wouldn’t change them for the world.
Sometimes I look at them and I feel so lucky. I’m lucky I found Stephen. I’m lucky he spontaneously agreed to cats. I’m lucky Oliver isn’t gooey anymore and I can take good care of him and all his needs. All of these things feel like the gifts of sobriety to me; reminders of why I’m so happy to be who I’ve become.
CHAPTER 11
Walking Through Fear
I’m a completely rational person. Well, okay, I am NOW. But . . . certain things just get to me. Before I started creating my own content, I was a working actor, supporting myself solely by booking jobs. I didn’t give myself a plan B, and that worked. But . . . I wasn’t where I wanted to be. I was auditioning all the time, I’d book a pilot and it wouldn’t get picked up, I’d get a call back and then they’d offer the role to someone else. It was this constant anxiety and stress and lack of control over my career.
When I booked a role, I’d feel this urge for a more interesting character to dig into. I’d been acting so long, every character felt like repetition. I wanted better lines and more complexity, but you know what? Who cares! Give me another airhead model to play because THAT’S APPARENTLY ALL I CAN DO.
See? The grind was getting to me.
I wanted so badly to be on the next Friends, to be the next Lisa Kudrow. I got so angry I wasn’t on a sitcom that I did not want sitcoms on in the house.
Stephen loves sitcoms though. So . . . he had to watch them secretly in the bathroom. My eyes would narrow if I were getting dressed in the bedroom and could hear the faint sounds of . . . “IS THAT A LAUGH TRACK?”
“What? No! It’s just fetish porn!”
I’d burst into the bathroom and snatch the iPad from his hands. “The IT Crowd, Stephen?!”
“I’m so sorry. Chris O’Dowd just gets me.”
I was SO angry I wasn’t on a show like that, that I had to GO FOR A TWENTY-TWO-MINUTE WALK.
After one of these meltdowns, Stephen came home with a camera. He handed it to me. “You have characters. You can write. Create your own stuff. Post videos on YouTube. Think of your own series and shoot it.”
Stephen was so supportive of me. That, or he wanted to watch his sitcoms in peace. Either way, he was one of the first people in my ear saying, “You can do this.” He was a huge inspiration for me. But also, no. How could I post videos of myself online? That was terrifying. And it didn’t seem like a “real” path to my goals. How was making videos going to get me on the next Friends?
I was so tired of the audition grind, and I had been for a long time. Years earlier, I decided to try stand-up. I knew I wanted to write and be a creator, and stand-up was the only way I knew of doing this. I was around twenty years old and I was a total noob. I had no idea which open mic to go to, so I hopped on the computer and googled BEST COMEDY OPEN MIC.
The first result was for The Comedy Store on Sunset. That sounds good, right? Little did I know that The Comedy Store is NOT where first-time stand-ups go. It’s where already-famous stand-ups go to surprise their fans. It’s where veterans go to try out their new material. It’s not—I repeat—NOT a gentle crowd. New comedians are supposed to go deep into the Valley to Joe’s Café and Check-Cashing Open Mic or something like that. But nope, twenty-year-old, never-done-stand-up-before Laura Clery went to The Comedy Store. To make matters worse, I had no idea what my comedic voice was at the time. I tried really hard to fit into what I thought female comedians had to be—basically Janeane Garofalo. I wore thick-rimmed glasses and spoke in a really monotone, deadpan voice. It was so not me: I was blonde and overly animated.
I got up on the stage and looked out at the faces in the audience. They were looking for any reason in the world not to laugh. My sister Colleen and her friend Rebecca were the only smiling faces. I cleared my throat awkwardly and told a very stupid story.
“How many people here hate getting haircuts? Show of hands. No one? One person right there, great.”
I