This Will Only Hurt a Little(40)

It was pretty clear we were going to be canceled, so as a special treat for all of us kids on the show, Judd took us to the Man on the Moon premiere, starring his good buddy Jim Carrey, which in and of itself was insanely impressive. But it also starred COURTNEY FUCKING LOVE. Now, you have to understand, I had been beyond obsessed with her in high school. I had every picture of her from every magazine plastered on my bedroom walls. I wore red lipstick, Wet N Wild, obviously. I painted my nails black and cut bangs and wore baby-doll dresses with fishnets and my Doc Martens. Courtney Love was literally the coolest, most badass woman in entertainment, and I not only wanted to be her, I wanted her to want to be my best friend.

In my head, I thought that a giant movie premiere would be the perfect place for me to introduce myself to Courtney Love and that obviously, she would recognize me for the true star I was on the inside and she would want to be my friend and that would fucking be it. So, I got a few vodka cranberries in me at the after-party and I spotted her table and made my way over to introduce myself. I walked up and smiled nervously.

“Ummm. Excuse me, Ms. Love? Hi! I just wanted to introduce myself. I’m Busy Philipps. I’m an actress and I just thought you were so great in the film and actually, I’ve, like, been such a fan for such a long time and I just think you’re so—”

Her look literally cut me off. She narrowed her eyes at me and said, “This is my friend Paul. Isn’t he hot???? Don’t you want to FUCK HIM?”

I was so mortified that I barely looked at her friend. I muttered something like, “Oh, ha ha, yeah? You seem really nice . . .”

I slunk back to the corner with the rest of the Freaks and Geeks crew, and Samm Levine pointed out that the guy she was with, the one she asked me if I wanted to fuck, was Paul Rudd. Ugh. Of course. Obviously, in retrospect, I couldn’t have asked for a more Courtney Love encounter. She didn’t give a fuck that some blond teen actress from a TV show no one had ever heard of idolized her. I felt so dumb. But I shook it off and promised myself I would be cooler in the future.

All of us, minus Franco, would hang out after work or on the weekends, going to a diner called Swingers and getting breakfast burritos at 10 p.m., or to Jason Segel’s condo in Westwood to hang out and smoke pot. Colin and I still hung out all the time, though we’d broken up the year before, and Gabe Sachs told me not to be an idiot and just be Colin’s girlfriend officially. Everyone loved Colin. I mean, he is a super-lovable guy but I always weirdly felt jealous of that. I felt like people preferred him to me and that if they had to choose (why would they, btw??), they would pick him. After a picture of us from a movie premiere was printed in the Hollywood Reporter with the caption “Colin Hanks and GF Busy Philipps,” I remember being so annoyed that I was reduced to being his girlfriend. Like why didn’t it say “Busy Philipps and BF Colin Hanks”? I was wildly insecure about it.

But eventually, we became official boyfriend/girlfriend again. We would hang out with the other actors from Roswell and some of the actors from That ’70s Show, Wilmer and Danny and Topher. Those kids seemed like they had it made. They were on a hit show, their jobs were secure, and they always knew what clubs to go to. I became friends with Rashida Jones and Jason Schwartzman after their respective guest starring roles on Freaks. Jason and I went to a party together at Rashida’s place in Hancock Park and I thought it was the most beautiful apartment I’d ever been in. It was the bottom floor of a Spanish-style duplex, with hardwood floors and a real fireplace. I couldn’t imagine ever having enough money to afford something that seemed so lavish. My gross apartment—which was in the flight landing path of LAX—hardly cut it. My roommates and I threw a party at our place one Saturday night, and I invited all of my new friends to come. With the exception of Linda, who had gone to LMU and knew other people living in the complex, I could tell that my TV friends were slightly horrified by where I lived.

As the season was wrapping up, it became clear that we probably weren’t going to get to do a second one, even though Paul and Judd weren’t told that officially. They wrote an ending for the season that could work either way, just in case. It didn’t seem like a great sign when NBC put Martin Starr, who played Bill Haverchuck in Freaks, on a TV pilot they were producing that starred Newman from Seinfeld. I asked my agents and Lorraine about pilots, but they said there was nothing we could really do until we knew if Freaks and Geeks was getting picked up or canceled.

Judd and Paul threw a prom-themed wrap party for all of the cast and crew. I wore the Betsey Johnson dress I’d worn to my real prom with a hot-pink wig. Linda wore her mom’s prom dress and an amazing beehive wig. The boys all wore cheesy tuxedos. Seth and Martin got their diplomas from high school in the middle of the party—they had finished high school with the on-set tutor while we were shooting.

Afterward, Colin drove me back to my shitty apartment, and I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed the whole way, drunk and sad and scared that I was never going to work again. Somewhere, in my cardboard boxes of photos, I have a picture that I took in his car from that night. It’s me, looking directly into the camera, pink wig slightly askew, tears and makeup streaming down my face. A selfie years before I would know what it was or where to put it.

I have a confession. I’ve never seen all the episodes of Freaks and Geeks. People are often truly shook when I reveal this. Especially those hard-core fans who own the commemorative “Yearbook” DVD collection and have all the lines memorized. But the reason is simply that I wasn’t home most Saturday nights! I was out partying with my friends. And DVRs obviously didn’t exist then. In fairness, I was given VHS tapes of the episodes while they were airing, and I later got the DVD collection too, but it always seemed weird to just sit down and watch a show that I was on. I mean, I was there while we were filming it, right?