The slow arc friendship between Kim Kelly and Lindsay Weir is one of the most-earned, most-rewarding friendships I’ve ever seen executed in the medium. It’s the sort of thing television should be really good at, but no one has the patience for it. By the time Kim and Lindsay get on that micro bus to go follow the Dead, tears were streaming down my face. I was so pleased when I met the woman who would become my wife, because she’d never seen the show, and I got to watch the entire season over with her. (Yes, I purchased the special exclusive collector’s edition with the yearbook, and everything.)
In the case of Kim Kelly, I went to school with several. I have a cousin who is a Kim Kelly. You absolutely nailed that type. It was a phenomenal performance. You gave so much soul to a role that in -lesser- hands could have been a stock antagonist.
So that’s how I feel about you and about your audition and our desire to work with you.
The bad news, I’m afraid, is that the network doesn’t see it that way.
Our thoughts regarding the pregnancy weight were virtually identical to yours. We could embrace it. (My son just turned five months; I’ve got a real visual appreciation about the weight-loss speed we’re probably talking about.)
The network is unwilling to go down that path.
If you saw the list of actresses the network wanted us to consider, you’d understand what we’re dealing with.
In the past few years, I’ve either worked with or met several of your F&G castmates: Samm, Seth, Jason. I picketed for a few days with Paul Feig, and I had a bizarre email exchange with Judd Apatow. With each, I’ve just gushed like a complete fanboy. So now it’s your turn. Your agent passed along your email. He may have intended to pull your email address off of it, but he didn’t, so it may be slightly out of line my addressing you directly, but I wanted you to know that, at the very least, you had our entire team in your corner.
I genuinely hope we get to work together someday.
Congratulations on the new baby.
Rob
I cried for five days and then Marc told me that he had talked to Lizzy and she was going to do the part, but not until after another actress friend of ours had also been rejected by the network for not being “fuckable” enough. I never could figure out which was more insulting—being deemed too fat or not fuckable.
I took it as a challenge to lose most of the weight before pilot season started. Lorrie Bartlett had me come into ICM and talk to the TV agents about what I was looking for. I was not fucking around: “I want to do a single-camera, half-hour comedy where I can be number two or three on the call sheet. A show with a big-name star that will do most of the press and a show that for sure is going to get picked up to series.”
I read the script for Cougar Town and told Marc that it was the show I was going to do. He told me to calm down. That night, we went to a restaurant for dinner and ran into our old friend Kate Walsh, who was having dinner with Steve McPherson, who was the (then) president of ABC. I turned to Marc as we left. “See? It’s a sign. I’m getting that part.”
“Buddy? You have to audition first.”
DETAILS.
I wore two sets of Spanx under my most flattering green DVF dress that had little white polka dots on it. I belted the waist as tight as I could and went to my audition. I still didn’t have a nanny or help, but sometimes our cleaning lady could watch the baby for a few hours while I ran out. I knew Bill Lawrence, who had cowritten the pilot, and his wife, Christa Miller, a little through a mutual friend of Marc’s. Christa was so intimidating, and mostly what I knew of them was they were super fucking fancy (they had flown private to our friend’s wedding!) and they were really well-liked and Bill made hit shows. I auditioned for the role of Laurie Keller in front of the casting directors, Courteney Cox (MONICA!), Bill Lawrence, and his cowriter Kevin Biegel.
I went to dinner with Abby and Phoebe and Marc and Birdie that night and got a call from my wedding planner, Jo Gartin. “Busy! Courteney just called me! They love you for that part and she wanted to ask me how it was working with you for the wedding—you know she and I are really close!”
I didn’t know that, and I was grateful that I had been a very easygoing bride and that Jo liked me. It was funny getting that information from my wedding planner before even talking to my agents, but that’s what happened. I was asked to test and told by my agents that it seemed like everyone really loved me for the part. It certainly felt like I was the favorite. I wondered to Lorrie if I should talk to them about the additional ten or fifteen pounds I still had to lose or if we should just let it go. What I didn’t know was that Bill had initially written the part for the actress Eliza Coupe, who had been on the final few seasons of Scrubs. At my studio test, there were about five actresses but that afternoon, for the network test, it was me and Eliza, whom I had just met that day but instantly liked. Bill is an incredibly magnanimous person and wants the best for everyone, truly. He is also married to an actress and understands the pressures and annoyance of testing and jumping through hoops. So when I tell you what he did right before the test, which was hands down one of the weirder things I’ve ever experienced at a test, know that it came from a place of trying to ease tensions for both of us, even though it came off a little weird.
Eliza and I were sitting together, having just witnessed a young child actress being told she wasn’t getting a part and having a literal breakdown in the ABC lobby, when Bill approached us. “Hey, guys, how are you feeling? So listen, here’s what’s gonna happen. We still need to go through with this, because this is the bullshit of how things are done. But Busy, you’re getting this part, and Eliza, you have that network test in an hour for the superhero pilot, and you’re getting that part. I talked to those guys and you already have it so, yeah! You both have jobs! Yay! See you in there!”
And then he turned and walked off, leaving Eliza and me to sort through the craziness of being told before going in that I had gotten the part and she hadn’t but that she was getting another pilot.
She turned to me. “Ummm. That was weird, but congratulations?”
I laughed. “Yeah. You too? How fucking weird. So we still have to go do this, I guess?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s the show you got??”
“Oh. It’s fine. It’s some show that’s never getting picked up.”
We sat there in silence and then were called upstairs for our test, knowing it didn’t matter. It had already been decided.
I still had no nanny and didn’t know how to work out my breastfeeding schedule and pumping on the pilot. Birdie was only seven months old. The woman who had been cleaning my house once a week agreed to come with me and Birdie to set on the days I had to work. Marc couldn’t watch her because he and Abby were on a deadline for some movie.
Christa wasn’t very kind to me about not having a full-time nanny. “Well, that’s not going to work at all. No. You need to hire someone immediately.”
I was too embarrassed to tell her there was no way we could afford to hire a full-time nanny at the moment. I had lost all my money in my stupid house and had barely worked in over a year.
I hardly remember shooting the pilot, but I loved Courteney and Dan Byrd immediately. I liked working with Bill, and while I thought she was super funny, I was afraid of Christa, which seemed to be the consensus of most of the crew, who had worked with her on Scrubs. They liked her and were also terrified of her.
After we shot the pilot, I got an email from our old next-door neighbor Penelope/Stephanie telling me that her cousin was looking to share their longtime nanny with someone. She had worked for them for almost eight years and now the kids were in elementary school and it didn’t make much sense for the nanny to continue full-time. Would I want to meet her? I wrote Penelope’s cousin an email and she put me in touch with Iliana.
Iliana came over to meet me and the baby and as soon as she walked into my house and took Birdie from my arms, I knew things would be okay. She asked if she could wash and put a
way my clothes as well, and I told her that wasn’t necessary, but all of a sudden my laundry was done and put away. She helped me make all of Birdie’s baby food from scratch, something I had already started doing. She dressed Birdie in her cutest outfits, outfits I never had the time to look for or put together, and would walk her around the house, singing to her in Spanish and calling her “Municita” and “Mama.” Birdie adored her, as did I. She worked part-time, a few days a week, which I could afford now that my Cougar Town pilot check had cleared. But she would stay late if we needed and encouraged me to go out and have fun and would reassure me that I was, in fact, doing everything right.
“You’re such a good mother. You are, Busy, you are,” Iliana would say as she rubbed my back in circles, the same way she would rub Birdie’s back when she put her down for her naps. My kitchen was suddenly always clean. My baby was happy. I could breathe and go to the gym and meet friends for lunch without disrupting Birdie’s nap schedule. I started to feel a little like myself again.
The show was picked up and I was about to turn thirty. I decided to throw myself a big party in Palm Springs. I had fucking made it. It was all happening. I had almost lost all of my baby weight, no easy feat for me, especially considering I was still breastfeeding. And since Iliana had started working for us, I was feeling like maybe I didn’t have to divorce Marc after all.
We started shooting the series the week of Birdie’s first birthday. The show was fun and the crew was great. Aside from Christa whispering to Courteney on set, which always made me feel like she was talking about me in the first few months, I liked working. Iliana—who was with us full-time now—would bring Birdie to set to visit and stroll her around the lot. Once the show was officially picked up for a whole season, we were all given dressing rooms and not trailers, so I set up my room as a little playroom for Birdie. I went to Ross Dress for Less and bought a bunch of toys and things that she didn’t have at home so she would look forward to visiting me.
Birdie was incredibly bright and verbal. By the time she was one, she had over fifty words that she would use in little two- and three-word sentences. I remember talking to the pediatrician about it, who told me that I needed to know that if we had another child, he or she would probably not be the same as Birdie. I told her not to worry, we were ONE AND DONE. I was NOT HAVING ANOTHER BABY. Birdie’s verbal acuity was actually abnormal. But it made sense. In the first many months of Birdie’s life, I talked to her nonstop, partially out of daily loneliness on my part and partially because I had read a baby book that said the more you can talk to your child, the calmer they will be. That you should try to explain to them everything you’re doing and everything that’s happening around them. But just in your regular voice, not in a baby voice. Which is what I had done.
“I’m putting a new diaper on you, so I have to move your legs a little. Excuse me! Here. This is a wipe. It might feel cold on your tush and vagina, I’m sorry. But it’ll be over really quickly and I need to make sure you’re clean. We always wipe from front to back. That’s a good lesson to know as a woman. Always go front to back.”
or
“I’m sorry I couldn’t get you into the baby carrier. Sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve never had a baby before. You’re my first. I really want to make sure you’re happy and like me. I think you do. Do you even know that I’m your mom? Don’t answer that. I’m going to put on some music while we drive. Want to listen to weird yoga music or Arcade Fire? Or should we just call my mom on speakerphone?”
or
“I didn’t get that job. They thought I was too fat. It’s okay, though, because I have you and you were worth it. But that’s the thing about what I do—it can be really confusing sometimes. It’s a great job when it’s great, but when it’s not, it’s literally the worst. I’ll try to explain it more when you know what TV and movies are. So that’s why I’m crying. It has nothing to do with you, just so you know. You are perfect, my little Bird.”
• • •
A few weeks into shooting, Courteney and I were having lunch at our new favorite place in Culver City, walking distance from the stages where we shot. From day one, Courteney would get a group together to go to lunch and eat something good and have a glass of wine. Her feeling was that work should be fun, and she wasn’t wrong. It was super fun. She was asking me about Birdie and Marc—we were all still pretty much getting to know each other. Then she asked me if I had been to therapy recently, since Birdie was born, or if anyone had talked to me about medication. I think it was clear to her that I was in a postpartum fog of anxiety and she could just tell that I needed more help than I was currently getting.
A few weeks later, I was actually at a Grizzly Bear concert when I met a woman who was the mother of one of the lead singer, Ed’s, friends. Ed and I had met through MySpace, when he had sent me a message that he was a fan of Freaks and Geeks, and then we became friends in real life, traveling together and having dinner parties whenever he was in town with the band. Now he’s one of my best friends and is even Cricket’s godfather, and she gets very excited when Grizzly Bear is played on SiriusXM.
Anyway, the woman at the concert and I got to talking, and it turned out she was a therapist. She gave me her number and I promised to call. But I didn’t, and then a week later, I ran into her again at the valet line at the Grove. I decided that it was a sign and I set up an appointment with her.
One of the problems with struggling with mental illness, I think, is that actually getting help sometimes seems so difficult. Like, UGH. I have to FIND someone and then go TALK to them and EXPLAIN all the things I’m thinking and feeling? No, that’s okay, I’ll just stay here in my brain that won’t stop turning, and cry in the bathroom when I think people are being mean to me even though they probably aren’t and I’m just super sensitive and maybe taking things the wrong way because this fog in my brain won’t let me see things clearly. Does anyone see things clearly? Did I ever see things clearly? What did I do before I had a baby? What was I like? Was I fun? What did I do before I was married? What did I do before I had a house? What did I do before I was on TV? Was I happy in high school? Was I happy as a child? Was I ever really happy? Was I ever happy? Have I ever been happy? Has anyone? Is anyone happy?
I stayed on Lexapro for over a year and a half. It helped calm me down and get out of my own way a little. I stopped crying so much. Or panicking about Birdie. She seemed like she was okay. I started really enjoying all my work on Cougar Town. I liked everyone in the cast, with the exception of Brian Van Holt, who personally annoyed me because I felt like he was such a weird aggressive bro who thought he was way smarter than he really was. Sorry, that’s mean. But it’s true. I could hang with him and not let his bro-ness get me down, though. Especially since Courteney thought he was amazing, and she was obviously the clear leader of our pack. Christa and I slowly became friends and she started whispering things to me on set, too. The show shifted in tone and concept from the initial pilot and we started making a show we all really loved, and the critics started to notice. We were pretty much flying under the radar, certainly not the immediate huge hit of Modern Family, but we were doing okay and making pretty funny shows. We were given a second season. The thing I heard most from people in Hollywood was this, “Oh yeah! Cougar Town! I’ve never seen it. But you’re supposed to be really good on it!”
Which was true. I was really good on it. I loved playing daffy Laurie Keller with her weird wardrobe and over-the-top hair and makeup and crazy one-liners and huge speeches that I would give as fast as I could, as sort of a challenge to myself. The television critics ended up loving Cougar Town, a show they had all been lukewarm about based on the pilot. There was talk about changing the title to be more reflective of what the show was, but it seemed almost impossible to get everyone on board with it, so they just left it and let Kevin Biegel do weird title cards that said something funny in the opening.
Toward the end of the second season, the very first Television Crit
ics’ Choice Award nominations were announced and Courteney and I were both nominated. I was beside myself. I was a little deflated when Bill gave a speech about how awards are bullshit and don’t mean anything, but I was still excited and thought maybe he was just annoyed that he and the show hadn’t been nominated. I asked my publicist at the time if we should be doing anything, like getting me press for it in the hopes that maybe I could be nominated for an Emmy and his response was a bit disheartening as well. “Darling, no. I don’t really see you having a chance with this.”
I didn’t have a stylist, so my new friend Irene Neuwirth introduced me to a designer she knew who made me a dress to wear to the event, which I had to buy. It was a daytime award ceremony, held in the basement ballroom at the Beverly Hills Hotel. It wouldn’t be televised. I wrote a thank-you letter to each of the critics for my nomination, not because I was trying to win particularly (I mean, I didn’t think it could hurt) but more because I felt like I had been acting for fifteen years and this acknowledgment really did mean something to me. Awards may be bullshit, but it’s nice to feel seen.
A few weeks before the event, my doctor put me on a new drug, a mood stabilizer that he thought would help even me out a little more, since I still was struggling with my moods and spinning thoughts. I started getting really bad canker sores in my mouth and down my throat. I went to Dr. Sugerman, who gave me a rinse to gargle with but had no idea what was causing it. A few nights later, as I was taking the new drug, Marc stopped me.
“Wait. Did you look up side effects from that?”
After a very brief Google search, we found out that one possible side effect of taking this drug was something terrible called Stevens-Johnson syndrome, which basically is a horrible allergic reaction that can end in death. I called all my doctors, and my general practitioner told me to go to the emergency room, which I did. They looked at my throat and mouth and skin and gave me some medicine and told me not to take the other drug anymore and sent me home. I guess because I was so freaked out about that, I decided to stop taking all of my antidepressants. I didn’t think the Lexapro was really worth it anyway. I stepped down off the drug but was still having weird brain zaps and feeling really strange and woozy. So that was my state of mind as we walked into the Beverly Hills Hotel.
This Will Only Hurt a Little Page 23