This Will Only Hurt a Little(29)
One morning, I was listening to the radio on my drive to school when the entertainment reporter had a bit about how they were making a TV show from the movie Clueless. I was beside myself all day. I should be the new CHER! OF COURSE! I’M MORE LIKE ALICIA SILVERSTONE THAN ANYONE I KNOW! This was my plan. I was sure of it.
“You have to get me an agent,” I said when I got home that day. “And headshots. I need headshots.”
My mother looked up from the giant piles of house listings she was sorting through. “Actually, you know what? Dixie’s friend told me about this woman you should meet! She’s got her own little agency in Paradise Valley. I think she’s more of a manager, but her daughter is an actress.”
A week later, my mom took me after school to a normal-looking house in Paradise Valley, where I met Ellen Anderson. That day at school, I’d dressed up more than I normally did, saying to some girls in the theater hallway, “Oh, yeah, it’s not a big deal but I’m going to meet a new agent today and see about an audition. They’re making a TV show from the movie Clueless and I’m probably going to put myself on tape for it.” I had no basis whatsoever for this other than what I’d heard on the radio, but I had convinced myself this was a very real possibility for me.
Inside of a dimly lit, fairly messy home office littered with headshots with résumés stapled to the back, Ellen gave me the once-over and decided that I could probably find some local work. In my head now, she’s basically Joey’s agent from Friends, but I know she was just a nice lady in Arizona whose daughter wanted to be an actress and she figured out how to do it all herself, probably so she didn’t have to deal with small-time agents, who are terrible anyway. She asked me what kind of work I was interested in. I took a deep breath.
“Well . . . I heard they’re making a Clueless TV show. Like from the movie? I think I should be on it. Can I audition for that??”
She looked at me. “Okay . . . ummm. Let me look into it. It may already be cast. But you know, if there are things that are casting in L.A. that you’re right for, we can see about putting you on tape for them and sending them over.”
She told me I needed headshots that showed different characters I could play. (A cheerleader! A nerdy girl! A fun girl!) Also, I needed to make up a résumé using the plays I’d been in and to really beef up my special-skills section in order to make up for my complete lack of actual experience. Oh, I had special skills! Singing? Obviously. Dancing? All the damn time! Good with kids? Yup. Some French? Oui! Ice-skating? Roller-skating? YOU BET! BIKE RIDING?! OH, I CAN FUCKING RIDE A BIKE.
My mom and dad agreed to pay for headshots since they’d paid for my sister to get some pictures taken recently. (And you know, EVERYTHING HAD TO BE EQUAL!) Leigh Ann had recently been signed by the local Ford agency as a plus-size model. She was getting a ton of catalogue shoots and had even been on the cover of a local magazine. So my parents got me headshots. They were ridiculous. I’m wearing so much makeup I look way older than seventeen, with dark lipstick and heavily contoured cheeks, an attempt to give my baby-fat face some angles. At least I didn’t actually wear costumes, like people did in some of the other composite cards I saw in Ellen’s office. I figured that you could tell I would make a good cheerleader without me having to actually put on a uniform.
Ellen liked my pictures and assured me auditions would be coming. They weren’t, exactly. I had a few, for commercials that were shooting in Arizona and therefore nonunion. Ellen encouraged me to be an extra on a made-for-TV movie about an alien invasion that Luke Perry was starring in. I strutted onto that set and immediately figured out that the AD (assistant director) is the one who you want to be friends with if you’re looking for some screen time or to be “featured.” I worked so hard to try to be noticed. And even when I wasn’t, I decided I could put “featured extra” on my résumé because A) who the fuck even knows what that means, and B) who the hell will ever even see this insane movie?
A month later, Ellen called with what she described as a great opportunity for me. The Mattel toy company was coming to Scottsdale to have their annual “pre-toy fair” and they were looking for local actors to present the new toys to buyers. Specifically, they were hiring women to be live versions of the dolls they were trying to sell. Live Barbie dolls.
“Look, mostly, they bring actors and actresses in from Los Angeles for this, but it’s a good job, and you make great money for two weeks of work. I think it could be a good fit and they were excited about you. The only thing is that I told them you were eighteen, so just say that.”
The auditions were held in a ballroom at the Phoenician, one of the nicest resorts in Scottsdale. I went to my appointment with my headshot in hand and signed in. The casting director came out and handed some material to me and another woman who was waiting. It was basically a monologue filled with sales projections for a particular Barbie, explaining to the buyers why this doll would sell so well. It was completely generic in tone. What I didn’t know is that apparently, the toy business is very serious, and toy espionage is actually a thing of concern. So my audition piece was the generic Barbie audition piece that all the girls received. I did it in what I thought was my best Barbie voice. When I was finished, the woman who was clearly in charge pulled a script out of a manila envelope.
“Busy!” she said, beaming at me. “That was really great! You know, part of the job is that you’re portraying the live version of a new doll to our buyers.” Here she looked over to her cohort, who nodded. “And one of the dolls that’s coming to market isn’t actually a Barbie. It’s a doll from an upcoming TV show that we think will be incredibly popular. I assume you’ve seen the movie Clueless?”