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This book is for my mother.
“When there’s nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire.”
YOUR EX-LOVER IS DEAD (STARS)
ALL OF THE LIGHTS
(Kanye West)
Once, a (former) guy friend of mine, who happens to be gorgeous and famous and all of the things, said this to me: “You know, I think people would consider you really beautiful, if only you didn’t talk so much. Your personality is just a lot. Don’t get me wrong, I love you, but I think people get distracted by that.”
My clear reaction should have been, “Ewww. Go fuck yourself.”
But for so long, even with my strong personality, telling a man to fuck off wasn’t easy for me to do. Instead, I would just nod and laugh and agree, “Hahaha. Yeah,” and then swallow whatever insult and seethe later.
During my twenty years working as an actress, there were times I even went along with being mildly bullied on set, not wanting to make a big deal out of something. I was a girl who could work within the incredibly sexist system that was set up, a girl who could take it. Men love a woman who laughs at the joke, especially if the joke is at her expense.
“She’s so cool. She just gets it.”
As outspoken and sure of myself as I’ve always imagined myself to be, it was hard to find my voice in Hollywood. Or it seemed pointless. That no matter what, I was working in a boys’ club and that’s just the way things were. Don’t you want to work?
There was the on-set painter on a show who casually told me he’d found sexy pictures of me online and that they’d really kept him company the night before.
“Hahaha. Okay!”
I’m not gonna get that guy fired, right? Also, this seems insane (or maybe it doesn’t), but there have been more than a few dudes on sets who’ve told me they jacked off to me. Thank you?
Or the actor who loudly proclaimed, “I’m gonna get them to write us a sex scene so I can really get in there and see what it’s like.”
“Hahahaha. Whatever.”
Or the head of casting who told me the only way I was ever going to get movie roles was if I did a Maxim shoot.
So I did. It didn’t help.
Or listening to Harvey Weinstein tell me what model he was currently having a relationship with, obviously not knowing the full extent of his depravity and horribleness. (I have the odd distinction of him not trying anything with me, I think weirdly because he met me and my husband, Marc, together and really liked Marc and thought we were friends or something?! Who fucking knows how a psychopath’s brain works.) As he would casually objectify whatever woman it was, tell me that he fucked her, I would nod and mumble, “Oh. Cool. She’s beautiful.”
And then I would try to lose him as fast as I could.
Here’s the thing: It’s not easy to be a woman in this business. There will always be jokes about your body. There will always be guys who steal your best ideas and pass them off as their own. There will always be actors who push you to the ground. There will always be networks that ask you to lose weight. There will always be jobs you will not get based on your looks.
And the men will continue to support one another and show up for one another and hire one another, but if you want to stick around, girl, you’d better be damn sure you smile when they ask and wear a low-cut top to your network test and lose the fucking weight and let them take credit for your words, because you are expendable.
At some point, I started not to care if I was expendable. It was beginning to wear on me, the things I watched some of my friends go through in order to get where they wanted to be in their careers, the things I’d put up with and witnessed myself. But also life. Life is exhausting and it never gets easier. For anyone.
Two years ago, I was working on a web series for Jenny Mollen. Her friend Tom Lenk was showing me Instagram stories, which had just launched. I had done Snapchat a little, because my friend Kelly Oxford was into it and I liked the filters, but honestly, Instagram stories seemed kind of lame to me.
“I don’t get it. Why would they do this if Snapchat exists? Is anyone even gonna watch this shit?”
“I don’t know,” said Tom. “But look, you have way more followers on Insta than on Snapchat, so probably more people will watch these. You can also just do both?”
“Tom. Who has the fucking time?”
Turns out . . . me. I did. I had the fucking time. I wasn’t really working as an actress. After Vice Principals, I sold a show to HBO with Danny McBride’s Rough House Pictures producing. We were in the middle of developing that, so I was sort of holding off on other TV jobs until we could see where it was going.
Other than that, I was working with some friends, thinking maybe I would finally try to write another movie script. But mostly, I was just hanging out. I was meeting people for lunch. I started working out every day as a way to handle my anxiety. I was doing some surrogate stuff for Hillary Clinton, and also volunteering at one of my favorite charities, working with underserved kids who were struggling with mental illness. And then I was a mom. I am a mom.
At night, after the kids were asleep, I would go downstairs and turn on the TV and wait until Marc came down, so we could watch some show and go to bed. Routine marriage stuff. But then Tom introduced me to this thing. Instagram stories. And there was something appealing about it. I could talk about my day. Or what was going on in my house. Or the episode of Friends that was on. Or my life. Were people watching? I didn’t really care. It was like a diary. Or a confessional on a reality show. Me, starring me.
But then people did start watching, in a way that was truly unexpected. And they were responding to my honesty and openness, which I completely hadn’t anticipated. I just didn’t know how to be any other way at this point in my life. I was done trying to put on a face, done trying to be something that I thought someone else wanted me to be. I was too tired.
Besides, I’ve always liked telling stories, real or imaginary.
And there are things that happen to me that only happen to me. Like almost getting murdered in an Uber that may actually have not been an Uber. Or going to the Golden Globes as Michelle Williams’s date and then getting locked out of my house in the rain at three in the morning, drunk and increasingly panicked. Or witnessing raccoons having insane, horrible-sounding raccoon sex on my balcony. Or having a front-row seat to the craziest Oscars mix-up in history. And that’s only been in the last two years of Instagram stories!
And in between all that, I work out every morning, I make mac and cheese for my kids, I forget their favorite stuffed animals in Hawaii and start a transpacific search party, I cry when my TV pilot doesn’t get picked up by NBC, I go see bands play, I hang out with my best friends, I have anxiety attacks and eat nachos and drink margaritas and go on vacation and live my life and live my life and live my life and live my life. For me. For you. To entertain you. To be seen. It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted.
FANTASTIC VOYAGE
(Lakeside)
My therapist, Bethany Rosenblum, says that everyone has one defining story. The story that basically sums up who they are and why they are the way they are.
I mean, personally, I feel like I have half a dozen of these defining stories. B
ut if I go all the way back, back to when I was preverbal, there’s a story that sums up how I’ve always seen myself. The fact that I don’t actually remember it might seem problematic. But I think it’s the perfect story because I don’t remember it.
Look, I’ll be the first to admit I can be a terrible witness to my own history. I think most of us probably are. I mean, certainly there are facts that exist. Like if you were in a particular city at a particular time in your life. Or if you went to college. Or if you were on that TV show. But other bits and pieces are totally dependent on what you choose to focus on. Remember when James Frey wrote that book and then everyone was so fucking mad that he made up parts of it? And then he had to go on Oprah and look her in the eye and admit that maybe some things had been exaggerated for dramatic purposes? That is literally my worst nightmare—to be judged by Oprah.
But see, I am a dramatic human. I always have been. And I come from a fairly long line of dramatic humans and storytellers. And part of being a good storyteller is knowing which parts need to be embellished a bit, and which details need to be lost completely. I was recently recounting a story (which you will read later in the book, hopefully. Unless you give up on me. Don’t, though. I’m worth it, I promise. I mean, I think I am.) Anyway, I was recounting a story to my husband, Marc, and as I was telling it—or retelling it, as the case may be, since this is one of “my stories”—I revealed something new. Marc has heard this particular story at least a million times over the course of our twelve-year relationship, and somehow I had never included these new details. Details that maybe change some of the intention.
All this is to say, I’m telling you these stories, my stories, as I remember them. As I see them. As they have affected me. But that’s not to say it’s the whole truth or even what the full story would be if you were to track down the star witnesses to my life and line them up and ask their impressions of said stories.
Here’s something: Occasionally in my life, it’s possible I may have been a bit more of a glass-half-empty kind of girl. That might seem incongruous to the persona I’ve cultivated via social media and interviews—I understand and recognize that. But even though I can sometimes be a bit of a Debbie Downer, I am a performer. I live to make sure everyone is happy and having a good time. Sometimes that means pushing my own feelings and anxieties to the side and putting on a good show. And sometimes it means that the way I remember things happening isn’t exactly the way other people remember the same events. Look, I’m going to try to be as honest with you as I can be. But it’s obviously my truth. Not my mom’s or my sister’s or my friends’ or my ex-boyfriends’ or my husband’s truth. Mine.
So anyway. This defining story. The one I can’t possibly remember because I was two. It’s the story my mother also chooses as the defining story to explain who I am. Except her takeaway and mine are a bit different. To Barbara Philipps, the story has been used over the years to illustrate just how headstrong and willful I was as a child. “Oh, that Busy! There was just no controlling her! Have you ever heard about the time she decided to take a walk around the block??! No?! Well. Let me tell you!”
So! From my birth to age six, my family lived in Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Both my parents grew up there. In fact, they had met as high school students at Oak Park High and began dating when they were just sixteen. They didn’t go to prom together, because, as my mother puts it, “your dad wanted to go with a big-boobed cheerleader.” My mom went with her theater friend Steve. Anyway, I don’t remember much from that time, but I’ve seen pictures and Oak Park is beautiful. It all looks super Americana, and from my mother’s various stories I know it was the kind of place where there were block parties in the summer and sledding in the winter and all the kids walked to school together and knew the crossing guard’s name.
So, the story!
Apparently, when I was two or three, there were a bunch of neighborhood kids playing on our block, and at some point, my mom noticed I was missing.
“Wait, Mom,” I always say at this point. “How did you notice I was missing?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “Just, at some point, you weren’t there.”
“So how long was I gone for?”
“I’m not sure, Busy. But that’s what you were like. This was before we installed the high locks on our doors. It was a different time. If you were in the house playing somewhere, I wasn’t always watching you. I was doing dishes or laundry. And if you decided you wanted to do something, you would do it. There was no stopping you.”
“Even at two?”
“Even at two! Even at one! Still! It’s who you are!”
“Okay. So then what?”
“Well, I gathered all the neighborhood kids and said, ‘Busy is missing,’ and they all got on their bikes and Big Wheels and went up and down the street calling your name, and I was apoplectic! I called the police! There was no sign of you.”
“That’s crazy.”
“It was crazy! But that’s just what you were like. It’s like the time I took you shopping to Carson’s, and you know I didn’t like that mall where Carson’s was—”
(I don’t even know what Carson’s is, by the way. I’m assuming it’s some sort of department store from the early ’80s.)
“—and one second you were with me and then you were just gone and I couldn’t find you and we called mall security. My heart was racing and then this very nice saleswoman said sweetly, ‘I think I’ve found her.’ And there you were! In the middle of a rack of clothes, sitting alone, happy as can be, looking up at all the clothes around you! But I just about had a heart attack!”
“Oh. I actually think I remember looking up at the clothes. But I must have been really little.”
“You were!!”
“Wait. So my walk around the block?”
“Yes! I was also terrified because there was a construction site on the street behind us and I was afraid you had fallen in—”
(This is also fucking crazy to me. I mean, can you imagine? Like, there’s some construction site on the street behind ours and there I was, just inches away from falling into a ditch and becoming the next Baby Jessica!)
“—but just as the police van pulls up we could see you coming around the corner in your diaper. And there was a woman on a bike behind you.”
“Who was this woman?!?”
“Oh. A nice lady. Well, I guess she lived on the corner of the street you had turned down and she was on her porch having her tea and saw this little thing toddling by and thought, ‘This doesn’t look right.’ So she got her bike out and just slowly followed behind you to see where you were going and make sure you didn’t hurt yourself.”
“That’s weird. If I saw a toddler walking down the street alone in a diaper I’d probably do more than just quietly follow behind on my bike, you know?”
“She was just trying to make sure you were okay, Busy. But that’s how you’ve always been. You and Jessie from across the street used to plan out how to run away to the park on your Etch A Sketch. And you always had some sort of black eye or bruise. There was just no stopping you!”
“It’s a theme.”
“Well, it is a theme, Elizabeth.”
(Sometimes, my mom calls me Elizabeth, which is my given name. But she only uses it in order to emphasize a point. Or when I’m annoying her. Or both.)
“You just aced out in your nudes and there was no stopping you!”
I need you to take a moment to truly appreciate how insane a phrase like “aced out in your nudes” is. It never occurred to me that other people’s parents didn’t talk the way mine did. My parents one hundred percent made up weird phrases like “aced out in her nudes” and sold them to me and my older sister like they were things normal people said and generally understood. There are other misunderstandings from my childhood that I’m not sure were actually my parents’ fault. Like, until about seven years ago, I was convinced fl. oz. (as in fluid ounces) stood for “floor ounces”—which I weirdly t
hought was a unit of measurement?? I still don’t have any idea where I got that.
Anyway, I was recently telling my friend Piera the walk-around-the-block story and we decided maybe that should be the thing I get tattooed on myself, if I ever get a tattoo. “Aced out in her nudes” is totally my “Nevertheless, she persisted.”
So that’s the story, more or less. The police left. The lady on the bike rode home. My parents installed high locks on the door. And I continued getting lost or injuring myself until I figured out not to do it. But to my parents, and probably my older sister, Leigh Ann, that’s just who I was. And the story became a humorous anecdote to illustrate my personality.
Unstoppable. Headstrong. Defiant.
And I probably am all of those things. But when I look at who I was then and who I’ve become, I think it might be a little deeper.
Look, I’m a mom now and I get it. It’s fucking hard to parent two little girls. We have a full-time nanny and it’s still not easy for me. When I was a kid, my dad worked and my mom didn’t have any help. I know it was a different time; especially in a neighborhood like that, where everyone kind of looked out for each other. But when I think about two-year-old me, walking around the block in a diaper, a toddler who had been left alone long enough to “ace out in my nudes” and make it all the way around the corner before anyone noticed I was missing . . . well, it just makes me a little sad, I guess?
It’s funny that “FOMO” has become a thing people say. But my feeling left out and left alone obviously has some deep roots. It’s real and it hurts, if you’re someone who has always felt left out. Which I have. It’s a recurring theme in my life.
In my immediate family, I’ve always felt different. I’ve certainly always looked different. My mom and dad and sister all have dark hair and dark eyes, and here I showed up, this little blond-haired, blue-eyed weirdo. I remember hating when my mom would laugh and shrug and say, “I guess she must be the milkman’s baby!” But also, like most of the weird things my mom would say, she would then immediately and kind of seriously say, “No . . . actually, Busy looks just like Joe’s sister and my mother.” (And I do look exactly like them, so take that, milkman!)
This Will Only Hurt a Little Page 1
