Scrappy Little Nobody(39)

If you want “real” fashion advice, you should look up Alexa Chung or Olivia Palermo, who, while they are good at lots of other stuff, are known for wearing clothes really well. I would argue that the most honest fashion advice they could give would be, “Be tall, thin, and gorgeous, and have a monthly budget of around five hundred dollars for maintaining your hair,” but if you look them up I’m sure that every interviewer has asked them, “What’s your best fashion advice?” and they have answered, “Wear what makes you feel confident.” By the way, who has that helped? What girl is out there thinking, Dammit, I’ve been wearing my least-favorite articles of clothing, because I thought you were supposed to feel dumpy and shy. Clothes AREN’T supposed to make you want to avoid human contact? Thank you, Olivia Palermo, thank you. (I’m just being shitty; it’s a lame question because there’s no good answer. These girls have their QUOTE? down and they stick to it. Keep climbin’, ladies.)

Sidebar: The only reason I feel bad about bringing them up is that at some point Alexa and Olivia will be asked on some red carpet, “What do you think of Anna Kendrick’s burn in her book?” and they’ll have to go, “Who?” and then their publicist will tell them and they will have to say something like, “Oh, she’s entitled to her opinion,” or “She’s obviously just kidding,” or hopefully “What a cunt,” and then the fun REALLY begins.

I’m trying to have fun. I get to wear fancy clothes and I get to have my hair and makeup done, and being a little brat about it is stupid. I also have to wear fancy clothes and have my hair and makeup done. And anything in the world that you have to do can become tiresome. If you had to play with a puppy every day—okay, that’s not a good example; that would always be fun. But someone poking your eye with a makeup brush is not as fun as a puppy; you’ll just have to take my word for it.





making movies is a fool’s errand


I need a lot of sleep. More sleep than I’d like. I wish I could be one of those people who thrives on five hours a night, but I really need seven or eight—just to function. I’ll happily take nine. Ten, if you’re offering. I’m actually gonna lie down for a minute.

Okay, that was nice. Maybe I need more iron in my diet. I bring it up because on a film set, sleep becomes the ultimate commodity. The hours are f*cking bananas. We’re certainly not curing cancer, but man do we stay at work like we’re trying.

Portrait of a professional with energy drink, 4 a.m.





All you do when you’re making a movie is sleep and go to work. You’re staying in a hotel or a rented apartment, miles and often several time zones away from anyone you know. It’s hard to see outside the little world you’re in. You can’t get perspective because for the duration of the shoot, nothing else exists. So you are at the mercy of the people around you. The group you are working with (a.k.a. your only waking companions) will dictate whether you are going to spend a few months euphoric or miserable.

Sometimes it’s awesome. When you know there’s a ticking clock on your relationships, it’s fun to get way too close way too fast. Why pace yourself? You won’t even have time to get sick of each other! You jump into intense friendships and it’s bittersweet and wonderful. Sometimes you don’t like the people you’re working with. It’s temporary, but facing another sixteen-hour block with people you don’t like can feel insurmountable even when you know it’s only for a few months. Getting on Skype with your best friend to talk shit helps, but you gotta go to sleep and do it all over again in six hours, so make your shit talk count!

I try not to let it, but my personal feelings can affect how I approach filming. I once got into a debate with a director because I didn’t understand why I would kiss the actor in the scene with me. I felt like there was simply no motivation for them to kiss in that moment. The director pointed out that we were playing boyfriend and girlfriend and couples tend to . . . kiss. Oh, right! So we kissed. But I wasn’t happy about it!

It’s also hard to gauge how well a scene is working if you don’t get along with someone in it. Once you know someone is an *, it’s hard to find anything they say funny, charming, or poignant. I find myself thinking, I wouldn’t believe this guy if he warned me about an impending nuclear fallout; he’s an *.

Sometimes, though, nothing bonds a cast like a common enemy. For an independent film I once did, an acting coach was hired. I’ve never been sure why; it’s certainly not common practice. She took herself very seriously, so we felt we had to take her seriously as well. We did an exercise in pairs where we ran across a room toward each other and jumped as high as we could at the point of intersection. After a while, my woefully unathletic ass said, “Hey, I’m sort of out of breath here, can I take a break for a second?”

“No, keep going. Jump higher.”

Um, are you my Soviet gymnastics coach? I thought we were all adults, and I thought we all kind of understood that this “acting exercise” was New Age bullshit.

I prepared to run at my partner.

Fuck me, now I’ve got to commit twice as hard or she might make me keep doing it.

But that’s the trouble with being an anemic little weakling: you can’t just draw from your reserve of energy and focus, because you don’t have one.