There was a short press line, and I was sweating profusely, maybe because of the weather (it was June, almost my birthday), maybe because of the drugs, or maybe because I was nervous. Who knows? I wiped off almost all of my makeup with a towel and had a hard time even giving interviews because I was so sweaty. My publicist came up to me, and said, “I weirdly have a good feeling about this!”
We went into the ballroom, where I talked to some of my actor friends and started to calm down. Marc and I found our seats at a table with Courteney and Guillermo from Jimmy Kimmel. Jimmy was nominated but didn’t come and sent Guillermo in his place in case he won. All the shows that were nominated had big tables; there was one each for Big Bang and Modern Family and Community and all the shows’ creators and showrunners were there, but we were at a weird aggregate table, not dissimilar to Abby’s wedding. My award was up pretty early. I think Johnny Galecki presented it, maybe? He read out the nominees, “Julie Bowen, Modern Family; Jane Krakowski, 30 Rock; Jane Lynch, Glee; Eden Sher, The Middle; Busy Philipps, Cougar Town; Sofía Vergara, Modern Family.”
All of those actresses were going to be nominated for an Emmy, for sure. Most of them had already been in years past. Three of them had already won Emmys. And here I was, with my brain zaps from my antidepressants, my mouth and throat still sore from an allergic reaction that could have killed me, makeup totally sweated off, and pit stains growing on the dress I’d bought for the event.
When he announced my name, I couldn’t quite understand what I was supposed to do. I didn’t see where the steps were, so I kind of just climbed up on the stage awkwardly. As soon as I got up there I looked out at the crowd, and I had the thought that these people didn’t want to hear from me! I should get off this stage as quickly as I could! I’d never had that thought before, but here I was, dying to get offstage. I remembered to thank Courteney, since she was in the room. I thanked the critics. And then I bolted.
After I had returned to our table, a few friends came over to congratulate me. Courteney was so excited for me. Then the creator and showrunner for Modern Family, Steve Levitan, came by our table on his way back from the bathroom. He barely looked at me. “Hey, Courtney! How are you?”
“Good,” she said. “I’m good!”
“Yeah, this event is so lame. We’re all over there at our table like, ‘What even are these awards? I mean, are they even real?’ ”
I glanced at the award I had just won sitting in front of me and then looked up at him. “Well, I mean, it feels real to me since I’m holding one?”
He laughed. “Ha. I guess. All right . . . Well, ’bye Courteney. Tell Bill I said hi.”
As soon as he walked away, Marc turned to me. “What a fucking dick thing to say. Fuck that guy. He’s just mad because you won and the two actresses from his show didn’t.”
“That was weird, right? Like a fucking lame thing to do to me, right? I’m not being oversensitive, because I just came off these drugs and I feel crazy, am I?”
“No babe,” he said. “That was fucked.”
Even Courteney, who tends to be very levelheaded and tries her best to see things from everyone’s point of view, thought it was weird. I tried to shake it and not let it bring me down, but it actually really hurt my feelings. It felt like he did it on purpose. Just to be a bully. Here was this guy, this fucking multimillionaire who was set for life because of his TV show, and for no reason, without even thinking, just shit on a thing that I was really proud of. Their show won, by the way (because OF COURSE IT DID) and you know, he acted like it was “real” when he was onstage, accepting his award.
I’ve told this story for years, in the hopes that it would somehow get back to him, I think. I always wanted him to know that you can have all the money and success in the world, but when you’re a fucking asshole, you’re a fucking asshole and that’s all there is to it. A year ago, at an Emmy after-party, Marc and I were standing at a table. I was a little tipsy from tequila when Steve Levitan and his girlfriend came up and set their drinks down at the same table. I’ve seen Steve many times over the years, occasionally saying hi but mostly just shooting daggers that he’s completely unaware of in his direction. Such is the joy of being an oblivious super-successful white man in this business. This was a few short months before all the shit hit the fan in terms of #metoo and the Harvey Weinstein articles, but I was already over holding things in to protect myself for future work. Besides, he had already created Modern Family. He wasn’t going to create another one. He couldn’t do anything to me or for me, so fuck it. I looked at Marc. “I’m gonna tell him.”
Marc’s eyes went wide as I turned my attention back to Steve.
“Hey, Steve,” I said brightly. “How are you?”
He barely looked up from his phone. “Oh. Hey, Busy. How are you?”
He introduced me to his girlfriend, who seemed young and sweet. “Oh my God!” she said. “Hi! I LOOOOOVE YOU!”
“Oh, thanks, that’s really nice!” I said, then turned back to him. “So listen, Steve! I’m writing a book—I have a book deal, actually. Like a real book! And you’re gonna be in it. Well, there’s a story with you in it, I should say.”
He looked up, finally interested. “Really? Why?”
“You probably don’t remember this. I mean, I’m sure it was so inconsequential in your life, but you were a real fucking dick to me when I won the Critics’ Choice Award, and it’s always really bugged me. You could have just congratulated me, but you didn’t. You came up to talk to Courteney and then said that everyone from your show didn’t even think the awards were real even though I had just won one, against Julie and Sofía.”
“Oh shit. Did I say that?”
“Yeah. And it sucked. Because it was a really big deal to me, and I enjoyed the moment for like five minutes before you came over and made me feel like an idiot.”
“Oh, man, I’m sorry. I’m sure it was all about me. I bet I was just insecure or something.”
“Yeah, Steve, that’s kind of how being a dick works. I know it wasn’t about me. But it still sucked. Look, you have your show and your millions of dollars and all the fucking awards. I have one. That one. And you made me feel shitty about it. That’s all. I just think you could have done better. As a person.”
“Well . . . I’m really sorry.”
“Okay. I’m really not looking for an apology. I just wanted you to know.” I turned to his girlfriend, whose mouth was agape, and dare I say, she looked like she was kind of enjoying it. “It was nice to meet you, honey, have a good night.”
And with that, I grabbed my clutch and walked away, with Marc following close behind whispering excitedly, “You are such a fucking badass, Busy. Such a fucking badass.”
GOOD INTENTIONS PAVING COMPANY
(Joanna Newsom)
Birdie was about to turn four. All of a sudden, I had to have another baby. I know I had said “one and done.” I know I had told anyone who would listen that there was no way I was having another baby. But now I had a kid. And I wanted a baby. I had a job, and if we timed it right, I wouldn’t even have to miss an episode. As an actress, you don’t really get maternity leave. Depending on your show, you either miss episodes and they don’t pay you, or they make you come to work no matter how old your newborn is. Marc emphatically did not want another child. Our adjustment to Birdie had been rough, to say the least. He was finally feeling like we had gotten a handle on parenting and then we were going to throw another wrench into it? The wrench being another human child, obviously.
“She wants a baby,” I said. “Ask her. She wants someone else.”
Marc looked at me skeptically, “She’s three. She doesn’t know anything.”
“She’s smart. She told me it’s boring because it’s just her and grown-ups. She wants a baby. I want a baby.”
“Birdie! Come here. Do you want Mommy to have another baby?”
“Yeah. It’s boring for me. It’s just me and you guys.”
We were in Anguilla
, on vacation before I had to return to Cougar Town for the fifth season. I looked at Marc. I told you so.
“We’ll see, Buddy.” Birdie jumped back into the shallow water and Marc looked at me seriously. “If we do this, it’s all on you. You have to hire all the help you need. I’ll take care of Birdie, but seriously, I don’t think this is the best idea. I just want to say that.”
I nodded and threw away my pills that day. I had figured out the timing. I needed to be pregnant by the end of October in order to not miss any episodes, and it would put me back at work with a four- or five-week-old baby. I could do that. Also, my friend Ashlee had the best baby nurse for me: I would be fine. I would eat placenta pills and make sure I didn’t have postpartum anxiety again, and if I did I would get medication as soon as I could, even if I had to stop breastfeeding. I would be chill. I could do this. People have more than one kid all the time! We can do this!
As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I panicked. What the fuck? We couldn’t do this. Birdie was a handful, already starting with her terrible temper tantrums and refusing to sleep in her bed at night. Marc didn’t want this baby. Most days, I didn’t think Marc particularly wanted to be married to me. Jesus. What a fucking mistake. At least I had the job. I cried and cried all through my pregnancy. I had terrible panic that the baby was dead inside me. I had to get an at-home fetal heart rate monitor just to make sure. I had terrible panic that I was about to die too. Also, I was going to have to push this baby out? Oh fuck. I really hadn’t thought it through.
I spent no time talking to my unborn child, reassuring her that my tears weren’t about her, because of course they were and she was no fucking idiot. She knew perfectly well why I was upset. I half-heartedly made a list of names, most of them repeats from the list for Birdie. Some days I tried to be excited. My friend Jennah told me to try going to prenatal yoga, where we’d met and formed such a close bond with Birdie and her son Killian. I went to one class and the model Amber Rose was there with her non-pregnant assistant. The vibe just wasn’t the same.
I hired the baby nurse and made sure she knew that I was probably going to be early so she should be available. I took Birdie to New York to see some theater with Abby and Phoebe, and Birdie was a nightmare, throwing horrible tantrums and screaming at me in Central Park. I couldn’t calm her down. Marc was at Coachella with his friends. “What do you want me to do, Busy? I’m four thousand miles away!”
I had several friends all due around the same time, including Colin’s now-wife, Samantha, whom I had become close with. One by one, all the babies came, even Kim Kardashian’s, who I didn’t know personally, but I was tracking her pregnancy like a hawk since our babies were due around the same time and I knew from the show that Dr. Crane was her ob-gyn. I would not be okay if he ditched me in the delivery room for a more famous baby.
Finally, on Marc’s birthday, I went to see Dr. Crane by myself. My due date was July 4, but Dr. Crane thought maybe the baby was just about ready. He did a membrane sweep. Marc came to meet me in Beverly Hills and we walked over to one of the nondescript Italian places and had dinner for his birthday as my contractions were starting. We drove home and hid outside by the pool so that Iliana would put Birdie to bed and we wouldn’t have to. I thought maybe the baby would come fast and be born on his birthday, but she didn’t. We went to the hospital at 3 a.m. and she arrived around seven in the morning. She was a little blue and having trouble breathing, so she needed to be sucked out and given oxygen. But then she was fine. And beautiful. Smaller than Birdie by a pound. Eight pounds, seven ounces. Twenty-one inches. She had no name. I called her “the baby.” The name I had liked most seemed ridiculous. She wasn’t a “Ginger Silverstein.” Ugh. Certainly not.
Birdie came to visit after her day camp and lay down on the bed and covered the baby with kisses and pushed into my stomach and laughed at how big it still was.
“Why, Mama? The baby’s out. Why’re you still so fluffy??”
“Just my body, baby.”
The baby was so sweet and smiley almost immediately. She literally sparkled. She was tough, unflappable. You could tell. And she liked to rub her little baby newborn legs together inside her swaddle. She ate right away with no trouble and slept soundly and burped with no issues. She seemed like magic. Loretta, my baby nurse, said she was one of the best babies she’d ever seen. We didn’t know what to call her. Marc and Birdie had tried to get me to agree to Cricket but I thought for sure people would be mean about it. “THOSE ACTRESSES NAME THEIR KIDS THE DUMBEST THINGS.”
But Marc wasn’t having any of that. “No! Cricket is the best name! Cricket is like, the coolest girl at summer camp!!”
After five days, the hospital called and told us we would have to come name her or it was going to be a huge pain for us. They had let us go, because the holiday weekend was coming up, but now the Fourth of July had come and gone and we had to name this baby ASAP.
I sighed, resigned. “Fine. Name her Cricket. Cricket Ann.”
Marc left for the hospital to turn in the paperwork and I called my mom. “Busy. No. Not Cricket. No! What about Dorothy? You love that name.”
But she wasn’t a Dorothy. Or she could be? I didn’t know. Also. This was coming from a woman who’d called her own child Busy.
I hung up the phone, crying, and called Marc. “Cricket Ann sounds weird. I don’t like it.”
“Okay. What should I do?” He sounded exasperated.
“I don’t know! Ummm. Can we name her Cricket Pearl? That way if I really hate Cricket, I can call her Pearl?”
“Sure, Buddy. But you’re not gonna hate it! She’s our Cricket. Trust me!”
He was right. She was our Cricket and she was the fucking best. What wasn’t the best, however, was going back to work four weeks after she was born. Bill had left in order to run his new show and had left Blake McCormick in charge, a writer who seemed fine. I had sent him an email before Cricket was born, letting him know that if they wanted to address my weight gain in any way, they could, like how it had been done on Will & Grace or Frasier. But that ultimately not to worry, I would be coming back to work immediately and would figure out all my baby stuff with the ADs, all of whom were like family by that point.
A week before I had to start shooting, I went in for my wardrobe fitting with my beloved costume department, who had taken such good care of me since day one. Heidi had all kinds of Spanx ready for me and even told me how she had once sewn together three different pairs of Spanx for an actress and that she could do the same for me. We tried on clothes, and while I certainly wasn’t close to being back to my original weight—I probably still needed to lose twenty or thirty pounds—I felt like it was okay and I could deal with it. That is, until she said, “And what do you want to do about this stupid hot-tub scene? Or the shower-sex scene with Dan??”
Wait. WHAT THE FUCK? I hadn’t gotten any scripts yet. So they wanted me to get into a hot tub and have a sex scene in a shower four weeks after giving birth??? Motherfucker.
I marched up to the writers’ room and busted in. “Hi guys! What the fuck? I’m not getting in a fucking hot tub. You’re not even allowed to take a bath for six weeks after giving vaginal birth, because your cervix isn’t closed up all the way and bacteria can get up in there! So that’s not fucking happening.”
Blake mumbled, “Yeah. I mean. We kind of thought for the hot tub you could just, you know, be up to your boob level? I didn’t know that about baths after giving birth. The . . . bacteria or whatever.”
“Yeah. Well, maybe someone should have checked. And I’m not doing a fucking sex shower scene next week with Dan Byrd.”
“Yeah. It’s just that Courteney broke her wrist and we have to explain it, so that’s what we came up with.”
“Oh, cool. Well, we can shoot it in two months, when I’m not bleeding from my fucking vagina and unable to wear a tampon.”
Poor Blake. I don’t think he really had considered that dealing with a hormonal new mother would be a part
of his big new job promotion. Also, I truly prided myself on being generally very easygoing as an actress, but I couldn’t just be chill about this. A few weeks into shooting I saw Brian Van Holt walking around with the AD for the following week’s episode. Ian Gomez told me that Brian was prepping an episode as the director. And that Josh was going to do one later in the season.
“Ugh, dudes get to do everything,” I lamented to Marc later that night. “Why do they get to direct? They don’t have any idea what the fuck they’re doing.”
“If you want to direct an episode,” he said, “just ask. I’m sure they’ll let you. I mean, I feel like they would have to.”
I didn’t particularly want to, but I didn’t like that the guys on the show were doing it and I wasn’t. In fact, in my many years as an actress working in TV, I had been directed by many, many former television actors who had turned to directing once their acting careers dried up. In all my years, I had only been directed by one actress who had done the same. Actresses just weren’t given the shot. But why? I asked my friend Sarah Chalke, who had been on Scrubs. All the male actors had directed episodes—why hadn’t she or Judy Reyes?
“I don’t know,” she said. “I never asked. I also wanted to make sure if I directed that I really, really knew what I was doing.”
But she had been on television for twenty years. Didn’t that count? I understood what she was saying, though. I don’t ever want to do anything unless I’m certain I’m going to be the best at it. Aside from my film 101 class at LMU, I hadn’t gone to film school or anything. I didn’t know the names of camera lenses or shots. But this was one of those situations where I thought I needed to just do it and then if it sucked, I wouldn’t need to do it again. Besides, it wasn’t like the men were waiting until they were experts. They just did it. So I would too.
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