I Don't Know What You Know Me From: Confessions of a Co-Star (14 page)

Celebrities are also really great at charity. I didn’t even realize how great until I experienced it firsthand. At the table read for the movie
The Wedding Planner
, I valeted my car at the hotel where we had the read. When it was over, I realized I didn’t have enough cash in my wallet (it cost almost the same as my rent to valet my car at this hotel), and when I went to the ATM to take out money, I had insufficient funds and couldn’t get any! I panicked. How would I get my car? Should I walk home? Walk to a friend’s house and borrow some money and walk back? Just give up altogether and move back to Chicago? Apparently, I had been cursing at my stupidity out loud because I heard a voice behind me say, “Need to borrow some cash?” Humiliation complete. It was Matthew McConaughey and his longtime friend/driver. They insisted on giving me cash to get my car out. I was mortified but also relieved because my friend Sean was my emergency contact, and he wasn’t picking up his phone. I was good for it and paid him back on my first day of work. Well, I gave the money to his driver—I was too embarrassed to hand it to Matthew in the hair and makeup trailer in front of everybody.

Of all the celebrities I’ve peed next to, I’d say I was most nervous
peeing next to J.Lo. Heidi Klum didn’t make me nervous, because I didn’t realize it was her until we came out of our stalls at the same time. Debra Messing made me a little nervous, but mostly because the bathroom was really quiet and I was feeling a little gassy that day. Many of the other tandem pees were with celebrities I was working with, so there was usually a lot of talking over the pee and I wasn’t so focused on it. On one indie movie I did, we were all sharing trailers, so everyone used the Andy Gump portable toilets to avoid any weirdness, sounds, odors, and so on. But I remember peeing next to Jennifer Lopez really well. This was a long time ago, she wasn’t even J.Lo yet, and it’s not her pee I remember, but being next to her in a stall on a soundstage while shooting
The Wedding Planner
and thinking to myself, “I can’t believe I’m peeing next to Jennifer Lopez!!!! This is so cool!!!” We went into the bathroom together, well, at the same time, and I wondered while I squatted if she would wait for me when she was done and take that moment to confess that she was hoping we could become real-life best friends, not just movie best friends. With no one around to listen in, she may have even wanted to tell me a secret or ask me about my beauty routine! She didn’t. She was gone when I came out of my stall. Why should she wait, though? We weren’t friends or anything. I would have waited for her, but only because I feel that in life, if you go to the bathroom with a girl, you should wait for her before leaving unless otherwise agreed upon. Isn’t that girl code? Or am I wrong about that? I guess in most cases girls who go to the ladies’ room together don’t have bodyguards waiting outside the door, so that does change things slightly. Or does it? What’s the girl code for going to the loo in pairs if one of the pairs has a bodyguard and is super famous and they aren’t really friends, just co-workers?

Speaking of bodyguards … They are cool. And badass. And weird. I have never gotten used to being next to someone who I
know has a gun on them, at least not until I married my husband and had to sit next to his ex-wife at the kids’ Little League and soccer games. She’s a sheriff, and if she’s not in uniform, she always has a gun in her purse, because, well, you never know, or so she says. I wonder why the celebrity bodyguards carry them, though. And I wonder if these celebrities I’m peeing next to have stalkers. And if they do, am I in danger too? And if I am in danger, is it worse that J.Lo left me alone to fend for myself post-urination or better? Was she actually protecting me by distancing herself from me physically? (Maybe she does want to be best friends after all! And I am just making this connection now! Oh, J.Lo, did I let you down?
Crap!
) More likely, she could tell how naturally tough and intimidating I am and that I would be able to fend for myself if things got physical. I’m not from “the” block, but I lived on a block, in a subdivision—that counts, right? Oh, and I have some advice for all you stalkers out there … Stalk someone who doesn’t have a giant bodyguard trained in Native American martial arts Israeli warfare boxing and is carrying a gun. Really, are you
that
crazy?

IN MY EXPERT OPINION (AND I DO THINK I CAN CALL
myself an absolute expert here), the ultimate movie best friend was Kit from
Pretty Woman
. People weren’t that familiar with Laura San Giacomo before that movie came out, but she was funny, cute, sassy, and approachable. She stole our hearts and achieved the ultimate romantic comedy goal of helping us fall head over heels in love with Julia Roberts. Of course Julia would have an amazing best friend who would be so fun and funny, and of course Julia would give her best friend a rolled-up wad of cash so she could get off the streets (or go to the not-free clinic). I mean, duh. That movie made everyone want to become best friends with a hooker, or become one so Richard Gere could sweep them off their feet.

Here’s my theory: movie studios know that the star of the movie is someone no one can really identify with because we know too much about her—she’s too beautiful, she’s too rich—but once you give that gorgeous A-lister a blue-collar bestie, she suddenly becomes more relatable. Because the real secret is that
best friend is you! If that actress (what’s her name again?) can be best friends with Julia Roberts/Jennifer Aniston/Cameron Diaz/Jennifer Garner, then so can
you
! Yes, we all want to be the star, we want to be the girl who gets the guy in the end, but the more realistic scenario is that we could maybe, actually be that person’s best friend. Movie stars have to have best friends too, don’t they? That special someone who will show up with ice cream in the middle of the night, who will slap some sense into them when they are being whiny, who will drop everything to meet them in the ladies’ room of the restaurant where they are on their first date with Paul Rudd to coach them through the lie they told to get asked out in the first place.

I do have a question for moviemakers, though. How come it seems like girls in romantic comedies only have one friend? And how come it’s always someone they work with? I know it’s easier to condense work and best friend scenes, but really? Everyone just happens to be best friends with their co-workers? If a movie was made about
my
best friend and the filmmakers just made her partner at work her bestie, I’d be pissed. My best friend didn’t call that co-worker to meet her at Starbucks in the middle of the day when she dropped her son off on the first day of preschool! That co-worker didn’t spend the night in the hospital waiting room during my best friend’s C-section! That co-worker didn’t drive to Vegas so my best friend wouldn’t be alone on my best friend’s thirtieth birthday! Did my co-worker plan my entire wedding, even though she was going through a terrible divorce? NO! Maybe it’s because what our leading lady is doing is so stupid, and something she’s done a million times before, that her
real
best friends don’t have time for that shit anymore, so she has to rely on fresh co-worker ears for a little sympathy before she makes the real phone calls, the phone calls that are going to hurt because that real best friend is the person who will tell her that she’s being an idiot again. And because she knows she will have
to give back the jeans she borrowed, and she’s not ready to give them up just yet.

I think there needs to be more real best friend movies. I loved
Bridesmaids
. I believed that Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph were actual best friends. It was a platonic comedy about an actual friendship. It’s a girl-gets-girl movie (but not in a lesbian way). I also loved how the other bridesmaids fulfilled different roles in the life of Annie (Kristen Wiig’s character). I have a few really close friends. If anyone made a movie about me chasing the boy I ultimately ended up with forever, there would be so many different conversations and phone calls with all my best friends, because it’s just not realistic to have only one. You need different things from different people, and I feel like, with my gals (and one guy), I have all the bases covered. I would call Kelly for her fiery no-questions-asked support, Sean for an impartial male opinion, Sarah for a sympathetic ear, Lola for a completely different take on situations and general fabulousness, and Janet for all of the above. Oh, and with the exception of Sean, I can borrow clothes from all of them—that’s key. They like each other but aren’t really friends outside me. There would never be a scene in the Judy Greer movie where we all got together to discuss the dumb thing I just did. I wish that would happen, but real life doesn’t really work like that. Plus, we’re all really busy, some have kids, crazy jobs, Sarah lives in New Jersey, and sometimes you just can’t meet at a moment’s notice at a centrally located sports bar in a fabulous outfit (wait, I’m thinking TV best friends; movie best friends meet in chic mixology lounges).

One thing I have learned from playing sidekick characters is to be direct and honest. There isn’t a lot of time in an hour and a half to beat around the bush, you don’t want to get edited out, and you’re responsible for a lot of exposition. For example, many of my lines go like this:

And so the writing for these BFFs is short and sweet, with jokes peppered in.

But what does it take to be a real-life best friend? I get asked “What kind of friend are you in real life?” a lot. I always just make something up, but this seemed like a perfect opportunity to find out what my friends had to say about my personal best friendness. First, I’d like to say that it took a while to get the answers back. Because, you see, my friends are busy, so they couldn’t just drop everything and write loving e-mails to me about how awesome I am. Some had to be pushed. One still hasn’t responded (Lola!), but here’s the roundup, in order of response, because that seemed the most fair. And I’m fucking fair, damn it. It begins with my e-mail to them.

SARAH.
FIRST TO RESPOND. I HAD TO INCLUDE THE BEGINNING BIT BECAUSE I LIKE REAL LIFE THE MOST
.

SEAN–
FIRST E-MAIL EXCHANGE

On Jun 13, 2013, at 7:03 PM, Judy wrote:

On Jun 13, 2013, at 11:37 AM, Sean Gunn wrote:

On Jun 14, 2013, at 1:14 PM, Judy wrote:

On Jun 14, 2013, at 1:26 PM, Sean Gunn wrote:

SEAN–
FOLLOW UP E-MAIL