But Fresh Prince had been a pretty memorable experience. After doing student movies and training films—or “industrials”—for corporate entities, snagging a part on something that even my aunt Florence in Berwyn, Illinois, could watch was pretty exciting.
It was the fourth episode ever of Fresh Prince, and when I went to the table read of the script, the show hadn’t even begun airing yet. This was the fall of 1990. As you might imagine, my heart was racing at having a small guest role on what was promising to be a hit show. Will Smith wasn’t a big film star at that point, but he was still a giant figure in rap. Music legend Quincy Jones, who was there that day, was the executive producer, and then for some reason civil rights activist Andrew Young was also there. Holy shit, I thought. This is fucking big-time. This is not a normal gig. I’d better not trample on anyone’s civil rights today.
For those of you not in the biz, a table read is when the cast reads the script out loud for the first time, usually with all the writers and producers there as well. I had only a few lines, and I was trying to be casual by turning the page at the same time as everyone else, but all I wanted to do was flip to my page and read my part over and over. “Be in the moment, Kathy, you’re playing a character,” I had to tell myself.
And it was a real stretch, my character. I was the honky.
I remember looking at the writing staff, though, and seeing only one black guy. The two show runners were this white married couple, Andy and Susan Borowitz. What two New York, uptown Jews were doing writing a rap-themed show, I do not know. But I remember a couple of times during the read-through, Andy would say to Will, “Is that how you would say it?” Then Will would add some “flava.” The consultation and correcting of lines was much more hilarious than the script itself.
When it came to my first line, I got a laugh. What was weird was, it wasn’t a joke. And then when I read the joke line, I got a monster laugh. Believe me, not only was I not that funny, the line certainly wasn’t. But that’s when I first learned that table reads are notoriously uncomfortable situations because people laugh way too loud and way too often, especially writers responding to their own jokes.
Afterward, somebody asked the lead actors about their impressions of the script. This is the part I’ll never forget, it was so clichéd and genius about actors. Janet Hubert, who played the aunt to Will Smith’s character, said, “I think what’s lacking is a scene where Will and I sit down one on one and we talk about what Aunt Viv went through when she went to college.” Then the guy who played her husband said, “It seems to me there should be a scene where Will and his uncle go golfing to discuss things.” The girl who played their daughter said, “Shouldn’t there be a scene where Will and I go shopping?”
I’m listening to this thinking, So what each of you is saying is, the script would be better if only you were in it a lot more. They were all so unaware of how they sounded, too. I should have raised my hand and said, “I think the honky should talk more!”
Overall, though, my week on the set was a blast. I made friends with the woman who played the grandmother—a veteran actress by the name of Virginia Capers—with whom I shared a tiny dressing room. She would cook soul food and bring it every day, and I’d listen to her tell stories from her life in movies and television. Flavor Flav from Public Enemy showed up for no reason on the night we taped and got on the mike and the crowd went wild. There was a DJ, too, playing dance music as if it were a nightclub. As for Will, he didn’t have time for me all week, which was understandable, but he was a different person on show night, bonding with the actors right before performing with them. It was very smart. Before my scene with him, we were dancing together and chatting, and he was extremely charming. Even though he was new to television, he clearly had a sense of knowing when to turn it on and with whom.
I was a nobody when I did The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, but by the time I filmed a guest spot on Ellen DeGeneres’s sitcom, Ellen, in the mid-’90s, I was a little more known—somewhat from stand-up, but mostly from that Kenwood commercial on which I droningly recited “Play That Funky Music, White Boy,” which had become hugely popular.
The table read for Ellen was tense. She ran that room with an iron fist, and you could tell people were nervous around her. If she laughed, they laughed, and if she didn’t, nobody dared to. I remember I walked in, and Ellen seemed very friendly. She said, “Oh, you’re the girl from that commercial!”
I was really excited that she recognized me, and I sort of felt a little bit famous, so I had fun with it. “Why yes, that’s me!” I said.
Then in front of this whole room of actors, writers, producers, she commanded, “Do it.”
I remember thinking at that moment, Wow, the star just said “Jump,” and now it’s my “How high?” moment. I’m the chick who’s only going to be there four days, and it’s an intimidating room of writers, and now I’m the dancing monkey. It’s a power move, something only a celebrity or a corporate CEO would do. “You’re the girl from that commercial. DO IT.” It wasn’t mean, but I certainly learned how much the tone of a show is set by the star, and it was clear that she set up a pretty tough energy. By the way, I did it. I reenacted that commercial. And then, as the week went on, I of course started fucking one of the production assistants. I showed her.
When I did the NBC sitcom Mad About You, I remember Paul Reiser being very fun and friendly, and Helen Hunt being … not. Then again, she really seemed like she had one foot out the door. And when you look at that show, she really did do the heavy lifting. She’d win Emmys for that series because Paul Reiser had all the funny lines while she rocked the acting when they’d do “a very special episode” about how her character couldn’t get pregnant. So I got the impression that it had all gotten old for her, and that the show wasn’t her thing anymore. She wanted movies, and sure enough, she won an Oscar not too long after for As Good As It Gets.
Another abrasive star I encountered was Thomas Haden Church, whom I worked with when I did an episode of Ned & Stacey, the short-lived sitcom he starred in with Debra Messing. Tom was coming off the long-running TV sitcom Wings, on which he made a name for himself as the dim-bulb mechanic, and to this day, he is one of the funniest people I’ve ever met, and certainly one of the most talented sitcom actors I’ve ever watched work. I’ve never seen a sitcom actor improvise as much as he did, and his improvised lines were all funny. It didn’t surprise me at all that he went on to get an Oscar nomination years later for the film Sideways.
But Tom was extremely tough. He was hard on poor Debra Messing, because comedy didn’t come naturally to her. Don’t get me wrong, she’s very good at comedy, but she’s not a comedian. And he ran those writers ragged. I remember, at the end of the run-through, he had all the writers stand in a circle and he screamed at them. It was one of the first times I’d watched a star act in a temperamental way, but at the same time, I thought, You know, he’s right. I could see why people on that staff bitched about him, but he was funnier than his writers. I’ve never seen anybody since improvise on a sitcom like him. I’m sure his behavior is the reason he doesn’t have his own show now, but it got me thinking about how there’s got to be a way to voice those same concerns but not completely piss people off.
Tom was sexy and good-looking in an offbeat way, and what was cool about him was that he treated me like a peer, not a girl. I completely interpreted it as that situation where guys are nicer to the girl when she isn’t the hot chick. He just saw me as a human being—like a sister—and so it was “good ol’ Kath” and a punch in the arm. Guys like that are not flirting with me, but at least they’re not rude to me the way they might be to a girl who really turns them off. I’m in a solid middle category, where I’m safe enough to hang out with and joke with. I can keep up with these kinds of guys, and it’s nice.
George Clooney was like that, too, when I did a guest stint on ER. I was playing a scout leader with a troop of sick kids. I was nervous to be in a scene with him and Anthony Edwards. B
ut the handsome Clooney immediately put me at ease, joking and being an all-around charmer.
I’ll digress for a moment to tell you just what a man among men Clooney is, ladies and gays. A few years after that ER episode, I got asked to do a table read for the Steven Soderbergh movie Out of Sight. It wasn’t an audition, just one of these movie situations where the filmmakers want to hear their script read out loud. I don’t know why they asked me at all, but the call came from my agent, and I quickly said, “Yes.” It was going to be at Danny DeVito’s house, since he was a producer on the film, and when I got there, they were very strict about where we could and couldn’t go in the house, because of course I wanted a tour. Then the celebrities started showing up. Lolita Davidovich was there, reading the part that would go to Jennifer Lopez, and Don Cheadle, and big studio mucky-mucks. Of course, I didn’t know anybody, and I was so nervous, clutching my script and trying to prepare, that when this nerdy guy came up to me and started making small talk, I thought, “I don’t have time for your needs, mister,” so I turned to him and said, “I don’t mean to be rude, but I kind of need to be studying right now.” That was Soderbergh. Oopsy!
But when Clooney came in, with the room full of people, he walked right up to me and said, “There’s the sexiest girl in the room!” and sat right next to me. I will never forget that. He went out of his way just to be nice and make a fun joke, and I was much more relaxed from then on, and everyone in the room looked at me differently after that, which was nice. (I was reading a black woman’s role, by the way, the one eventually played by Viola Davis in the movie. You’d think my experience on Fresh Prince working alongside Andrew Young would have helped me get that part, but alas, no.)
Anyway, aside from discovering how great Clooney was, that ER gig was special for me because at the time I was sort of seeing Quentin Tarantino, who directed the episode I was in. I met him through the Groundlings. Julia Sweeney had become friends with Quentin, and wrangled him for the night during the week when we had a guest star perform with the main company. Reservoir Dogs had just come out and was the biggest thing in movies. We all went to dinner after the Groundlings show and I sat across from this larger-than-life character shouting with passion and gesticulating wildly to make every point.
“Did you see Reservoir Dogs?” he asked.
I told him I hadn’t yet. That set him off, but jokingly, and with no small amount of spastic confidence. “I can’t believe it! You’re the ONLY person in LA who hasn’t seen it! It’s genius! It’s brilliant! It’s a brilliant movie. Ask anyone here! There’s this scene where Michael Madsen starts to freak out and slice a cop’s ear! And then there’s this other scene with Tim Roth where he’s bleeding out of his stomach for hours!”
He just started describing the whole movie, and then stopped himself. “That’s it! I’m gonna take you!”
I said, “Haven’t you seen it a million times already?”
He said, “There’s a screening next week with the whole cast, and I’m taking you!”
So he took me, I was his date, but beforehand we went to dinner with Steve Buscemi, Lawrence Tierney, Tim Roth, and Michael Madsen. I was like, “Holy shit. How did I get at the indie-film heavy-hitter serious-actor table?” I said to Madsen, “I understand you play a pretty brutal character. You don’t hit any chicks or anything, right? Cause I can’t handle that.” An opener I’ve used many times with attractive men.
Michael started playing with my hair, and doing his whole brooding, mumbling, bad-boy sexy act, saying things like, “No, I would never hit a woman.”
Movie actors are weird.
It was fun at dinner watching all the actors fawn all over their beloved Quentin. I was dazzled by him as well. He has a rapport with actors and movie stars that cuts through their Hollywood BS, and he’s able to communicate with them as if he’s talking to real human beings. He came from the fan-boy world, sure, but I felt like every star at that table knew they were in the presence of The Great Tarantino.
I went out with him only a couple of times, and I’m so glad I got to know him. He put me in small parts in several of his projects: Pulp Fiction, Four Rooms, and his episode of ER. But there is a dark side to Quentin Tarantino you haven’t known about till now. I spent the night with him. That’s right. The whole night. In bed. What we did is, um, a little hard for me to reveal. (Cue Barbara Walters.) Drum roll. We … cuddled. Yeah. Cuddled. Anybody could have fucked him. It takes a lot of balls to cuddle with Tarantino. He had come over to my studio apartment one night and we were joking around about whether or not he should stay the night. I made the point that I wouldn’t be able to respect myself in the morning if I didn’t fuck him. Because I didn’t want to be one of those girls who did “that thing” with a guy. You know that thing, girls, where you decide you’re not ready to sleep with someone, so you just want to cuddle for a night? Not on my watch, bitches. But Tarantino, being the persuasive cinematic artiste he was, was determined to see if I could go all night without fucking the shit out of him. So we did “the thing” instead. I’ve never felt so dirty.
Anyway, back to ER. This is how dorky I was about my day on that show. A little background first: With every TV or film job I got, I would make sure that I had a deal where my parents were allowed to come to the set. I wasn’t a child actor. I was a woman in my thirties. And I took them to everything. I’d book the gig, and then add, “Oh, can I get a drive-on for John and Maggie Griffin?” My mother in her muumuu met nearly every giant star. When I did this low-budget indie comedy for Bobcat Goldthwait called Shakes the Clown, I made sure they came to the set the day Robin Williams was scheduled to film a cameo. Thankfully, Robin in his downtime didn’t go hide out in his trailer. He was so restless he stayed in this communal room and performed all day. So my parents set up two chairs, like a small theater, and basically got to watch one of the biggest comedy stars of all time perform off and on all day. It was a complete treat for my dad, who was a huge fan.
Me being a typical stage daughter, dragging her parents to a set.
So even though I was only working one day on ER, I brought my parents. To taping, lunch, everything. They had a set kit in the car—cooler, folding chairs, water for survival (although a box of wine was preferred)—for these very moments. I, of course, assumed everyone looked at me like I was a weirdo. In much the way I complain about people bringing their children to work, I am, it turns out, worse than any new parent. But the deal is, as those of you who watch The D-List know, Mom and Dad were so fucking charming that to this day no one has ever said to me, “You know, that was kind of strange when you brought your folks.”
There we were on the Warner Bros. lot, with Mom pulling me aside in the cafeteria. “Look at that DARLING Julianna Marguiles! She’s a skinny young thing! You need to learn from that one! Look at how she keeps her figure! See how she has a salad? You shouldn’t be having a hamburger, Kathleen! Look at the way she does her hair. Why don’t you do your hair like that?” By the way, for years my mother tried to convince me that I could “train” my curly, kinky, frizzy hair to be straight. She actually believed that if I blew-dry my hair straight for long enough, that it would eventually grow in that way. This had to have come from one of those goddamn Rona Barrett magazines. A Myrna Loy tip, probably. In any case, she was focused, a mom-ager before there were mom-agers. Watch out, Dina Lohan.
Then there’d be Clooney in his scrubs playing basketball, and my father giving him shit. “You’ll never be in the NBA, Clooney!” Then Clooney would walk toward the fence and gravitate toward my adorable parents, my mom fawning all over him. If you talk to my mom, she thinks they’re best friends. But really, from minute one of my getting these types of gigs, I thought, What good is this if I can’t bring my parents? It’s cool I got the job, but way more fun that they got to meet Clooney and see Quentin work.
Perhaps the biggest deal for me during that time was winning a guest role on Seinfeld, the hottest show on TV. It was just one of those auditions that, after ye
ars, finally fucking went my way. Again, all the stand-up I was doing was probably what helped the most. The thing to remember is that, even if you’ve been doing characters for years in the Groundlings, when you go into an audition, you’re kind of going as yourself. And the alternative stand-up comedy world had given me plenty of experience in that department.
That table read was mind-blowing, if only because you went in, and there was fucking Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer. Newman, too. The diner set. The living room set. The fake New York street. To be sitting in Jerry’s living room was a thrill I was not prepared for. I asked about ten people to take my picture, thinking, Who’s gonna believe this if I don’t have hard documentary evidence? My part was that of George Costanza’s fiancée’s college roommate Sally Weaver, and during the actual reading, I was shaking, telling myself whatever happens, I cannot be the one who fucks up, because the other thing about table reads—it’s where people get fired. You can have a good audition, but if you have a bad table read, you’ll get the call a half hour later while you’re in your trailer, and then before you know it, you’re going home. The stakes are incredibly high.
Luckily the table read went well. Most of the cast, writers, and producers laughed. But Jerry was kind of an asshole. We were working early on a Sunday morning, which was unusual, but that was because the Golden Globes were that night. I was planning on going to a gay Golden Globes–watching party that night, so I went up to Jerry, thinking nothing of it, and asked if he’d sign something for me so that when we were watching the awards and his category came up, I could impress the gays. “Guess what, fuckers?” I imagined saying. “There’s Seinfeld on TV, and I’ve got a fucking note from him!” I wanted him to write something like, “Dear Kathy’s Golden Globe party, be rooting for me! Jerry Seinfeld.” Or whatever.
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