Life in the Hollywood Lane

“Oh, Grow Up!”

some old geezer once reprimanded me. 

Grow up. Grow up? Hmmmm, grow up. I could tell from his particular parlance that he meant to grow up and put childish dreams behind me and go get a real job. But grow up. Grow up. Isn’t growing up being the person who can achieve wild dreams? Isn’t growing up, growing upward—like a vine can grow up the wall—and not just older, not even just more mature, as I’m sure the man was implying?

But was I supposed to give up on the dream? What if I packed my bags and left five minutes before the call that’d change everything? Unlike Lala Land, I didn’t always necessarily have a man in my life who’d come after me to let me know that a major casting director wanted to see me.

But then was holding on to the dream of that call magical thinking? Or was it holding true to my dreams? Or….

Isn’t it enough to want something with all your heart? Isn’t it enough to hang in there year after year, keeping a great attitude and not giving up? Or….

Maybe we can’t get it wrong, I thought in one of my rare moments when I wasn’t feeling like a sponge that’d been wrung out way too many times. Whatever we do..... here we are. Loving, living, laughing, learning—no matter what we’re doing, those things don’t have to stop. And everything we do leads us…somewhere.

I once read an article about Condoleezza Rice, which said that when folks would ask her how she got to where she was, she’d say something along the lines of, “Well, first you fail at being a piano major.” How crazy great is that? She loved playing the piano, obviously, but her soul had other plans. Maybe the piano just kept her busy and happy while her being was being sculpted into being a person who could be Secretary of State. (Lots of being in there!)

And that old dude who told me to grow up? He probably gave up his dream too soon and always regretted it. People can turn into pickles when their creative juices are not allowed to flow. We can always tell the ones who’ve soured—they’re the ones who are discouraging us. And me pursuing my dreams might’ve made him sad, but it’s easier to be mad than sad. He actually wasn’t all that old age-wise—just way old before his time. Giving up the dream can do that to people.

~ 

The thing about dreams is to have the essentials covered. Then we never have to give up. 

I was starting to wear down, though. I was so lonely for people, but people were the last thing I wanted to be around. Cara, Skye, my improv team, and the odd casting director and her little gaggle of helpers were the only exceptions.

There were days—weeks, in fact—when blissful denial would kick in and I’d get a lot done. I’d help Skye, run errands, and go to a bunch of auditions. I started teaching a couple of Zumba classes at the gym. I even got another client, a friend of Skye’s. But soon exhaustion overwhelmed me.

Human beings actually need to be in a fair amount of denial just to make it through the day around here—meaning on this planet. If we really saw the destruction we do with so many of our choices, we’d go crazy. But we do need to see how we’re destroying the planet, killing someone’s spirit with a snide remark, seeing our best friend contemplate suicide right in front of us. 

And when the shroud of denial comes off, we can also see what we’re supposed to do—buy a hybrid, don’t say that snide remark, save our best friend from her thoughts and herself.

Oh, that. Will I ever get over this? Will I ever forgive myself?

I can’t imagine being a young, working mother and having my spouse killed in Afghanistan or Iraq or anywhere, really. Still having to take care of the kids and go to a fulltime job while dealing with pain that must be worse than this—oh, it was inconceivable. But…..at least she had kids. Sometimes my heart would ache and my clock would tick loudly over that little part of life that I’d skipped for some reason. Why? How did that happen? I’d always wanted children.

Although it doesn’t compare to losing a spouse or a child, what about the grief of never finding a partner? What about the grief of never having a child? What about the grief of not living the life you wanted? Sure, we can find other sources of joy, but the grief over what we’ve lost can still live way down inside there.

My grief for Cyndi brought up every dredge of grief about every fucking mistake I’ve ever made in this miserable life of mine. Okay, that was just some days. Thankfully, it wasn’t every day. And on the days my mind wasn’t being my best friend, I’d take Cara out to lunch or stay in her office and eat peanut butter on crackers with her. She gave—and still gives—the best pep talks.

“Go to Paris, get swept off your feet, and come back well fucked and married.”

Okay, some of her pep talks were better than others.

Married. That seems so far away that it’d be on the other side of forever. And….we can’t just get married to check it off our to-do list, can we? I remember a friend of mine saying that as she was about to walk down the aisle, her only thought was, “How can I get out of this without making a scene?” For some reason, her thought had a big impact on me. She didn’t get out of it then, but she did a few years later. Maybe I always figured I’d just cut to the few years later part.

And the Winner Is….

I actually went to an Oscars party. For the first time in decades, I hadn’t seen all of the movies (which, in normal years, I watch long before the list even comes out), so I didn’t know what movies to root for.  My friends doted on me—making sure my wineglass was full, making sure I had food nearby, making sure someone was always by my side. Finally, they probably thought, back among the living.

Welllllll…almost.

~

Another role came my way. This time it was a star-crossed, lonely schoolteacher who ended up saving the day by diverting a student from blowing up the school. It was another right-away job; the woman who was supposed to play the part had become pregnant and was showing too much by the time filming rolled around—luckily for this last-minute replacement known as yours truly. We filmed over two weekends in a school.

Here I’m two-thirds done babbling and rambling to you and I haven’t even talked about the actual art of making a movie. The process of filming is kind of crazymaking for people like me who tend to be linear thinkers (except when I’m not…which, come to think of it, is probably more often). The ever-patient crew sets up the lights and camera on one side of the set-up scene. After about a thousand hours of taping the cords down so no one breaks a neck, getting the lighting just so and the camera dollies just right, checking the boom stick with the mic on it along with the sound levels, and doing this and that and the other thing that requires phenomenal attention to the most infinitesimal of details, the actors come out and the director calls for from one to three dozen (not kidding) takes of the scene. One or more actors have their backs to the camera. Then the actors disappear and the ever-patient crew sets up the lights and camera from the other side. The actors who’d been facing the camera now have their backs to it, and the director calls for one to three dozen takes, focusing on the heretofore unseen actors. A few more shots are taken from above, from below, and maybe from inside the refrigerator or teapot (thank you, Phantom Thread) or from outside the window or something like that.

Sometimes the director or someone else reads the lines of the actors who aren’t seen, so those actors can take a break. My favorite story about this kind of thing was how Francis Ford Coppola got Martin Sheen to wail for his meltdown scene in Apocalypse Now….They’d been filming (and filming and filming) overseas and Francis listed, one by one, many of the comforts Martin would’ve been missing from back home. I’d wail, too!

The linear part of me would make a great continuity person—the one who watches closely to make sure the actor picks up the water glass with the right hand in each take, not the left. Or she’s always holding her fork in her left hand. Or the ketchup is put back in the same place each time. (Don’t even get me started on Pulp Fiction in the continuity department!)

So…so much for the exciting world of being a movie star—being on set can be pretty boring much of the time. Hours and hours can go into a few minutes of actual filming. Those few minutes make those hours all worthwhile, though. Good books help.

The eating part can be big fun, too; the big studios feed us like royalty. There’s a buffet banquet of bagels, scrambled eggs, appetizers, salads, casseroles, smoked salmon, and desserts, plus a coffee bar (to keep us awake on those late nights). The return on investment can be quite high, I’m sure: the more well fed the actors and crew are, the happier everyone is, and the better the movie might turn out.

Whenever I have access to a trailer, I eat in there, but I’m just as happy eating with the extras and the best boys (the assistant to the gaffer, who is the head of the electricians; another best boy is the assistant to the key grip, who’s the head of the lighting and rigging folks… just in case you ever wondered about that). I’ve never had my own trailer, but I’ve shared one with women performing similar roles to mine.

Sitting in the editing bay isn’t much better—for me it’s like watching paint dry. Those folks have the patience of Job, watching the same clip over and over to get the right look, the right intonation, the right feel. It’s a very good thing we all enjoy vastly different activities.

The super fun part is opening night…when those thousands upon thousands of hours—from the very first jotting of an idea in a notebook to the last bit of music over the final credits—all comes together. The theater darkens and the music swells and my heart is in ecstasy…at least until the movie gets panned the next day. Okay, that really only happened once, and while the zombie movie did get massively panned, it’s still a lucky card in my life. Maybe the massive panning helped; maybe it encouraged people to go see what in the world could’ve possibly been so bad.

In the restroom I overheard the AD (assistant director) and the script woman talking really nasty about the director. They came in after I did, and although I was just about to flush, I just sat there while they did their business, talked even nastier, and finally left.

It doesn’t even matter what they said, although I’ll tell you that it was stupid—along the lines of….

“That imbecile doesn’t know his ass from his elbow.” Well, how illuminating is that?

“He should go back to nursery school and learn a different trade. Like ass kissing and dick polishing.”

“Or bending over more.”

Yuck. Everyone’s entitled to his or her opinion, of course. But this was just banal. I was a little older than these two, so I’ve probably seen at least as many directors in my time as they have. This director was pretty young (must’ve known someone somewhere), but I thought he was doing a good job.

After they left and I could finally leave, I overheard two actors talking about the lead in similar tones. Good gravy—find a better hobby, people.

Party On

There are some nasty, nasty people in this town. Well, maybe they’re certainly not as nasty as that one producer I heard of who said, “Hold a gun to the guy’s head,” when he was trying to get an editor to finish…an animated film for children!

Oh, I suppose if I was going to be spiritually correct, I’d say there are some very confused people in this town. But they’re nasty. Unkind. Outright mean. And……yes, they got confused along the way.

My chronic wet-noodle state made me…oh, I don’t know…less patient…but perhaps wiser, too. On the drive home that night, I thought that the sooner people realize that everything they think and do comes back to them, the faster we’ll all get there—wherever there is. The faster actors celebrate the success of others, the faster they’ll be celebrating their own success.

Are you listening to yourself, Trish?

Oh…..people can be……nasty. And that doesn’t mean I was being nasty! (Although I can be in my moments, to be sure.) I remember telling a former friend that a former boss was very judgmental.

“She was just reflecting your own judgmentalism,” he said.

“Oh, shut up,” I didn’t say out loud. No wonder he was always single. I actually deleted him from my contact list—something I rarely do.

We can see something in others that isn’t necessarily our own issue. I get the “we’re all one” thing and how everything is a reflection of us. But she was a bitch. I’m not a bitch, just….loopy.

Plus, I seem to attract crazies. One time I came home after being fired by this one nutjob of a boss. It wasn’t the only time I had a crazy manager—I was a metal filing to their magnets for a while. She was certifiably crazy. Not long after I arrived in LA, I walked out of a job once, which was crazy stupid because I had absolutely no money and ended up sleeping on Cara’s floor with a couple other actors who were between jobs, too. 

And here was another crazy. Bottled misery, she was.

“Nothing she’s ever done has been logical,” Cyndi had said, “so why would you expect her to be logical now? Why would you be riled up by a decision she’s made about…well, anything? Including, or especially about, you?”

This boss hated me. I couldn’t do anything right in her eyes. Cyn helped me realize that I was valuing people’s opinions about me even though I didn’t value their opinions about much else. Why would I then take on their opinion about me as gospel? 

Oh, the people in our lives and the places they take us—sometimes not necessarily places we wanted to go, either. One time I had a coworker who lifted my sights up to new dimensions and lifted my inner life up to heights I never thought I’d reach. But he wasn’t particularly nice about it. A friend of mine has a term for such people who come into our lives and rearrange everything to be far better than it was before yet can be quite rude in their endeavors: ruthless angels.

~ 

Sometimes Cyn was mine and sometimes I was hers.