That’s Not You Anymore, Darlin
My agent undresses me with his eyes. He always has. You flirt with a man once, and he is yours forever until he gets what he wants. Still, even after all these years, I hope his passion for me, or at least part of me, results in more auditions. It is a powerful tool, lust, that is. It impersonates your heart, and as long as I keep him at the edge of my stick, he will fight for me.
“Right, Justine. I’ve tried very hard at the new Fast and Furious. I think they are now drag racing on mars, and The Rock is now a robot? Not sure, but anyway, no luck. The complaint they gave me is a complaint I’ve heard a lot recently, the past five years more admittedly. I think we need to have a talk.” said Marc, the agent. Marc with a fucking C.
“You have been avoiding giving me genuine feedback for five fucking years? Go on say it. You coward.” Agents are meant to essentially be business partners; I take any opportunity to belittle my betrothed in this partnership. In this case, I am clearly in the right.
“You’re too old. Well, you’re too old for these roles. They want a young twenty five year old that looks nineteen. Skinny with thick thighs and huge tits. Eyes that say, “it is okay, I won’t tell your wife.” That’s not you anymore, darlin.”
“Unicorns don’t fucking exist, Marc, and if they did, even they couldn’t fit those dimensions. I’m thirty-one; I’m not exactly a granny.”
“I’m just telling you what they said. What they all have said, not literally, and I’ve put it perhaps, more crassly. But the gist remains the same. I’m sorry. We are going to need to go after some different roles. Maybe, a mother forced into prostitution after a natural disaster wrecks her house or something?”
That was the last time I spoke to Marc.
Look, I am barely angry at him. He told me the truth finally. He told me their reality, and that’s all the matters. Why did I allow myself to be typecast as a fucking hot pile of nothing all these years! Why was I so blind to it? Attention, money and attention. I wanted to be an artist, but I also wanted a roof over my head. Do I need to go poor to make a point? Me? Why me? A lonely revolution for me is not on the cards. Do I hate myself? Do I hate women? Blasphemy. No. I guess I am just frustrated that progress is not complete. Unfortunately, pensioner thirty-one-year-old actresses like me must fight. Should I have turned down Scary Movie then? ‘Expendables whatever the fuck’? I shouldn’t have ‘accidentally’ kissed Jimmy Fallon on the lips instead of the cheek? That slimy faced weirdo.
I’m not one of those rich girl actresses. I never knew my dad, and my mum basically did sell her body for me, but not in that way. I bought her a house. I’ll have you know. And that college debt is gone. But still, I’m meant to be a pillar of change? The roles don’t disappear if I turn them down. Some other hot bitch will gobble it up and fucking good for her. Narcissistic chameleons in continual competition. No, I should have been more versatile. I should have known that the ‘hot girl’ trope has an expiry date. Hot men have that as well, though, right? No. George Clooney, with his perfect fucking smile, has been the hot man since he was in his twenties. I haven’t seen him as the out of shape single father desperate for tips at the bar.
I had an abortion in 2013. I was in between birth control but thought I would be okay. I had two co-starring roles booked, both ‘love interests’. I kept it to myself; I didn’t even let the father know that I was pregnant. I’ll die with the grief and the thoughts of what that little thing may have become.
I’ve abandoned friends. Real friends. Friends that needed my help, but I was too busy being ogled at for five grand. As I said, I bought my mother a house, but I have never been invited in. You give up a lot trying to be an actress, and you hope the money will cancel out the deliberate ignorance but deep down, you know.
So as I sit here contemplating my career. I feel it is all too late. A rebellion already cremated, and I was one of many without a torch. It is interesting. Am I a role model to aspire to or to aspire to never be? I am still young despite what these dick heads think. I have time to change my future, but people will still see me in the past.
It is difficult once the crowd decides who you are.
Cheers