Scrappy Little Nobody(53)

As Sondheim said, Nice is different than good. Do you need to do whatever you’re told to be a nice person? Maybe. Do you need to do whatever you’re told to be a good person? Of course not! Man, woman, personal, professional—some people have a skill for persuading you the best thing you can be is obedient.

A woman I was about to work with told me she’d been asking around about me. She said someone described me as “ten percent defiant.” She was quick to point out she didn’t think they’d meant it as a criticism. I was quick to point out I didn’t take it as one.

I gave up on being Nice. I started putting more value on other qualities instead: passion, bravery, intelligence, practicality, humor, patience, fairness, sensitivity. Those last three might seem like they are covered by “nice,” but make no mistake, they are not. A person who smiles a lot and remembers everyone’s birthday can turn out to be undercover crazy, a compulsive thief, and boring to boot. I don’t put a lot of stock in nice. I’d prefer to be around people who have any of the above qualities over “niceness,” and I’d prefer it if that applied to me, too. I’m also okay if the most accurate description of me is nervous, and a little salty. But at least I know what I want to strive for.





award shows


An award show isn’t glamorous. It’s the closest I’ll ever get to glamorous, so I’m not knocking it, but I know it’s not the real deal. Real glamour is opening night at the opera, or a lavish wedding on a tropical cliffside. I assume; I’ve never been invited to either of those things. An award show is as glamorous as a middle school dance. Again, I assume; I was never invited to a middle school dance, either. Industry fetes are populated with nervous idiots in the nicest clothes they could find and beleaguered chaperones in black jeans and blazers trying to make sure the nervous idiots don’t accidentally set the place on fire before the night is over.

I usually arrive to major events with a mild injury from maintaining the “wrinkle-free” position in the car on the way there. A stylist will have steamed my dress to smooth, buttery perfection, and there’s nothing like a long car ride to give you a nice erratic patch of creases just above your crotch, so you brace yourself like a corpse in a diagonal position on your seat. You must not bend at the waist! If there’s no one sitting next to you, you can lie across two seats, but even my body is not short enough to fit that way, so you’re up on your elbows the whole time. You’ll be in this position for about half an hour, so choose wisely. Oh, and my favorite thing about this technique is that it doesn’t work.

Getting out of the car is always a little fun, I’ll admit, because I like to go out the “wrong” side. This is a HUGE deal for no reason at all and I get a rush of mischievous pleasure every time I do it. The event organizers want you to get out on the side where the red carpet is set up so that photographers can get the “coming out of the car” shot. That shot is universally awful. Even if there’s no possibility of an up-skirt, I’ve just contorted my body back to a recognizable human position and all the blood is returning to my fingers; let’s not capture that for posterity. Without fail, the headset-clad representative who has been sent to begin chaperoning me will open the car door to find me exiting the other side and start sputtering that I need to get out on this side, on this side! But it’s too late, and ten seconds later when I am beside them (because like Bear Grylls or the dog in Homeward Bound, somehow I persevered and made it to my destination), even they seem confused about why their heart rate is so elevated. And then the shouting begins.

The good shouting is from people who have come to take pictures on their phones and mid-range digital cameras. They are friendly and sincere and when I wave at them they cheer, and I won’t lie, I feel like I’m a slightly taller Kim Jong-un and it’s dope as hell. At the big award shows you stand between the fans and the line of photographers, and I like to swing around every couple of steps and make ugly faces at the friendly side to remind myself that we’re all just pretending. I often regret it because someone in the crowd catches a photo that ends up online, but it’s the price I pay to keep my public happy! (Sorry . . . it goes to your head fast. I would make a great ruthless dictator.)

The bad shouting is from the line of photographers. They don’t want a good picture, they need a good picture. This is their job, and “Over here! Smile! Tell us who you’re wearing!” is not a request floated by a fan; it’s a demand. They are traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and they will be heard, dammit.

“Buy! Sell! Over here! Over the shoulder! Over the shoulder, Anna! Show us the back of the dressssssss!” You must maintain your smile through it, though. You cannot give any indication that a hundred people are shouting at you like drowning victims begging for a lifeboat. And when they say “Blow us a kiss!”—don’t do it. First of all, the photograph won’t have a caption that says, “Some red-faced photographer asked her to do this—she didn’t just walk up to the red carpet and think, How can I make myself look like an *?” And second, your eyes always half close when you blow a kiss, which makes you look drunk. This is especially frustrating when you managed to limit your intake to four drinks pre-carpet. Get good at saying “No thank you” through clenched teeth. Otherwise, they’ll get a photo where you look scowly, and In Touch Weekly will use it the next time they want to imply your husband is cheating on you with your dog psychic.