I was officially a hypocrite. I wanted to blend in and disappear yet be noticed doing it.
Before I knew it, I was answering questions into a microphone.
“What is the one beauty item you can’t live without?”
Shit. I didn’t know the answer to that one. I mean, “concealer” was the truthful answer, but what was the right answer?
“Lip gloss.”
I hate lip gloss. I hate anything on my lips, but it sounded right. It sounded pretty and feminine and like something boys would find attractive; big, goopy lips, moist and inviting. Next . . .
“What is your must-have fashion item for the season?”
Shit. I didn’t know fashion at all. I didn’t read magazines and I wasn’t really interested. I wished Kali were there; she would’ve known the answer to that question. In fact, a few months ago she’d wanted Chanel ballet flats . . .
“Chanel ballet flats.”
My answer took a little long in coming, and the interviewer could sense it wasn’t going to get any easier, so I was dismissed from the interview with a “Thanks for stopping to talk to us.” I was surprised by the questions I was asked. Most of the interviewers didn’t care about my character or the show. All anyone wanted to know was who I was wearing and what my beauty tips were and how I stayed in shape. As I walked away from the news crews, I heard the last reporter ask my publicist, “What’s her name?” The reporter didn’t discreetly whisper the question to my publicist in an attempt to save me from having hurt feelings, she yelled it. She had just been interviewing me like I was important enough to tell the public my thoughts about the increasing number of actresses who wore their hair down to the Emmys and yet she had no idea who I was. The answer came over raucous screams announcing Lara Flynn Boyle’s arrival so she asked again as if she wondered if she’d heard correctly. “What’s her name?”
I was embarrassed and a little afraid. I was often embarrassed to tell people my name because I had made it up. I had a deep fear of someone discovering the truth, that this exotic name wasn’t mine—that I’d borrowed it like I had borrowed the dress and the diamonds, that it was a little too fabulous for me to own and at some point I was going to have to give it back. Portia de Rossi. A fabulous name. A name that belonged to a celebrity.
I made it up when I was fifteen. I was illegally in a nightclub when the club’s manager took me into his VIP room to award me with a coveted all-access, never-wait-in-line medallion. I knew I couldn’t give him my real identity for fear that he would discover my age and never again allow me back in the club. I was flustered coming up with a name on the spot, but I knew I had to do it. Not only was he offering me a key chain medallion to flaunt, a sliver tag announcing to the world that I was in with the “in-crowd,” he was offering me a job. I could be a hostess for the club, and all I had to do was show up twice a week. All that—if I could come up with a name other than Amanda Rogers, the name that belonged to the fifteen-year-old kid that stood before them. I could be a VIP if I could come up with the right name.
I hated my birth name. Amanda Rogers. It was so ordinary, so perfectly average. It had “a man” in it, which annoyed me because every time I’d hear someone refer to a man, I would turn my head, waiting for the “duh.” I’d toyed with changing it the way most kids do. When I became a model, my modeling agents suggested I change it, as reinventing oneself was pretty common practice in the modeling world in the eighties. Sophie became Tobsha, and Angelique became Rochelle. What Amanda could become was something I was still fantasizing about until I heard one manager in the VIP lair say to another, “What’s her name?” as he hovered over a book of entries with a black fountain pen.
“Portia . . . de . . . Rossi.” The words came out slowly but with certainty. I really wanted that medallion.
“How do you spell that?”
I wrote the name in the air with my index finger behind my back to see whether a small d or a big D would look better. I got Portia from The Merchant of Venice, and de Rossi from watching the credits of a movie. The last name stuck in my mind among a million names that flew by. In a sea of a million unimportant names, I saw de Rossi. I put it all together in that room, got my medallion, a job, and walked out in shock. I had changed my identity. Just like that.
As I walked into the Shrine Auditorium where the Emmys were about to take place, I freaked out about how caught off-guard I’d been, how unprepared I was for the biggest test of my life—the test that required me to show them all why I was special and chosen. I made a mental note to buy fashion magazines and start caring about beauty items and perfume and exercising. I needed to find answers to these questions if I were going to feel confident next time. It was time Portia de Rossi earned her name.
9
AS I drove to work, my thoughts kept returning to my wardrobe. For Day One of the scripted days in this episode, I wore the black pencil skirt and long jacket. That would be okay because the waistband on the skirt was a little roomy, unlike the jeans I was currently wearing, which were cutting into my flesh and making my stomach fold over the top of them. I took my right hand off the steering wheel and grabbed my stomach fat—first just under the belly button and then I worked my way over the sides in repetitive grabbing motions. For fun I did it in time with the music. In a way it felt like a workout or a kind of dance of self-hatred. The fat extended all the way around to my back—not enough for a handful, but enough to take a firm hold of between my thumb and forefinger. As I looked down at my cavernous belly button I couldn’t help but wonder if I was getting away with it. Did I still look like the girl they had hired? Did people notice? Obviously, my costume designer was aware of my weight gain over my first month on the show as she watched the weekly struggle of trying to pull up a skirt over my hips or straining to clasp the waistband. If pretending not to notice is the kind thing to do, then she was very kind to me. She always blamed the zipper for getting stuck because it was cheap or not properly sewn into the item of clothing even if she had to call her assistant in to hold the top of the zip as she put some muscle into trying to move it.
Did people look at me and think, “She’s let herself go?” Did my actress rivals look at me and smirk, satisfied that my weight gain rendered me powerless to steal roles, scenes, or lines? As I pulled into my parking space, I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe it was not just increasing familiarity but my nonthreatening physique that was the reason everyone had seemed a lot more comfortable around me lately. My presence no longer prompted them to ask themselves, “If this happened, then what’s next?” as another actress, Lucy Liu, had joined the cast and answered that question. I was no longer the new girl, and I had proven to them that I wasn’t a threat to their status on the show. With the weight gain, I wasn’t exactly the hot blond bombshell that Cage and Fish talked about almost daily in their dialogue to each other. I cringed to read their lines and how they would talk about my character as being “hot” and “untouchable.” While I wanted to be considered attractive, it made me uncomfortable to be thought of as being sexually desirable to men. But mainly the dialogue made me uncomfortable because I knew that reality didn’t match up to the character David Kelley had written.
“Hey, Porshe. Haven’t seen you in awhile. How were your days off?” Jane passed me in the hall on her way to set.
“Great, thanks.”
“See you out there.”
I walked into my dressing room and threw my bag down on the sofa.
There was a sharp knock on my dressing room door.
“Good morning, Portia. Makeup is ready for you.”
“Be right there.”
I walked around the desk to look in the mirror. The fat that I’d felt on my way there didn’t really show under my sweater. At least not when I was standing. I lifted my sweater so I could see my bare stomach and the fat that I remembered feeling. But I didn’t see fat. My stomach was flat. I stared into the eyes reflected in the mirror. They were smiling at me as if to say, “Oh, Porshe, what the he
ll are you worried about?” For a brief moment, I felt relief. But it didn’t last long. As I opened the wardrobe and looked at its contents, a wave of panic passed through my body; a hot, rolling rush of panic beginning in my stomach and ending at my head. Hanging on the bar were ten, maybe fifteen, sets of bras and panties. They were the kind of bras and panties that are intended to be seen, not the plainer flesh-toned kind that I was used to finding on the rack. Attached to the first pair was a note:
“For next episode. Please try on at your convenience. Thanks, V.”
Shit. Shit! The next episode was eight days away. There was a knock at the door. I jumped out of my skin.
“Portia. Can you go to makeup, please? We’re going to get to your scene in less than an hour.”
“Alright! I’m coming!” As usual, the people who deserved it the least get the brunt of my anger. The person who deserved my anger the most was my fat, lazy, self. I had been in complete denial. I’d decided that rather than get off my fat, lazy ass and accept responsibility for my job, rather than seizing this amazing opportunity and using every scene as a showcase for my talent, I’d just sit around drinking beer and eating Mexican food. I stormed out of my dressing room and walked toward the makeup trailer, the voice in my head berating me.
You can’t eat again until that scene. You need to work out. You’re such an idiot for thinking you could get away with bingeing on Mexican food and not working out when this kind of thing could’ve happened at any time.
For a brief moment, I was aware that Peter MacNicol had passed me in the hallway. I’m sure he said hello, but it was too late to reply. The underwear scene probably had something to do with him. Our romance had been heating up and I bet there was some kind of love scene in the next episode. Maybe that’s all it was. Maybe it would be a shot of me lying down on a bed in my underwear, or a waist-high shot of me unbuttoning a shirt to expose the top part of one of those pretty, lacy brassieres hanging in my closet.
“Hey!” My makeup artist gave me a hug and with a guttural laugh she said, “Did you read the next episode? You’re doing a striptease, girl!”
I pulled the script from her hands and with a cold, emotionless expression I looked at what she’d been reading. I didn’t want to give her any more enjoyment at my discomfort than she was already having. Of course, I didn’t know if enjoyment was what she was experiencing for sure, but given the way we talked about our weight struggles almost every day, I couldn’t imagine that she wasn’t enjoying my discomfort a little, if just in that way that people are grateful they aren’t dealt the same fate. The “better you than me” comment that is always delivered with a weird laugh makes it seem like they’re ready to pull up a ringside seat for the ensuing spectacle. The script read: Nelle waits in her office for Cage. Cage enters. Nelle begins to remove her clothing. Cage is flustered. Nelle, in underwear, walks toward him. He runs out of the office and down the hall. At that moment, I would’ve done anything to run out of the makeup trailer, to my car, and out of this ugly studio with its square buildings and its one-way windows. I would go home and pack my suitcases and take my car to the airport, get on a plane, go back to Melbourne, Australia, and just start the whole damn thing over. Start my whole damn life over. I’d go to law school, a studious, serious girl who wasn’t bopping around from photo shoots to lectures, having earned a place there after attending the local high school where I was the richest and smartest girl in the class. I would never have modeled, and so I’d think I was attractive just as I was, and I’d live in this blissful ignorance with my mother and father, because maybe for some reason he’d still be alive, too, and he wouldn’t need me to go out and prove I was pretty and special, because he’d know that I was pretty and special, and he’d tell me that anyone who thought I wasn’t the prettiest and smartest girl they’d ever known was stupid. Or jealous. Or both.
“Wow. That’s really exciting. That’s great for my character.” When attacked, defend by lying.
I sat in the makeup chair staring at my reflected image as it was transformed from a hopeful twenty-four-year-old to a beaten down, emotionally bankrupt forty-year-old; the thick foundation covered my pores, suffocating my skin, the heavy eye shadow creating a big, deep crease in my eyelids, the red lipstick drawing the eye to my thin, pursed lips. Until now, it had looked to me like the mask of a character. No matter how scared or insecure I was, there was always a glint in my eyes underneath the thick eyeliner that reminded me that this was just a character, that I was young and exciting and had a life away from this world where there were no trees and no one to talk to. But sitting in the makeup chair at that moment, watching the transformation, the lines were blurred. It seemed like less work to create the defensive, cold character. It seemed like we were just putting some makeup onto my face. We were just defining my eye, giving color to my pale lips, covering up my imperfections. The fat was back, too. The fat that I’d felt in the car, spilling over the waistband of my jeans, was visible through my sweater, and I knew that everyone in the trailer was looking at it, wondering how I was going to get it off in eight days. But no one was wondering more than me.
I joined a gym. It was close to the studio, so if I had a break during the day I could just hop in the car and onto a treadmill. That was part of how I got the weight off. The other part was just not eating, which is a highly underrated strategy as zero meals a day works just as well for weight loss as six small ones. The only problem was I was so hungry and weak I limped to the finish line, no longer caring how I was going to stand in my underwear, or which angle would most flatter my body. I stopped caring to the extent that after the rehearsal, my hunger wrestled with my common sense and like a diva I demanded that a PA go to a Starbucks and bring me back a bran muffin. But if that kind of behavior is ever justified, it was at that moment when the script called for an extreme situation and I was just expected to comply. There was no question in David Kelley’s mind as to whether I would do that scene. He demanded that I do it, and so I made my demands in retaliation. “Let’s see the new blonde in her underwear!” Well then, I said, “Get me a muffin!” Actually, demanded is the wrong word. I asked. But it was so unusual for me to ask for anything, it replays in my mind as being a little harsher than it was. It was very common for actors to ask PAs to get them food or to mail a package or to put gas in their cars, but I always felt quite disgusted by it. I always felt that actors were just testing the limits of what someone would do for them just to see if they’d do it. I hate entitlement. But more than that, I hate that someone else in the same position as me feels entitled when I just feel lucky as hell.
I ate it before I shot the scene. I ate that muffin with its salt and calories and wheat and butter and all of the other bloating ingredients.
I hated everything about the underwear scene. I hated that in just a few episodes, I’d gone from playing a high-powered attorney to a woman desperately trying to get her boss to sleep with her. I hated that I’d have to play a love-interest character from now on, and I especially hated what I wore. I chose black lingerie with tiny red and pink hearts sewn onto it. It was ridiculously uncharacteristic for Nelle, who would have worn a more conservative style, perhaps something in navy blue—small, lacy, and revealing yet dignified, and worn with an air of supreme confidence in the goods the underwear displayed. The lingerie I chose was trashy with a stripper vibe. If ever I was to take care of my own needs before worrying about acting, it was in choosing the most flattering underwear. Here was my thinking: I would wear the largest, fullest cut with the most distracting colors to deemphasize my hips and thighs as much as possible. I would pad up my bra to offset the roundness of my stomach and look more proportional from head to toe. I chose a dress that I could remove in one easy motion so I wouldn’t have to bend over and risk rolls of fat creasing on top of each other as I removed a tight skirt or a difficult blouse. I chose the highest of heels, because we all know that the taller you are, the more weight you can carry, and I wore my hair down, shaken all around,
in an effort to lift the viewer’s eye north of my abdomen and away from my thighs.
I shot the scene and awaited the verdict. I didn’t have to wait long as it aired within a few weeks. Of course, when shooting a scene like that, some of the feedback is immediate. The energy of the crew changes, and no matter how professional you are, you still feel exposed, cheapened, paid to show your body. Or at least that’s how I felt. And in that scene I was no longer a brilliant attorney who could make the firm more money than it had ever seen. I was stripped of that ability and the respect that comes with it when I stripped down to my heart-covered bra and panties. I was just another blond actress playing a vulnerable woman who has sex with her boss, in the costume of an efficient, crafty attorney. I was just an actress playing a lawyer, which, after dropping out of law school, was the only kind of lawyer I’d ever be. I don’t know why I thought I’d be any more respected for simply pretending to be that which I didn’t have the stamina to become.
By the time the episode aired, my life had changed. For many reasons, I’d decided to move out of the place in Santa Monica that I shared with my brother; the place that I’d shared with my husband. I moved away from the life I’d known since coming to Los Angeles and into an apartment in Hancock Park. I was on my own. Kali had moved back to Pasadena anyway, and my other friend, Ann, a girl who made difficult, emotional conversations easy, had moved to New York. Ann is the friend that everyone wishes they could have. She pries the truth out of you in a nurturing way and then stays around to clean up the tears. Ann’s departure was one of the reasons I moved. But mainly I moved away because of paparazzi. Granted, there was only one photographer who had found my house, but the pictures of me sitting on my front steps, hair in curlers and smoking a cigarette, made me feel ambushed, watched, hunted almost. That one photographer made me feel like any of my private moments could be captured at any given time—unseen, unknown. I felt like I had a peeping Tom and every time I did something that I wouldn’t want anyone else to see, my thoughts escalated into paranoid panic—not only over the present moment, but over those that predated the smoking picture. Retroactive paranoia.
Unbearable Lightness Page 7
