You Look Like That Girl: A Child Actor Stops Pretending and Finally Grows Up (25 page)

“No, no. I don’t need to walk the line.” I protested, but the publicist took my completely unprepared reluctance as false modesty and made introductions as she pushed me towards the cameras. It was quickly evident that these were serious reporters. They wanted to actually talk substantively about the film. I had worked on this movie for about a week, many months prior and was woefully ill-equipped to answer any questions about it. My most distinct memory of filming was the fact that the director, Tony Goldwyn, would occasionally direct us shirtless, much to my delight. It was hot during the Woodstock recreation filming and when the spirit moved him to strip down, I was not inclined to complain. However, there was only so much mileage I could get from the, “I thought my boss had nice pecs,” storyline. There needed to be something else to entertain these reporters and give them a decent sound-bite.

A reporter, who was dressed far better than I was, shoved a mic in my face. Now
she
looked like a movie star. She had a shock of blond hair with a perfect wave, each individual strand ebbing and flowing on cue. Her lips were a shade of red that made me feel like nature had been mistaken in not making that the standard color. I was shamed by her flawlessness
and the fact that she looked like that, even though she wasn’t even in the shot. The camera was ten inches from my face, staring defiantly at me. Everyone was acting like I was in this movie for more than fifteen minutes.

“Who do you play in this film?” Ms. Perfect asked me.

I went blank. I could not remember my character’s name. The babbling began.

“Well, you know, she…she is so strong and so…independent.”

Words kept spilling forth without my consent. I realized that this was being recorded and would last forever. My voice kept going up a little at the end my sentences, as if each answer was a question in itself. I pulled all my responses out of my ass and waited for someone to call me on it. No one corrected me and I moved on to the next serious reporter who had done more homework than I had.

“Lisa, tell me about Myra.” The reporter said into her microphone.

Myra! Of course, that was my character’s name. It all came flooding back to me. Well, not really flooding. I was not in the film enough for anything to flood, but at least now I had a name to go with. I made my way down the line, doing a terrible job talking about the movie to one put-together journalist after another. Thankfully Viggo Mortensen was there to distract the reporters from my incoherent rambling, and they quickly moved along to him. After surviving my firing squad, I met my mother in the lobby of the theatre. She had gathered theater snacks, her arms overflowing with Diet Cokes and popcorn while she waited for me, having dodged the cameras with her soul firmly intact.

“Hey, how’d it go on the line? Oh…umm.” Her face fell a little.

“What? What umm??” I was a little edgy after my reporter encounters.

She cringed and pointed to my chest. I had not removed the sticker from my Gap sweater. All the way down my right breast in that long, distinctive Gap labeling, it read “SMALL SMALL SMALL SMALL”…

I don’t know if anyone noticed. I’m not sure if they would have been more offended by the fact that my breasts were a size small, or that I
was wearing Gap to a star-studded Hollywood event. Sure, Sharon Stone had pulled off that move three years earlier and had made headlines but I was no Sharon Stone. Plus, she had paired her Gap shirt with a Vera Wang skirt. My skirt had cost $19.99 at Express and that wasn’t even a sale price.

The film was good, the Woodstock stuff looked cool, and I managed to make it appear that being a total naive tool was a character trait. Once the SMALL sticker was removed from my chest, I could relax a little, knowing not much else could humiliate me that evening. I was able to pull myself together enough to be witty in front of Tony Goldwyn, who sadly decided to remain in his clothes for the evening. At the end of the night, I took what was left of my increasingly photographed and tattered soul and we drove back to the Valley. I swore that I’d remember this feeling when I opened the next invitation to the next premiere, but it turns out it’s kind of like labor. How quickly I forgot about the pain when the next fancy envelope arrived.

As I neared my twentieth birthday, an uncomfortable truth was dawning—I felt like my life no longer resembled me. The creeping feeling of self-betrayal was becoming palpable and anxiety attacks frequently left me sobbing on the floor of my closet, curled up on a pile of shoes. So, I made a list.

I loved the work. I loved:

walking to set and seeing the people, my cohorts, with whom I had gotten so close

starting work at four in the morning, getting breakfast at the catering truck and watching the sun come up

understanding the rhythm of a scene set up and learning about light filters and having lunch at long tables with the teamsters, who have had my heart since they taught me how to play craps as a preschooler

the sharp clap of the slate and that brief, breathless moment between that sound and the director’s cue, where you know you are in the zone

making rounds to say good night to my friends before going home, although I knew it was only a few hours before I’d see them again.

There was a lot to love in my job.

There was also much that I hated. I hated:

when the film came out and the reviews, good or bad, sent me on a nauseating emotional rollercoaster

when people recognized me and I had to answer any manner of questions even though I was on a date or watching a movie or late for my pap smear

having my physical appearance harshly criticized in the name of “art” and then losing the job to a “Britney Spears type”

that no one liked my glasses even though I thought they made me look like Lisa Loeb