There were about thirty students in the freshman year of 2005, and I’d say less than half of those had any kind of talent. Probably about a quarter were embarrassingly bad. So bad that you’d watch them onstage and think, ‘How can you not know? How has there been no one kind enough in your life to tell you that every time you open your mouth to act, people are cringing in the dark?’ But then you’d think, ‘Well, if they don’t know, and nobody’s told them, maybe I don’t know that I’m shit, and nobody’s told me.’ And then you’d generally freak out until you got pissed and convinced yourself that you could definitely get an agent if you just lost a few kilos.
Besides the moderately talented students and the really, really bad students, there was also just a bunch of charismatic kids who had liked drama in high school and weren’t really sure what else to do. I’d say I fell into the latter group. I wasn’t great; I wasn’t terrible – I just wanted to have fun. Of course, since I had not managed to increase my cool quota in the slightest since childhood, my idea of fun was sketch comedy and goofing around. I read gossip mags at lunch while other students were reading Chekhov. I just wanted to make up funny skits; other students wanted to break down the beats in A Doll’s House.
But drama school was how I found my soul mates. After spending three years at a high school where I walked away with exactly two friends (one of whom was Josh), I needed to find a community. And the kids at drama school who didn’t give a fuck gave me that community. We were the ones who laughed about how shit our campus was (and the fact that anyone even tried to call three rooms in an office building a ‘campus’). We were the ones who skipped movement class to go and get pissed at the pub. We were the ones who openly admitted that our entire course was probably just a money-making scheme for the dubious owner, and thought that made the whole experience even more hilarious. Basically, the people I was drawn to at drama school were the people who just wanted to laugh at life, and those people remain my friends to this day.
We often spent entire two-hour classes in suspended ‘character play’. For one particular class, each student had a chair, which they had to romantically dance with and seduce. For an hour. One guy was so appalled by the ridiculousness of it that he flat-out refused to seduce his chair, which was major sacrilege.
‘He refuses to dance with the chair?’
‘He needs to let go!’
‘He’s so closed off to his true inner self.’
‘He’ll never be a truly great actor if he can’t spend an hour making love to a piece of furniture.’
In another class, I had trouble spending forty-five minutes living my character’s journey as a ‘very sexual dolphin’. My acting teacher looked at me with pity, like it was so sad that I didn’t have what it took to ever really be a great creative spirit. (I’m quite pleased that, besides the odd McDonald’s commercial, nobody who successfully seduced their chair or spent an hour gawking like a parrot has found success either. I KNEW THE CHAIR SEDUCING WAS BULLSHIT.) So, given my propensity to goof around and not really give a toss about spending an hour imagining my character as ‘a deaf baby’, I was surprised to be offered a pretty dramatic lead role in my second year.
This role came to be known as ‘the naked role’. It was highly coveted, since the minute you get naked onstage you are immediately a brave and talented actor. I was going to play a nun. She has fallen in love with Don Juan and given her virginity to him, and when she realises that he’s had a bunch of other girls on the side, she rips off her nun’s habit in a rush of emotion, because she feels like she no longer has the right to represent God. Then she stands naked in front of Don Juan, crying, before exiting stage left.
Heavy stuff. Heavy stuff that I had no doubt in my mind I would never be able to pull off. The nun was a mostly comedic role, which was why, I assume, it was offered to me, but her last (emotional, naked) scene was the one I knew I wouldn’t even come close to getting right. So I just put the scene to the back of my mind – the naked part and the ‘quality acting’ part. It was probably the best female role in the play, and I was so flattered to have been cast, that I sort of forgot that there was no chance in hell I was ever going to be able to do it.
On the day of our first show, we had a tech run and a dress rehearsal. The director told me that I could stay dressed for those, and that I only had to go full-naked for opening night if I felt comfortable. I told him I definitely would be, knowing that I definitely wouldn’t be. There was more chance of me hanging out with the kids who read Chekhov at lunch than there was of me getting naked on that stage.
The sad part of the whole thing was the actual reason I didn’t want to get naked. It had nothing to do with people seeing my private parts; I was happy to let my vag hang out in front of a crowd. It was because of my body. I had broken up with Josh about halfway through the year, and since then had gained some weight. Not a lot, but enough to make me feel weird and self-conscious about my body for the first time in my life. I’d always been relatively slim – or at least, not big enough to warrant any kind of serious body-hate – and now I was starting to develop a little belly. A little belly that was giving me a huge amount of fucking insecurity.
It didn’t help that a few weeks earlier, after seeing me eat a delicious blueberry bagel smothered in butter from Starbucks, one of my acting teachers pulled me aside and told me she was really concerned ‘about my nutrition’. ‘You’re extremely talented, Rosie,’ she said, a patronising hand resting on mine. ‘But I worry that in an industry that relies so much on looks, if you don’t concentrate on your nutrition, you’re not going to get the parts you deserve.’ I agonised over that conversation for weeks. I had gained about five kilos after the break-up, nothing to be hugely concerned about. But that conversation set something off in my brain. In fact, the week after she said that to me, I starved myself for the very first time, in what would become a years-long battle with an eating disorder.
So basically, I didn’t want to get naked because I was more concerned that people would see my slightly protruding belly than I was about them seeing my vagina. I didn’t realise it then, but that was probably the most profound lesson I learned about being a woman in show business in my entire time at drama school.
In the countdown to curtains up, there was a nervous energy backstage. Nobody had seen me naked, and everybody was wondering if I was actually going to do it. In fact, I was already wearing specially made underwear beneath my costume. I had made it myself out of cheap calico, because I couldn’t find a pair in the shops that went high enough to cover the belly I had become so obsessed with. Everyone kept wishing me luck for something I knew I had no intention of doing.
Adrian, an arse of a guy who took all the chair-seducing stuff very seriously, even seemed to have a little respect for me. This was surprising, given we’d slept together a few weeks earlier and I’d been so off my face that I’d then proceeded to tell everyone that the sex was awful and he had a tiny penis (he didn’t). It had been a slip of the drugged-up tongue, but he still would never forgive me (and rightfully so, to be honest). We were at a friend’s twenty-first birthday, which was held at some swanky golf club, and about halfway through the night, it was decided that in order to teach all these rich, swanky golf-club people a lesson, we would sneak down to the eighteenth hole and do a big shit in it. Granted, I was twenty, had very much taken advantage of the open bar and had a couple of pills in my system already, but even as I write this now, sober, I think it’s a pretty funny idea.
Adrian and I ran off together into the night, frolicking through the golf course, holding hands and looking for hole number eighteen. I’m not sure either of us knew how to find it, or if we had considered any kind of logistical plan, but before I knew what was what, we were making out on the hole instead of shitting in it. Then we were having sex on the hole instead of shitting in it. I guess that’s what happens when you try to shit in a hole while on ecstasy.
Adrian clearly wasn’t enjoying himself. I clearly wasn’t enjoy
ing myself. But I had been taught that sex was a failure unless the boy comes, so I stubbornly kept at it. Then, my phone rang, and in what seemed like a perfectly reasonable move at the time, I answered it.
‘Yesh, Helloing?’ I said, continuing to ride Adrian like a sad, lonely seesaw.
‘Rosie! It’s Tonz! Where the hell are you guys? The party’s over, everyone’s leaving and going to Club 77!’
‘Oh. Um,’ I was clearly out of breath.
‘Wait, what the fuck Rosie? Are you having sex right now?’
‘Um . . .’
‘Ew! You slut! Hahahahahahahaha! Hey, you guys, Rosie and Adrian are totally doing it! Just meet us here soon – k – bye.’
I threw the phone down and kept going. Adrian had his eyes closed tight, but not in a passionate kind of way. His face looked halfway between concentrating on a maths question and trying not to cry. I climbed off him.
‘Okay,’ I said, defeated. ‘Everyone’s left. Are you going to the club?’
‘I guess so,’ he said, with the attitude of a kid who’d woken up on Christmas morning expecting an iPad and got a new school bag instead.
The entire golf course grounds had been closed, so the next fifteen minutes were spent trying to find a fence we could jump. All in complete silence. We flagged a cab down and rode all the way to the club still in complete silence. I was so off my face, it was only 11pm and I was already holding my shoes. When we finally got to Club 77 and I saw my friends, it was like my mouth erupted with the orgasm I wished Adrian had just had. Details just came exploding out of me.
‘You guyyyyysshhh! It was sooooo bad! And his penisy-thingy was teeny-teeny-teeny-tiny! And he didn’t even come! Whattsh wrong with me? Ish that my fault? That can’t be my fault! Oh! And oh my gosh, you guysh, it was soooo bad and why didn’t he come and his thingy was small.’
It really wasn’t. But I was so traumatised by the fact I hadn’t been able to make him come that I felt like I needed to save face. Also, the ecstasy was compromising my otherwise tactful brain.
‘Rosie. Shut up for a second.’ Tonz shoved a glass of water in my face, the drinking of which mercifully kept me quiet for thirty seconds. But it was too late. I turned around. Adrian had been standing there, listening to the whole thing. I felt so bad that I then proceeded to get fingered by another guy on the dance floor right in front of him, to which I’m sure he thought, ‘bullet fucking dodged’. Which at that point, I certainly was. Screwing one guy and getting fingered by another in one night was pretty clear evidence that I was not handling my break-up well. My self-esteem was in the toilet, and momentary sexual encounters were giving me a very brief taste of the comfort I had felt with Josh. Of course, the brief comfort that comes from a hook-up like that is cruelly cancelled out when you look back on the night before and realise you only did it because you just wanted to be held by somebody. And coming down off the ecstasy probably doesn’t help either.
So, after my drug-fuelled lie to a club full of people about the size of Adrian’s peen, I was surprised when he wished me luck for my big scene. I didn’t have the heart to tell anyone I was a total fraud.
The first act went fine. I had all my funny lines and stole most of my scenes with the kind of improvising that irritated everyone onstage but got me a lot of laughs from the audience (#teamplayer). During intermission the director came backstage to see if I was okay, and to tell me once again that I didn’t have to do it if I didn’t want to, to which I once again responded that I definitely would, knowing full well I already had calico undies on beneath my costume.
When the scene got closer, I suddenly remembered the whole ‘acting’ side of it. I’d been so worried about admitting to anyone that I was too scared to go naked that I’d completely forgotten I also had no freaking chance of reaching the emotional level the scene required. ‘Oh god,’ I thought, waiting to go on. ‘This is going to be fucking humiliating.’
I approached Don Juan, putting as much ‘emotion’ into the scene as I could by yelling everything I said. All of a sudden I was regretting not taking the chair-seducing classes seriously. And why the fuck had I refused to be a sexy dolphin? Why had I laughed at every acting exercise we ever did? Now I was standing onstage, yelling at some guy, feeling no better than Tabitha in Passions, and in approximately ten seconds I was going to rip off my nun’s habit and disappoint everyone by wearing undies.
I yelled my final, ‘this is the cue for the lighting guys that I’m about to get naked’ line, adding in what I felt was a very dramatic head turn at the end. Then, in one swift move, I ripped off my nun’s habit and stood onstage. Brave, defiant, broken, naked. Except in my undies.
In fairness to me, I was fully topless, so at least my tits were out for all to see. I hoped that at least made me half a brave actor. To be honest, I was just relieved that nobody saw my little belly. I had strategically ripped the undies in certain places so that some people might get a bit of a look at my vag, but mostly I chickened out of a nude scene, because I was embarrassed about not having a six-pack. Like nuns have six-packs anyway.
I was never offered another lead role after that, and left drama school halfway through my final year because I couldn’t afford the ridiculous fees anymore. I was sad not to graduate, but I hardly think it made a difference to my career. A year later I enrolled at the University of Technology, Sydney, to study creative writing, and realised that’s probably what I should have been concentrating on all along. All I’d ever wanted to do was write funny skits and perform them, without the pressure of meeting an emotional crescendo that warrants the ripping off of a nun’s habit. I just wanted acting to be fun. And my idea of fun was not seducing chairs and pretending to be a sexy dolphin. Although that would make a great fucking skit.
Your second set of parents will abandon you. Damn.
When I was nineteen, I peed my pants in Coles. Granted, I was a little (very) intoxicated. I hadn’t yet built up the kind of tolerance that comes from the regular consumption of cheap vodka and even cheaper wine. I was at a party within walking distance of my house, and I managed to convince the long-suffering Josh that I could get from said party to my bedroom on my own with no hassles or delays.
So off I trotted, heels in hand, headed towards a warm bed (by which I obviously mean the crawl space next to the toilet). What Josh didn’t count on was there being a Coles between point A and point B. And everybody knows that when walking home from a big night, Drunk Brain takes over Regular Brain and leads the body towards food instead of home.
I can’t remember the exact details, but what I do know is this: at some point during what should have been a five-minute walk, I ended up in Coles looking for crumpets and Fanta. And I peed my pants.
It was pretty close to closing time, and I must have looked an absolute mess, because the security guard stared me down with a worried/puzzled look on his face the second I walked in the door. Of course, Drunk Brain assumed he was staring at me because I looked fabulous, and that put a pretty confident spring in my step. The fact I was carrying my heels instead of wearing them, and one of my false lashes was dangling off my face, also didn’t register with me. I sauntered through that entrance like I was walking a red carpet.
I then proceeded to aimlessly wander the aisles for twenty minutes.
It was somewhere between deciding on the crumpets but still not sure about the Fanta that I got the feeling. Like my bladder was suddenly, and out of nowhere, overflowing to the point where it had decided to start pushing out liquid whether I agreed to it or not. That feeling.
I ignored it at first, and continued with the more pressing decision of which fizzy drink I should buy and cuddle up with in bed. (And again, if the story includes me being drunk, feel free to assume the word ‘bed’ means ‘toilet’.) But it got worse. And worse. I even tried that subtle manoeuvre of pretending I was looking at something on the bottom shelf so I could crouch down and try to use my foot as a plug, but to no avail. This wee was happening. And it was happening now
.
At this point I had three options: I could leave immediately, find some bushes outside and do my business; I could go right there in the aisle, which although a public place, I currently had to myself; or, option number three, I could attempt the impossible feat of reversing a waterfall, proceed to the counter and buy my desperately needed items, risking the very real possibility I would wet myself in front of a security guard and terrified check-out guy.
It was 2am and I was crouching down in the dog food aisle with no shoes on. A decision clearly needed to be made. Guess which option Drunk Brain chose?
I proceeded to the check-out, with what I estimated was about thirty seconds before the urine dam exploded. Of course at this point the manager entered the scene, and decided it was imperative he count every five-cent coin ever placed into circulation and put them into little bags.
That was obviously the moment a sane individual would have made a run for it. But damn it, it had taken me twenty minutes to decide I wanted those crumpets, and I wasn’t leaving without them.
So with the security guard, manager and check-out guy all within ten feet of me, I carried out what I thought was the only viable option left. With my crumpets and heels in one hand and Fanta in the other, I decided to let that wee flow as discreetly as possible. Drunk Brain reasoned that I really wanted those crumpets, and the chances of anybody noticing were slim. Drunk Brain was wrong.
You know when you’ve been busting to wee for such a long time that when you finally get to go, it just keeps coming and coming? And coming? This was one of those times. Finally opening the floodgates was beyond satisfying, but within two seconds it was clear that this was no discreet operation. As the warm liquid ran down my leg and formed a puddle on the floor, I think the four of us in that Coles shared an oddly intimate moment. First, they couldn’t take their eyes off me. Then they stared at each other in equal parts horror and disbelief. Then back to me. And all the while I just stood there, like I was any normal lady waiting in a supermarket line, absolutely not doing a wee.
The Anti-Cool Girl Page 14