sophisticated, you look wimpy or, worse, like you’re trying —and much of L.A. is about perfecting the look of groomed and trained neglect.
But this you can count on: Once a year Los Angelenos abandon ship and, to what I imagine is the chagrin of a pretty much idyllic town, take up residence in Park City, Utah. It never fails. When Sundance rolls around, every tanned producer for miles, and every actor, from starving to star, braces himself or herself for the cold, and then, en masse, they invade.
When I got the call that a movie I’d done was going to Sundance, and hence I’d be part of the invasion, I went straight to my closet (accidentally stepping on Onyx) and shook off the dust from my leopard-print coat, otherwise known as my Sundance coat. Within the hour I was packed and ready to go, one entire carry-on designated for accessories.
In general, film festivals are the shining, gleaming moments of an independent film actor’s life, and I pretty much lived for them. Since most of my films never actually made it to theaters, festivals gave me a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see myself on the big screen, to listen to an audience react, and then—hopefully—to be accosted by congratulatory praise afterward. “Thank you,” I’d say later in the lobby, “that’s so kind; I appreciate it. I know. I’m really not dead. See? Yep. Here I am. Wasn’t murdered after all.”
Amazingly, the director of my film had arranged for the entire ensemble cast—all beautiful people almost too hip for their own good—to stay in a condo he’d rented. It was beyond picturesque and perfect. There was snow; there was a fireplace. I searched for a bearskin rug but thankfully didn’t find one, as everyone knows what those make you want to do.
During this time I got to know Jonas, the lead in the film. Jonas, the product of a French-Vietnamese mother and an Irish-with-a-touch-of-American-Indian father, had an interesting and exotic masculine beauty, with longish brown hair, and cocoa brown eyes. He was completely indefinable, something I related to. Because although I’m entirely French, I was born in Canada (though, to make things a touch more complicated, I am not French Canadian), spent my childhood in Australia, my adolescence in New York, and my adulthood in Los Angeles, and I have somehow always felt I come from nowhere and everywhere all at once. How I felt was essentially how Jonas looked. “Where are you from?” people would ask him, in response to which he’d smile and say “Here.”
After much glamorous partying in the snow—highlighted by my dancing the “Stand” dance with Michael Stipe—I returned home to the dark pavement and crisp hillsides of Los Angeles. Jonas, it turned out, lived just half a block away from me. Since Los Angeles’s traffic can turn just about anyone into a seething blabbering monster, the fact that we were neighbors was like an endorsement straight from heaven. “Look,” God was shouting through his celestial bullhorn, “I put him within walking distance! Befriend him, you lazy girl!”
So friends we became. Everything was perfect, until the thought twisted through my paranoid little mind that he might be interested in something more than a friendship. In a tizzy, I called Aurelia. “No,” she assured me, “he sees you as just a friend. Don’t worry about it.” So, with the guarantee of my trusty psychic, I didn’t think about it again…until, that is, Jonas threw me for a curve by blurting out, “Will you be my valentine?”
This actually did make sense, because the next day was Valentine’s Day, yet I was still confused. I stared at him. “You mean like a real valentine valentine?”
“Yes,” he said. “A valentine valentine.”
I didn’t know what to say. This hadn’t been in the cards. Jonas had completely abandoned the universe’s script and was improvising . Confused, I stumbled out “Yeah, okay,” and went home to fret. Just go with it , I told
But this you can count on: Once a year Los Angelenos abandon ship and, to what I imagine is the chagrin of a pretty much idyllic town, take up residence in Park City, Utah. It never fails. When Sundance rolls around, every tanned producer for miles, and every actor, from starving to star, braces himself or herself for the cold, and then, en masse, they invade.
When I got the call that a movie I’d done was going to Sundance, and hence I’d be part of the invasion, I went straight to my closet (accidentally stepping on Onyx) and shook off the dust from my leopard-print coat, otherwise known as my Sundance coat. Within the hour I was packed and ready to go, one entire carry-on designated for accessories.
In general, film festivals are the shining, gleaming moments of an independent film actor’s life, and I pretty much lived for them. Since most of my films never actually made it to theaters, festivals gave me a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see myself on the big screen, to listen to an audience react, and then—hopefully—to be accosted by congratulatory praise afterward. “Thank you,” I’d say later in the lobby, “that’s so kind; I appreciate it. I know. I’m really not dead. See? Yep. Here I am. Wasn’t murdered after all.”
Amazingly, the director of my film had arranged for the entire ensemble cast—all beautiful people almost too hip for their own good—to stay in a condo he’d rented. It was beyond picturesque and perfect. There was snow; there was a fireplace. I searched for a bearskin rug but thankfully didn’t find one, as everyone knows what those make you want to do.
During this time I got to know Jonas, the lead in the film. Jonas, the product of a French-Vietnamese mother and an Irish-with-a-touch-of-American-Indian father, had an interesting and exotic masculine beauty, with longish brown hair, and cocoa brown eyes. He was completely indefinable, something I related to. Because although I’m entirely French, I was born in Canada (though, to make things a touch more complicated, I am not French Canadian), spent my childhood in Australia, my adolescence in New York, and my adulthood in Los Angeles, and I have somehow always felt I come from nowhere and everywhere all at once. How I felt was essentially how Jonas looked. “Where are you from?” people would ask him, in response to which he’d smile and say “Here.”
After much glamorous partying in the snow—highlighted by my dancing the “Stand” dance with Michael Stipe—I returned home to the dark pavement and crisp hillsides of Los Angeles. Jonas, it turned out, lived just half a block away from me. Since Los Angeles’s traffic can turn just about anyone into a seething blabbering monster, the fact that we were neighbors was like an endorsement straight from heaven. “Look,” God was shouting through his celestial bullhorn, “I put him within walking distance! Befriend him, you lazy girl!”
So friends we became. Everything was perfect, until the thought twisted through my paranoid little mind that he might be interested in something more than a friendship. In a tizzy, I called Aurelia. “No,” she assured me, “he sees you as just a friend. Don’t worry about it.” So, with the guarantee of my trusty psychic, I didn’t think about it again…until, that is, Jonas threw me for a curve by blurting out, “Will you be my valentine?”
This actually did make sense, because the next day was Valentine’s Day, yet I was still confused. I stared at him. “You mean like a real valentine valentine?”
“Yes,” he said. “A valentine valentine.”
I didn’t know what to say. This hadn’t been in the cards. Jonas had completely abandoned the universe’s script and was improvising . Confused, I stumbled out “Yeah, okay,” and went home to fret. Just go with it , I told
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