by Laura Clery
My eyes widened at what I said. Shit, I called myself Laura! I was supposed to be Teresa on this date. The mark looked at me, confusion in his eyes. If I fucked this up, the whole episode would be unusable.
I glanced at the mark and continued: “Laura is my middle name. You know I go by that sometimes. But yep this is Teresa Laura.” He didn’t figure it out. Whew.
I once played a pill popper. (Again, a lifetime of research, paying off! Thanks, addiction!) Throughout the date, I popped Xanax into my mouth over casual conversation. The mark grew more and more worried, bless his heart. After he suggested I slow down, I pulled out a bottle of Adderall and started taking those. Finally I said that I had to “be right back,” put on a literal helmet, and pretended to pass out on the dinner table.
He actually freaked out and poured water on me. Which was my cue to do the usual, “that’s a hidden camera and that’s a hidden camera and these are all actors and YOU’RE ON DISASTER DATE!” That guy asked me on a real date afterward—which was a bit odd, as I’m sure I didn’t make a great first impression.
I loved the risk of Disaster Date. I loved the fact that if I fucked up the hoax, the whole episode would be unusable. I loved the pressure resting on my shoulders. I understood that pressure—I thrived under that pressure. And here, I got to channel my longtime love of thrilling and shocking other people into something controlled and creative and positive. I mean, I wasn’t curing cancer or saving children, but this was still positive! (As positive as embarrassing innocent strangers on TV can be.)
I was never mean-spirited on the show. I have never found laughing at the expense of someone else funny, so when the producers would ask me to mock a date’s appearance, I would refuse. On this show, I was the idiot. Not them, ME. And I could finally add “making people uncomfortable” to the special skills part of my résumé, after horseback riding.
My dating life had always been disastrous, but now that I was working on Disaster Date? It . . . was still pretty bad. Sorry, guys. The show was an awful reflection of my real life, pursuing people that I was 100% wrong for.
I just didn’t know how to be alone. I was under the impression that I needed a man to take care of me. Even though I completely, entirely, did not. I was making enough money to afford my own place, and I had friends and a great social life. But I didn’t know how to be alone. I thought I needed structure from a relationship, whether it was Damon with his drugs and isolation, or Rudolf with yoga and dinner parties. When I was alone, what the fuck was I even supposed to be doing?
My solution to this crisis was to dig down into my psyche and reflect on where this pattern came from and how I could change it. JUST KIDDING! MY SOLUTION WAS TO FIND SOMEONE ELSE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
While out one night, I met an incredibly stoned ex-skateboarder named Brody. PERFECT! We were dancing to the loud club music, drinks in hand, and he said, “Hey, you should something something!” I couldn’t really hear him.
“WHAT? IT’S LOUD IN HERE,” I yelled back at him over the music.
“YOU SHOULD MOVE IN WITH ME.”
“OKAY! THANKS, CODY!”
“IT’S BRODY.”
“WHAT?”
Soon enough, I was out of Colleen’s place and into Cody/Brody’s. Ladies, this is the blueprint for what not to do in your twenties.
Brody was a perfectly nice guy, but he started to bring out my addict tendencies again. You might be wondering whatever happened to the AA meetings I started going to. I stopped. Now that I was a goddamn MTV star, I had everything under control! I did everything in moderation—a bit of weed, some cocaine, some mushrooms. It was all fine! This is possibly what people refer to as “denial.” Addiction doesn’t let you do moderation. But now that my career was taking off a bit, it was easier to deny the bad things in my life. I was going to try my hardest to have it all.
“Wanna do mushrooms?” Brody asked me one night, pulling a little baggie of dried beige turds out of his pocket.
“Do you just carry those around with you everywhere?”
Brody smiled. “Wallet, keys, phone, ’shrooms.”
Hmmm. I had a table read in the morning for Disaster Date. But highs generally only last a few hours, right? It would all fade by the morning. The worst that could happen is that I’d have some wild dreams that night. In the moment, I felt proud of myself for even considering the consequences of my decision for a few seconds. I’m so responsible.
“Hand them over, dude.”
We were up all night, hallucinating. The walls were melting and so was the floor and SO WAS MY FACE.
“Have you ever thought about, like, pineapples? Like, why are they . . . like that?” Brody said.
I covered my ears. “Don’t make my brain explode. I don’t want it to explode.”
The morning rolled around and I was still full-on tripping. I had thirty minutes until my table read, where all the producers, actors, and director would be present. I didn’t know what to do. You know who would give me good advice on this situation? One of my addict friends, Robin. I called her and told her the dilemma. “Do I go to my table read? I’m tripping balls.”
“Duuuuuuuuude, this is the age-old question: go to work high and risk your job or don’t go to work and risk your job!” I think Robin was also high.
“Dude, you’re stressing me out! What do I do? My walls are lava and my houseplants are walking around my apartment.” I glared at the potted palm that was currently laughing at me.
“You can definitely go to work. Fucking do it. Make your money, you fucking working woman. I’m so proud of you.”
“Okay, I’ll do it.” The little palm tree was walking toward me. “Hey, stay in your pot!”
“What?” Robin asked.
“Nothing.”
I put on some pants and shoes, then said one last good-bye to my plants, “Don’t leave the apartment, okay? I love you guys.”
“Bye Laura!”
Yep. This was a bad idea.
I somehow got to the table read on time. The producers, writer, and director were all ready to go, sitting at the table. I flinched as I stepped into the room, onto the PINK LIQUID FLOOR. I can’t walk on this! I took a step back into the doorway. The writer looked at me, confused. “Hey, Laura.”
I waved back, not moving. The wall behind him was a blinding, flashing rainbow. Fuck. I shielded my eyes.
“Come take a seat?”
“Sure sure sure sure.”
When I pulled my chair out it yelled, “Don’t sit on me!” Oh my God, could anyone else hear that? I sat on it.
Okay. I can do this. A nervous production assistant passed me a script. What a beautiful script. The pages were so white. Wow. I don’t think I had ever seen a white this white before. What else have I been missing out on?
“Laura, are you okay?” one of the producers asked me. Turns out I had been tearing up over the whiteness of the paper. It was becoming clear that I needed to get out of there before everyone figured me out. Okay, I can do this. I just have to be subtle. Be subtle, Laura.
“I GOTTA GO! I DON’T FEEL GOOD! SORRY! I HAVE TO GO!” There was a long silence as I looked around the room like a deer in headlights. Then I ran out of the room.
Nailed it.
I heard them call after me, “Laura, what? Wait!” But I could not be in there while I was tripping balls! I walked home muttering curses at Robin for encouraging me to do this. This was definitely her fault. Definitely.
Back at home, I lay in bed waiting for the high to pass. The good thing was that any anxiety I might have had about recent events was subverted by the mushrooms. I had a bit of a laugh about it with Brody, knowing in the back of my mind I’d have to deal with the consequences later. Honestly, doing mushrooms is pretty fun. It makes you laugh and see things and have revelations about life. Just . . . don’t try to do it at work, kids.
Then my phone rang. It was one of the producers. Damn, the consequences were coming quickly this time around. I cleared my throat, worked
up my courage, and answered, “Hello, this is Laura.” Don’t fire me, don’t fire me, don’t fire me—
“Hey Laura.” He didn’t sound mad. He sounded . . . apologetic? “I know that you’re upset that you didn’t get more dates this week.”
Um. What?
The producer continued, “We’re going to give you two more. Okay? We just want you to know that you’re amazing and we’re sorry we upset you. You’re getting two more dates: Zack and Daniel.”
“Oh my God, is Zack the one who hates bees?”
“Yes he is.”
“Oh, damn. That’s gonna be a good one.”
“It will be. Just please, Laura. Please come back so we can do the table read.”
THEY DIDN’T KNOW I WAS HIGH. THEY THOUGHT I WAS BEING A DIVA. I took a deep breath, trying to stay calm and not laugh. I was still high, after all! I put on my most stern voice. “Well thank you. It’s about time.”
“Will you come back now, Laura?”
“I still can’t come back. Sorry. Thank you. Okay, bye.”
“Laura—”
I hung up. Wow, I felt powerful.
“Nice job, Laura,” my bedside table said.
“Thanks, little table!”
Not only did I get to keep my job, but I somehow got more work from being high? Was I . . . invincible?
Unfortunately, I was not. I did thirty or forty episodes of that show before I became too recognizable to continue. I would sit down on a date and immediately get recognized by the mark. Okay fine, that last part never actually happened, BUT IT VERY WELL COULD HAVE. #lifeontheZlist
Before that happened, the producers had to let me go. I had a great run, though! I would be onto my next project soon enough, I just knew it.
During my time off, I had so much creative energy and I didn’t know what to do with it. I had so many ideas. I thought about Stevie’s YouTube videos. I wasn’t a YouTube star, but I had to put all my ideas SOMEWHERE. I came up with five original characters, wrote monologues for them, videotaped it, and sent it over to my agents. I did this dumb model character and this woman that explodes unexpectedly with repressed anger and then immediately calms down—just little ideas that I had. I expected them to love it! Or at least to respect my ideas, like they did back on Disaster Date. Spoiler alert: they didn’t. They brushed it aside in a patronizing email. Looking back, I can see that those agents just didn’t understand me. But at the time, I thought that this was a sign that I shouldn’t create—that I wasn’t good enough.
To top it off, a few days later I got another email from my agents. In the gentlest way possible, they told me that now that I wasn’t working, I wasn’t making them enough money and they had to fire me. They added a friendly notice that I could pick up my things in the front lobby with the security guard. They weren’t the greatest ever.
I picked up my headshots from the security guard and walked home, so bummed. I won’t lie and say this didn’t sting—it did, A LOT—but I was immediately desperate to find more work. Nothing was going to stop me from acting. So when I met a very loud, frumpy manager at the Disaster Date wrap party, I quickly agreed to let him manage me.
“Please, PLEASE, let me manage you, Laura. I can get you some jobs! I swear to God I can!”
Um . . . If I didn’t have doubts before, I did after that pitch. But what did I have to lose? He was as desperate for clients as I was for work. And . . . he actually saw something in me. At least he would be less likely to fire me like Progressive Artists did. I quickly signed with him. His name was David Rosenberg, he lived in a studio apartment with his mother, and what he had going on was this: NOT MUCH.
He would call me and offer me auditions for the worst roles ever. “Laura, I need you to go to this audition. I know it’s a small role, but there’s no such thing as a small role! Only small actors! And you’re very tall!”
“David. You’re losing me.”
“If you don’t book this part there’s a chance I will starve to death and it will be partially your fault.”
Jesus, David.
Coming off Disaster Date, where I was given so much creative freedom and respect, it was strange to go back to completely scripted characters, especially ones who had almost no lines. Also, my ego had inflated a bit. Sorry, but come on! I was leading those episodes of Disaster Date! And now I was supposed to beg casting directors to let me be a glorified extra? No thank you.
But then David begged. “PLEASE, LAURA, I GOTTA PAY MY RENT. SO IF YOU COULD BOOK IT, IT WOULD BE GREAT. My mother and I thank you!”
Oh my God, fine.
David sent me on an audition for a co-star role on a TV sitcom called ’Til Death on FOX. It was for the role of the daughter’s stoner best friend. Co-star was a bit of an exaggeration—it was three lines. But you know what? I was going to make the most of it. I could nail a stoner girl character. More of my life’s training was becoming useful! I went in for the audition and killed it. With my three lines I had all the producers there laughing out loud. David later informed me that I’d booked the role:
“YAY I CAN EAT! THANKS, LAURA!”
“No problem, David.”
’Til Death starred Brad Garrett, JB Smoove, and Joely Fisher. It had a great cast with amazing comedians and great writers. But . . . for some reason, this sitcom put the “shit” in shitshow. It also put the “show” in shitshow. It was just a . . . shitshow. It was no one’s fault, really. Sometimes the magic just isn’t there. The producers were always in a state of emergency trying to revive the show with new actors, new writers, new everything. I came on in the second season, where the actress who previously played the daughter was being replaced, and her best friend was being randomly added in. They were hoping these changes would help ratings.
When I stepped on set for rehearsal for the first time, my bruised ego over being a glorified extra quickly faded away. I was on a real-life network sitcom! I was on a real set! There was a live audience! We were shooting in three days! This. Was. Incredible! We had our first table read with the entire cast, and I loved it. Again, I made everyone laugh with my three lines. Brad Garrett laughed! It was incredible. How the fuck was this my life?
While I was there I wanted to soak up every bit of information that I possibly could. I watched the actress playing the daughter rehearse the dining room scene on set with Brad Garrett and Joely Fisher. I watched what she did, how she took her mark and went for the laughs. Eh, I would have done a few things differently. I would have emphasized a few different words. I looked down at the script as I watched her and noticed she missed a few jokes here and there. Did she not understand the script? Also, she didn’t look like Brad Garrett at all. He is a giant, and she was like five feet. I shrugged: fine, it wasn’t my place to judge.
I hopped down from the studio audience seats and I was approached by the casting director.
“Laura. We want you to read for the role of the daughter. The network was not happy with the current daughter’s table read.”
WHAT? Wait. Wait. WHAT???? The daughter role is HUGE. It’s a series regular role! It’s a mile above the stoner best friend. This is the type of role that opens doors for an actor. I blurted out, “Is it because I’m tall?”
“Um, no. We just loved you. But your height does work well with Brad’s. Here’s the script. Take a look at scene two and you’re going to read for it in fifteen minutes.”
Holy fucking shit. I took the script from her with shaking hands. Be cool, Laura. “No problemo.”
“Sorry?”
“Nothing! Thanks!”
I opened the script and took a look at the scene I was supposed to fucking memorize in fifteen minutes. When I read the page, I put the script down and said a silent thank-you to the universe. It was the scene I had just been studying. The one that Brad and the daughter were doing a short while ago on the stage. I knew this scene already!
Fifteen minutes later, I stepped onto the stage with Brad and Joely, in front of twenty angry-looking executives from th
e network and production company. They were probably stressed out of their minds about the fact that they were shooting a live sitcom in three days and had no clue who would fill one of the major roles. Ummm, can anyone get out here and warm up the crowd? No? All right.
I could tell that none of them thought that I, this random, lanky nobody, was going to be the answer to their problems. Yeah, I did my three lines well, but this role was huge. How was I supposed to hold it up? I was NOBODY to them.
We started the scene. I didn’t make the rookie mistake of looking directly at any of the executives this time, but a minute or so in, I started to hear some laughs. I started to feel the room lighten. I felt their relief. The laughs got louder. I WAS KILLING IT. Holy fuck! Twenty minutes later, the casting director told me that I got the role.
When David found out, he was as happy as Larry. (Also, who the fuck is Larry and why is he so damn happy?)
“HOLY SHIT, LAURA, I KNEW IT! I KNEW YOU WERE A STAR! I’M TAKING YOU TO THE OLIVE GARDEN TO CELEBRATE!”
And that’s how I went from being a side character to being a series regular in one day. It was an insane mix of random preparedness and lightning in a bottle and doing my job like I always knew I could.
It was crazy, man. It’s the kind of Hollywood story that you hear about but you never believe actually happens. After that, shit got even crazier.
We shot the first episode on the Sony lot in front of a live audience and it went incredibly well. I was on a high. I drove off the lot afterward and this black Range Rover rolls up next to my car. The window rolled down and this bigshot woman in a fucking suit whipped off her sunglasses and leaned out the window a bit. “Excuse me!” she yelled.
I rolled down my window, confused.
“Did I take your parking spot? Sorry, I’m leaving now!” I put my car in reverse.
“Don’t leave, you amazing idiot! I’m Lindsay Howard, an agent at APA. We love your work and we want to represent you. Take my card.” She threw her business card into my car and it landed in my lap. Even her aim was badass. APA is one of the largest agencies in the US. Holy shit!
It was an incredible time. Every big agency was calling me up, trying to make money off my success. They were wining and dining me, and it felt great!