Guts: The Endless Follies and Tiny Triumphs of a Giant Disaster (8 page)

After pinching herself to make sure this wasn’t a nightmare, she grabbed the offending tabloid, and her face drained of all color. There they were.
Her thighs.
Her
secret
thighs, in all their vast and bumpy glory, were
being showcased on the cover of the
National Enquirer
under this succinct (yet irresistible) headline “LOOK WHO HAS CELLULITE!”

Certainly at first she probably felt horror and shame and embarrassment. Maybe she even wished she had never been born. She’s only human. But really, now that
everyone
(including her second-grade math teacher and that shithead who broke her heart two years ago), oh, my dear baby Jesus, now
every single soul
in the United States who went grocery shopping that week had ALL seen her thighs? Well, then so could Mr. Goddamned Wonderful!

Not that this really happened to anyone I know (
okay, it was me
), but if it had, I’d certainly hope that the next day I would have been brave enough to rip my clothes off,
turn around
, and fucking
walk
to the bathroom, my thighs proudly sloshing hither and thither. And if Mr. Wonderful didn’t like it, well—screw him. (Sadly, I don’t think he noticed either way because, like me, he was a total lush.)

It would take a few more years, and one massive disaster, before I would fully understanding the enormity of this. But the exposure of my cheesy thighs was the dawn of understanding. Part one of the most important lesson of my life. Part two would come later. I’ll go into greater detail about this, but about five years ago while I was doing a play in London, something truly devastating happened and I underwent a very risky emergency stomach surgery. Months later, when I finally returned to New York, I was sixty pounds lighter, I was also a terrified, raw, unmoored, and very sensitive version of my formerly well-armored self.

Which of course meant that I was in the
perfect
headspace for my brandnew press labels, which were: “SCARY SKINNY!,” “ANOREXIC!,” or (my personal fave): “LOSING WEIGHT IN A DESPERATE ATTEMPT TO REVIVE HER STALLED CAREER!” Isn’t that just the cutest?

Believe it or not, being savagely attacked in the press with total lies wasn’t even the worst part. Suddenly it dawned on me that my very first instinct was to
agree
with the stories, even though I was well aware that every single one of them was categorically untrue.

Oh my God
—realization slammed into me, almost knocking me to the floor.
I have spent every single second of my sorry life as a prisoner of what other people think of me.
I had absolutely no concept of myself, not a clue as to who I really was or what my actual feelings were about anything—
because I could only see myself through your eyes.
If you thought I was funny or clever, then I was. If you thought I was pretty or charming, then I was. If you happened to think I was homely, idiotic, annoying, unattractive, talent-free, and worthless? That would’ve made you perceptive, clever, wise, and bizarrely intuitive.

My mouth went dry.
Oh, my God
, I thought,
that’s not only scary—THAT’S FUCKING STUPID.
Finally my thick idiotic skull thought:
It’s all in my head. If I don’t
want
to care what other people think of me, then I simply don’t
have
to.

Jesus,
I was overwhelmed. Thousands of hours since I was a kid of wishing I was
other
—all wasted. I knew I needed to start accepting that I was me—and I needed to do it pronto—because life, it is short. And the very notion of spending the rest of my life
still
desperately wishing I was anyone but me? Unacceptable.

Coming from a deeply private family, I now know that somewhere along the line I had lost the very important distinction between
privacy
and
secrecy.
And since both brought me nothing but confusion, anxiety, and misery, I’ve decided to try something new. I’m giving up on trying to control your mind.

Of course, I’d prefer it if you thought I was fabulous; after all, I’m human. I’d prefer it if you thought I was a wonderful actress and a hell of a writer. I’d prefer it if you thought I was funny, and kind. I’d prefer it if
all
men found me charming and beautiful (not just the gays). But if you don’t? That’s cool, too. (I’d think you were out of your fucking mind, but that’s neither here nor there.)

Last year when someone suggested I write a book, I pooh-poohed it at first. But then I started to warm up to the idea. After all, any bonehead can write a book these days. Who’s to say mine would suck any worse? Besides, when I took a gander at the overflowing “drunken celebrity memoirs” section, I got the feeling there just might be room for one more poorly written, terribly reviewed, slightly funny, and occasionally moving look at recovery and redemption through the eyes of a giant-Freak-ex-alien-recovering-addict-cellulite-ridden-has-been-actress

If anything, to get a new label. Really. Oh, come on, go ahead. Toss one at me! After Amy, I can take just about anything.

Or who knows? Maybe, just maybe, I’m finally becoming that “tough broad” I always pretended I was.

Therefore, without further ado, I proudly present to you my thighs, in all their vast and bumpy glory.

my life
changed forever in London on December 4, 2006. I was thirty-nine years old.

I was doing a play called
Love Song
by John Kolvenbach on the West End with Cillian Murphy, Michael McKean, and Neve Campbell. The director was a lovely and brilliant man named John Crowley, who had dazzled me with his direction of
The Pillowman
on Broadway a few years before. Now, since I’m bored by most theatrical productions unless I’m in them, this is saying something.

Unlike a lot of actors and actresses, I’ve never understood the whole “I’m too fabulous to audition” thing. I loved the play, I wanted the part. I couldn’t wait to get in there and
earn it.

I’m lucky that I’ve always had a fairly solid and sane view of what roles I’m right for. In other words, my agents have never gotten a call from me where I whine, “Why didn’t
I
get an audition for Julia Roberts’s role in
Runaway Bride
?” Nor have they ever heard, “Why don’t
I
have Nicole Kidman’s career?” (Not that I haven’t wished, believe me.) I’m oh so sorry to say that you’ll never see my portrayal of the painfully shy, gimpy Laura in
The Glass Menagerie
, nor will you ever get to hear me say, “O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou, Romeo?”

I’m certainly not right for every role, but when I am, I
really
am. Take Sally in
3rd Rock
, for example. I was being sent every single funny television script (this is back when they actually made television comedies, before
The Bachelor
and
Wife Swap
ruined everything.) Anytime a show called for a funny girl, I’d audition for it.

If the role was written for a tiny Jewish spitfire, I kid you not, I’d throw on a dark wig and mortify myself. Whatever, I needed the money.

I’ll never forget reading the first episode of
3rd Rock
, which at that time had the lame title
Life as We Know It.
For the first ten pages the aliens spoke in fluent Spanish (with subtitles of course) until they realized they had landed off-course and were in Ohio. I laughed my ass off. I thought this was the most arbitrary, stupid, and brilliant thing ever. Then, as I started to read the part of Sally, the weapons expert who lost a bet and ended up in a woman’s body, I just vowed,
No one else will play this role no matter what.

I fought my ass off to get that part and went through a grueling eight auditions for it. I’d leave the room, flush with certain victory, only to hear my agent say, “They love you, but they love the idea of Kirstie Alley more.” But I’d be called back, again and again and again. I wasn’t just waltzing in from ten minutes away, mind you. A few times I’d have to fly back from New York. Over and over I’d think,
Okay, now they
have
to give it to me!
and I’d hear, “They adore you, but they’re checking Ellen

Barkin’s availability.” Even
after
I read for Sally in front of the entire staff of the network with John Lithgow and they gave the thumbs-up to cast me. . . the producers made me come in
again
!

They wanted a “private work session” with John and me first thing in the morning and didn’t seem to care that I had to fly in a
third
time from New York on the red-eye. Okay, now I was starting to get pissed off. This is
my part
, you weenies. For Christ’s sake, what else do I gotta do to prove it to you? I was sorely tempted to say, “Oh, fuck off, maybe Queen Latifah’s available,” but I knew I couldn’t. They could make me audition twenty more times and I would, because I
would not be denied.
And thank God (for everyone), I wasn’t.

This all helps me illustrate my point, which admittedly I could’ve made a bit more succinctly, but who can resist a fun trip down
3rd Rock
Lane? My point is, when I’m right for a role
and
I want the role (unfortunately a fairly rare combo), I’ll do anything to get it. Get your mind out of the gutter; of course excluding sexual favors! Although, come to think of it. . . I’ve never even been confronted with that dilemma. Oh, crap. . . Well, now that I’ve never been hit on by some lecherous, revolting studio executive, I’m offended.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, London. I’m getting there. The idea of leaving now-boring old New York and doing a play in a city I loved sounded thrilling. So, even though it had been a long time since I’d had to audition for a theater role, I excitedly went in there and got it. (Lest I give you the wrong impression, the combination of perfect role and then actually being cast in that role happens—oh, I’m gonna say, about 8 percent of the time. Out of 1,000 percent. Usually I’d end up drunk in a bar, throwing darts at Lisa Kudrow’s headshot.)

But somehow I got cast (clearly Kudrow was busy), and I excitedly began to prepare for six months in London. Only thing is, I had that nasty little pill problem to contend with.
Doesn’t matter!
I thought to myself.
It’s a perfect opportunity to stop, once and for all!

I had stopped before, many times. Withdrawal is no fun, and if you feel the need for a bit more detail, just watch that scene in
Trainspotting
when Ewan McGregor’s mother locks him in his room while he detoxes from heroin. I never saw dead babies crawling on my ceiling, but other than that, Vicodin withdrawal is pretty damn close.

It’s awful, horrific, but it’s survivable. What I was most terrified of was the tsunami of depression that would crash into me and would continue to crash, over and over for months after. Which is why I couldn’t ever
really
stop, once and for all.

But I decided I’d worry about that later.

Later came (
she always does
), and immediately upon landing I solved my quandry. I was thrilled and deeply relieved to discover that one can buy codeine
over the counter
in London pharmacies. Codeine is a less intense opiate that is turned into morphine once in your system. But because it’s much less powerful than Vicodin, I discovered (after much experimentation) that if I took thirty to forty pills a day, I’d be just fine. I was almost proud of myself.
I’m like the Nancy Drew of painkillers!

The truth was, I had long ago stopped getting high or feeling great or even halfway decent from painkillers. Now, the sole purpose of taking any derivative of codeine or Vicodin was simply to
feel okay.
Whatever the hell that meant. Or I should say, I took them simply to avoid the dreaded Tsunami of Tsorrow. The only problem with my self-prescribed Rx was that the codeine was mixed in with a bunch of aspirin. Unbeknownst to me, at this time I was already suffering from a gnarly peptic ulcer, and ingesting the equivalent of forty to fifty aspirin pills a day was probably the worst possible thing I could be taking.