Not saying anything wasn’t really working, but making an “announcement” of any kind just felt so wrong—too big and weird. Today, in order to grab your already taxed attention, news of any kind sometimes gets positioned as an urgent proclamation or a major confession—some massive secret being revealed, rather than what it really is: Today, an actor you might know from a TV show you may have seen reluctantly admits to something that may or may not be of mild interest to you.
A few months into dating, Peter and I planned a vacation to go skiing. In preparation, he took me to REI. I had never been to an REI store and didn’t know what REI stood for or what they sold there. I asked him why we had to go. He asked me where I thought people went to get outdoor gear, and I was like, “Um, not Barney’s?” No, Lauren, not Barney’s. What I was to discover at REI would blow my mind—and, weirdly, help me understand show business better.
First of all, the sign on the front door says FREE WI-FI AND INSPIRATION. Whoa. I was impressed by this offer, which was already better than some nice hotels I’ve stayed in. In fact, if you go to REI right now, you’ll probably find me in the glamping section checking my email and eating freeze-dried watermelon!
It didn’t take me long to realize that everyone who works at REI is named Tad. Tad has zero percent body fat and a deep tan. From the joyous way Tad describes the absorbency levels of the Shammie Wowzas by the register, you might suspect he is on drugs. But Tad would never take drugs, what with all the fresh air in the world! Tad and all his co-workers, Tad, wear matching vests adorned with loops and hooks. You may briefly wonder if the Tads go out after work wearing their matching vests, or if they’re just part of a cult whose members love to fish. Tad is always happy and positive. The only time I’ve ever seen Tad a little bit down was when I told him I thought all sleeping bags were alike. Don’t be sad, Tad! I know better now. Every food available at REI has the word “fiber” on the package, and everything else they sell has a tough or scary name: the Enforcers, the Prowlers, the Trailblazers, the Strykers. No, these aren’t names of military attack plans—they’re just waterproof socks!
I was always one of those East Coast kids who refused to button my jacket. I was cold through most of the 1980s. In college, I wore a thin, vintage men’s overcoat I got for twelve dollars at Screaming Mimi’s—who thought about warmth? But now I was dating someone who grew up in the Midwest, where cold is no joke and where being prepared to face the elements is just something a person who isn’t an idiot does. Peter knows everything there is to know about outdoorsy things like what to do if you see a bear (run? Don’t run? I always forget), and if you want to talk about wind-resistance ratings or sweat-wicking properties, have I got the guy for you! He’s also tried about a million times to explain to me why warm water makes ice cubes faster than cold water, which confounds me to such a degree that I respond by running around the house yelling, “I was an English major! I wrote my thesis on Tennyson!” But at REI, with the help of Peter and the Tads, I stocked up on thermals and a good ski jacket, plus socks called the Annihilators, the Doomsdays, and the Widow-Makers.
On our ski trip, I was warm and dry. And I realized for the first time in my life that feeling like your toes are going to fall off doesn’t have to be part of being outside in the snow. I couldn’t believe such comfort existed! I started buying so much outdoor athletic gear that I actually applied for an REI membership card. My bungee cords now earn points!
Whether it’s on your own or through someone else, it’s wonderful to be introduced to something you didn’t realize you needed. In learning about the wonders of REI, it occurred to me that going into vulnerable public situations unprepared was a little like facing winter in New York City or being on the ski slopes with my twelve-dollar Screaming Mimi’s coat flapping open. I wish I’d learned sooner, but in more ways than one, I now know more about protective layers than I used to. I’ve learned that a little readiness goes a long way when facing the elements, be they rain, or snow, or Access Hollywood. Just like in the outdoors, I’ve learned it’s much easier to strip off a layer if you find you don’t need it than to put one on. If you’ve already exposed yourself, it may be too late.
Peter has family in Northern California, and the first time I traveled with him there, I stopped short in the middle of the Sonoma County airport. There, in the center of the lobby, is a life-size Lucy advice booth with a sign that says THE DOCTOR IS IN. Charles Schulz was a native of the area, and Peanuts characters abound. The Lucy booth carries mostly travel pamphlets and maps to wine country, rather than advice for actors, but I still found its existence comforting, its appearance a positive sign.
Last week I opened the car door and one of Peter’s golf balls rolled out and onto the street, and I thought, there was a time when this would have been a very big deal. Today my car not only has random golf balls in it, but also khaki-colored sun hats that resemble those worn by beekeepers, an assortment of bandanas, those sunglasses that are only meant to be used as protective eyewear during a racquet sport, and dog-eared paperback books of poetry. Now I take these items for granted. Back then, a man’s golf ball rolling out of my car would have prompted frenzied calls to my girlfriends: “He left a golf ball in the car. He just left it there. What does it mean? WHAT DOES IT MEAN? Should I text him about it? I SHOULD, right? He’s probably looking ALL OVER FOR IT.” I wish I’d enjoyed my single days more and spent my free time reading or becoming a better photographer or something, and not worried so much about the meaning of golf balls.
Because here’s the thing: I was fine on my own, and so are you. But it can be hard when you feel ready for Happy Couplehood and you seem to have missed the train. As my friend Oliver Platt used to say to me about hopes and dreams I’d share with him: “It’s coming, just not on your time frame.” I find this a helpful reminder in any number of ways: not only when you’re hoping to meet someone, but also when you’re waiting for a better job or for some relief during a bleak time. When Peter and I held hands that night all those years ago, I had no idea we’d end up shopping at REI together one day. It might have been nice if he could have turned to me and said: “Look, tonight isn’t the time, but we’re going to leave here and learn a bunch of things that are going to make this work approximately five years from now—see you then!” But life doesn’t often spell things out for you or give you what you want exactly when you want it, otherwise it wouldn’t be called life, it would be called vending machine.
It’s hard to say exactly when it will happen, and it’s true that whatever you’re after may not drop down the moment you spend all your quarters, but someday soon a train is coming. In fact, it may already be on the way. You just don’t know it yet.
I’ve been fortunate to work for many wonderful writers in television and film. I’ve done several classic plays and musicals, performed a handful of works by Shakespeare, and—while in graduate school—studied the works of Chekhov and Ibsen in depth. Which is why I feel confident in my ability to assure you that, without a doubt, the most challenging line of dialogue that’s ever been conceived by an author to be performed by an actor is “Welcome to Chili’s!” Hamlet, schmamlet—go ahead right now and try that line at home.
In that short phrase, you must convey happiness, wholesomeness, hospitality, cleanliness, family values, and a potato that’s been well baked—all without a trace of cynicism. Undersell it and you risk coming off like a surly teen who was forced to take a job for the summer. Overdo it and you may seem haughty in a way that unintentionally conveys that you think this place is beneath you and that you’re still angry about being passed over for the hostess position at the Olive Garden.
For years before I was ever cast in a “real” part, I auditioned for, and ended up making, many commercials. Some actors I knew at the time thought commercials were a bad pursuit. They felt they weren’t artistic enough. Some worried the repetition of days spent holding up a jar of peanut butter and grinning crazily at it would give them bad habits as an actor. For me, I
found that the routine of auditioning almost every day made me more able to handle my nerves when something bigger came up. I’d schlep into the city from Brooklyn with my giant book bag in which I always carried both a blue denim shirt (to play moms and other people who cared about detergent) and a black blazer (to play young professionals who tended to care more about cars and banks), and even if I didn’t get the job, I felt I’d done something that day. I liked the feeling that I was working, even if it wasn’t exactly Hedda Gabler. The only line I drew artistically was regarding feminine protection ads. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever have any success as an actor, but even if not, I knew I didn’t want to be immortalized on film riding a horse on a beach as the sun set feeling “fresh.”
During this time, when I wasn’t playing someone whose biggest worry in life was her dishpan hands, I frequently worked as a background player. This involved being paid approximately a hundred dollars to pretend to read the label on a tuna fish can in a fake grocery store aisle in the very distant background of a shot of the person who actually had been hired to bemoan her dishpan hands. In every single commercial I ever auditioned for, we were advised by the casting people to speak into the camera “like you’re talking to your best friend.” In life, if I ever spent longer than ten seconds talking about my dry hands, or how delicious a certain line of frozen entrées was (even with one-third fewer calories!), or how truly bouncin’ and behavin’ my hair was lately, I’d have no friends.
At the time, it was a struggle to stay afloat in Manhattan. (How times have not changed!) Occasionally I’d have a commercial run on air long enough to pay the bills for a few months, but I made a rule that I’d keep some sort of day job up until the time when acting became enough of a conflict that I had to quit. But as I licked fake toothpaste off my teeth for the millionth time, I wondered if that day would ever come.
Over a Labor Day weekend a few years ago, Peter and I were invited to a party at the home of Larry Owen, a professor of his in college. In honor of the holiday, Larry had asked everyone to write down all the jobs they’d ever done to make money. At the party, everyone shared their lists, and it made for some lively conversation. Some of Peter’s jobs included snow removal, movie theater usher, and morning janitor at a place called the Chopstick Inn. He worked the fish-and-chips booth at the state fair, sold Time-Life books over the phone, and worked the night shift as a proofreader for Merrill Lynch. He delivered pizzas, worked as the pantry chef at a Bennigan’s, and tended lawns for a landscaper. His least favorite job was insulating houses—he always went home feeling suspiciously itchy. One of his favorites was bartending on Broadway, where he got to see free theater and work alongside an unknown aspiring writer named Aaron Sorkin. (I wonder whatever happened to that guy.)
One summer in Peter’s home state, Minnesota, he worked as a puppeteer with a mobile puppet stage. He’d hitch the puppet wagon to his car and drive from park to park, entertaining kids. One day the hitch came loose and the wagon tipped over, scattering puppets all across County Road C. The police arrived to survey the scene. “The paperwork on this is going to take a while,” one of them said. Peter, nervous he was going to be late to his next gig, asked why. The cop nodded at the scattered puppet bodies. “We’ve got a lot of casualties here,” he deadpanned.
In high school, I mucked out stalls at a barn in my neighborhood and drove a summer-camp school bus. (Yep, I replaced “drives a stick shift” with “licensed bus driver” on my résumé under special skills. Still—strangely—no takers.) One of my first steady jobs, the summer before my freshman year of college, was as a receptionist in a hair salon. That summer it was like I caught some sort of bug from watching people get their hair done all day. When I started that job my hair was down to the middle of my back, and by the time I was ready to head off to school I’d practically cut it all off. I’ve long since destroyed all the photos of me with that haircut—sadly for you—but to give you a sense of the situation, here’s the picture I gave the stylist as inspiration for what I wanted:
Decades from now, historians will still be debating whether it was the freshman fifteen or the razor-sharp sideburns that kept me completely date-free that year!
During college I waitressed, ushered at an Off-Broadway theater, and spent Saturday nights on a folding chair in a closet as a coat check girl. I was an aide at a kindergarten, where I was obviously in way over my head, since—as you may remember—I skipped kindergarten and still had no idea what they did there. And I stacked books in the law library at Columbia, a job I chose specifically to meet guys but which turned out to be a total bust since, unlike the undergraduate libraries I’d been in, people actually studied there.
After college, I worked at Barney’s New York, where I’d like to retroactively apologize for whatever you bought from me that I told you was the perfect thing to wear to your corporate law office. To this day I haven’t been in too many of those, and back then I probably thought the neon pink hoodie and tassel-covered wedges would show not only that you were a good lawyer but, most important, that you were still “fun.” I was also a cocktail waitress at a comedy club called the Improv on 46th Street. The excellent comic Dave Attell worked the door back then, and from the back of the dark room, in between slinging drinks, I watched a young Ray Romano perform stand-up. Now, whenever this comes up in conversation, Ray always asks me the same thing, forgetting that he’s asked me already: “Did I hit on you?” Why, no, Ray, you did not. Even though my sideburns had totally grown in by then.
One summer during grad school I lived in Chicago. My friend Maria and I got jobs at the famous diner Ann Sather, where we worked behind the cinnamon roll counter every morning starting at five o’clock. We sold only two items—cinnamon rolls and coffee—so the days were usually pretty uneventful. But one day we looked up after the morning rush and noticed that someone had left behind an open purse on the counter with what looked like a big bag of cocaine in it. We peeked inside, searching for anything that might help us find the owner. It may seem weird that we went digging around in someone else’s bag after we found drugs in it, but at first we weren’t positive that’s what it was, since neither of us had ever seen cocaine except in movies. But we finally came to the conclusion that yep, that’s what it was, all right—how thrilling! We’d cracked this case wide open—this must be how Cagney and Lacey felt all the time! Just then a very pale and sweaty woman came up to the counter. “Um, excuse me. Did you find a, um…?” she stuttered, eyes shifting around nervously. We nodded and handed her the bag. She stuffed a fifty-dollar bill in the tip jar and made a hasty exit. It didn’t occur to us until later that giving someone their drugs back rather than calling the police is the literal definition of “aiding and abetting.” Also, we decided that people who can afford giant bags of cocaine should really be embarrassed at leaving anything less than a cool hundy in the tip jar.
From the showcase my acting school class performed in New York after graduation, I finally scored an agent. But for a long time nothing came of the few auditions I got. So I taught SAT test prep, driving my rusty green Honda Accord out to places like Far Rockaway and Staten Island. I also worked for a catering company, demonstrated the Uno card game at the annual Toy Fair, and for one very long and clammy day wore a giant dog costume to play the mascot at a World Cup soccer convention. It took me half a day in the costume to realize there was no need for me to smile while taking photos with the attendees—they couldn’t see my face through the giant head I was wearing, and anyway my grin was already painted across my face in furry black whiskers. Also—in case you were wondering—no, it does not feel good when someone gleefully knocks on the side of your doggie head and asks “if it’s hot in there.” Yes, sir. Yes, it is. Also, while I understand that your friends find it funny, please stop scratching me behind the ears.
Finally, after about three years of booking only commercials and a few lines on soap operas here and there, I was cast in a supporting part in a play at the George Street Playhouse in New Jers
ey—my first union job since my role as Blinky McDryEyes in summer stock! I promptly turned in my apron at the Mexican restaurant I’d been working at in Park Slope, Brooklyn. My boss, Joe, was very nice about it; he told me I was welcome back anytime, which not only was cool of him but also proved he didn’t know how many free margaritas I’d been giving away to all my friends. Would I be back? I wondered. Or was the day job portion of my career finally over?
I’d love to say that all those hours spent doing things I had to do in order to survive—in order to inch closer to the thing I very much wanted to do—also gave me usable skills that I carried forward with me in life. I’d like to tell you that thanks to that first real job and its resulting hideous haircut, Steven Spielberg stopped me on the street, demanding to know where I got my pointy sideburns and incredible acting ability. But that did not happen. The takeaway from my many jobs, as far as I can tell, is this:
1. Don’t throw away hideous pictures of yourself—you may need to use them in your book one day.
2. Demand more money when returning drugs to strangers.
3. Dog costumes are very hot.
4. Oh, and thanks to that one summer I spent working at Benetton, I am, to this day, the guy to ask if you need your sweater neatly folded. Dozens of jobs, one actual skill!
At the Labor Day party, we all bonded over our shared tales of “that really awful job I had.” Not all the stories were about terrible things that happened at work, but the best ones were. Maybe that’s why you seldom see actors on talk shows regaling the hosts with stories of “that time I was well compensated at an early job I very much enjoyed.” There’s more comedy in failure than in success, and it’s a much more universal language. At the party, the worst jobs also seemed to be the ones everyone felt most proud to have endured. It’s an accomplishment to do something well, but maybe even a bigger one to do something well when you’d really rather not be doing it at all.
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