This Will Only Hurt a Little(37)
Coincidentally, that weekend, Colin flew up to Sacramento to visit some friends, and I was picking him up from the airport on Sunday night. At the baggage claim, we ran into a girl who had gone to LMU, but was taking a year off to work: Linda Cardellini. We knew Linda because she was on campus a lot and was roommates with some upperclassmen in the theater department. She was also pretty much a legend, since she had left school to work professionally. Also, she was just the coolest and best. Linda beelined for me: “Oh my God! Hiii! I heard you got offered Kim Kelly?! Is that true??? You have to do it! I’m playing Lindsay!”
This was all new information to me.
“What?! Oh my God. That’s amazing! Yeah. I mean, my agents maybe want me to wait and see if I get a series regular, but I don’t know. . . .”
“No! Dude! You HAVE to do Freaks and Geeks! It’ll be so much FUN! We’ll do it TOGETHER!”
The next morning I called Lorraine and told her I wanted to do the part. It’s crazy, because at the time, it didn’t seem like a decision that would change my life. But of course, being on that particular show would eventually change everything. For all of us. And even beyond how successful everyone has become in the years since, it’s just incredible to have been part of something that’s turned into such a cultural touchstone and such an iconic high school show.
My first day on the set was kind of a blur. Ben Foster (who was playing Eli) and I hung out outside of our trailers and smoked a cigarette together. I was insanely nervous, but tried my best to chill out. We were shooting the school-dance scene, which was essentially the end of the show. I was comforted by the fact that Linda was there, even though she was busy working and we didn’t really have anything to do together in that scene. Mostly, I hung out outside on the steps of my trailer, looking over the script for the rest of the pilot.
Finally, at nearly the end of the day, I was called in for my shot. Jake Kasdan was behind the monitors with Judd and Paul, yelling out direction to me and Shaun Weiss while they were rolling. They gave us an eyeline of a piece of tape on a metal stand, which all seemed very weird to me, but I pretended like I knew exactly what was going on. A few years ago, I told Jake that it was my essentially my first day ever on a real set and he stared at me for a second; then his shoulders shook as he began to laugh. “I had no idea! You should have said something!”
But that was just it: I didn’t want anyone to know! I wanted them to think I belonged. I was terrified someone would change their mind about me, so I was just doing my best to fit in and play it cool. Especially since I wasn’t technically a series regular yet. They’d assured me that if and when the show got picked up, that would change, but on the day they shot the initial cast photos and opening credits, I wasn’t included. My feelings were hurt, but I tried not to let it get to me.
Linda had been right: shooting the pilot was a lot of fun, and I was so happy to be doing this with her. The boys were okay. James Franco was weird and intense and his whole vibe both annoyed and intimidated me. Seth Rogen was sweet and laughed a lot, and Jason Segel acted like the old pro, since you know, he had been in like two movies before. At the end of the shoot, they played us a little bit of the pilot edited together so we could see what we’d been doing. It was the last scene—the school dance—and they had already cut it together. The crew and cast gathered in the cafeteria of the middle school we were shooting in and Paul gave a little speech and then they showed it. I remember watching that ending and just knowing it was something great. I mean, obviously, since it was my first TV show pilot, I suppose I could have felt that way about anything. But it felt like there was something different about this.
Beside me, Linda was crying. She gave me a hug and said, “I really hope we get to do this for real.”
A few weeks later, I shot my part in a WB pilot called Saving Graces, where I met Chyler Leigh and Lauren Ambrose. I loved Lauren immediately; she was such a cool girl. She taught me that it’s okay to politely ask the makeup artists to do things a little differently if you don’t like the way it looks. And also that Tabasco sauce on craft service tuna salad is a really good snack. We got along really well and remained close after the shoot. In fact, she introduced me to two of her close friends from boarding school at Choate, Abdi Nazemian and Sarah Shetter, who became two of my best friends and remain so to this day.
Meanwhile, Colin was shooting the pilot for Roswell for Fox. We were both just so excited to be doing this, and couldn’t believe that everything seemed to be coming together for us at the same time. I was still supposed to be going to classes at LMU, but since auditioning and shooting were basically taking up all my time, I was flunking out of most of mine. The only exceptions were my literature class, because the teacher liked me and allowed me to turn in everything late, and my pottery class, because the studio was open to students twenty-four hours a day. In the end, the only class I got credit for that semester was pottery. I got an A, and to this day, my mother refers to it as my twelve-thousand-dollar pottery class.
In May, I found out that Freaks and Geeks was picked up, and although I wasn’t going to get to travel to New York for the announcements with the rest of the cast, Judd told Lorraine that they would be giving me the title of series regular, which was super exciting. Around the same time, Colin found out that Roswell was going to be picked up by the WB. We were both so insanely excited that we were going to be on TV the next year and also that, obviously, we wouldn’t be going back to school in the fall. We would be REAL WORKING ACTORS!