La La Land

Actress, writer for Backstage West and friend of The Actors Platform (we did a Syfy movie together), Alexis Peters, gives us an insightful and witty look into life as an actress in Los Angeles...

Crazy Jamie
by Alexis Peters

Jamie has escaped. Description: Brown hair, freckles, and wearing soiled blue-and-white-striped pajamas. On the loose in Studio City.

This is her story.

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I share an two-bedroom apartment with three other girls — two per bedroom. In my room I sleep on the top bunk, like I'm still five years old and scared of the dark. But I only pay $300 a month in rent, so it's a little hard to complain.

Correction: We're not four girls; we're four actresses. When I tell people about the arrangement, I always get this ridiculous reaction; their eyes widen as if I told them I live with three wild animals. Countless stereotypes say that actresses are crazy. But it's not as bad as it sounds. We all get along. (Except when it's my turn to do the dishes.)

My favorite roommate is Jamie.

Jamie and I do everything together. She's like a sister to me — she does all those things no one else in the world wants to do, like help me do my laundry, go to Kinko's, or do the dreaded grocery shopping. (Women like Martha Stewart may exist, but I'm not one of them.)

One day, Jamie and I are on our way back from an acting class in my white 1990 Volkswagen Cabriolet convertible, which is famous for involuntarily honking at inopportune times and occasionally dying on the freeway. As I drive, Jamie's busy on my cell phone talking with her famous cousin Candice (Bergen! — you know, from Murphy Brown). I love to tell Jamie to tell Candice all kinds of things, like, "I'm working on a David Mamet monologue for class" or "Thank you so much for inviting us to stay in your Paris loft this summer!"

After talking to Candice, Jamie calls her high-powered agent at William Morris. (We'll call him Jonathon.) Recently, Jamie was nice enough to pass along my portfolio to him, which contains a mad array of headshots, an attempt at modeling photos, and my resume, but I hadn't heard from him yet.

Midway through the call, Jamie covers the receiver of the phone, leans over and says that Jonathon wants to know if he and I could make an appointment to meet at his office. How's next Thursday at 1 p.m.? Is that ok?

I'm tongue-tied — all I can see are Oscars in my head! — I tell Jamie, "YES, duh!!! Like, what the hell else would I rather be doing?"

The drive to Studio City from our acting conservatory in Hollywood has taken us over an hour.

To pass the time, Jamie asks me who, out of all the actors in Hollywood, I would sleep with. Without thinking I say Matt Damon, definitely — or Aaron Eckhart. Something about Aaron in Erin Brockovich really gets me; the way he portrays that whole biker/tough guy on the outside but soft as cotton candy inside. (Oh, and his huge muscles.)

We stop at another red light. A minivan full of tourists holding binoculars starts honking the horn and asking, "Are you Christina Applegate?" Wow, I think — I don't look like her. (But it is the second time I've had this happen. Maybe it's the blonde hair?) I get nervous in these situations, but Jamie saves me.

"She is NOT Christina Applegate," she yells, laughing, as we pull away. "She's Britney Spears."

We arrive at our little pink apartment building in Studio City, with yellow tulips in a mini-garden out front. As we walk through the door, I notice that the apartment has started to smell a bit spoiled meat and eggs, but I can't quite figure out from what. Maybe our sink is broken, or the sewage is backed up.

Rent is due tomorrow, I realize, and it's my turn to collect everyone's share. For the last four months, I've been covering Jamie's share. You see, her brother's been in the hospital recovering from severe anorexia, and her family's having a hard time paying the hospital bills. Jamie's dad wrote me the nicest letter asking me for an extension on the rent.

In my family, we help each other out in a time of need, so I have no problem helping her out. What am I going to say, "No"? However, I'm starting to run out of savings.

Later that night, as I lay stretched out on the floor and flip through the glossy pages of People magazine, Jamie walks into the living room, wearing blue-and-white striped pajama pants with a see-through white top. She is braless, her breasts clearly visible. As Jamie passes, her bare feet press the carpet just by my nose. I jolt up.

I notice that same horrible stench, as earlier. No way, I think. It can't be coming from her.

I feel queasy and uncomfortable. There's no way Jamie smells. I'm in class with her every day. If anyone would know, it's me.

But as she walks past me again, the smell explodes in my face. Oh my God, it is Jamie — 100% certain. Do I have to talk to her about this? No — I won't. It's too embarrassing.

Perhaps a more indirect approach.

I walk into my bathroom, kneel by my sink cabinets, and scoop up several bottles of shampoo and conditioner.

Jamie is laying on her bed watching a rerun of Full House. I stop in and we start talking casually about the show. I mention that I just received a care package from my Grandma, who sends me stuff every month from Home Shopping Club, but I don't need them.

"I'm just going to throw these bottles out unless you want them. How about it?" I pray to God she accepts. And she does. Ok, Problem One solved. Maybe she just ran out of soap — I've been there.

Now, Problem Two.

"Hey Jamie? Rent is due tomorrow, and I'm really going to need your share this time." I feel incredibly awkward. Jamie's eyes turn pale. She pauses for several seconds, then shuts the TV off and faces me.

"I have to tell you something," she says.

Jamie has a peculiar tone to her voice, as if she's going to tell me a scary story. She suddenly looks like a ghost. I try to give her my undivided attention, yet as she leans forward one of her breasts pops out of her top. She doesn't seem to notice that it's visible. Her breast is just hanging there, and it makes me feel uncomfortable.

As she talks, my eyes start to water. I unconsciously pull the sleeve of my shirt over my nose. I'm so overtaken by the stench of her clothes, I can't help it; it's the only thing I can do to keep from fainting.

Calmly, Jamie tells me how earlier that evening she learned that her agent had died. She quickly starts to hyperventilate and cry unmanageably, then falls into a heap on the carpet. (Callously, all I can think is, how will I get the smell out of the carpet?)

Despite her overwhelming show of emotion, a light bulb goes off in my head. There's something very wrong with all this.

Is Jamie lying to me? I wonder.

Details collect in my head: No money for rent. She always seems to need to use my cell phone. Her famous cousin, and the famous agent, who I've never talked to directly. Now, the stench. It all starts adding up.

Jamie is balling her eyes out, black mascara dripping down her cheeks like a mad circus clown. She looks desperately at me and prefaces what she's about to say with, "Please don't be mad at me. I've done something really bad."

Uh-oh.

Taking a deep breath, she first apologizes for all the trouble, then regales me with an elaborate story of how, before he died, her agent Jonathon landed her a part in a new Warner Bros. film with (coincidentally) Christina Applegate — adding proudly that her part is, in fact, much bigger than Applegate's. And as soon as she starts work on the movie, she promises she'll pay me back her share of the rent, including all the previous months'.

Then, she tearfully confesses why she's been such a wreck lately: You see, she's been quietly dating Aaron Eckhart for about a year, but because he's been off on location in Romania, she recently started cheating on him — with Matt Damon. (She couldn't tell me because she knew I had a crush on both of them.) And the guilt has been eating her up.

My skin filled with goose bumps.

As her story ended, she sighed with relief before collapsing into a ball on the floor. She starts to quietly laugh. I stand up and calmly walk out of her bedroom and cross the room into mine.

I push my dresser in front of my door, and begin to rack my brain for clues I've apparently ignored.

"Who was Jamie on the phone with when she was having conversations with Candice Bergen, or her agent?" I wonder. I pick up my cell phone and dial Candice's number, which that I have stored at number 33 — it's a fax machine. I dial Jonathon — fax machine. I dial Jamie's parent's house in Texas — fax machine.

I call William Morris and ask to talk to Jonathon, just to make sure I'm not jumping to conclusions. "No one by that name has every worked for William Morris," says a professional-sounding secretary, "nor do we have a Jamie [blank] on file."

It all makes sense now. Jamie's been luring me in with the promise of free trips to Paris and meetings at William Morris. And she's been able to live rent-free for five months.

I've been punk'd — for real.

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When I wake up the next morning, Jamie's gone. No note. No rent. No nothing.

Was she really crazy, or was it all a performance? You'd think, as an actor, I could easily tell the difference. But I never saw it coming.

After all my training, all my classes where they taught me to listen, you'd think it would be easy to spot a fake. But there wasn't a false note in her delivery, or a single point where her "acting" was visible. Even months later, I have to admit I'll never know for sure.

If it was all a performance, man, was it Oscar-worthy.