Instant Mom (3 page)

Mark asked, “Do you know Nun?” “Nun” was the opening scene. It was normally performed by two people: Mark and the actress who was sick. I said I knew it. Mark fired the first lines at me, and I responded with the rest of the scene. Mark grinned mischievously at the stage manager and said, “Put her on.” I think it was more of a dare.

I waited while the stage manager called to get permission from the producers. The rest of the cast showed up and, after a moment of shock upon learning I wanted to do their show, acted like I wasn’t there. In retrospect I think no one really believed that anyone would put me onstage without a rehearsal. I guess they were waiting for the producers to call back and fire me from my box office job, then Security would escort me from the building. The cast started to talk about replacing the actress’s scenes with improvisational game scenes. But she was in a lot of scenes, and that many game scenes would have seemed strange to a paying audience. I was adamant I could do their show, calmly and urbanely smiling while my stomach boiled a nervous acid soup that made my tongue taste of urn ashes.

The stage manager hung up the phone, pulled me aside, and said, “You’re on.” The look in her eye let me know she actually was rooting for me but if I messed up, I would not only never work in this theater ever, but probably not work anywhere ever again. With the thought of starting a puppet theater in Winnipeg flashing through my skull, the introductory music started . . . and I just walked out onstage.

I did the show. All the scenes. It was a huge blur. I remember nothing except the cast being really nice as I performed scene after scene, and they even bought me drinks afterward. I recall profusely thanking everyone. Then, at two
A.M.
, I walked back to my one-room apartment, sat on the couch, and burst into frantic, mucousy, blubbery tears. I had no idea how I had pulled that off.

The next day, I reported for my box office shift. The producers were waiting. They hired me and my gold headband.

I worked hard, very hard, to learn how to write material through improvisation. This was a place where irreverence was rewarded. It was expected that we would be impertinent and create scenes that challenged authority. My immature need to poke fun at social mores meant I finally fit in. For the first time, I felt in control; I knew this world and belonged in it. Plus, there weren’t any physical constraints—I could do any character I felt like playing. Although the producers didn’t ask me to, I worked diligently on losing some weight so I could be more versatile onstage. Years later, I learned it was thyroid disease that made my weight yo-yo. But at that time, through sheer willpower and a little unhealthy starvation, I lost ninety pounds. I made great, fantastic friends in that cast whom I truly loved working with, including my best friend to this day, the aforementioned just-this-morning caller, Kathy Greenwood. Because I’m so close with my sisters, female cousins, and girlfriends, I’ve always sought and collected female relationships. I love playing with the boys, but there is a bond between certain women that is unbreakable. You can spot a woman-friend in that first eye flick. We know who we are and we find each other. Woman-friends are the ones who will quietly tell you, “Yes, you do look fat in those pants.” They will stay up late writing material with you and never make out with your boyfriend.

Joyce Sloane and her daughter, Cheryl (both woman-friends), two of the producers of Second City Chicago, having heard the going-on-from-the-box-office story, came up to Canada to scout me. Or as Joyce put it, to go “have a look at that girl with the balls.” After the show, Joyce invited me to work at the Second City in Chicago and she and Cheryl did all the paperwork to get my immigrant working papers, green card, and eventual dual citizenship.

I arrived at the Chicago theater and sat on the lobby bench and looked around. There is a lot of history in that theater, and I had always wanted to be a part of it. The strange thing is, as I said, I may have sorcery in my blood because I always knew I was headed there. Akin to most Greeks, I have cousins in Chicago, so I spent many summers in the city. We’d drive past the theater and I’d think,
I’m going to work there one day
. I had no idea how I’d conjure it all up, but I knew it would happen.

That day, as I sat in the lobby surrounded by pictures of famous alums, I took a moment to absorb it. And I heard something. A small laugh. I looked around. . . . I was alone. People had told me this theater was haunted. There was no one there, but I heard the sound again. Was that a laugh? Yeah, a laugh.

At that moment, Joyce Sloane walked out of her office to summon me. She had a thorough and intense way of looking at a person, in a way that said she really saw you. I didn’t know then that she would become my mentor, driving me to create characters and write scenes to make her proud. Joyce believed that good material doesn’t rely on swearing and cheap sexual references. We had a special bond that . . . okay, okay, I learned many years later that
every
cast member felt the same way about her when we spoke at her memorial service and each declared we were her favorite. Anyway, in the lobby as she was about to officially hire me, I stood up to greet Joyce. She looked under the bench I’d been sitting on and yelled while laughing, “Chris, get out of there.” I looked down. That laugh I’d heard? That was Chris Farley hiding under that bench, looking up my skirt.

Even with the support of my loving Chicago relatives, the first year in Chicago was not easy. The last Canadian hired—Mike Meyers—had recently been chosen for
SNL
over American cast members. Then I showed up. It was tense. But I get it. If this had happened in Canada—if an American had been brought into our cast and then been chosen for a juicy job over the rest of us—we’d be peeved too. (We wouldn’t be openly rude; it’d be more like we’d wave a cheery good morning from across the street as you discover we’ve egged your car.) Anyway, most Chicago cast members didn’t have a problem with me and I formed great friendships with people who are still my übertight group to this day. We were all in our twenties, brashly and protrusively opinionated. That’s why we were hired; we had a lot to say.

At that time, I’d started dating my soon-to-be husband, an American, a not-Greek person—Ian Gomez. At first, I tried to not like him because the fact that our first names have the same three letters was so cute it made my esophagus burn with regurgitated bile. Anyway, we dated for a few years and after our wedding, Joyce and Cheryl urged us to move to Los Angeles to try to work in the film and TV industry. They assured us the Second City theater would always be there for us, and if it didn’t work out in Los Angeles, we could come back to Chicago and be creatively rewarded by teaching or directing shows. At this point, Ian and I had made our living solely doing theater for about five years. It was foolish to leave a steady gig, but we had to try L.A. I had also been featured dancing around in a Lean Cuisine commercial (now that’s a former fat girl’s ultimate triumph) that had gone national, so we had over ten thousand dollars saved, which made us cocky and a tad smug. We packed our car and drove west, so hopeful, half expecting to be greeted with a network pilot as soon as we arrived in Los Angeles.

We got a cheap apartment on a grimy street that always smelled like dog poo, in an area Ian goaded me that the Hillside Strangler had once brought to national attention. Ian started getting acting work right away. But I couldn’t get a part. Could not. I couldn’t even get regular auditions.

Suddenly three years had
whizzed by. It was the mid-1990s, I was in my early thirties and had only done a handful of lines on-screen. Ian was working as a guest star and semiregular on shows such as
Murphy Brown
and
The Drew Carey Show
. I was getting voice-over work, but not regularly. We often ran out of money. I took other jobs—answering phones or floral designing—and every few months we’d go through our stuff and have yard sales to get cash for rent. It’s not as if we suffered working long hours in a coal mine. We were young and dumb and living in Los Angeles where the sun always shines but no one calls you back. It was an adventure to keep financially afloat.

At the time a lot of stand-up comics were getting lucrative network development deals. I thought about doing stand-up and even tried it once, but the rhythm is a skill I didn’t have, nor the patience to learn. Plus it takes years of performing in clubs on the road from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, to Beaver Lick, Kentucky, to hone a tight ten-minute act on dating or in-flight snacks. Stand-up is a tough life and you have to love the art to live it. I admire the art but know I can’t do it.

Around this time, I saw Jeff Garlin, a close friend from Second City, in his solo show
I Want Someone To Eat Cheese With
. Jeff is a joyful storyteller—going off on tangents ranging from bikinis to pudding while keeping the audience engaged, entertained, and invested. I also saw
God Said, Ha!
—Julia Sweeney is remarkably adept at letting an audience release their anguish and laugh with her. Watching their shows, I was in awe of their ability to be erudite and eloquent while remaining relatable.

I ached to be onstage, in a film, on TV, anything. I was grateful to now be making a good living doing voice-overs on commercials for Bud Light, Kraft, and Home Depot. But that’s not what I’d come to Los Angeles to do.

Like most actors trying to get a job, I’d given my on-camera agent a series of expensive headshots. But I had only gotten about four auditions a year. To put it in perspective, Ian and our friends were auditioning four times a week. So I asked for a meeting with my on-camera agent. I planned to suggest I meet with casting directors, so they could put a face to the headshot they’d been receiving but not booking for appointments.

I sat across from my agent and she bluntly told me she’d been sending the latest round of one hundred headshots “out like crazy for a year,” but no one wanted to see me because, in her opinion, I didn’t “look like anyone else in the city.” I was surprised by that. I was 130 pounds, a size six, and my hair was long and curly. I thought I looked about average. Or at least normal. I mean, I was married but I did get hit on, so I didn’t think I was delusional in thinking I was not a model for a building gargoyle. But I noticed my agent regarding me as if I was indeed a creature attached to the corner of her desk. This was Los Angeles, after all—the land of size zero actresses with imaginatively enhanced breasts, tiny noses, and butter-colored hair. Looking me over, my agent brusquely announced she now realized the problem. She said I was “not pretty enough to be a leading lady and not fat enough to be a character actress.”

That hung in the air for a sec. I paused just in case she wanted to correct anything. Nope.

She then asked, “What are you? Latina?” I said, “No, I’m Greek,” and she said, “Well, that’s the problem. We’re going to change the spelling of the last part of your last name from ‘os’ to ‘ez’ and send you out as a Hispanic.”

I felt the blood leave my face. Change my name and sit in a casting waiting room with real Hispanic actresses, many of whom I knew? I said I didn’t think I should do that.

She said, “Well, there are no Greek parts, so I can’t get you work.”

And she dropped me.

Dolefully agentless, I shuffled into her storage room to pick up my remaining two or ten headshots. There were over ninety of them there.

It looked like she hadn’t been sending them out at all. She was either too lazy or didn’t know how to market me, so chose instead to belittle me and my physicality. I yawn when people say it’s a man’s world and women have it so tough. We don’t need the male species to oppress our ascent; we do a fine job of it ourselves.

I drove home doing that crazy snicker-snort when you don’t realize people are watching from the next car. I was furious, amused, bemused, empowered, and somehow relieved. I decided to not put myself into anyone’s hands again. I had given this woman several years of my life and she had wasted them and declared me not castable because I was Greek? I decided to turn my problem into the solution: if there weren’t Greek roles, I would write some. I had just spent many years at Second City writing my own material. I could write myself a role.

I sat at the kitchen table and listed every family story I’d been telling at parties for years. When I was watching Ian meet my family, I saw them through unsullied eyes. I saw all the joy, all the quirks, all the devotion. When Ian was getting baptized so we could get married in the Greek church, I was truly touched by how gallant it was. And a minute later, the mercenary side of me thought,
Hmm, this could be a movie
. So after I made a list of stories about my family, I decided to shove them all into a script premise about my enormous wedding.

I had never written a movie. But I had seen a movie script. So I borrowed a friend’s computer—he had the screenwriting formatting program called Final Draft and showed me how to work it. I wrote the screenplay in three weeks and called it
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
.

Yes, my real wedding is the basis for my screenplay. Although I made most of it up, I now prefer not to reveal which parts are real and which aren’t because of the look of deflation I have seen in peoples’ eyes when they find out the movie isn’t a documentary. So please accept just this: Yes, Ian got baptized Greek Orthodox. Yes, my dad used Windex on everything, including my teenage zitty forehead. Yes, my aunt Voula had a lump on her neck she claims was her twin. Yes, really. Then the script is fact mixed with fiction topped off with my affection for my huge family who loves me to the point of suffocation.

Okay! Now I had a screenplay chock-full of Greek parts I could play. I was so naive, I thought if I could get that script to a studio, I could play a bridesmaid. I re-wrote the script for months, then eagerly gave it to my new managers. And I waited. They didn’t mention it. For a month, I didn’t bring it up because lately I felt tension when I walked into their office. It wasn’t going well. They’d gotten me a few auditions for TV shows and while I made it close, I had not booked a job. Plus, the managers hadn’t been able to convince an agent to represent me for very long. I knew I was a disappointment to them. Because they told me. Often.