Trivialities in Hollyweird

Another morning waking up at 5 am and unable to fall asleep again. You know what that means... Uh huh. More ruminations.

Well, actually, more surfing the net and reading about Firefly and Nathan Fillion (still waitin' for you to call, sugarpie!). I discovered a nifty connection this morning that requires a little backstory -- you know how I've been writing this TV show for my law school writing requirement? Well, my inspiration was Felicity, which ran from 1998 to 2002 and followed the main character through college (but really, the show was about which guy she'd choose). Felicity starred Keri Russell, who is still probably best known for that role. I've been working my way through the series on Netflix DVDs, studying character development and storylines and being impressed by J.J. Abrams (who went on to do Alias and Lost).

Now, the other DVD series I've been watching and thinking about is Firefly, which I recently became obssessed with. Totally different, but equally engaging and beautifully written. Firefly had an ensemble cast, but Nathan Fillion was clearly the breakout (as much as it could be called that) star of that show.

(Still with me? I know, I'm exhibiting all my nerdiness here, but if you keep reading, I'll wind up soon and then I have a kind of neat entry that follows this TV-focused crap.)

So I've been watching Felicity and Firefly and thinking about both a lot, and what do I read today at 6:30 am when I've gotten up exasperatedly and exhaustedly after yet another night of only 6 hours of sleep? Well, I read that Waitress is showing at Sundance, and that it's getting buzz in large part because its writer and director, Adrienne Shelly, was murdered a few months ago. Adrienne Shelly was the sylph who served as Hal Hartley's muse back in the day -- she was lovely in The Unbelievable Truth and Trust, if you like Hartley's Mamet-like stilted yet deeply romantic style (it works. sometimes). She was murdered (probably accidentally) by a contractor she'd been arguing with. Pretty freakin' sad.

So what's the point? Okay, there is none. But Waitress stars Keri Russell and Nathan Fillion.

Yes. Strange. Worth a page of writing and 5 minutes of your life that you'll never get back? Yeah, probably not. It was worth 30 minutes of mine to write, because I like that kind of thing. The connections and the surprising coincidences and the possibility that it might, it just might, mean something more than just the universe winking at you.

(Here I start with the better written and slightly less superficial stuff.)

I don't know if any of you know this, but growing up as a desperately lonely and social outcast in Los Angeles, I used to dream of working in the movies. I subscribed to Premiere. I had a standing date with Mary Hart and John Tesh on Entertainment Tonight every night at 7 pm. I read the L.A. Times Entertainment section with sad, sad intensity. I kept tabs on my hero, George Lucas, and all the actors in Star Wars (even now, I can still name the actor who played the physical Darth Vader -- not James Earl Jones, who was the voice, but the dude who actually strode around under the mask. Seriously. I am not proud). I belonged to some sci fi movie association that occasionally showed advance screenings, to which I occasionally went. With my mom.

I never dreamed really big -- never envisioned myself as a filmmaker or a director or a producer. No, I had more humble dreams: I thought it might be cool to be a film editor. Or in sound effects. Maybe stunts. Maybe some character acting.

They were humble because it wasn't that I felt I had stories to share with the world, or a vision I needed to express. It was more that I wanted to be part of that magic that the movies work, the process of disappearing from this reality to the one that the cast and crew of the film created, a place that didn't exist anywhere but on that flat two-dimensional screen. A place where I wasn't always the new girl in school, terrified and awkward and socially disabled, book smart but people stupid.

My private and posh high school was the high school to the stars. The girl from Wonder Years was in my grade. Steven Spielberg's step-daughter was in my acting class (and was a total bitch, incidentally). Gene Roddenberry's son was in the grade below mine. Jamie Lee Curtis was someone's aunt. Tory Spelling graduated two years before me. So you'd think that if I really wanted to work in the movies, there was no better place in the world for me.

Well. I'll tell you what one of our guides in Ethiopia said to me. Filimon -- a beautiful, gentle soul with a sweet smile and disposition. I asked him what his name meant, and he said in his soft, halting English, "Do you know where the ships disappear? In the ocean?" The Ringleted One and I struggled with that one for a minute before she said, "The Bermuda Triangle?" and I followed with "Your name means the Bermuda Triangle?" Filimon laughed and said, "No, but like ... a mystery. It means one who searches for himself. Wandering from place to place."

Filimon's dream, he said, was to go to Oxford and study psychology. "But I know... it is hard. So I will be a guide," he said, without bitterness. "My friend says, 'Just doing is better,'" he said.

I wanted to tell him, don't give up on your dreams! You can do it! But that's a false and hurtful kind of encouragement. The possibility of Filimon getting into Oxford and studying psychology are so close to zero that it may as well be zero. Most likely he will become a guide, and a good one, and hopefully make a good living in Gonder, and find a nice girl to get married to, and raise a family, and be content. And maybe in his more leisurely moments, of which he will have fewer and fewer as he gets older, he'll think of Oxford, of some picture he might have seen of its dreaming spires and stately courtyards, and think of what might have been if he had been born someone different, someplace different.

I would insult Filimon by comparing myself to him. There are so many options, so many possibilities in my life that I falter at the thought of them. I am so free, I am fettered by my freedom.

But I am, as we all are, limited by certain things. Personality, lack of talent, lack of drive. I'm loving the experience of writing this stupid TV script. I wish I could go and be a crazy dreamer and doer in Hollywood. Create worlds. Make magic. But I don't think that's in the cards for me. That's not to say that it's totally impossible for me to relocate back to the West Coast, dig up some contacts, and try to work in the industry -- it's totally possible. But it's pretty implausible. I've spent the better part of 3 years and a hundred grand on getting this law degree. For better or worse, the smart path is to put that degree to use. And even if the money and the time weren't an issue, remember that I never fit in at my high school, with all the stars and children of the stars. Hollywood demands a certain personality, or a certain bullheaded determination that ignores personality. I didn't -- and don't -- have either.

Sometimes I wonder. I wonder what it means to grow up and put your dreams behind you. I wonder if I should have told Filimon to continue dreaming of Oxford. I wonder when you put down your burden of promise and say, "This is my life." I wonder if I'm being stupid by telling myself that it's not in the cards, or whether I'm finally getting wise.