Unbearable Lightness

by Portia de Rossi

  As I said my hellos to the folks in the fitting rooms, it occurred to me that in a great ironic twist, I could possibly be perceived by the cast as a threat. Any new cast member threatens to take away airtime from the ensemble cast members, their story lines and attention. No television actor really embraces the idea of a new cast member, with perhaps the exception of the overworked titular character. I didn’t feel as though the cast was threatened by me, however. I felt that they were threatened by the change that my presence signified, that it prompted them to ask themselves, “If this could happen, then what’s next?” While everyone was very pleasant to me, I got the sense that they were all just wondering why I was there. They were celebrities on a hit television show, and I’d only had small parts in three movies and two very short-lived sitcoms to my credit. I guess we were all wondering why I was there.

  I was in the wardrobe rooms to check-fit my outfit for Day Two. I was nervous to try on the size 6 suit the tailor had taken in after my first fitting three days prior. After bingeing and purging I feared that I’d gained weight. I always tended to gain a pound after a binge and purge even if it was just bloat. I struggled to zip up the skirt in front of the costume designer, her assistant, and the tailor, who all witnessed the effort.

  “It fits,” I said to the crowd, as I stood straight with my legs pressed together, careful not to show them that it would likely bunch up at the slightest movement. Even though I had to wear the skirt for the last scene that day, I was too ashamed to admit that it was too tight.

  “Is it comfortable?” the costume designer, Vera, asked, squinting as if seeing better would help her sense my discomfort.

  “Yeah. It should be fine.”

  “I think I take in too much,” the tailor told Vera in a thick, unrecognizable accent. “I take out a little.”

  I didn’t say anything. I just took off the skirt and handed it to the tailor, allowing her to believe that it was her fault that the skirt didn’t fit. I slipped into my new beige Banana Republic pants, walked outside, and headed into makeup, all the while fighting the desperate urge for a cigarette.

  • • •

  “Hi, Portia. How were your days off?” Peter MacNicol was sitting in the makeup chair next to the empty chair that was waiting for me. He looked tired and I could tell that he was slightly envious that I’d had days off when he was working twelve-hour days all week.

  “Great, thanks.” It occurred to me that the more important the character, the fewer the days off. I hoped I would never be asked that question again.

  I stared into the mirror at the red dots on my eyelids. Despite my efforts to conceal them, they were so pronounced I could see them clearly in the mirror from several feet away. To my amazement, my makeup artist didn’t comment. It was almost worse that she didn’t, as it suggested to me that maybe she knew how I got them and didn’t need to ask. She began my makeup by thickly applying foundation with a wide, flat brush. After several minutes of silence, Peter got up from the chair next to mine.

  “See you in there.”

  The makeup trailer wobbled as he walked down the steps.

  “Yeah. See you in there.”

  “Cut!” the director yelled loudly to the cameraman and the actors, which was then echoed by several ADs stationed all over the set. I heard the word cut about ten times after each take to release the background or let the people who were at craft service go back to making noise as they fixed themselves coffee or a snack. We were all waiting this time, however, for the first AD to ask the cameraman to check the gate, which meant that the cast and crew could break for lunch. The scene was a “walk and talk” that took place in the hallway next to the courtroom. It was a short scene where I met up with Ally and asked her to have drinks with me at bar at the end of the day, explaining, “I would like to talk to a woman’s woman” before making a decision to join the law firm of Cage and Fish. I did well, even though it made me nervous as it reminded me of a scene I did in the movie Scream 2, in which my character, a nasty sorority girl, walked up to the entire assembly of the movie’s stars, and for some reason, had to say, “In a six degrees of Kevin Bacon sort of way.” I kept screwing it up. Take after take I would wrongly say, “In a six degrees of separation sort of way.” I was panic-stricken before each take and the panic made my head spin with fear and my mind go blank. I literally saw white light as I incorrectly repeated the same line over and over again. In this scene where I bullied Ally into meeting me for a drink, despite my urge to say, “I’d like to talk to a woman first,” I got the line out without any cause for panic. I was very nervous, though, as I was lauding it over Ally, intimidating her. In between takes I felt just as nervous, feeling as though I should fill in the silence with small talk, even though no one was really doing much talking. I, like the crew, was breathlessly waiting to be released for lunch, only I didn’t need to eat. I just needed to be released from the stress of being looked at, being judged. Was I good enough?

  “Check the gate.”

  The cameraman shone a penlight into the camera to check for dust on the film. “Clear.”

  “Gate’s good. That’s lunch. One hour.”

  I walked from the set to the dressing rooms with Calista and Peter.

  “Where do you guys normally eat lunch?” The minute I said it, I felt stupid, and like a nerdy schoolgirl who was attempting to force an invitation to be part of the cool kids’ group. There was a slight gap between my asking and their answering that reinforced my feeling of stupidity.

  “I tend to nap during lunch.” Peter spoke sweetly but in a way that informed me that there would never be an exception to this routine.

  “I have a phone interview.” Calista made a slight face that suggested that in another time before she became the poster child for America’s changing views on skirt length and feminism, she would’ve gladly swapped stories over lunch with another actor. The face she made was enough to make me think she really did wish things were different. I knew in that second that I liked her. But I also knew that I would never really get to know her.

  “How are you liking it so far?” She looked directly into my eyes.

  I inhaled and nodded my head up and down a few times. I wanted to tell her that it felt strange, that I felt out of place, that I was scared of not delivering. I wanted to tell her that I felt pressure to look good, to be fashionable, to be someone other than who I was. I wanted to say that I felt isolated and that maybe I kind of hated the show. But I didn’t. In the four years of working on that show I never did say any of that to her.

  “I love it.”

  “Great! See you back in there.”

  As I walked through the door with my name on it and into my dressing room, I heard my name being called from the hallway. It was Courtney Thorne-Smith in sweatpants walking toward the makeup trailer.

  “You break for lunch?”

  “Yeah. What are you up to?” Maybe I could have lunch with Courtney. I hadn’t had any real scenes with her yet and I wanted to get to know her. I used to watch Melrose Place.

  “That’s weird. They just called me into makeup. Everyone’s at lunch?”

  “Yeah. You wanna grab lunch with me?”

  She looked at me in a way that suggested that she felt sorry for me. I guess you could call it condescending, but there was a glint in her eye that told me that she too thought what she was about to tell me was strange.

  “We don’t really eat lunch together here.”

  “Oh. Cool. Okay.” I stared down at the carpet, embarrassed, as I began to close the dressing room door. “See you later, then.”

  I looked at my bag that was sitting on the new green chair opposite the full-length mirror. I had an hour. I grabbed my cigarettes, stuffed them underneath my shirt, and started walking out of the building. I walked away from the windowless monolithic peach rectangles that housed the stages and away from the offices, stacked one on top of the other, David Kelley’s office sitting on top of them all. In the far corner of Manhattan Bea
ch Studios, out of sight of anyone and in between the chain-link fence and the loading docks, I embarked on what would become my lunchtime ritual. I hid from the people who made me feel awkward, stupid, or like a schoolgirl. I hid from producers, directors, and people who evaluated me. I hid from the voice that became very loud in front of that full-length mirror in the dressing room that was supposed to make me feel comfortable. And I chain-smoked.

  8

  I FELT NERVOUS. As I walked through the house with wet hair to make myself tea I heard the television broadcasting my thoughts. “What will she be wearing? Who will win for best comedy?” The Emmys was a thing that I’d only seen on TV; I’d never actually helped provide the content that made it a show. Ally McBeal was nominated, Calista and Jane were nominated, and I was a debutante about to be introduced for the first time to the public who could potentially love me or hate me. My brother, thinking he was being supportive, had turned on all the TVs in the house for the preshow. I knew at some point my nerves would get the better of me and I’d lose my nonchalant attitude toward it and would tell him to shut it off. But I was trying on a different personality, one that was excited to walk the red carpet and show people who I was because I thought I was perfectly fabulous. This personality was not a bit worried or nervous that I’d say something stupid or be wearing the wrong thing. As I made my tea and listened to what was left of the segment after the kettle had sputtered, boiled, and whistled, I was completely unaffected by the shrill voices of the entertainment news reporters and the judgment of fashion commentators. I liked this new personality. It was calming, mature, balanced. I wondered how long I could keep it.

  I found that if I sat still for too long, my insecurity seized the opportunity to take control of my mind. Especially if the chair I was sitting on was positioned in front of a mirror. It’s not that I hated the way I looked, it’s just that I worried that I wouldn’t look good enough. That I wouldn’t be transformed from the girl who often forgot to shave her legs and rarely got a facial into Portia de Rossi, Hollywood actress and new cast member of the hottest show on television. In an attempt to avoid looking at my face as my hair was blown-dry, I looked down at the notes in my hands. My hands; my big, ugly, red hands that had only recently seen a manicure because that was what my cast mates did on weekends to ready themselves for the week ahead. I did whatever they did because they knew things I didn’t. Although I hated going to a nail salon, I wasn’t going to ignore the people around me who were more successful than me and who had figured all this out. I really hated my hands. My hands were manly. They belonged to a working-class boy who helped his dad around the farm. In my ugly hands were the pieces of paper that would act as my safety net, my little bit of reassurance, proof that if I studied them, I could ace the ensuing exam on that bright red carpet. On sheets of lined, reinforced paper I’d written:

  How did you get the role on Ally McBeal ?

  I met with David Kelley for a role on The Practice, but he saw me more for Ally, and within a couple of weeks, I was sent a script that featured my character, and that became the first episode of the new season.

  Describe your character.

  Nelle Porter is a very driven, ambitious woman who has sacrificed her private life for her career. She’s seemingly ruthless and insensitive, but deep down she wants love and happiness like everyone else. She’s so cold her nickname is “Sub-zero.”

  Were you a fan of the show?

  Yes. I love the show and I’m so proud to be a part of it. It’s like a dream come true.

  What is everyone on the show like? Have they welcomed you to the cast?

  The whole cast is great. Everyone is lovely and has been really friendly and welcoming toward me. I feel very lucky to be working with such a talented and nice group of people.

  What is in store for Nelle Porter this season?

  Well, you’ll have to watch and see . . .

  As I memorized my scripted responses to hypothetical questions in the kitchen chair that could barely fit in the bathroom of my one-bathroom house, I wondered if anyone else out there sitting in hair and makeup was doing this. Did any other actor rehearse “off the cuff” responses to red carpet questions? Did they rehearse their talk show stories as they sat in foils at the hairdresser’s? When you’re under spotlights and nervous, it has to help to have a script to fall back on. The fact that my character always knows what to say is one of the reasons I love acting. If I could be given a script to answer the hard questions seamlessly, I wouldn’t be so nervous that I might say the wrong thing. Sitting in front of the mirror and learning my answers, a feeling of self-hatred and shame came over me as I remembered a conversation with Greg Germann a couple of weeks earlier. On set and in between takes, in an attempt to be friendly, Greg had asked me what he no doubt thought was a simple question, but it was a question that silenced me with fear.

  “Do you have a boyfriend?”

  When I froze and was unable to answer this seemingly easy question, Greg raised his eyebrows and in a joking, incredulous tone asked, “Are you gay?”

  The question took me off guard. I wasn’t prepared. If only I’d had a script of perfect witty responses, I could’ve flicked through the brilliantly written pages in my brain and found the right one. But without the script, all I could think to say was, “I don’t know.”

  I hated seeing him at work after that. I worried about that conversation every day.

  I arrived at the Shrine Auditorium alone after getting into the car an hour earlier and chain-smoking the entire way. The last twenty minutes had been spent circling the venue, waiting in line as the celebrities, in order of importance, were given the drop-off spots closest to the red carpet. My driver told me all of this as we were waiting, which suggested to me that despite my silver dress and diamonds dripping from my neck and ears, he instinctively knew I was a nobody, even though my clothes suggested otherwise.

  When I eventually got out of the car at the mouth of the red carpet, I felt assaulted by the heat. For the first time, it occurred to me that it was the middle of the day, the hottest part of the day, and all these people were in gowns and diamonds pretending it was evening. It looked ridiculous to see a sea of sequins and tulle and satin at 3:30 in the afternoon on a hot summer day. Of course, it was just another costume, and these were actors. The red carpet was full of people. There were hundreds of people all jammed on a carpet, some trying to hurry through to the entrance of the Shrine, some lingering, trying to be noticed by photographers. And then there were the publicists, the people in drab black “stagehand” outfits swimming upstream to grab a client by the hand and hurl him or her in front of the firing squad, the section at the beginning of the carpet with photographers, all screaming and sweating, in rows ten deep. The noise coming from this section was aggressive, and it came in surges depending on who walked near them. The photographers yelled the name of the actor to get her attention and then a few minutes later the fans in the bleachers did the same. There was definitely a lot of yelling and sweating, posing and cheering for such a glamorous and important event. I didn’t know why, but it seemed different on TV. It seemed like the actors simply walked to the entrance and happened to be shot by photographers, quietly and respectfully as they breezed past. The fans, in my fantasy, would fall silent as the celebrities passed by, awed by their proximity to these precious creatures, like people do at the railing of a zoo enclosure. This seemed more like a sports event.

  The Fox publicist found me patiently waiting at the start of the carpet after beads of sweat had formed all over my face and body. This was my introduction. This was my turning point. After today, everyone would know who I was and have an opinion about everything I did. And with my hair in ringlets and my individual eyelashes glued onto the corners of my eyes, scripted answers and a silver Calvin Klein dress, I was ready to face the firing squad. She took me to the start of the photographers’ section of the carpet. As I’d just watched several women get their picture taken, I wasn’t terribly nervous. I
knew I’d stand in four different spots as the photographers yelled out my name and jostled for the best picture. I approached the line of fire as the publicist stated my name and place of business. “Portia de Rossi—Ally McBeal.” As I stood there, smiling, hip jutting out in a casual but elegant pose, I was alarmed by the silence. Not one of these people with machines for faces had called my name or asked me to spin around. No one was asking me who I was wearing. I instantly felt like this unenthusiastic response was my fault, like I should do something to make the picture better, more interesting. I felt sorry for these people whose bosses expected something more than just a girl in a silver dress. They expected a star with personality. They wanted to see the reason for adding a cast member to an already successful show. At the end of the stills photography section I saw a news crew whose reporter was handing out plastic fans. In a desperate attempt to justify the photographers’ time, the jewelry designer’s generosity, the publicist’s uphill battle to get me noticed after swimming upstream to come fetch me, and to not make David Kelley look like he made a mistake by casting an ordinary girl with no personality, I grabbed a fan and dramatically posed with it high in the air—like Marilyn Monroe with her dress blowing up, but different. The photographers liked it. They were taking pictures. Some of them were even yelling, “Over here!” so I’d turn more toward them while holding the pose.