“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 the 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!
The best part was the call I got from my old agents at Progressive Artists, the assholes who fired me over email. “Laura, we just wanted to say that we made a terrible mistake. We would love to have you back.”
“You know, that is so sweet. I actually have meetings lined up with Gersh, APA, and WME, but if none of those work out, I’ll call you, okay?”
It was the sweetest revenge.
Out of all of those agencies, I knew I wanted to be signed with APA. They specialized in comedy, and I could feel that it was right. David and I went to meet with Lindsay, the agent at APA, and it was the first meeting I had where I had no reason to feel nervous at all. For the first time, the agency wanted me. I didn’t have to beg or try to change myself to be what they wanted. I was a moneymaker to them and I was ready to utilize my power. I had a list of demands ready.
“I want to be signed literary AND theatrical. I’m a creator. I want to do it all.” It was the first time I had ever said it out loud.
Lindsay wrote this down. “Sure sure sure! I just need to see your writing, but we can make that happen for you.”
I shook her hand confidently. “I will send something over in the next couple days.”
I quickly realized what I had just signed up for. They needed to see my writing? Um, I should write something, then. I went home that night, took out my laptop, and wrote. For the first time, I just wrote. I didn’t think or judge myself or have any idea of what the fuck I was doing or where it was going, but I did it. I ended up with this dark comedy based on my relationship with Rudolf. I wrote it in a Word doc and tried to manually mimic script formatting rather than getting Final Draft script software. It looked like absolute shit. But I sent it over to Lindsay, and we met the next day.
In her high-rise office, she looked at me over her glasses. “The grammar is godawful. Your spelling is illegible. And get Final Draft for God’s sake, I could barely look at the formatting on these pages. But, this is one of the funniest scripts I’ve ever read.”
Just like that, I got my literary agent. I had always been a creator, one way or another. But now, I finally felt like one. I felt all these ideas coming to me. It was incredible.