In early spring, I was up for an NBC pilot called Foster Hall that I was really excited about. I loved it. I would be playing Macaulay Culkin’s twin sister. I always thought when I was a kid that I looked exactly like Kevin McCallister from Home Alone. Mac had done an arc on Will & Grace, and NBC seemed invested in the pilot, which was being produced by Conan O’Brien’s company. I went in for my network test and read with Mac, and afterward, the casting agents came out and asked the other actresses to leave, but said they’d like me to stay. They led me back into the office where the auditions had been, and the room erupted in applause. I had gotten the part. That was the one and only time that’s ever happened to me—to get the part in the room is rare, mostly because the executives need to talk about things and make sure everyone is on the same page. I drove home, so excited. Craig came over and we went out to dinner to celebrate.
The celebration was somewhat short-lived, however. The next day I got a call from my manager: “Biz! Everyone is so excited! We just got off the phone with NBC and I think the hope is that maybe you can lose some weight before they shoot the pilot.”
My heart sank. Of course there had been the costumer on Dawson’s who always made me feel terrible about my body. And I knew that technically I’d been cast as the overweight friend in White Chicks. But really?
“How much weight do they want me to lose?”
“I think the feeling is THEY JUST WANT YOU TO FEEL YOUR BEST.”
What a bunch of bullshit. My best feeling is when I’m not depriving my body of the food I want to eat, BUT THAT’S JUST ME!
“I need a number. Of how much to lose. And I think they should pay for a trainer.”
Mark hooked me up with trainer to the stars Gunnar Peterson, who was famous at the time for J.Lo’s booty. When I say I had never worked out before that, I really hadn’t. I’d attempted to run every once in a while, and Emily and I went to cardio boxing for like two months, but I was definitely not in the habit of working out. Gunnar was very sweet and patient with me. He sent me to a spin class in West Hollywood he thought I would like, which I did. He told me what to stay away from (no more key lime pie at CPK). I started a diet meal–delivery service. I didn’t think the weight was coming off very fast, probably because my body was like, “FUCK YOU! I’M FINE!” I only had about four weeks, and in the end I think I dropped like ten to twelve pounds. It felt all-consuming, though. The taping of the pilot was super fun. I felt as skinny as I could, and one of the writers bought me an entire CPK key lime pie for after the shoot. When the show didn’t get picked up, I was so bummed, but I also knew that White Chicks would be coming out soon and hopefully be a huge hit.
In June, we were almost finished with the script for our movie. Jeff had titled it Blades of Glory, which we all agreed was a fucking genius title. I had to do press for White Chicks, which was coming out right before my birthday, and I was having a hard time meeting up with the boys to write. Plus, they lived together, so it was easy for them to do it when I wasn’t around.
I bought Craig a suit for the White Chicks premiere. We went to Brooks Brothers and got him a blue-and-white seersucker with a pink shirt underneath. I bought myself a dress from a fancy store on Montana Avenue in Brentwood, which I loved, but ultimately, my hair and makeup were done in a way that I hated, and I ended up not loving my look. The movie was destroyed by critics, and more than that, it wasn’t a hit. DodgeBall had come out the week before and people were freaking out about it. White Chicks felt like a flop, and worse, an embarrassing flop.
But my twenty-fifth birthday—MY GOLDEN BIRTHDAY—was coming up. Twenty-five on the twenty-fifth!! I was so excited and wanted help planning it. Craig wasn’t sure he had enough time, so in the end, Emily and I found a restaurant near our house and planned a big dinner with a Moroccan theme.
At this point, Craig and I were almost always in some sort of argument about something. That night, he forgot to take off work, so he and Jeff were late. He also didn’t get me a present. Or a card. And also, he didn’t seem to like me that much anymore. We broke up the next day.
As for the movie script, Jeff suggested that maybe they just take it and finish it, and send me the draft when it was done so I could give notes. Also, Jeff had another idea, a parody of chick flicks, and he and Craig thought maybe Jennifer Carpenter and I could write that together?? That was a fair trade, right?? My ice-skating idea and all the work I’d done on it in exchange for an idea that there should be a movie parodying chick flicks. Totally fair.
I was heartbroken. Also, I was in denial. In spite of everything, I didn’t think this could be the end for me and Craig. This had been going on since we were seventeen. We loved each other. And we were still talking a bunch. Maybe this was just a break.
They sent me the Blades of Glory script in August, when it was finished. I gave some notes, but I thought it was in really good shape. I sent it to my manager, Mark, and my agent, Lorrie, both of whom thought it was okay, but not worth taking out without more work. The brothers gave it to some of our friends from high school, and also my friends from college. A guy whom I’d gone to college with was now a junior manager at an agency repping comedy writers and was apparently into the script, which was great. I was happy that someone would take it out for us.
In the fall, Lorrie and I thought maybe I should audition for some Broadway musical workshops. I’d always loved to sing, and maybe that would be my next act! I flew to New York to do some auditions and stayed with Rachel Davidson from elementary school and her boyfriend Lewis on their pullout couch. I was there only a few days, but by the time I got in the cab for the airport, I was getting sick; I could feel it. I got to the airport and grabbed a salad from a kiosk. My phone rang from an L.A. number I didn’t recognize. I picked up.
“Busy! It’s Dan!” Dan was the guy I knew from college, the junior manager now handling Blades of Glory.
“So LISTEN, SUCH great news for the boys!!! The script is going out tomorrow to a few select places with Red Hour, and I have to tell you, I think it’s gonna be SUCH A QUICK SALE for them! And I know we’re all on the same page here, because we don’t want there to be any issues with this and you know, it is SUCH A BETTER STORY WITH JUST THE BOYS, right? Like BROTHERS who wrote this kick-ass script out of nowhere?! SO, OBVIOUSLY, you understand why we’re taking your name off the script, right? We all just want what’s best for the boys, RIGHT?”
I could feel my face start to burn. “Dan? What the fuck are you talking about??”
My other line rang, it was Lorrie Bartlett.
“Dan. I’m gonna go.”
I started shaking.
“Lorrie?! What the fuck is happening right now?”
“Busy, I am so FUCKING MAD right now. I don’t even know WHAT to say. I am SO SORRY. We’ll SUE them. That little fucker. They took your name off the script, Busy. It’s out and your name isn’t on it.”
“Lorrie,” I said, taking a deep breath, “I have to go. I have to call them. This is a mistake, because they wouldn’t do that to me.”
I called Craig and he picked up, defensive from his first hello. I could hear Jeff in the background, whispering things to Craig as we talked. I started crying immediately.
“I . . . don’t understand. Why are you doing this? I thought—”
“Busy. Don’t be so fucking selfish all the time. This isn’t about you. You didn’t really have anything to do with this. We did all the work—”
“Craig. That’s not true. That’s not true—”
“You stole Jeff’s idea for a TV show. And we gave you the chick flick idea—”
“What? That’s not even an idea! What are you talking about??”
“Busy. It’s done. I’m sorry you have a problem with this, but you didn’t even really come up with the idea, I did and—”
I tried not to scream at the top of my lungs in the food court at JFK airport.
“WHAT ARE YOU SAYING? WHAT IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW? I HAVE TO GO I HAVE TO GO!”
&n
bsp; “YOU’RE SUCH A FUCKING DRAMA QUEEN, BUSY.”
I hung up the phone and called Emily.
“Please tell me, Emily. Please. Tell me. Am I crazy? I think I’m crazy. They say I’m crazy. Did I make this up? Did I do this? What the fuck??”
I was sobbing hysterically, barely even able to get out the story of what had happened. I was digging through a disgusting salad and sobbing into it and calling my best friend to reassure me that I wasn’t a crazy selfish bitch, as these boys, who I had loved since I was a teen, were now telling me that I was.
Emily tried to calm me down. “Listen to me. You’re not crazy. I don’t know why they’re doing this to you, but it’s not fair. You have to calm down. Get on the plane. Come home.”
Suddenly, I screamed. People looked at me. There was a dead bee in my salad. A GIANT DEAD FUCKING BUMBLEBEE.
“I CAN’T,” I sobbed into the phone.
“Pup,” she said, using her nickname for me, “go see if there are any seats in first class and pay for it. Calm down. Get on the plane. Come home.”
I threw the bee salad in the trash and called Lorrie Bartlett back. I told her not to do anything. I didn’t care. They could have it. There were no seats in first or business, so I sat in my middle seat in coach, crying the entire flight, trying to figure out what I had done that was so egregious to Craig and Jeff that they wanted to make me feel like I was insane and selfish. I just wanted to love them. I just wanted Craig to love me back. I didn’t know what I had done wrong.
When I landed, I called their home and got the machine, so I tried Jeff’s cell phone, which he handed over to Craig. They were all at St. Nick’s celebrating the impending sale of our movie. I mean, of their movie. Again, Craig reiterated that I was the selfish one who didn’t have much if anything to do with this script. They had done all the work. Anything I thought I had contributed was so small it was hardly worth mentioning. How could I stand in the way of their success? Did I really need the attention that badly? I hung up and screamed as I drove down La Brea toward my house.
My agent and manager called the next day. They wanted to know what I wanted to do.
“Nothing. They can have it. It’s theirs.”
I had a hard time recovering. It wasn’t the script. It was that I’d been so easily thrown out, like trash. I was in the way of their success, I guess? Collateral damage. And in order for them to do this insanely shitty thing to me, they vilified me and told me I was crazy. The story became that I was the one who had tried to STEAL ideas from them, that I was ALWAYS just looking out for myself. THEY had come up with this AMAZING STORY, and I was the less-than-talented girlfriend trying to glom on to their talent and carve out a piece for myself. A piece that I didn’t deserve. I had a hard time figuring out what was real.
A few weeks later, the deal for the script was about wrapped up when my manager got a call from their shitty fucking douchebag manager saying, “The boys want to do the right thing and put her name back on the script.”
Mark asked me what I wanted to do. I said whatever. I’ll take whatever credit and whatever money. I don’t care. And I didn’t. I was too heartbroken. Plus, I didn’t think “the boys” wanted to do the right thing. I think they felt the exact same way, but that somehow business affairs or some lawyer needed to cover their ass since I had registered the idea with the WGA to begin with. There was obviously some sort of trail that I was involved in, and no one wanted to get sued. I called Craig to thank them. I still wanted to get back together, something that seemed as insane as I currently felt. I know it’s hard to understand. Looking back, it’s so wild that I continued to hang on to my relationship with Craig when he clearly thought so little of me. But I didn’t see that. I was still in love with him and convinced that we would find a way to work it out.
For a while after that, Emily would come home from work and find me on the floor of our kitchen, halfway through making dinner when I would just give up and lie down and sob. I started getting a weird stress-induced aphasia where I would replace words with other words so what I was saying would be nonsensical. For instance, “You wanna take the stairs or the elephant?”
I lost my voice for over a month and had to go to a speech therapist that my ENT Dr. Sugerman sent me to. My auditions for movies were terrible. I had zero confidence. Why would anyone want to put me in anything? I had an audition for Walk the Line, the part that Ginny Goodwin ended up playing, which was truly one of the worst, most embarrassing auditions I’ve ever had in my life. If I ever get to speak to James Mangold, I will have to apologize for the atrocity of my performance. By the way, no joke, Ginny went in right after me, and not that she wasn’t born to play that part, but I am certain that my disaster right before made their choice even easier.
I dyed my hair dark red, thinking that if I looked different, maybe I would start to feel different. I went out as much as I could and drank as much as I could. I ran into one of Craig’s best friends from college at a party and made out with him in the bathroom, then fell into the street when I was leaving and cut my hand so badly, I still have a scar on my finger. I went on a yoga retreat in Hawaii where I didn’t shower for a week and got a heat rash on over ninety percent of my body. I started taking a memoir-writing class where I met a sweet med student who I tried to pretend I was deeply in love with for a month, fucking him up for a while after, I’m sure. Especially when I dumped him out of nowhere.
I got cast in the Broadway workshop for Cry-Baby and went to New York for two and a half weeks at the end of January. Craig and I were occasionally talking on the phone, and I felt like maybe we could still be together. I tried to have sex with one of the actors in the workshop, but it ended up just being awkward bad sex in the freezing basement studio apartment he lived in. Craig called and said he was thinking maybe he would fly to New York to see the performance, but then he didn’t.
“I would have liked that,” I said.
Back in L.A., I met him at a bar called Star Shoes for a drink to catch up. I thought that this was when we would get back together. I don’t know why I thought that. I had made it up, I guess. We sat across from each other—I was already three vodka sodas in when he showed up—and I put my hand on his leg and told him that we could work through whatever it was and that I was ready to give it another try. I knew I could be better and more supportive. I would be. He cocked his head to one side and put his hands up, as if to say “Don’t shoot.” And then he said, “Busy. No. That’s not happening. Like EVER.”
• • •
I don’t remember getting outside—I barely remember getting a taxi. I do remember asking the driver through my sobs if I could smoke in the back seat. How many sad girls in Hollywood did that cabbie let smoke in the back of his cab, I wonder? It’s so basic, really. It’s barely special. It’s the same for everyone. And yet, it feels unique when it’s you. And you can’t imagine anyone has ever experienced what you’re feeling.
The premiere of Blades of Glory was two and half years later. I was on ER at the time and, humiliatingly, had actually gone in and auditioned for the part we had imagined I would play in the movie when we were working on it. I auditioned for and didn’t get the part I had written for myself.
Needless to say, I didn’t want to go to the premiere. Why would I want to subject myself to that? I’d heard that one of the producers had been saying I was basically a jilted ex-girlfriend who forced my way onto the script for the credit. I should have pointed out, I was the only one who had a fucking IMDB page before this movie. I wasn’t the one who NEEDED THE CREDIT, dude.
Anyway, my new boyfriend Marc, a successful screenwriter in his own right, basically forced me to go. “You don’t know what it’s like for writers, Busy. No one is going to care who the fuck those guys are. People are going to see your name and freak out. Trust me.” I did trust him. I’ve never been more nervous on a red carpet. I hate the pictures of myself from that night, only because I can see how tense I am in all of them; I basically have no neck, my should
ers are hunched so far up. But I made it through the movie and even enjoyed parts of it. One of the biggest laughs was something I know I came up with, which also felt great (not that you should be in the habit of keeping score of whose ideas are whose but come on—they started it).
At the after-party, Amy Poehler grabbed me. “Girl,” she said, “Seth Meyers told me the story of what those dudes did. FUCK ’EM! You rock and are so talented. Come here! Sit at our table!!” The rest of the night was insanely fun, hanging with Amy and her friends and the cast of The Office, who had come to support Jenna Fischer, and all of them were so impressed that I was one of the writers of the movie. At some point, I turned to Marc and said, “Should we go find those guys and just, I don’t know, say hi?” So we left our star-studded table and found Craig and Jeff at their own table in the back, lit by one heat lamp, with their dad taking pictures of them. We said hi and I congratulated them, and then Marc and I headed back to where the real party was.
YOUR EX-LOVER IS DEAD
(Stars)
“Busybee! I was just going to call you! I have news, too. Guess what?”
This Will Only Hurt a Little Page 17
