Instant Mom (20 page)

Ah well, perhaps curiosity is in our nature. Maybe some nurturing might breed better manners.

• 23 •

The Real Stuff

Uh-oh . . . there is a
theme emerging here. Telling all these stories even if for context or explanation feels braggy. As a card-carrying dork, this is uncomfortable for me.

I’m slightly chagrined I told you stuff I’m proud of, even small things like my nickname being Mixie. Plus, all the subsequent specifics about the process of settling my daughter in, while meant to be in the tone of discovery rather than advisory, might be construed as boasting about my parenting skills. I don’t think I’m good at it; I’m just telling you what happened. So lest you think
I
think I’m cool, please allow me to assure you, oh, I do not think this about myself. I am not cool.

Therefore, I feel the need to merely pause for a moment and tell you some real facts to even out the perception of me:

1. When I was ten years old and playing in my garage, I tried to change the appearance of a wood board and accidentally spray-painted my face completely black.

2. As a kid on a July trip to Greece, I put a message in a bottle into the sea of Loutraki Beach. Months later, I received a letter from Egypt. This girl and I had a lot in common and she became my pen pal for four years. When I was in high school, in one of my letters I remarked how incredible it was that we would know each other all these years simply because my message in a bottle had traveled all the way to Egypt. In her letter back, she wondered why I thought that and assumed I knew she’d actually found my bottle on her family’s July vacation at Loutraki Beach.

3. Sure, it gets cold in Winnipeg but Greek parents are overly cautious, so we had to wear snowsuits under our Halloween costumes. Even the year I went as a ballerina.

4. When I was seventeen (and my full sideburns had come in), I loved this cool guy, Steve. At the local summer fair, I got up the nerve to ask him to go on the Zipper with me. He said, sure, if I waited in line. I did. For an hour. As I was getting closer to the front of the line, I worried Steve wasn’t coming back. Then I saw it—someone had puked in the red compartment car. The Zipper ride spun so the puke was all over the car. The toothless carnies stopped the ride, perfunctorily hosed down the red car without soap or alcohol, then simply ran the entire ride around once so the excess water could run out. Everyone in the line was disgusted and ducked so the water wouldn’t get on them. The carnies restarted the ride and as I inched up the line, I kept worrying Steve wasn’t coming back. I peered around—no sign of him anywhere around the fair. Suddenly, I was up next and as I turned forward I saw the carny motioning me to get in . . . to the red car. Everyone watched to see if I would do it. I started to turn away when suddenly Steve appeared beside me. Ready to go, he asked? Yep, I said and got into the red car with him.

5. I cannot eat at an outdoor café if it is beside an establishment that does manicures and pedicures. Just the idea of an errant toenail clipping careening into my salad makes my insides curdle.

6. I am similarly repulsed by antique furniture. I have to walk quickly by antique stores because the thought of all the dead-skin-skull-flakes ground into a headboard makes me throw up in my mouth.

7. That daily ’80s outfit I wore—the harem pants and a headband . . . I was too embarrassed to tell you I also wore leg warmers.

8. Using my headset in my car, I pretend to be on my phone but am actually singing all the parts of
Rent
.

9. I do not like smooth jazz music at all and once even offered a street saxophonist playing outside my hotel window a crisp fifty-dollar bill if he would move down the block.

10. When we were in preproduction for
My Big Fat Greek Wedding,
four days before shooting, we still had not cast the male lead of the groom, “Ian.” We were all staying at the Sutton Place Hotel in Toronto and I met with one of the producers, Gary, in the bar to discuss the situation. He assured me that he, Rita, and Tom would never cast an actor I didn’t feel possessed the warmth of the real Ian. But we were all worried because for six months, we’d been through many lists of actors and didn’t feel we’d found the right guy. With the beginning of filming approaching, we needed to make a decision. Then John Corbett walked into the bar. I turned to Gary and whispered, “That’s John Corbett! He was first on our list. What happened?” Gary recalled we’d heard John was not available for our shoot dates—he was already committed to another project. A film (ironically) called
Serendipity
. But our shoot dates had recently been moved back two weeks. Well, Gary and I sidled over to the bar to see if we could chat with John . . . and we overheard this conversation. The bartender said, “So you wrap production soon. What’s up next for you?” John replied, “I don’t know but I just read this script in my room called
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
and I want to be in it.” Gary and I looked at each other—whaaaaat? Gary strode around the bar, introduced himself and John said more nice things about the script. Gary offered him the role. John was incredulous. In an industry known for exaggeration and hearsay, he seemed dumbfounded to have found an honest producer. He said to Gary, “Are you telling me if I shake your hand right now, I have this role?” Gary said yes. They shook. Then Gary turned John around to meet me . . . and in this incredible moment, I cursed my earlier-in-the-evening choice to eat Greek Town’s delights for dinner. I had garlic breath that could knock a buzzard off an outhouse. Handsome John Corbett leaned in to me and said, “Hi . . .” and I leaned back. Way back. I then took two steps back, stretched a hand out, and muttered “nice to meet you” into my other hand. Weeks later, John told me he smelled my stink-breath but took the part anyway.

11. Sometimes in my workout class, if we’re all facing the mirror and moving together, I pretend we’re in rehearsal for a Broadway musical called
Work It
.

12. I have a crush on Robert De Niro even though I once met him and he seemed unimpressed.

13. Sometimes I Google myself.

14. In photo shoots, when the stylist dresses me in sexy clothes that require a sultry attitude and pout, I pose by pretending I’m standing on the streets of Rome, shooting a Fellini film. Actually, I recommend this mental exercise for a daily feeling of pure sex appeal: look over your shoulder at your pet and whisper sultrily: “Ciao.”

15. I get self-conscious and blush when people misuse the words
nonplussed
and
bemused
.

16. I get self-conscious and blush when I misuse the word
regimen
for
regime
.

17. I have an unnatural devotion, bordering on hoarding, addiction to Tupperware.

18. I was too mortified to tell you that the second time I was on Oprah’s show, I got injured. For some reason, the show was a mash-up of actors who had movies coming out in the same month, so Noah Wyle and the Olsen twins, Mary-Kate and Ashley, were the other guests. At the end of the show, as I sat on a couch with Mary-Kate and Ashley, the producers and stagehands began to change the set over to the After the Show segment for the Oxygen network. Oprah did a friendly wave and invited us to scooch closer to her. We did. And one of those tiny Olsen twins accidentally sat on my thumb. To not make a scene, I didn’t react, but as I yanked my thumb from her teeny bum cheeks, the pain ripped up into my forearm. Back in Los Angeles, an orthopedic doctor treated my torn ligaments for over twelve months with six different casts and weekly hand therapy. Years later, it’s healed but I coddle my thumb so the ligaments won’t snap again. Consequently, a fresh bottle of water is first handed to a friend with the phrase, “Olsen twin,” and they wordlessly twist off the cap for me.

19. One day when Ilaria was away with Ian, I spent forty-eight hours in bed watching two entire seasons of
Downton Abbey,
then spoke to Manny and Louie with an English accent.

20. I love love love Beyoncé, and Ian points out I smile at her on the TV as if she can see me and we’re friends.

21. Rue McClanahan was the first celebrity to attend when I was doing my one-woman stage show in that small Los Angeles theater. Afterward her assistant approached me and said, “Rue loved the show and would be honored to have you over for dinner.” I was thrilled. The assistant, oddly named “Shepherd” (really), called that week and explained Rue was so inspired by my show she wanted to throw a Greek dinner and wondered what groceries should she buy? So I gave the assistant a detailed list of ingredients for the weekend dinner. As Ian and I were driving to Rue’s house, I was excited and Ian the New Yorker was suspicious. He asked if I’d actually spoken to Rue and I realized, no, I had not. We got to the door and God bless her, Rue swung open the door, quite hammered, wig askew, looked at me as if she’d never seen me before, and peered at Ian like she wasn’t buying what he was selling. The assistant, Shepherd, appeared behind her and said, “Come in, come in!” Rue drifted back out to the patio. There were several people there imbibing in summer drinks, including another of my comedy idols, Estelle Getty. I started out to the patio, but the assistant stopped me and said, “I’ll bring them in so you can show them.” I said, “Show them what?” And she said, “How to make a Greek dinner.” Ian and I looked at each other—no, no. I said, “I’m cooking?” And she said, “Yes, of course, we don’t know how to cook Greek food.” I stood in the kitchen, unable to make eye contact with Ian as Shepherd herded the guests into the kitchen. Rue and her male companion began to argue like a scene right out of
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf
? He stormed off to another room and in the awkward pause, everyone looked at me . . . so I began to cook. A few guests stayed and watched for a while, then everyone slowly trickled back out to the patio, leaving us alone in the kitchen again. Ian resolutely went into the dining room to count the place settings. At least, including the people on the patio, there were enough place settings for all of us, so we reasoned we were invited to the dinner. Ian and I were too embarrassed to join them on the patio and actually were not invited to do so. Eventually, the dinner was ready and Shepherd shepherded us all into the dining room. We ate in silence. It was so odd and awkward. Finally, Ian motioned to me that we should go. The situation was just wholly perplexing so we got up, thanked everyone, and said we would now be going. Everyone looked up as if they’d just noticed we were at the end of the table. It was quiet as we headed to the door. Suddenly Rue said, “Wait!,” and we turned back thinking, well, finally, she is going to say something about this being some sort of misunderstanding. But no. She said, “Can you give Estelle Getty a ride home?”

Okay, back to our story. . . .

• 24 •

The Wonder Years

We’re on a family
trip to Hawaii and people are asking me for photos around the pool. (General note: poolside photos are excruciating for anyone who isn’t wearing control-top panty hose under a bikini.)

Ilaria’s sitting with her cousins around the wading pool and I see another kid point to me and tell her something. Ilaria turns and takes a long look at me. She’s five.

Later she says, “Mom, you’re famous, you know.”

Ugh. This is not a word I wanted to come out of her mouth. As I said, it’s not that I’ve hidden it, but I’ve made sure she’s never seen us act. In helping her with her identity, we feel it’s important for her to just know her parents as who we are, without having to reconcile our public personas as well. So we haven’t shown her our movies and when she has visited us on our film and TV sets, we made sure she does not see us act. If the camera was rolling, we’d just walk her off the set, usually to the food area called Craft Services, which is beloved for its abundance of snacks. Every kid enjoys visiting the Craft Services truck, even though on the first time Ilaria complained, “Where are the crafts?”

We don’t take her to industry events. There are many fundraising kid-friendly events that are supposed to be photographer free. The one time we’d taken Ilaria to one of those events, there were photographers—luckily she had the kitty makeup on—so we just don’t go at all now. Also, Ilaria will never come to a premiere. We don’t think it’s natural for any kid to see a throng of red carpet photographers calling out “Parent Name, Parent Name” and taking pictures. It’s a heady experience, and I didn’t even allow my nephews or nieces to see it when they were young. In my opinion, no kid should ever see it. Kids’ worlds should be all about them and have nothing to do with celebrity. Daily, kids of actor-parents see strangers lavish praise on their parents. Yes, it’s wonderful. But I don’t want Ilaria to think I’m special because of my job. I want her to think I’m special because I’m her mom. My own self-esteem has never been in direct correlation to how well or not my career is going, so neither should her opinion of me.

I thought Ilaria didn’t even know Ian and I are actors. We weren’t hiding it; it’s just never come up, and kids don’t really care what their parents do for a living. But she has often seen kind people say nice things about our work. One time at a farmers’ market Ian spotted paparazzi (or as Ilaria calls them, “rude boys”), we left, and I’d asked her if she knew why strangers want to take our picture. She replied with a shrug: “Because we’re cute.”

But on several work and family trips, my movies had been playing on cable or on the hotel in-room service. Guests had seen them and would sweetly tell me their favorite parts while we were all in line at the breakfast buffet. Ilaria heard it but had no expression of it really registering or mattering to her.

One time, we were in a video store on the hunt for
Hello Kitty
movies and as we turned a corner we came face-to-face with an entire wall of
My Life In Ruins
DVDs. I waited, watching her expression. She took it in for a few moments, said, “Hey, Mom, that’s you,” and turned away in search of her beloved
Hello Kitty
. Maybe she was silently staring at first because the DVD cover picture is so retouched she wasn’t even sure who it was.

Now the incident in Hawaii seems to have given her a word for this thing she’s been putting together in her mind. I reply, “What does famous mean?” She says, “It’s a word that means you’re good at doing dances. And shows. Daddy’s a singer.”

In the next few moments I figure out Ilaria hasn’t asked questions because she gets it all. Since now she says, “Mom, do you write all the movies you act in?”

Okay, so she knows. I’m relieved to observe she’s not that impressed with The Showbiz. So I tell her about my job and how much I love it and I describe Ian’s shows, and say that I hope one day she can enjoy what she does for a living as much.

She tells me many of her friends have seen my movies and told her about them and she knows that Ian is on a show called
Cougar Town.
I’m surveying her face to see if she’s okay with all this. Is she old enough? Is she really absorbing it all in the very matter-of-fact way I think she is? Is it too much for her to handle? Well, she seems totally at ease with it. She smiles nonchalantly at me. She gets it and it’s not overly important to her. It’s just my job.

So I ask, “Hey, do you want to see one of my movies?” And she yawns, “No, they’re probably boring.”

To this day, I’m immensely proud that she still has not seen us act. We’re going to try to keep this going for as long as possible. Again, no secrets. If she asks, yes, she can see our movies or TV shows. But I figure the longer I can keep her perception of us unfettered, the better. We want her to grow up like we did—movies are magic. I don’t want to give her a peek backstage to see the actors putting on makeup. It’d be like going behind the scenery at Disneyland and seeing the middle-aged biker playing Mickey standing around smoking while holding his giant head.

It’s Ilaria’s last year of preschool and I have really gone back to work now except I still won’t leave town for acting jobs unless I can bring her. I keep taking writing jobs that hopefully will get made and I’ll get to act in them. I like working with men and especially enjoy developing with female executives and producers because we have the tacit understanding among many women in my industry—there’s enough success to go around. We don’t take each other down, ninja style. Being surrounded by woman-friends—jaunty girlfriends who don’t try to puncture my career-aorta—keeps me sane in this cesspool known as Hollywood. Correspondingly in my movies, the women are kind to one another. Also, I write several female roles since the average script I read seems to have merely two—the Wife who gets killed in the first scene and the Hottie the guy takes up with two scenes later. The men I write are good-hearted, mirroring the men I know. Years ago, I remember wincing when a development executive advised me, “Ian needs to cheat on Toula and win her back before the wedding.” I’m not implying my scripts are marvelous, no no, not at all. But I try to avoid the formulaic pitfalls that send messages to men and women that we’re at war. We’re not. We can have a lot of fun when we play nice together. My entire film career exists because another woman—Rita—read my first screenplay, and, along with Tom and Gary, produced it.

It never fails to alarm and depress me that there are some women who do not support other women. But this is another reason I currently stay close by—what I teach Ilaria in these formative years will stay with her forever. Not that she needs much coaxing, but I’ll urge her to stand up to discourteous girl behavior and, as a young woman, to surround herself with woman-friends. I remember a dad in preschool describing his daughters being so awful to each other. He shrugged, “Well, you know how girls can be.” I blurted, “No. Some girls, sure. But not all. Help them be each other’s friend.” And he gave me a look like I was canvassing for a cult. I am similarly annoyed by magazine covers blaring, “Don’t We Just Hate
(Actress Name)
For Having It All?” No, actually, we don’t. The majority of us don’t. Yes, some women do. I used to be afraid of them. But I don’t run from the Coven since I discovered pepper spray.

Today, I get to
see the ultimate woman-friend—Oprah—to be on her new OWN show. I talk about how therapeutic I think it is to embrace grief and just go through it to get through it. I tell her I am actually grateful for every disappointment because it led me to my real daughter. After the show, I get to thank Oprah for her thoughtfulness all those years ago in not pushing me to reveal my obvious unhappiness during the fertility treatments. I know this woman has had a lifetime of people thanking her. But as I am telling her this now, I watch her be gracious and patient in accepting my gratitude to let me experience my “full circle moment.” (I don’t know how she lets us all gush on her without stifling a yawn.)

What stepping back did is give me a new perspective for my line of work; I’m not enamored with this industry of rejection and criticism. But I’ve missed acting, and have the same ambition to become a better actor, so am slowly finding on-camera jobs that work in with parenting. I get a request to do a cameo in a Los Angeles film called
For A Good Time, Call,
written by Lauren Miller and Katie Anne Naylon. My agent tells me these two women were frustrated by their attempts to break into the industry, so they’d written their own movie. I can’t say yes fast enough. They turn out to be enormously gifted and lovely women who support each other.

Also, I am giddy to play the mom in the new American Girl movie about McKenna the gymnast doll. I like the script and brand because it’s about girl empowerment without being anti-boy. Also . . . it’s my first mom role. Coincidentally, it films in Winnipeg. This is my first time working in my hometown since my musical theater days. It’s restorative to fulfill that moment I’d craved when Ilaria runs into my parents’ home, shouting “Yiayia and Pappou!” Also, I hope being the mom in this movie might make me cool to my daughter for two or three seconds. Again, my job doesn’t impress her, and if she does want to finally see this movie, I’m not sure if she’ll enjoy seeing me as someone else’s mom, so I’m definitely not going to encourage it. The kind people at Mattel sent a doll for her, but I hid it until a birthday. I just don’t want her to know my job has benefits for her. I do want her to know we have unique and fortunate lives.

Therefore, we do a lot of community service throughout the year, plus get a Christmas list from a Foster Family Agency. We buy food and as many toys as we can fit into the cart. Then we go home and she plays elf. As Ian and I read names and ages from the list, Ilaria decides what they might like and stuffs the gift bags. There’s no need to drive the point home with kids—they get it. We take the rest of the toys to a local box drop-off, and as we put them in, Ilaria whispers, “Merry Christmas, kids.”

She still lives a life outside of the public eye. We’d announced her adoption by of course giving the exclusive to the reporter who’d kept it a secret—Marc Malkin at
E!
(still without releasing her name or picture)—only because I became the spokesperson for National Adoption Day. By the way, it’s odd to hear myself speaking publicly about adoption and explaining how to do it. I realize how far behind me those disconsolate years are.

Like many little girls
, Ilaria enjoys playing dress-up with my clothes. When I’m wearing a long gown for an event, she sighs that I’m a “real-life princess.” I see things from her perspective: the glamour, getting a good table at the latest Top Chef’s restaurant, and event parties
are
fun. I find myself enjoying it all again (though a couture garment fitting is like squeezing a tuba into a guitar case). I tend to choose comfort over style so I can have fun at the parties—even if that means my untethered back-fat flips over the sushi bar because I wouldn’t wear the corset that goes under the dress. Undergarments and panty hose tend to take my nether regions hostage and I like to be able to sit without giving myself a urinary tract infection. So I usually don’t wear them (unless that corset boosts my rack to the sky, then I’m totally in). But because I’m in awe of my daughter’s unself-conscious fashion sense, I’ve resolved to take more risks and have more fun with my clothing. One day, I may even hit the red carpet in her dog costume.

I show Ilaria my jewelry, which will one day be hers (along with her own swanky diamond heart). For every job I’ve ever gotten, once the contract is signed, I donate to a charity, plus I buy a piece of jewelry to commemorate the project. Maybe I see it as a guarantee of always having something to hock or maybe I see it as taking a moment to celebrate how damn hard it is to sell a script or book an acting job. Either way, a bauble (best pronounced “baaaawwwbul”) is both frivolous and pragmatic insurance for the future. A friend once told me I like jewelry so much because I have a leftover merchant gene in my DNA. When I wear a piece, it reminds me of the accomplishment of each project. And inwardly I squeal, “Ooh, sparkly!”

Her eyes are wide as I explain to Ilaria that these jewels are rewards . . . because we are strict about new toys and big treats like theme park excursions. The impetus for what I call our Pilgrim Parenting is the unwarranted pout we’ve seen on some L.A. kids’ (and adults’) faces. I do feel like Cinderella’s evil stepmother when I get Ilaria to help out around the house (relax, tabloids, I don’t make her sweep out the chimney). I make myself enforce rules even though I snort into my hand when I watch her try to maneuver her tiny body, gallantly trying to make her own bed. I try to be the parent. Of course I want to spoil her with her own jet. Sure, I want to dance around all day in our pajamas eating bonbons in Paris, but then I might as well just hand her a crack pipe right now.

It’s just better if she learns to appreciate luxuries, plus ways to be frugal. When Ian and I were not making a lot of money, I would recycle our clothing with a six-dollar bottle of Rit dye and some laundry quarters. It started with a white denim jacket I’d worn for years. Then one spring, I ran it through the coin-operated washer with fuchsia Rit dye in hot water, turned the rinse cycle to cold, tossed in a cup of salt to set it . . . then posed and preened in my hot pink jacket, basking in the warm rays of girlfriend-kudos. I still do this with my clothes and have even worn the same dress on camera dyed a different color because it saves time on shopping. I’ll often rinse a washer-full of faded T-shirts and jeans in black Rit Dye to show Ilaria they come out like new and it’d be wasteful to thrown them out and buy more. The only time my craft-y hobby went horribly awry was when I impudently dumped the silk Badgley Mischka gown I’d worn to a Golden Globes party into my washer. For some reason I tried to bleach the dark blue color out first and the fine material came out as a shredded chartreuse mess. I was so mortified at the waste that I wore it as a Halloween costume. Sure, I was the best-dressed witch on our street, but I was annoyed at myself because any ethnic girl with a mustache knows the power of bleach.