I Don't Know What You Know Me From: Confessions of a Co-Star

by Judy Greer

  No, my career hasn’t taken me to London, Paris, or South Africa yet. Yes, I will probably purchase my next meal at a gas station while wearing pajamas under my winter coat. But all this traveling and killing time on my days off has taught me to really appreciate what I have back home. Being homesick is good—it means I am happy in my real life. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy taking off for a while, making new friends, exploring a new place, but by the end I think Dorothy got it right: there is no place like home, except maybe Hawaii.

  Ashton Kutcher Gave My Dad a Harley

  NO, REALLY, HE DID. I’M NOT MAKING THIS UP. IT’S not just a clever title disguising a story about something else. It happened. Ashton Kutcher gave my dad a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. I’m not totally sure why he did it, and even though I could ask him since I still work with him sometimes, he makes me nervous because he’s so cute and I’m afraid I’ll say something that offends him and he’ll want that motorcycle back.

  Here’s how it happened. I was doing a TV pilot called Miss Guided. It was a half-hour comedy in which I played a high school guidance counselor working in the high school I attended. My character is in love with the Spanish teacher, and in the pilot episode my high school nemesis returns after a nasty divorce to teach history. Maybe it was English, I forget which, but she’s superhot and threatens my budding relationship with Tim, the Spanish teacher. It made it to series for seven episodes on ABC a few years ago, premiering at 11:30 p.m. after an episode of Dancing with the Stars, which is historically the best time slot to showcase a new comedy (not). In addition to ABC and 20th Century Fox, Katalyst Films produced the show. Enter Ashton Kutcher—Katalyst Films is his production company. We shot the pilot at Long Beach Polytechnic (graduates include Snoop Dogg and Cameron Diaz and many, many NFL players). We were shooting the school dance scene where I hide in the bushes and one of the students asks me if he can touch my boobs (I said no). It was late at night, and while we were waiting for the crew to finish setting up the next shot, I found myself standing next to Ashton. He asked me what I would do if ABC decided to put our show on the air. The first answer that came to mind and out of my mouth was, “I would buy my dad a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. He really wants one.” Ashton looked at me and said, “If this show gets picked up, I’m going to buy your dad a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.” I can’t remember anything after that except Ashton staring at me and smiling.

  Months and months passed with no word from ABC about the fate of our pilot, but finally it was May, the time of year when the major networks announce their fall and mid-season schedules, and Miss Guided was on it!! It was going to air after the holidays (mid-season) when one of their new shows failed, got canceled, and left an open time slot. That made me feel a little bad, rooting for a new show to fail, but I managed. During this time, when the networks announce their new acquisitions, they fly some of the actors, writers, and producers to New York City for a big party with advertisers called the upfronts. I call it a “dance, monkey, dance party” because it’s the one time a year that the advertisers can walk around and meet all of us actors, and we are supposed to charm them so they want to pay the network to play their commercials during our TV shows. They can talk to us, have their photos taken with us, and ask for autographs, since they are technically paying our salaries. I mean it is the advertisers who pay the network for the time to air their commercials, and the network then pays us money to act in shows that fill the space between commercials. Sometimes I wonder if television shows are really just vehicles for companies to air their commercials so they can tell you what to buy, where to eat, where to donate your money, and every four years who to vote for. It’s very exciting, and I was thrilled to finally be a part of it.

  I started out the evening nervous about people talking to me because I get really shy at work events, but an hour and some cocktails in I was practically reaching out and grabbing people as they walked by, daring them to get a photo with me. I thought everyone would want to meet me and talk to me about my new show. That they would be doing research to find out where their ads would be best placed and would therefore want to find the best fit for their product. Yeah … no. I was reaching just a little. No one wanted to talk to me, and no one cared about my show. Everyone was too busy waiting in line to get some Desperate Housewives action. The line for getting your photo taken with the housewives or anyone from the cast of Ugly Betty was wrapping around the room. I think the Grey’s Anatomy folks didn’t even show up because it would have required extra security. Yeah, while VPs from Trident and Stouffer’s waited for their turn to get a Polaroid with Eva Longoria, I stood under the Miss Guided poster, smiled, and waited. Sometimes the end of a line would snake around near my corner, and someone would grab a quick snapshot with me, just in case I turned out to be somebody after my first season aired, but mostly people would just smile encouragingly in my direction.

  Just then, when I least expected anything good to come of the evening, is when it happened. Ashton’s assistant walked up to me, handed me a white envelope with my name on it, and said, “This is from Ashton.” I opened it immediately. It was a card that said something about dreams coming true on the front, blah blah blah, but inside the card was a photo of a Harley, and on the photo it said, “Call this number to arrange pickup.”

  WHAT. THE. FUCK.

  I was speechless. Like, totally speechless. I still am kind of. Wait, pick up what? That motorcycle? The next twenty minutes are a bit of a blur, I might have blacked out for a minute, my brain was spinning out of control. I had to find Ashton right away, but the party tent was so huge, and crowded, it felt like it took up a whole New York City block. Where was he?! I left my post and started frantically searching for him, I knew he’d be surrounded by people, so I tried to pay attention to clusters as opposed to lines of people. When I found him, I remember getting so overwhelmed with nerves and questions. Why did he do this? How do I thank him for this? What do I tell people? Is it a secret, or can I stand on top of the bar and make a grand announcement? I was sure if I smashed a bottle of Absolut, I could get everyone to shut up for fifteen seconds and pay attention to me. I had scattered just-got-motorcycle-for-dad brain, but I remember finding him standing with people and me waiting a few seconds to get his attention, him noticing me standing there holding the card, him smiling, me stammering, my mouth moving and sounds coming out, and tears. I wanted to pull him aside, away from everyone he was entertaining, and say, “Thank you, but why? Why this? Why me? How can I ever repay this? I don’t deserve this, my dad does, but I don’t. How do I make it so I deserve this?” But I didn’t get the chance. And I didn’t necessarily get the sense that Ashton Kutcher wanted to have a heart-to-heart with me about it in front of all those people he was talking to. And I was afraid I would embarrass him because I could barely hold back tears. I am not used to random acts of kindness. Occasionally, people will let me cut in line at the market if I only have one or two items and they have a cart full, but this, this was a whole different ball game. And Ashton is a celebrity! And he barely even knew me. How did he know I would appreciate it? Does he do this all the time? I was so confused by his generosity.

  Needless to say, my father was in total shock when it was delivered to his house in Ohio. I arranged it with my mom so it would be a surprise. I wasn’t there when it was delivered, because I was shooting 27 Dresses in Rhode Island. But much like me, he was blown away. My dad rides that motorcycle starting the first nice day in the spring and waits until the last possible moment in winter to put it away. He is obsessed.

  Oddly, I also think it’s helped my parents’ marriage. Before the Harley, my parents would argue most about the boat they owned. My father insisted on buying one, which, as my mom predicted, sat in the garage all year, save for one day in the summer when my family would get their shit together enough to pull it out, hook it up to the back of my dad’s truck, drag it to some nearby lake, spend twenty-five minutes backing it in at the boat launch, try to start it for about forty-
five minutes, and, when it wouldn’t, pull it out again and drive home. These excursions were stressful, but I usually got some kind of awesome ice cream sundae out of them, and the lake was pretty to look at, even if we seldom made it in. But after the Harley showed up, my dad sold the boat. The Harley lives in the garage where the boat used to, and it starts every time he turns the key. He can drive it right down the driveway and on the road to start his adventure. So, in a roundabout way, Ashton also kind of saved my parents’ marriage. That might be a little hyperbolic, but he did help end a thirty-plus-year argument. Maybe next Ashton could help my dad get the taxes turned in on time.

  For years I saved all the fortunes from all the fortune cookies I got at restaurants and from takeout. I had loads of them. One day I sat down and sorted through them all and took out the good ones. I taped them to a piece of paper and sent them to Ashton Kutcher. I wanted him to have all the good fortune I felt the universe had planned for me, because I already had all I could handle. Sometimes, for no reason at all, someone does something unbelievable, unselfish, and generous. I really hope he reads this because I still feel like I’ve never properly thanked him for his kindness, so if you’re reading this, I’d just like to say … Thank you, Fairy God–Ashton, you made the sweetest man out there and his undeserving daughter so very, very happy.

  Intolerance

  YOU KNOW HOW CELEBRITIES HAVE THEIR OWN PERFUMES these days? Well, I don’t know if I’m a real celebrity, but I, Judy Greer, want my own perfume. I have the scent picked out and everything. There was an oil that the Body Shop discontinued years ago called Mostly Musk. My friend Sarah turned me on to it, and when my first bottle was just about gone, I went to buy a second, only to find out that the company no longer made it. I had heard that a friend of a friend once called the Bonne Bell 800 number in an attempt to buy whatever was left of her favorite discontinued grape-flavored lip balm, and they sold her the last case of it from their warehouse, and just like that, she became a grape lip-balm millionaire. I appealed to the salesgirl at the Body Shop, asking for headquarters contact information, but she was of no help, staring blankly at me and muttering, “I don’t … know …” Clearly this girl was not working there while putting herself through med school, and I was never able to track down a leftover case of Mostly Musk oil. Although the fantasy of re-creating that scent is appealing, it isn’t really why I want my own fragrance. The point is the name … and to follow through with an idea, which admittedly isn’t usually my strong suit.

  I came up with the name in New York City a few years ago. I was doing a play and had lost my voice, so I was taking steroids. Seriously. I wasn’t on them to bulk up, I swear. Anyway, the theater sent me to a fancy doctor on the Upper East Side. There were photos of Pavarotti on all of the walls, so either she was a really big fan or she was his personal throat doctor. Judging by the bill I received, which cost more than my paycheck for the entire run of the play, I gather she was the latter. So, Pavarotti’s doctor gave me a giant shot of steroids in the ass, and by the time I got back to work after my appointment, I was speaking easily again. For the next week, I had to take these pills that were meant to wean me off the high-dosage shot. By the way, if you ever see me stomping down the sidewalks of N.Y.C. wearing nothing but a tank top and jean shorts in the middle of January, screaming at people for texting while walking, you’ll know this: I am in a play and I have lost my voice, and it’s not a good time to ask what you know me from.

  So, in my juiced-up frenzy that week, a lady cut in front of me in line at Starbucks. I was on a ten-minute break from rehearsals, and I needed that coffee, and this bitch was not going to fuck it up for me (no, I am not currently taking the steroids). I was going to therapy that winter, and there is only one thing I can remember from all of those costly sessions: when my therapist asked, “Judy, why are you so intolerant?” She said I seemed absolutely incapable of saying “whatever” or “who cares” about most people I met and most situations I found myself in. This was before Curb Your Enthusiasm, which set a different tone culturally. Now it’s almost preferred to be obsessed with forcing people to live by one’s own moral code. My therapist was, and is, right, but I left her before I was able to figure out how to say the words she wanted me to say, in the order she wanted me to say them.

  So, this was the birth of Intolerance. And I am officially announcing it in this book: my perfume will be called “Intolerance, for the woman who just can’t take it anymore.” It’s inspired by bad drivers, people who don’t use their left-hand turn signal, people who don’t use their right-hand turn signal, tardy friends, line cutters, slow (or worse, chatty) checkout clerks, music playing while on hold, faulty DVRs, airplane seat kickers, airplane seat headrest grabbers, loud cell-phone talkers, text-and-walkers, people who don’t silence their phone in the theater, and L.A. traffic. Intolerance is also inspired by my own shortcomings. By my hatred for, and inability to do, my own hair, by the famous people who have landed the roles I have auditioned and was right for, by my lack of self-discipline, by the rate at which my nails grow versus the amount of time I can carve out for manicures, by my inability to have just one slice of pizza. And, of course, no rant is any good without some hatred allotted for big-picture problems: the state of our environment; the hungry people in our own country, and all over the world; the rich people getting richer, and the poor people staying just as poor; people who are cruel to animals; bullies; and a good education costing so much money, to name just a few.

  I have been intolerant for years, but the idea for a perfume about it started with some prednisone and a bitch in Starbucks. So when it’s the holidays and you buy a prepackaged gift set of accompanying bath gel and body butter hopefully smelling like Mostly Musk from the Body Shop, remember that sometimes being intolerant can be a good thing, it can bring about change. Spray some on your wrist and, to quote one of my favorite movies, get mad as hell, and don’t take it anymore! I’m selling the idea that we might not have to take it anymore. We can try, spritz by spritz, to be the change we want to see happen. I’m not just selling a perfume, I’m selling a movement, but don’t worry, this movement will smell delicious.

  The Tortoise and the Hare

  SLOW AND STEADY WINS THE RACE. THAT’S HOW I’VE always thought of my career, like the fable “The Tortoise and the Hare.” When I started out, I was one of hundreds of girls starting their acting careers. Some girls saw a lot of success right away, and some (me) got smaller roles but a steady amount of them. At first I found myself being jealous of girls who were cast in great roles, even though it seemed all they did was look perfect. I wondered how I could ever compete. I thought there was something I was missing—maybe it was my look, maybe it was my acting, I didn’t know, but at the time I felt I was missing something. Now, fifteen years later, I see it differently. No, I have yet to become a movie or TV star, but I have never stopped working. I have worked steadily this whole time, and I’m busier than ever. I don’t even know what a lot of those other girls are up to. I don’t know if they are working, if they’ve given up, or maybe they grew up with a trust fund and didn’t really need to work that hard in the first place (I’ve always fantasized about a trust fund). Now, I am in no way saying that I am a better actress than any of them, or a better person, and I am for sure not better looking, but for whatever reason I am still working. I’m working harder than ever, and I am still excited about becoming a better actress, working with great people, and challenging myself. I make a good living, I didn’t spend all my money when I first made it, I wanted to but didn’t—I have been (mostly) careful. I have saved. I have been cheap. I have also tried to be nice to people, listen to advice, and not take anything for granted. It will always be hard to watch actresses play roles that I auditioned for and really wanted, I still get jealous and, if I’ve had too many glasses of wine, bitter. I get momentarily jealous (OK, maybe it lasts a wee bit longer than a moment) when I see people come out of nowhere and become sensations, as if they were shot through a cann
on. Did I miss an announcement saying where to line up for the cannon shooting? I still audition. I still write letters to directors asking them to please cast me. I wonder if I will ever get tired of trying to convince people that I can do it, and stop trying so hard.

  Most of the time I am happy with where I am. I am grateful every day about something, and I am excited about all the things that I get to do because I don’t have to worry that much about what it will do for my career, because my career is a little bit of everything. I’m diversified. I don’t have to worry about maintaining some status or level of fame, because what I do has been so varied. Not being a movie star has been the greatest freedom, it turns out. Sir Isaac Newton said, “An object in motion stays in motion,” and I remember learning in acting school that “work begets work,” so I have always just tried to stay in motion and keep working.

  I used to think about where I wanted my career to go. I made specific goals for myself and tried to achieve them. But I don’t know about goals as much anymore. I am finding more and more that I feel better when I let things come to me. I don’t get as down when I don’t get what I want. That’s not to say that I don’t try to push myself—I’m pretty driven and competitive—but I have learned that for me it’s a marathon, not a sprint. I have always been a late bloomer. I don’t have a clear picture of where I see myself in ten years, five, even one year. Alive, I hope, but that’s about it. I really love people. I love being on a set. I love solving problems. As an actor, you don’t get to solve a lot of problems; you’re not asked to that often. You don’t have much control over anything. You are told what to do, and you do it. You’re often asked what feels right, and sometimes you get manipulated into thinking that a decision was yours, but at the end of the day (directors say that a lot) it’s not ultimately up to you, at least that’s been my experience so far. So, in the future, it might be fun to have more control. I produced a TV pilot, and it was awesome. It was network television, so I really only had the illusion of control, but I liked the feeling of the illusion. It was fun to be asked what I thought, and it was fun to problem solve.