she cared either way what her son did. A young couple came in later, the guy was dropping his lady off at work, she was a waitress there too. He sat in a booth with headphones on drinking fountain Cokes and watching her. On my way back to my hotel room I stopped by my friend Mike Potter’s room. He is the makeup artist on the film. We drank Bud Light Limes, a beverage I would never have tried at home, but it’s really delicious and refreshing, and there’s not a lot of options at the AMPM across the street. We watched some episodes of
The Real Housewives of Orange County
and
Vanderpump Rules
. We propped his door open, and some of the cast and crew popped in and out. It was a pretty good day. I wonder how long I could live like this. I didn’t work out today and don’t plan to, but I might tomorrow. I should. I will try out my new Jillian Michaels DVD that I bought at Target on my day off last weekend. I also bought several new skin care products that I don’t need, except maybe the face masks. I think I need to start doing more face masks.

Everyone working on the movie is staying here at the Days Inn. It’s like a frat house. Most of us have our own rooms, though some people in the crew had to share. It’s an indie film, and that’s what you have to do sometimes if you want to work on a movie
on location. Everyone wanders around the hotel like we own it—I think people even stopped locking their doors because it’s just easier than getting out of bed to open it if someone knocks. Our production office is downstairs in the Starlight Ballroom. The producers found a different office when they were scouting locations before we started filming, but when they got there on the first day, it didn’t have Internet, so they temporarily moved it to the Days Inn until they could find another office space, but they never did. Now they’re stuck here. I think some of the office staff actually never leaves the hotel. At least there are always free snacks in the production office, so I usually grab an apple or banana and a bottle of water before going up to my room at night after work.

Shooting a movie on location is like summer camp, at least my experience of summer camp. You don’t know anyone when you get there, then you become fast friends with almost everyone and wonder how you survived without them in your life, there’s some structured activities (work), some free time (days off), and then it’s over as quickly as it began, and you don’t see or talk to any of your new best friends ever again. It’s sad to think about, but this is usually just how it is. Yes, there are exceptions, those jobs where you meet a true kindred spirit and make a forever friend, but that is rare (I hope that happens with the previously mentioned Mike Potter, fingers crossed). You always have the best of intentions when the job is winding down, but when you get home, there is so much shit you have to deal with because you have been hiding out for a month or more, you try to keep in touch, but time goes by, and before you know it, you don’t.

Reentry can be jarring. Trying to explain to your friends and family what all the jokes were that you shared with your fellow location campers, why you’re using new phrases and who you learned them from. You probably have loads of mail to deal with too, phone calls to return, not to mention that you need to get a
new job. That hunt begins as the old one is wrapping up, toward the end of your stay out of town, but if there isn’t one to go directly to, you have to really hustle when you get back to civilization, and that jolts you back to reality and out of camp mode immediately.

It’s hard on friends and family, too. You’re usually in a different time zone, schedules don’t match up, they are eating dinner when you need to go to bed or vice versa. And it’s really hard for the person stuck at home doing all the mundane everyday tasks and keeping shit together while you’re away doing all kinds of new things with new people that he or she has never met. It takes a big person to deal with that. While you’ve been gone, everyone has learned to get on without you, but now you’re back, taking up space and making a mess in places that have been organized in your absence. Your friends don’t feel like going over all the stories and gossip you’ve missed, it’s all old news for them, so you feel just as left out as they do in the world you just left. Everything works itself out in a short time, but reentry can be tough for everyone.

I have worked in a lot of random locations. When I was starting out, I was hoping for exciting and exotic locales like London, the Maldives, or at least Miami. Well, my first on-location movie was shot in Kenosha, Wisconsin. I lived in a Best Western for a month and spent most of my evenings either at the Brat Stop or singing karaoke in the lobby bar. Then there was a Holiday Inn in Casa Grande, Arizona. I have no idea where I stayed in Mexicali—I never saw it in daylight. I left before sunrise every morning and returned after sunset every night. In Scottsdale the hotel was the Hotel Valley Ho. It had a funky 1950s theme, and the pool turned into a nightclub on the weekends. Very spring break–like. In Vancouver everyone stays at the Sutton Place, except once. When I was shooting
Marmaduke
, I got really lucky and got to stay at the Shangri-La, but the hotel had just opened, and the
production got an insane deal. I’m convinced I’ll never get to stay there again unless I pay for it. I work in New York, a lot, and have stayed in too many different hotels and apartments there to count. I lived with the entire cast of
The Village
in a bed-and-breakfast that was rented out for the shoot in rural Pennsylvania. I’ve worked in Lexington, Kentucky, Seattle, Las Vegas, Rhode Island, the Hamptons, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Hawaii (finally, an exotic locale!), New Orleans, Shreveport, and Toronto. Not all so horrible, but not what I was fantasizing about when I got my SAG card.

I have learned to live in, and love, all of these cities. On my days off, I drive around them until I’m lost. I go running and see all the shops and restaurants close-up. I ask locals who look like people I would be friends with where they hang out. I look for parks and museums. I read travel guides. I rent bikes. I actually bought a bike on Craigslist last summer in Toronto because it was cheaper than renting. It’s a fun adventure. Figuring out a new location, pretending I live there. Sure, I have my melodramatic homesick moments when I cry on the phone with my husband, or send long, sad e-mails to my friends back home hoping for sympathy because I’m so lonely, but I’ve gotten good at making new friends. Sometimes I feel like a sailor with a girl in every port, but instead I am an actress with a friend in every town.

No, my career hasn’t taken me to London, Paris, or South Africa yet. Yes, I will probably purchase my next meal at a gas station while wearing pajamas under my winter coat. But all this traveling and killing time on my days off has taught me to really appreciate what I have back home. Being homesick is good—it means I am happy in my real life. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy taking off for a while, making new friends, exploring a new place, but by the end I think Dorothy got it right: there is no place like home, except maybe Hawaii.

NO, REALLY, HE DID. I
’
M NOT MAKING THIS UP. IT
’
S
not just a clever title disguising a story about something else. It happened. Ashton Kutcher gave my dad a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. I’m not totally sure why he did it, and even though I could ask him since I still work with him sometimes, he makes me nervous because he’s so cute and I’m afraid I’ll say something that offends him and he’ll want that motorcycle back.

Here’s how it happened. I was doing a TV pilot called
Miss Guided
. It was a half-hour comedy in which I played a high school guidance counselor working in the high school I attended. My character is in love with the Spanish teacher, and in the pilot episode my high school nemesis returns after a nasty divorce to teach history. Maybe it was English, I forget which, but she’s superhot and threatens my budding relationship with Tim, the Spanish teacher. It made it to series for seven episodes on ABC a few years ago, premiering at 11:30 p.m. after an episode of
Dancing with the Stars
, which is historically the best time slot to showcase a new comedy (not). In addition to ABC and 20th Century
Fox, Katalyst Films produced the show. Enter Ashton Kutcher—Katalyst Films is his production company. We shot the pilot at Long Beach Polytechnic (graduates include Snoop Dogg and Cameron Diaz and many, many NFL players). We were shooting the school dance scene where I hide in the bushes and one of the students asks me if he can touch my boobs (I said no). It was late at night, and while we were waiting for the crew to finish setting up the next shot, I found myself standing next to Ashton. He asked me what I would do if ABC decided to put our show on the air. The first answer that came to mind and out of my mouth was, “I would buy my dad a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. He really wants one.” Ashton looked at me and said, “If this show gets picked up, I’m going to buy your dad a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.” I can’t remember anything after that except Ashton staring at me and smiling.