just . . . this seemed like it was my only shot. And I swear to God, I couldn’t find one that felt like . . . me. It did not help at all that so many roles written for women are just plain one-dimensional. It wasn’t the way I wanted to present myself. This was a problem. Now, I could drink and ignore it and not show up to my audition, or I could solve the fucking problem.
This time, I decided to solve it. I wrote my own monologue. They wanted to see me do a “professional work” but . . . how would they know if it was professional or not? I wrote a scene that took place on a bus, where I played an eccentric girl talking to strangers. I went into the agency and performed it for two agents, a man and a woman. I had them in the palm of my hand. Laughing exactly when I wanted them to, silent and engaged when I wanted them to be.
“Wow, Laura, that was really good,” said the woman.
I felt so relieved, I couldn’t stop smiling. Where’s my pen? Where do I sign the contract? The agent on the right, a tall man, wiped his eyes. “What play is that from?”
Oh. Uhhhh . . . I hadn’t thought of a title. I scanned the room for the answer. Okay there was a couch. Don’t call it Couch, that’s too obvious. The couch was teal. The pillow on the couch is white . . . and those are . . .
Colors.
Both agents looked a bit stumped. “I haven’t heard of that. Who is it by?” asked the woman.
It can’t be by me, right? That would seem unprofessional, right? Actors don’t write. Actors act. “By—by . . . Chris Blum.”
Chris Blum was one of my teachers in high school. I sent him an urgent email when I got home. “If anyone ever asks, you wrote a play called Colors and it’s very good!!”
The agents looked at each other, confused. “Oh! I’ve never heard of that.”
“Oh, it’s very new. Very new. New and hot.”
Looking back, I’m like, Damn. That’s right, girl. Write your own shit. I’m proud of myself. But in the moment, I thought they wouldn’t have taken me seriously if I had told them the truth. I thought actors were just supposed to act. I thought it was good to stay in my lane.
Original monologue or not, they signed me. #fuckyeah
The first audition they got me was for a pilot presentation.
Now, a pilot presentation is basically a pilot connected to a production company rather than a network. The production company will develop and shoot their own pilot and try to pitch that to networks to sell, rather than the traditional route of developing a script and shooting it through a network. It’s a different way to get your TV show made.
It was this hilarious script called Sex Ed about a group of weird freshmen college students taking a sexual education course. I auditioned for the role of a dumb model, which I had done a vast amount of research for in my past. Guess all those modeling rejections paid off, because I booked it! Suck it, Wilhelmina.
When I got to set, there was a girl there who was surrounded by people. Her name was Stevie Ryan, and everyone wanted to talk to her. I remember wondering if she was some kind of celebrity I didn’t recognize. I talked to her and found out she kind of was.
“Yeah, I make videos on YouTube,” she said to me.
“You do what? How?”
This was about ten years ago, in the early days of YouTube. What the fuck was this? I had heard of YouTube before, but I didn’t know people were doing things like this. And recording your own character sketches definitely wasn’t cool or respected at all at the time. But she didn’t care, she was just doing it. It was sort of punk.
I had never seen a comedienne like her before! She was bold and brash and smart. She embraced her femininity in a way that I hadn’t ever seen in the comedy world. She was acting and writing and creating shit that was edgy and authentic and original. Not only that, but Stevie and I were at the same management company. We were on the same pilot. It was strange to see someone so similar to me taking such command of her craft in this way. Could I do shit