Life as a Production Assistant is this: we see the jobs we want, we do the jobs we hate, and we do the jobs we hate for the people who have the jobs we want. One time I carried glasses over to a water table and fantasized about tripping over a loose cable, shattering the glasses all over the marble floor while one of the glass shards impaled me directly in the aorta. I’d be gone just like that. Everyone would come running to me, exasperated screams filling the large studio space. Jennifer Hudson would toss her Juul™ on the glittering floors and sprint over to me where she’d press her freshly manicured fingers on my neck in hopes of feeling a pulse. She’d take the fur jacket off her back and put it on my open, bleeding wound. And as blood bubbled out of my mouth I’d say: “I’m sorry they only had tobacco-flavored Juul Pods™.” Everyone around would wail in immense grief. Why oh why couldn’t this PA have been doing a different job!? This would have never happened! She was qualified for so much more! This thought was completely organic, there was no hesitation before it just sailed into my mind. This happens a lot when I feel totally uninspired and completely dramatic for a whole lot of nothing.
Sadly, my dream is cut short by a higher-up over walkie: “Anybody have eyes on Willem? We need to get him to glam.” I saw him moonwalking five minutes ago by catering. I wonder what would have happened if I joined Willem Dafoe in a moonwalking session. Would they have fired me right on the spot? Or would Willem do a right-foot-over-left-foot twist then collapse into an effortless split? Would the lights go down and Laura Dern would make an entrance into the center with a spotlight on her as she moonwalked between Willem and I? These are the questions nobody asks in an editorial interview. And these are the questions the people want answers to! Enough rushing Willem from glam to styling, the man needs none of that. And while we’re on the subject, can productions eliminate the word ‘glam’? It sounds like an adjective a Glitz hair stylist would call her client once her curls have settled.
Anyway, I placed the glasses on the table and walkied: “With Willem and on our way to glam.”