With all that has happened in the last month – and it’s been one for the books and I’ve been very very NERVOUS (I hate when I get that way: it’s part of the winter months!) – I have also had to take the time to get my new apartment in some kind of order, just so I have a calm space to work, with my familiar things around me. The most important thing is getting my vast library in order. Once the shelves were built, I took the time to figure out where everything should go. This is the first Elvis shelf. There are two more, with all of his movies, and box sets, and special-edition CDs. I’m so connected to my books that I look at this and it acts practically like an instant-Valium.
The new web series Bitter Homes and Gardens – premiering on March 24th – written by Fielding Edlow (who also stars) – follows the sometimes-toxic and always-hilarious bickering of a Hollywood couple (Edlow and Larry Clarke) struggling to get their acting/writing careers going. She is a “snack blogger”, who says she wants to “vlog”, too. She writes scripts on spec, but can’t seem to get anything going, despite her nonstop agitated hustle. He is an actor whose career thus far has featured roles like “morgue attendant” and “cop on the left” etc., but he has the inflated ego of an A-Lister serious actor. In any “show biz” circles, you meet people like this. But it takes a writer like Fielding Edlow to turn it into something hilarious and compulsively watchable.
Fielding Edlow, creator and star of Bitter Homes and Gardens, has a busy career as a playwright, actress, and standup comedian. She hosts a monthly comedy show at Hollywood Improv called “Eat Pray F*ck” (the name makes me laugh every time it comes across my news feed). An award-winning writer, her wit is sharp to the point that it hurts – you can’t believe some of the things her characters say to one another – but she balances that sharpness with a humanist ability to laugh at – and have affection for – the absurdity of human behavior. Her dialogue is unstoppable.
Larry Clarke is a busy actor, who has appeared on The Mentalist, Grey’s Anatomy, Law & Order, Shameless, The Bridge, and more. He is also a member of the cast of the new Twin Peaks, premiering in May. He’s worked quite a bit with Steven Soderbergh, appearing in The Informant, as well as appearing as Kate Winslet’s Hazmat-suited partner in disease-control in Contagion. I saw Larry in the Broadway revival of David Rabe’s Streamers at the Roundabout and it was such a memorable evening. Larry played a character who had no idea how tragic he was, how lost, and it was heartbreaking. He’s a wonderful actor.
Fielding and Larry are married in real-life, and have a daughter. Full disclosure: I have known the two of them for years, and have long admired both of their work!
Executive-produced by Jim Leonard (who produced Dexter, The Closer, Major Crimes), with Dave Rock directing, Bitter Homes and Gardens started with one episode titled “DVR,” which premiered at the Palm Springs Festival and won “Best Comedy” at the New York Short Film Festival. Bitter Homes and Gardens launches its first season (8 episodes, all directed by Rock) on March 24th and has already received raves, as well as a clamoring online audience wanting to know what happens next with this unpleasant – and yet totally relatable – couple.
Larry Clarke & Fielding Edlow
I was so happy to speak with Larry and Fielding over the phone recently about Bitter Homes and Gardens.
Sheila O’Malley:I wanted to hear about the idea for the first episode “DVR” and how you developed it from there.
Fielding Edlow: I’ll take that one. Because “Hashtag Lean in”. We had a friend who was helping Temple Israel put together an evening and the theme was Forgiveness. So Larry was like “Just write one of our typical fights and how we get over it.” So I wrote about our fights about the DVR. And we got to the Temple and we were doing a quote unquote run-through, and we heard other scenes where people were talking about the IRA and re-uniting with the family who housed them during the Holocaust, and stealing your grandmother’s morphine… I said to Larry, “We gotta get out of here.” But to our delight, it couldn’t have gone better! Our scene went up in the middle of this gut-wrenching night, where people were like, “My grandmother’s writhing in pain and I’m high as a kite!” The head rabbi came up to us afterwards and said, “I relate to that! I read my sermons to my wife and she gives me notes and it’s so annoying.” So I thought, Wow, okay so this is relatable.
I brought it to my writer’s group and they were unanimous that we should keep going. My group is littered with show-runners and producers and a couple of them said, “We want to produce you, we want to give you money, and we want to make this a web series.”
Larry Clarke: Jim Leonard, our producer, is the guy who really set this whole thing up. Jim said, “Listen – we want to empower writers without having executive producers over their shoulders trying to take away the funny.” Jim really believes in Fielding’s voice. He said, “We want to keep your voice as pure as possible.” They didn’t spend that much money, so no one was having a heart attack. Those writers’ rooms and executive producers can destroy humor. When you have too many people in the room with comedy, it starts to go away.
SOM:Fielding, how many drafts do you go through? Do you run through it and riff by yourselves and tape it? What’s the process?
FE: A huge part of my process as a writer is hearing it out loud. So I’ll write a rough draft and then I’ll bring it into a group and hear it out loud or Larry and I will read it to each other and immediately I can hear which jokes don’t work – I can hear where it’s singing, where I’m overwriting.
LC: Developing it was something that was a process, even when we got into the physical space and we were about to start shooting. We had a lot of ideas and right before we shot stuff, we were like, “What am I DOING in this scene?” And that would be the last thing we would add, that’s how we found a lot of that spark, where the magic is. Me arranging pillows on the couch, her re-arranging what I did. Whatever. It has to be smart and structured to begin with, and when we start filming we let it all go. We got into a rhythm where it was intense but funny. It was intense on set, don’t you think, Fielding? It was a driven set. We didn’t have a lot of time.
SOM:How long does each episode take?
FE: It’s about a couple of hours for each episode. The goal was two a day. And sometimes we wouldn’t get to it. For me, the whole thing was having alacrity – speed – with the dialogue. There’s a lot of words and it’s got to be quick, you’ve got to be a little bit ahead of the audience.
SOM:Can you talk a little bit about developing the season-wide Arc?
FE: I started as a playwright but I know TV and webisodes, and I thought: What do we leave people with? What are we working towards? It seemed a little cliched to me to end with me being pregnant but I feel like if we kept our voices and do it in our acerbic vituperative way … For example, I, in my real life, was completely obsessed with my gynecologist when I was pregnant. I’d wear my wedding shoes to appointments. I got on her Instagram. When I actually had the baby I didn’t even care about the baby I just wanted her to think I was pushing well. So we’re looking towards Season 2 thinking we might add the gynecologist, and I thought, I can make this exciting for myself.
And certainly, I pitch ideas to the executive producer. It’s never just me, it’s about collaborating, it’s our project. Our director, Dave Rock, is also an amazing editor, and editing is so important for comedy. He cut this trailer and it’s a mini-masterpiece. We feel so fortunate. We all have very different energies. He’s not effusive, which makes you work really hard. He is a brilliant director who controls our energies perfectly. And probably needs a spot of therapy after every shoot with us.
Left to right: Producer Jim Leonard, line producer Ryan Willis, director Dave Rock, Writer/actress Fielding Edlow, actor Larry Clarke, DP Nico Navia
SOM:This relationship is how married couples appear to me, as a total outsider to that whole scene.
FE: There are those couples who never fight. Or who won’t fart in front of each other.
SOM:That’s just not sustainable.
FE: Married couples spend a lot of time on the couch. Larry and I got really into Breaking Bad, for example. When the show ended, I felt like, “Well, what’s the point of staying together? All we had was Breaking Bad. If I can’t watch whatshername sell meth overseas, then what’s the point anymore?”
SOM:I love the moments of sentiment you found between the characters. It felt genuine and yet you still feel like, “Who else would be with these people?”
FE: That’s a very perspicacious comment.
SOM:Wow.
FE: It’s a very good word, right? No, but literally Larry will look at me about once a week and say, “Just so you know, nobody else would put up with you.” And he means it. And he’s right. That was a note we’ve consistently gotten all the way through, though: Where’s the love? We’ve got to have the vulnerable moments. It’s so important.
SOM:I’m still laughing about that random line: “The Bolsheviks … NAFTA…”
LC: We used to say to each other, “We don’t talk about current events enough.” At one point we challenged ourselves to read the whole NY Times first section and then have a talk about it. Which we did. “Hey, on page 7, there’s something happening in Libya with the ambassador.” Trying to talk about things that aren’t just gossip or our careers. And it’s hard to do in this world.
SOM:I can distinguish between you two in real life and the characters, by the way.
LC: I’m not quite that selfish in real life.
SOM:I know, but it’s this exaggerated quality of something that feels very true. Like, when your character said you’re doing Equus with a “Malibu collective,” I want to cry. Saying it’s a “collective” doesn’t make it better, Larry. It’s interesting to see a couple who are both struggling with what kind of career they will have. If they will have ANY kind of career.
LC: The characters are too self-involved to do well. They are the ultimate Hollywood self-obsessives. They’re a little lost. And of course that’s how it can be in Los Angeles. There’s a tragic element to it. But it’s so much fun to play. I remember when I first met Jeffrey Tambor – he became my great teacher and friend – and I asked him “How did you get to Hank [in the Larry Sanders Show] as an actor? How did you DO that?” It’s a flawless characterization and it’s funny on so many levels. Jeffrey has taught me a lot about comedy and acting – and he said, “Before every take on the Larry Sanders Show, I said to myself ‘He is the loneliest man in the world.'” I think there’s something to that. Those sad clown characters I’ve always gravitated to. I think there’s a lot of that in Larry in Bitter Homes and also in Fielding’s character. If something doesn’t happen for them, it’s the end of the world. There’s nothing to hang onto – and YET. We can go to CVS and it will save our marriage.
SOM:It’s strangely sweet.
LC: Jim Leonard felt: Here’s a cool young writer who has a unique voice we haven’t heard before. He was intrigued by it. He was intrigued by Fielding’s style of comedy and her ability to write dialogue that is sarcastic and poetic at the same time. He really wanted to create something where her voice could be heard without censors. They gave us so much freedom. That freedom was so important.
A documentary from a Swedish filmmaker about the Harlem underground ballroom scene. It’s really a film of LGBTQ activism, as represented by what the various ballroom “houses” provide for their community, mainly queer/trans kids of color who have nowhere else to go. It is this scene from which “Voguing” emerged back in the day, when Madonna picked up on it, hired a bunch of kids FROM that scene, and brought it to the mainstream.
Silence (2016; d. Martin Scorsese)
I was completely flattened by this gorgeous and overwhelming movie. Most of the Oscar winners pale in comparison to what was going on in this film, directed by an absolute master. Passionate, reflective, powerful.
50 Shades Darker (2017; d. James Foley)
Silly, but not without some entertaining bits. In particular, Dakota. No last name necessary. My review.
Supernatural Season 12, Episode 11, “Regarding Dean” (2017; d. John Badham)
This felt more like the show that I know. It’s not that I only want what’s familiar, or what is expected. That’s not me at all. But the show has lost something essential … its ESSENCE, this season, and that’s what has disturbed me and made it such a disheartening watch. Here, it seems to remember who it is. Mainly: that it’s interested in the two main characters, Jeez Louise, for God’s SAKE. I also found it interesting though – and it was inadvertent, of that I’m sure – that it was an episode about amnesia, where one of the main beloved characters slowly forgets who he is, bit by bit. It feels like a metaphor for what has happened to the entire show in Season 12. Do they realize it? Do they look in the mirror like Dean did, wondering who the hell they are now? Because they SHOULD. But credit where credit is due: this was a good episode. Very unsatisfying all-too-brief brothers-talking scene at the end of the episode. The writers don’t know how to write Sam and Dean anymore, and have no interest in inner life anymore, and so those tete-a-tetes have vanished from the landscape of the show. They used to be a regular feature. Member the joke about it in “French Mistake” and the hate mail they’d get if they cut those final scenes of the brothers talking about their feelings? Well, we’re there now. It was good to see Ackles and Padalecki allowed to act again.
American Fable (2017; d. Anne Hamilton)
Really good first feature from writer-director Anne Hamilton. Impressed. My review.
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962; d. Robert Aldrich)
A re-watch for probably pretty obvious reasons. The film is a classic. A camp classic, sure, but it’s funny to re-watch and realize how REAL the two of them play it. The imitated line “But-cha ARE Blanche, YA ARE” has been imitated so much that it now no longer resembles the original. In the movie, Bette plays that moment in a very straightforward way, a way that makes it all the more frightening. And Crawford, man. Lady had chops.
Supernatural Season 12, Episode 12, “Stuck In the Middle With You” (2017; d. Richard Speight Jr.)
It had its moments. The Tarantino nods were fun. Speight is a very good director, at least judging from the two he’s done so far! I’m just disappointed in the FOCUS of this season, which is everywhere BUT on Sam and Dean. They barely have feelings about what is happening. This is different. There has never been a season like this. There have been seasons that were more successful than others but what is happening now is unique and different. Probably due to the exodus of all the old-timers who actually understood the show. I am glad to hear some of you are enjoying this season. I truly am. I wish I could join you, and I mean that sincerely. Good to see Mark Pellegrino again.
The Salesman (2016; d. Asghar Farhadi)
My second time seeing this now-Oscar-winning film. Screw Best Foreign Film. The Salesman was one of the best films of the year, period. Farhadi is one of my favorite filmmakers. He is a modern-day Ibsen. About Elly, Fireworks Wednesday, A Separation … I’ve written a lot about all of these movies. And The Salesman is equally powerful, equally rigorous in its examinations of class and relationships. He’s forensic in his moral and ethical interests. The final scene is the best scene in any film this year. The first time I watched, I could barely breathe. Farhadi – like Ibsen – leaves you no way out. You scrabble around, looking for loopholes, some way to turn back the clock, start again, to avoid the awfulness. But you can’t. He’s a MASTER. Brilliant film. It was great seeing it for a second time. I picked up on so much more. Please see this beautiful film. See all his work.
American Horror Story Season 1, Episode 1 (2011; d. Ryan Murphy)
I wanted a little shot of the Jessica Lange-Ryan Murphy team-up. This show is out of its mind.
The Star (1952; d. Stuart Heisler)
An amazing film starring Bette Davis as a middle-aged actress – a big Oscar-winning star – trying desperately to get her career going again. But nobody wants her. She’s old. A very bold choice for Davis (and as far as I can tell, it’s the 3rd time she played a famous actress – and there would be one more in 1962 with Baby Jane. The first being Dangerous, where she played a famous actress who descended into alcoholism and destitution – for which she won her first Oscar. The second, of course, being All About Eve, certainly one of the best films ever made about show business. Bette at her very best.) The Star is very smart about show business, and how lonely it is at the top (in the most famous scene, Davis grabs her Oscar and a bottle of Scotch and goes out for a drunk drive through Beverly Hills, where she sobs and TALKS to the Oscar, her only friend, as she weaves her car through the streets.) Supposedly based on Joan Crawford, it was written by two friends of Crawford’s – well, the friendship ended when The Star came out. Sterling Hayden is super sexy and has the sexiest voice in Hollywood. In any generation.
Possessed (1947; d. Curtis Bernhardt)
One of Joan Crawford’s best performances. She was nominated for Best Actress.
Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964; d. Robert Aldrich)
This movie is legendary among my group of friends. Mitchell does an imitation of Agnes Moorehead’s INSANE performance that echoes in my ears when I see the film. “Who TOLD her to play it like that??” Mitchell guffaws. “But that’s what’s so amazing – NOBODY told her – she didn’t need permission!” Some of her line readings! The way she juts her ass out. WHAT. is happening, Agnes.
Supernatural Season 12, Episode 13, “Family Feud” (2017; d. P.J. Pesce)
Nope.
Dangerous (1935; d. Alfred E. Green)
Bette Davis’ 1st Oscar win. She had been nominated the year before for her unforgettable performance in Of Human Bondage. Davis would go on to win another Best Actress Oscar with 1939’s Jezebel and be nominated an astonishing 8 more times. In Dangerous, she plays a once-famous actress who has become such an alcoholic no one will work with her anymore. Based loosely on the story of Jeanne Eagels – only in Eagels’ case it was heroin addiction. Bette Davis was fearless from the start. Starlets did not speak up for themselves. Starlets did not demand better roles or turn DOWN roles they thought were not worthy of them. Starlets did not SUE their own STUDIOS. But Davis did.
The Damned Don’t Cry (1950; d. Vincent Sherman)
Another wonderful performance from Joan Crawford. She gave so many. The story of a downtrodden woman who eventually becomes a mobster’s gun moll. It’s classic Joan: the poor girl made good by any means necessary. But what precious things has she given up along the way? Her soul? Her heart? Is it too late to get out? Are fur coats that important? Well, to someone who grew up in squalor – as Joan did – as many of her characters did – YES, fur coats are VERY important. (I am reminded of my couple of posts on “Bling” and what it signifies.) When Elvis first got to Hollywood, he was asked by a (probably middle-class) interviewer why he had signed the contract. Elvis said to the guy, “‘Spect you’ve never been poor.” Joan Crawford understood that in her bone marrow, which is why her best roles were of women who started with nothing, who did what they had to do – prostitution, stealing, whatever it took – to get a comfortable life for themselves where they didn’t have to worry about money. Prissy morals are for the privileged and protected. To those in the junk heap, getting OUT is paramount. The Damned Don’t Cry is loosely based on the gangsters who created Las Vegas, and her character is loosely based on Virginia Hill. Very good movie.
All About Eve (1950; d. Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
Bette Davis also gave a great performance in 1950. This movie never ever gets old. I can’t even count how many times I’ve seen it. “You’re too short for that gesture.”
Kiki (2016; d. Sara Jordenö)
A documentary about the underground Harlem ballroom scene (a generation after Paris is Burning). Harlem ballroom is where “Voguing” came from, and then Madonna took it to the mainstream. I’m reviewing for Ebert. My review will go up today.
American Horror Story Season 4, Episode 1 (2014; d. Ryan Murphy)
I needed to see Jessica Lange sing “Life on Mars” again. Because I can’t get enough.
Mommie Dearest (1981; d. Frank Perry)
The whole thing is a travesty.
Mr. Skeffington (1944; d. Vincent Sherman)
Vincent Sherman was one of those excellent “journeymen” directors the studio system specialized in. This is one of Davis’ most disturbing performances (and one of Claude Rains’ most touching). I had actually forgotten that “Mr. Skeffington” is Jewish, and that he has a conversation with his daughter about it, how he and her mother are of different faiths. Pretty radical for Hollywood, 1944. As Mitchell says, “Bette Davis gives a performance that is ABOUT vanity with NO vanity.” I still don’t know how she did it. She was fearless. She didn’t give a rat’s ass whether you liked or understood her characters or not. That was so besides the point for Ms. Davis.
The Staircase, Episodes 1 – 4 (2004; d. Jean-Xavier de Lestrade)
Allison turned me onto this documentary series. Michael Peterson, a novelist with some skeletons in the closet, was sitting out by the pool drinking wine with his wife. She went into bed. He came in later and found that she had bled to death after, apparently, a fall down the stairs. How a fall down the stairs would result in multiple deep lacerations on the back and top of her head is a mystery. There are more mysteries, too. I have read a little bit about the case before, I can’t remember where. The French filmmaker followed Peterson around, and the documentary is very biased in his direction. But it’s a great look at the justice system, and how lawyers work, jury selection, witness coaching, etc. I haven’t finished it yet.
Moonlight (2016; d. Barry Jenkins)
It just came out on video so I just re-watched. I’m picking up on so much more. And Trevante Rhodes is even better than I remembered, if that’s possible. The vulnerability! And the specificity with which he plays that vulnerability. For instance, how he has a hard time even LOOKING at Kevin (Andre Holland). He avoids making eye contact until the very last minute, and then when his eyes do rest upon Kevin’s face, what you can see in Rhodes’ face is need, openness, fragility, hurt, SO MUCH. It’s the kind of acting I most love, filled with a very specific need, a need that can’t be spoken, but that the actor is present to – far more than the text he has to say. And that final scene. What a catharsis.
Women He’s Undressed (2015; d. Gillian Anderson)
A very entertaining and informative documentary about famed costume designer Orry-Kelly. By Gillian Anderson! He was from Australia. He was a genius.
Catfight (2016; d. Onur Tukel)
It opens this week. I am reviewing for Ebert.
Apollo 13 (1995; d. Ron Howard)
A re-watch in honor of the recently departed Bill Paxton. I have seen this movie so many times I know the shot sequences by heart. And yet it still gets to me!
Alexandra Billings is one of my best friends. I am grateful for her presence in my life every day. I feel the same way about her wife Chrisanne. I’ve watched with happiness (and no amazement at all) at all that has happened in her life in the last couple of years. She’s one of the regular cast members of the Amazon series Transparent. She’s become a professor of acting at CSU. She’s fabulous. In January, she hosted the Ovation Awards.
I wanted to share this clip with you. She makes a speech. Listen to her words. This is who she is. She is a leader.
Then she sings Radiohead’s “Creep.” It’s an epic performance. She’s overwhelming live, but you can get the feel of who she is, what she does, in this clip.
To all the Oscar-winners tonight, congratulations! But just remember: chances are at one point in your life you will be like Bette Davis in The Star, talking to your Oscar as you drive drunk through Beverly Hills, wondering if you will ever work again.
This is one of my favorite scenes in Apollo 13. I love how almost shame-faced Paxton’s character is when he admits to Jim Lovell (Hanks) that his wife is pregnant again. Like: “Ooops.” He’s an embarrassed grade-school kid in that moment, and it’s a wonderful contrast to the image of him (also true) as an heroic macho astronaut. The scene is also one of those rare scenes – almost unheard of actually – where men deal with one another in a personal and care-taking tender way. Hanks hugs him to keep him warm, yes, but STILL. It’s an intimate and caring act. Raw and personal. It’s a different kind of relating to one another that goes on in this scene. These two characters are not the hugging type. Have they ever hugged before? No way! They’re both slightly tentative about it. But it’s gotta be done. It’s lovely work from both of them.
Hey, y’all. Clearly I haven’t been around on these posts. Not because I haven’t been watching episodes. Just slammed with work and moving to a new apartment. I will be back. When I come up for air.
When I first moved to Chicago, I got cast in a show the first week I was there. I had no professional head shots, but I wangled an audition anyway and booked it. I needed to get photos taken as soon as possible. Unfortunately, I had moved to Chicago with two suitcases and about $100. This sounds like it’s the plot of a Busby Berkeley musical, but it’s true. I was crashing on a friend’s couch until I could find a place. I signed up with a temp agency and started working immediately. I barely knew the L system, but I figured it out. At night, I would go rehearse Clifford Odets’ Golden Boy. Everything was fresh and new and slightly scary. After a couple of weeks I had enough to put down a deposit on an apartment (one tiny room in a dank building that smelled of roach motels and had an old-fashioned elevator with a gate you had to yank open). I had a mattress on the floor (No box springs, no frame), and a pot to cook pasta in. THAT WAS IT. I think I bought a dish rack and a towel at the nearby dollar store. I pulled a picture of Tori Amos out of a magazine and tacked it up on the wall. I lived like that for MONTHS. It was GLORIOUS. I had just come from a relationship that was very possessions-heavy. That boyfriend was older than I was and liked to buy art and consider futon couches and comparison-shop espresso makers and I was into none of that stuff. I’m still not into it. Second-hand bookstores? I’m in. But I just don’t care about THINGS. So it was WONDERFUL to walk into a room that had NOTHING in it.
The first guy I took home with me – since this is not only TBT but TMI – didn’t say a word about the fact that I lived in an empty freaking room with a mattress on the floor. And I was young and wild enough that it didn’t even occur to me to be embarrassed. Or, maybe it was more like: I was so HAPPY I was out of that stifling relationship that was not right for me, that was damaging to me, that it was wonderful to just NOT CARE. I wanted this guy. BAD. So here we are in my empty room. This is me, pal. Let’s get to it. That guy, by the way, ended up being this guy (and this guy, and one last post about him – I’ve written about him a lot) – a HUGELY important person to me. He fucking saved my life. I’m not exaggerating. Our thing went on for years and years and years. Over a decade. It started as a one-night hookup. I know how to pick ’em. The second time he came back to my place was maybe 2 or 3 months later. I still had no furniture. A mattress on the floor. Nothing on the walls. No blinds on the windows. He looked around and said, “I love what you’ve done with the place.” Which, honestly, still makes me laugh.
Meanwhile, though, after TMI comes TBT. I asked my fellow cast members who they recommended for headshots. I got some names. I looked at their pictures. One actor’s headshot was beautiful, I thought. I loved the lighting. The style of headshots now is very natural. People standing outside, laughing. Color photos, too. When I was coming up, it was strictly black and white only, and I remember when suddenly it was “okay” to get color headshots. It felt WRONG. Daring! But anyway, I liked the look of these particular photographs so I called up the photographer. We booked a time. I was told to bring a bunch of outfits and show up at his studio space which was in a warehouse south of the Loop. Which sounds super sketchy, but I was already in an acting class that took place in a warehouse in that area. Lots of art studios and dance studios in these big echoing old buildings.
I showed up with the few clothes I had for the photo shoot. A nice blazer. Black pants. A fitted shirt. He had his makeup girl there who did me up, and then we had our photo session. We took a bunch of pictures, of me in my nice little actress outfits I had brought.
I had walked into the studio though wearing black jeans, big chunky Doc Martens, and my leather motorcycle jacket. Which I still have. My hair was flaming red and long and wild. That was what I looked like when I introduced myself to the photographer.
After the session I was putting my stuff together and he said, “Would you be open to experimenting a little bit?” (I realize that this could have been my “Coco from Fame” story, but no it didn’t turn out that way. I did have one of those the following year! And when I told that guy up above – the one who said “I love what you’ve done with the place” – that I answered an ad and then found myself in a sketchy situation and couldn’t get out of it – he was so upset that he got MAD at me for my poor judgment. And he was right. I walked out of there like, “Holy shit, how did I let myself get into that? You’re smarter than this, Sheila!!”)
Anyway, the photographer went on to say that there was something about me in the biker’s jacket and the big hair he wanted to explore. I said, “Sure!” without even thinking. I’m lucky I wasn’t sold into a sex ring. Because I woulda gone.
What he wanted me to do, it turns out, was roll around on the floor, sobbing, mascara streaking down my face. I don’t know why he wanted me to do this. Maybe it was the contrast with the biker-girl exterior. I have since wondered – considering all of my problems later – if he sensed something … underneath all that armor, and the professional nice-girl actress smile I had been giving him. Maybe not. Who knows. I asked no questions. It sounded like it would be a blast and also like it would look really cool.
He had the lights turned down really low, and created a pool of hot light for me to roll around in. His makeup girl dripped liquid on my lashes so the mascara started to streak. (We had to do that repeatedly since the tears dried immediately under the hot lights.) I can’t remember what music he played. Something rocking. Black Sabbath or Nirvana or something like that. And I started crying and he started shooting. Sometimes the fake crying would become real crying – you try fake crying for an hour and a half and not have it turn into real crying at least once. Your muscles remember! He LOVED it when that happened, when the real sobs started coming. He didn’t want gentle dripping sentimental actress tears. He wanted me out of my MIND.
He’d yell: “CRY! Really sob now!” And I’d burst into huge “Wahhhh” sobs and he’d shout, “That’s right! Yes!” (It seems, in retrospect, that it can’t have gone down this way. But it did.) He was crawling all over me, crouching over me pointing the camera down, shouting, “GOOD! THAT’S IT!” as I wailed.
It feels like at any moment this story could have gone so so wrong. But it didn’t. Nobody was drinking.
A week or so later, I went to pick up my headshot contact sheets at his studio and he had blown up one of the crying shots (the first one below) HUGE, it took up a wall, and hung it in his receptionist’s area. I was kind of proud of that. I had been in Chicago two months.
He could have wanted me to take off my clothes. And honestly, I probably would have done it. And never felt bad about it. He could have wanted to put me in a ballgown and smoke a cigarette. Or put on a French maid’s costume. Whatever. There are so many ideas. But for whatever reason …
He just wanted to see the red headed girl in leather cry. So I did what he asked.
