Suck It, Wonder Woman!

by Olivia Munn; Mac Montandon

  The night I bought the whole pie I was having friends over for dinner. While everyone began eating the roasted chicken and vegetables, I excused myself and snuck into the kitchen. I opened the refrigerator and took out the pie. I cut two pieces and in the privacy of my own kitchen, with five friends in the other room eating a sensible dinner, I horked down two pieces of banana cream pie as fast as I could. Multiple orgasms. And no one was any wiser.

  To tell you the truth, I never thought there was anything wrong with that. I’m an adult. And if I’d rather have pie for dinner, then I don’t have to answer to anyone. Can we all agree on that? But I suppose the issue wasn’t that I chose the pie over fresh vegetables. The problem was that I was secretly inhaling pie and I didn’t want anyone to know about it. Like a crack addict, I was hiding my addiction. And this actually may have been more difficult than hiding a crack addiction because of the slurping, nom nom nom sounds emanating from my kitchen—and because crack doesn’t leave frothing, chocolatey swirls all over your face.

  After about a month of my pie binge I started noticing certain side effects—for starters, I couldn’t button my jeans. Why did it take me a month to realize this? Juicy sweatpants. And I was not alone. Juicy Couture sweatpants have ruined more women than Jack Nicholson. Seriously, look around at all the girls who used to be skinny. They’re all wearing leggings or jumpsuits. It’s the only way you can truly be in denial about your weight gain. Stretchy pants fit everyone! So even when you’re turning into a fatty, like I was, you can still feel sexy. See how they get us? Clever!

  On Attack of the Show we often take questions from fans, and one day a fan asked, “How do you stay in such great shape?” My co-host, Kevin Pereira, answered that he works out and eats right. Good answer. And as he was answering I tried to decide what I would say. There’s the classic Hollywood answer: “Oh, I eat whatever I want and it just falls off—I guess it’s just good genes.” Then there’s the real answer. I guess I was just so sick of a lot of these Hollywood role models creating unrealistic body images. Because the answer isn’t just genes. It’s makeup, wardrobe, Spanx, Adderall, anorexia, bulimia. These super-skinny starlets don’t eat junk food and then wish it away. So here I am, faced with this simple question. And I want to give an honest answer.

  “The truth is,” I started, “I’ve been eating so much pie lately, I can’t even button my jeans.” And I lifted up my shirt and showed my size twenty-five jeans unbuttoned, and my belly busting through.

  The reaction I got from fans was both entirely unexpected and immediate. By the end of our show, five pies had been delivered from across the street. Fans had seen my confession and called in pies to be delivered to the studio.

  Since then I’ve received probably about a thousand bucks’ worth of pie gift certificates and whenever I go somewhere and meet fans, I get, like, ten hand-delivered pies.

  All of this pie love eventually led to my desserting coup de grace: About two years ago I leaped into a massive chocolate cream pie when nearly 70,000 fans signed a petition to try to make a National Pie Week. And yes, it was my idea to jump into the pie. And yes, it was my idea to do it dressed as a French maid. Hey, we did it for the cause!

  The pie crust was actually an eight-foot swimming pool that we had to drive to Bakersville, California, to secure. In order to construct this sweet monstrosity we went through twenty-four tubs and $2,500 worth of Cool Whip. The estimated weight of the pie was about 4,000 pounds.

  National Pie Day (totally a real holiday, yo, and it’s on January 23) was coming up. At some point in preparing for the show that day one of the producers turned to me and asked if I had any ideas to celebrate the holiday. You mean, any ideas other than eating a shitload of pie, I wanted to say. Instead, just off the top of my head I suggested possibly asking fans to sign a petition to amp it up to National Pie Week! And if we succeeded in this noble effort, I would jump into a giant pie. I didn’t think about the consequences or press or pie lodged into places it shouldn’t be. (Use your imagination—no, wait, don’t!) It was just an innocent suggestion that I expected to get shot down in favor of a good old-fashioned pie-eating contest or something. Silly me. Silly, destined for a giant pie me.

  The next day at work I heard that the producers thought the idea was great. This was the plan as it was laid out to me: “We’ll tell fans we need 10,000 signatures by the end of week and then you’ll jump into a giant pie.”

  And…go!

  My co-host, Kevin Pereira, chimed in: “We’ll get 10,000 signatures by the end of day. We have to make it more. It’s not that exciting if it’s an easy number to hit.”

  Kevin was right. In fact, by the end of the show that day, just an hour after we’d announced the petition, we’d already reached 10,000 signatures. So we decided to up the ante. If we could get 50,000 signatures by end of week, not only would I jump into a massive pie, but I would jump into a massive pie dressed as a French maid. The thinking was this—giant pies are delicious; French maids are sexy. Voila!

  We scored over 60,000 signatures. There was a special French maid outfit made for me at Trashy Lingerie in Los Angeles. Commence palpitations.

  To be honest, when we realized we were going to reach the number, I started to freak out. Cool—so I’m going to put on a patent leather French maid outfit and then jump into a ridiculously large pie…and then what? I just sit there like some stupid-ass chick who thinks she’s hot and the audience loves me so much they’ll just sit there watching me…sit…in pie? Ugh. I despise girls like that. But it was too late. I’d announced the petition and my plan. So how could I save myself from this?

  “Kevin has to jump in with me,” I blurted at a meeting. “And he has to wear a French maid outfit, too.”

  If I jumped in as a French maid it’s dirty and sexy…and that’s about it. But if Kevin put on the same outfit and jumped in with me? Well, now that’s entertainment. Dirty, sexy entertainment.

  Finally, it was jump day. We had, literally, cleared out all of the greater Los Angeles County area of its chocolate pie filling. (Yes, if you had gone happily to the market that day all excited to make a chocolate pudding pie only to find the shelves barren, blame me.) Everyone at work was all aflutter. I’ve personally never used the phrase “all aflutter,” but that is exactly how to describe it. There were people I’d never seen in our studio hanging around with anticipation. They apparently worked in sales and legal and the café. Even the president of G4 came down to witness the spectacle. It was intense and palpable and really fucking uncomfortable. There were photographers and press and an extra dose of enthusiasm among our producers, staff and crew that we only had on special occasions. It was like that feeling you get when it’s field trip day in elementary school. Plus pie.

  As I stood next to this giant pie—which by the way, looked ohmygodsogood!!—a producer pulled me aside and told me, “Okay…so you’ll drop your robe and then slowly walk over to the ladder. When you get to the top, take your time. And then unbutton the top shirt slowly and really play it up. And then when you’re ready, jump in.”

  Man, did I feel cheap.

  I couldn’t believe this was my goddamn idea. I was standing in a robe, with heels, garter panty hose and some lame lacy headband, and I was regretting every moment of it. I could see the crowd behind the cameras with all their own cameras, smiling and giggling.

  “No,” I responded to the producer’s directions. “That’s so stupid. There’s no way I’m turning this into some strip show. That’s just gonna make me look like an ass. I’m gonna be one of those girls who gets up trying to look sexy and thinking that that’s good TV. It’s not.”

  “But, Olivia…. that’s what the fans want,” the producer responded. “What else are you gonna do?”

  “I have no idea. But, I’m not doing that,” I said. “I’ll just do whatever comes to me.”

  5, 4, 3…We’re live.

  I drop the robe, smile, and stand on top of the pie, looking down about seven feet to its frothing
surface. Kevin begins the countdown and suddenly it was a swirling combination of fun and regret. Somehow we managed to laugh at ourselves through the nerves.

  And then I jumped. And I hit the bottom of the pie pan with a thud. I was promised that the pie filling was so thick, there was no way I would hit the bottom. (Who would even know that, by the way? Maybe some sort of pastry chef/physicist that we didn’t have on staff.) There was a single metal bar at the bottom of the pie and I managed to hit my shins directly on it, which actually takes some real skill. I winced with a pain that was so intense I thought I might pass out. I never really thought about it before, but I think when it’s my time to go I actually would like to drown in pie. And then I remembered that I’m sitting…in a giant pie…dressed like a naughty French maid. And everyone is watching. Oh, hello! I couldn’t just sit there crying. I shook off the pain and sat up. Which, it should be noted, is so not easy to do in a massive pie. Try it sometime.

  The whole crowd was laughing and applauding and waiting for me to do something. Kevin leaned over with a giant spoon and fed me some of the pie, the pie that surrounded me, my pie, and asked me how it was. The room went very, very quiet, as everyone waited for my reaction. Then I just went with it, did the only thing I could think that made sense—I started splashing my hands in the chocolate pudding like a baby in a bath and burbled, “Om nom nom nom nom!!!”

  The crowd erupted again.

  Of course I knew Kevin was going to jump into the pie as French maid numero deux, just as soon as he ripped off his tearaway tux. But in all the excitement I had forgotten and when I heard the crowd cheer I turned around to see him stripping down and I squealed with excitement. (He looked surprisingly good in that French maid outfit.) He jumped in, also hitting the metal bar of death, and the crowd went even wilder. Like wild, pie-loving cheetahs they went! In the end it made for great TV, the press loved it and the ratings were huge. And Kevin and I didn’t feel cheap. We did it the way we wanted to do it. We had fun and stayed true to our sensibilities and our humor.

  Afterward, our dressing room showers looked like the set of a snuff film directed by fucking Keebler elves. There was chocolate pie filling smeared across the shower walls and gathered in piles on the ground. Kevin had to jump into a swimming pool later that night just to wash out all the pudding lodged in his ears. I’d like to take this moment to officially apologize to whomever was in charge of cleaning up our showers, because it had to have looked really scary in there.

  The video and pictures of the pie jump were on about a million Web sites and blogs the next day. I had friends and coworkers and even studio heads e-mailing me about it. Most of the messages went something like, “Hey! Saw you jump into a pie? That was awesome.”

  In the end our petition, with its almost 70,000 signatures, wasn’t enough (or maybe not important enough) to move the government to make it National Pie Week. What, like fixing health care is so important?! But it was a great week for us. And a great stunt. And I might even do it again…but probably not in the French maid outfit. How do they get any cleaning done in those things, anyway?

  While I’m not totally sure why fans have connected so strongly with my love of pie I think it’s partly because we live in a world where everyone on TV appears to be perfect and says their life is perfect and fans can’t help but be envious and try to emulate their on-screen heroes. Not to sound too grand but I ripped up that veil and showed my belly and flaws and basically said it was all a facade. And then I jumped into an enormous chocolate pudding pie wearing a sexy French maid outfit.

  It might not be Cassavetes but I’m proud of that moment. I’m proud that young girls out there can see a girl who has hips, a butt, and some fat on her arms can get a chance to make it in Hollywood. And that even with the roundness of my belly and my carb-loaded lunches, I can still be asked to be on the cover of magazines. I can have my pie and eat it, too! And then have some more when no one is looking.

  In interviews I’m often asked what I think about “being a sex symbol.” And my answer is always: “That’s very nice. And if people consider me sexy, I think it’s great for young women to see a real woman, with real breasts and thick thighs considered sexy. I hope that changes the insanely narrow definition of sexy we generally see in the press and on television. Young girls should be proud of their imperfections and curves.”

  And then I think:

  Suck it, skinny bitches!

  Here’s the scene: I’m on the set of this horror movie, and I’m doing my first scene with an experienced Actor. The movie takes place inside an insane asylum and centers around a power-hungry doctor who was giving patients his own medical concoctions that end up turning the patients into flesh-eating zombies. It was a really fun movie to shoot and I loved my time on it. I especially love telling this little story.

  Actor plays the creepy older doctor and I play the tired, but good-hearted nurse. In my first scene I’m attacked by a patient in a hallway and Actor walks in and saves me. End scene.

  End scene? Not if you’re Actor!

  At the very end of the scene, he turns to me and says, “I should check your neck…meet me in the shower.” CUT! The director runs up to us. “Great. Really great. Actor—let’s try it again, but leave out the last line you added. Great!”

  This was good advice, mostly because this line was not in the script.

  And…action!

  I’m choked by a patient. The doctor rescues me and says, “Meet me back in my office. I’ll check your neck. You need a shower.” CUT! The director runs up again. “Great. Really great. Actor—I think we need to leave the last line out. Your characters aren’t dating.”

  Actor: “Nooooo. I think it would be great if my character and her character have a thing going on and then we cut to them in a shower and she can be wearing a white shirt.”

  Apparently it’s true: all actors do want to direct. I’m standing there, eyes wide open, fumbling through my memory trying to remember where he read that in the script.

  “Uuumm, yeah…Your characters aren’t dating. And I don’t really think we need that,” the director says. “So, let’s just do it again—it’s great—we’ll just do it without that line.”

  Action!

  Choked, doctor rescues me and…“I really should check your neck. Meet me in the shower.”

  Cut!

  Damn.

  !

  The finished edit does not in fact have this line. From what I hear there was some clever editing to keep it out.

  But, I gotta hand it to Actor. He had a vision for his character and he wasn’t letting anyone stop him.

  Just woulda been nice if we shared the same vision.

  Growing up in an Air Force family, I moved around a lot. And yes, at times it was fucking hard. It’s unbelievably difficult to walk into a new school where everyone has already clawed their way to a particular social status and try to be welcomed in. If you think of a new school as a lion’s den and all the other students as bloodlusting lions who want only to sink their razor fangs into your flesh and rip and rip and rip, until a river of crimson has washed the whole world away, then you will have in mind a mild version of what I’m talking about. The reality is, as a new student coming into the lion’s den, you are not always welcome.

  And it’s not about being a girl. Or that girls are more catty and protective of their circle and don’t like other pretty girls or any of that stereotypical bullshit. The fact is, at that age, no one wants a new person to be added to their world. Especially if that new person could conceivably steal their boyfriend, innocence or Game Boy. If you’ve seen even one after-school special in your life, you understand exactly what I’m talking about. It’s already hard enough to make it to whatever social class you’ve made it to, and then to have some new kid come in and possibly dethrone or replace you creates a lot of negative, nervous energy. That’s like one of those rare New Age-y sounding ideas that also happens to be true—weird!

  Whenever I’d go into a new sch
ool I would spend the first few months without any friends at all. Sure, this let me master my Super Mario, Tetris, and Street Fighter skillz, but still. Thankfully I had a sibling who went to the same school with me, so we would have each other to eat lunch with. Which, as we all know, is the most difficult part of the school day. Uuughh—I absolutely despised lunches or recesses. If it was regular class, there was a teacher and we all sat in our own assigned seats, listened to her and did our work. But now, out in the wild frontier of the playground or in the lunchroom wasteland where seats weren’t assigned by alphabetical order, but by popularity, a flood of anxiety would wash over me. The unlucky ones were forced to eat by themselves or make new friends or try to make new friends. And then they got shot down by cooler kids. No thanks. I’d rather sit by myself. Hey, at least that way nobody would make fun of my lunch. Except my lunch—which does start talking to you if you’ve been alone long enough.

  In fifth grade I moved to a new school and of course it all started over again. This was a period of my life where I wore all my hair on one side of my face, covering my eye and weighing my head down so it was always tilted to the left. I sat there in my new fifth-grade class and prayed for senior year to roll around. It couldn’t come fast enough.

  In fifth grade I moved to a new school and of course it all started over again.

  Then one day a note was passed to me. And it read, “Will you go out with me? Jeremy.” He was a boy with brown, spiky hair who wore glasses, striped Polo shirts, and braided belts. I actually didn’t even know what his note meant. I didn’t think about boys or dating or getting asked out. I folded the paper and put it in my awesome unicorn Trapper Keeper. At recess, Jeremy came up to me on the swings and asked me again, “Will you go out with me?” I responded, “Go where?” I honestly had no idea what he was talking about. Like, outside? Or maybe to the supermarket? No idea.