18 The Times Magazinecannot emphasise enough how
unprepared I was for my show Crazy
Ex-Girlfriend to be commissioned.
One moment it was a dead Showtime
pilot, the next I was boarding a plane
to New York to announce the TV
series to the press.
I started reaping the perks of my
new reality the moment I boarded
the plane. I had flown to New York from
LA hundreds of times, but never in first class.
Up until this point, my only interaction with
first class had been to walk through it
resentfully on my way to economy. I hated
the rich f***s I saw, sipping their orange
juices and stroking their emotional support
pomeranians. I took comfort in knowing that,
if the plane were to crash, the people in first
class would die instantly and cushion the blow
for us in the back.
Now I was in first class, sitting in my
luxuriously large seat with my feet not even
touching the ground, like a little girl’s doll
at a tea party. And I was pissed off. This is
what flying has the potential to be? While
most of us are sweating in the back and
paying $14 for a stale croissant and a single
Babybel, these first-class f***ers have free
socks and menus and reclining seats and
did I already say free socks?
And then someone brought me an orange
juice and, dammit, I couldn’t be angry any
more. I drank champagne. I slept. I reclined
as I ate warm pie. Flying was awesome now.
I forgot that I had a “car” “picking me up”
at the “airport” (no words made sense any
more). After I guiltily let the driver carry my
suitcase for me as we made our way to a big
black SUV, I settled onto the air mattress
in my friend Brendan’s apartment and he
warmly reacted to the whole experience just
as I expected he would: “Ugh, f*** off, you
lucky bitch.”
This lucky bitch f***offness continued
with my first excursion to something called
a “gifting suite”. Every actor in town for the
UpFronts press preview had been invited
to this particular gifting suite and I was so
excited. Maybe I’d get a free water bottle in
a tote bag! But when I walked into the suite,
the free stuff was more than just a tote bag.
In fact, it was a lot of tote bags. And if you can
believe it, it wasn’t just tote bags. There were
racks of clothes open for the picking, a shoe
shop’s worth of heels, handbags galore, and
make-up and hair products as far as the eye
could see. No one had explained to me that
this is what a gifting suite was.
Likewise, no one had explained to me what
the deal was with the red carpet before the
presentation. I had no idea how to handle
a red carpet or how to pose on a red carpet,
and that, hey, I would be on a red carpet
so maybe I should get a stylist to help mewith my clothes, because that’s what people
did on red carpets.
When I found out at rehearsal that
I actually needed two dresses for the day’s
events (one for the day stuff and another
for a party at night), I didn’t know what to
do. I was only told to bring one dress for the
whole shebang, so I brought my friend Nicole’s
mum’s old Dolce & Gabbana dress from the
Eighties that she didn’t want.
Then I remembered that I had all those
free clothes I got at the gifting suite. Those
clothes were definitely fancy enough – I
hadn’t had time to try them on, but they were
from a gifting suite, and “suite” is a French
word, so I was basically wearing French
designer clothing. Perfect.
The morning of the UpFronts, I got
my hair and make-up done next to more
seasoned TV stars. Filled with adrenaline
and punchdrunk from a lack of sleep, I made
chirpy conversation with everyone who
caught my eye. Hi, I’m Rachel. What’s your
name? Wow, you’re so attractive and you’re
so nice. You don’t need to be this nice when
you’re this attractive. Hey, where ya goin’?
I went back to my room and threw on one
of the dresses from the gifting suite along with
a pair of heels that my co-creator, Aline Brosh
McKenna, had given to me because she didn’t
want them any more. I looked in the mirrorand thought to myself, “Wow. I’m a TV star.”
When I arrived at the venue, I was greeted
by a mob of screaming fans... who couldn’t
have given less of a f*** about me. I scanned
the crowd for literally anyone who wanted my
autograph, but people peered past me for the
stars on the shows they actually knew. I felt
like a tree blocking a stop sign. As I walked
away, I shouted back at the mob, “I have a
show coming! You should care!”
Then I arrived at the entrance to the red
carpet. Fun fact about red carpets: they’re
stupid. Nothing in life should be this frantic,
loud, crowded and fussy. The publicist asked if
I was ready for pictures. I said I was and then
my husband was politely asked to walk behind
the red carpet so he would not be seen by the
press, because he was not a famous person
and therefore an eyesore.
Standing on the red carpet for pictures
was overwhelming. Cameras in my face,
photographers screaming, “Rachel! Rachel!”
And it occurred to me that I didn’t know
what the f*** I was doing. I didn’t know how
to pose, how to smile, how to step to the left
so that someone else could now get their
picture taken. Plus, I had a coffee shit attack
brewing and I still had half an hour of
on-camera interviews to do. The inklings
of imposter syndrome were brewing within
me along with my coffee farts.I
I SCANNED THE AUDIENCE FOR LITERALLY
ANYONE WHO WANTED MY AUTOGRAPH
Emmy Awards, 2017Writers Guild Awards, 2016Backstage, July 2017PREVIOUS SPREAD: GETTY IMAGES, SHUTTERSTOCK, BROOKE NIPAR/AUGUST. THIS SPREAD: SHUTTERSTOCK, RACHEL BLOOM/INSTAGRAM, GETTY IMAGES