This Will Only Hurt a Little(38)

Years ago, there was a show on HBO called Unscripted that followed a group of actors around Hollywood as they tried to break into the industry with varying degrees of success. Frank Langella plays an acting teacher, and in one of the episodes, he gives a speech that I think about all the time. I’m going to have to paraphrase here because I haven’t watched the show since 2005, but basically he says, Remember to savor the call. Because the call is when you’re validated. The call is full of possibilities. The call means they want YOU. And you can’t control anything that happens AFTER the call. You don’t know what the picture will turn out like, you don’t have any control over how many people see it or how it affects your career but the call is a unique moment and a triumph and you should enjoy it and savor it. And then get to work.

There is TRULY no feeling greater than answering the phone and hearing an assistant on the other end say, “Hi Busy, please hold for Greg and Marilyn and Lorraine.” Because that’s how you know you’ve gotten a job. And then your heart pounds and you get to just wait to hear them say it out loud: “YOU GOT IT! CONGRATULATIONS! ARE YOU READY TO GO TO WISCONSIN????” (Or Vancouver, Atlanta, New York, Calgary, Michigan, London, Morocco, Mexico, L.A. . . . !)

I didn’t know it then, but getting the call about Freaks and Geeks was the first of many you-got-it calls I would get over the course of my career.

I’d been guaranteed I would be in ten out of thirteen episodes, which isn’t exactly a series regular (series regular typically means all episodes produced). One of the questions I get asked the most about Freaks and Geeks is why I’m not in the opening title sequence. Since they didn’t initially shoot me getting my school picture taken, and they couldn’t do a reshoot of it, they instead added a special title card for me that said “AND ALSO STARRING Busy Philipps as Kim Kelly.”

It wasn’t quite the same, but my roommates all cheered when my name came on the screen, and I tried to convince myself that maybe it was even more special to be singled out in that way.

I was invited to a limited press day with the rest of the cast, where I was asked by the NBC publicist to do an interview on Entertainment Tonight with James Franco. I overheard Franco ask Gabe Sachs, a producer and writer on Freaks, “Hey, does De Niro do Entertainment Tonight?” Franco had come back from our few months off and was clearly set on being a VERY SERIOUS ACTOR. Not that he wasn’t before, but it felt like over the summer he had read Easy Riders, Raging Bulls or something and had decided that the only way to be taken seriously was to be a fucking prick. Once we started shooting the series, he was not cool to me, at all. Everything was about him, always. His character’s motivation, his choices, his props, his hair, his wardrobe. Basically, he was a fucking bully. Which is what happens a lot on sets. Most of the time, the men who do this get away with it, and most of the time they’re rewarded. Because ultimately, they get to give the performance they want to give.

I’ve watched time and time again as the squeaky wheel gets not only the grease but also EVERYTHING ELSE. It was hard for me, because I don’t really know how to handle that kind of thing except to push back at it. People love the contentious nature of Kim and Daniel’s relationship from that show, but it was coming from a very real place. It became clear that James was going to do his own thing and that it was up to me to figure out how to fit into that. In the episode “Kim Kelly Is My Friend,” which was the third episode we shot, James was insistent that I really hit him as hard as I could when our characters fight in the end. I slapped him repeatedly, so hard that his skin was turning bright red. I felt really weird about doing it, but at the same time, he asked me to, so I went for it. I just wanted to be a good actor. Honestly, I thought he was weird and annoying, but maybe he knew better than I did? It didn’t feel right, but what did I know, really? Linda and I would talk a lot about it, since I didn’t really know how to handle it. James respected her, for the most part, because she was the lead of the show. And he was cool with the other dudes on the show because, you know, guy code or whatever. But he treated me as if I were inconsequential, barely there. I was insecure because I thought he didn’t think I was a good actor, and it drove me crazy.

James was being particularly contentious with me when we shot the school-spirit episode. We were working together all morning, and in the scene, he kept taking one of my lines. I was so frustrated because I felt like no one would ever do anything to stop him. The script supervisor tried to tell him a few times, but he kept doing it and it was the first day a new director had been on set, so he didn’t really know what he was walking into. I don’t know why James kept taking my line. Maybe to fuck with me. Or maybe he really thought it was his. Or maybe because he’s a guy and figured he can take whatever he wants. Finally, I spoke up to him: “Dude. Will you stop taking that line?? IT’S MINE.”

It’s not like I had that many on the show. I wanted my fucking line. He was annoyed and gave me a dirty look, but then didn’t say it the next take, although I could tell he was pissed at me. We moved on to the scene where James and Seth and I get pelted with water balloons by kids from a rival school and then we run after the car. For one take, the director asked me to sort of hit James in the chest as we ran after the car and say my line: “Dammit, Daniel, do SOMETHING!”

We got hit with the balloons, we ran after the car, and I did what the director asked. I hit James in the chest as I said, “DAMMIT, DANIEL, DO SOMETHING!”