Every Day I'm Hustling Page 6

  I turned to him quickly, fast enough to mouth, “I love you.” Since then, he’s played my dad in other projects, on an episode of Beverly Hills 90210 and in the stage play Whatever She Wants. I always refer to him as Mr. Richard Roundtree because I love him so much. He taught me a lesson that I bring to every set: Be ready to stand up for others. I always try to be welcoming to other actors that I work with. I am never the standoffish star to the up-and-comers. It’s about grace, but it’s also about being smart and anticipating reversals of fortune. Watch how you talk to people because someday they might be in the position to hire or fire you.

  I had a bigger problem than that director, and that problem’s name was Jonelle Allen.

  *   *   *

  When the show first started, Jonelle was the star and she did not appreciate this new kid coming in and getting attention. I think she was kind of the set bully, and folks watched their step around her. I remember her being quite the bitch. She saw the direction the show was going with my character, and she felt I was getting a little bit big for my britches.

  It blew up in hair and makeup, of course, where the real drama happens on soaps. We were each getting done up when the show publicist came in to pitch me an idea.

  Jonelle snapped, “Ugh, are you guys doing another stupid magazine shoot?”

  Nobody said anything, which was how I’d seen everyone react to Jonelle’s outbursts. Not this time.

  “Why, ’cause you’re not in it?” I asked. “Again?”

  And everybody in the room was like, “Oh, shit.” They knew it was about to go down. If there were a microwave in there they would have been saying, “Hold up, let’s make some popcorn ’cause the show is on!”

  Jonelle froze. “Little girl,” she said.

  “Oh, I got your little girl.”

  She made a face, and I went in deeper. “Bitch, you picked the wrong one today.”

  I was ready to go twelve rounds, but Jonelle backed down. Bullies come at you from a place of fear. The thing with bullies in any workplace is they don’t really know how to fight and they get lazy coasting on their rep. I’m not telling you to call Jeanine the middle manager a bitch, but stand up for yourself. Jonelle was pissing on her territory because she feared losing it. If she could intimidate me into submission, she would. I offered her the opportunity to be equals, nothing less.

  She grew to respect me, probably because I stood up to her, and we became friends on the set. Thank God, because one day our characters, Maya and Doreen, had to throw down in a catfight that has become legendary.

  Picture young me as Maya in a skintight red glamour gown, showing up at Doreen’s ivory-hued apartment to confront her about trying to get with my dad. Jonelle had a shiny yellow Alexis Carrington dress with a train. It was the makeup room all over again, only this time we had ball gowns and the campiest lines imaginable.

  “What do you want?” Jonelle, in character, hissed at me.

  “I want to wipe this floor with you,” I said.

  Well, Jonelle proceeds to throw off her fur, toss her bag, kick off her heels one by one, and lasso that train between her legs to get in a sort of sumo-princess squat position. It was all I could do not to laugh.

  I kicked off my shoes, too, moved aside an armchair, and we took off our dangly earrings like ladylike prizefighters. The script had her getting the upper hand at first, but my Maya gave her all. I ripped off that train. Oh, and all hell broke loose. We trashed that set—no vase was safe from us.

  The scene became legendary, and people are still talking about it. After a particularly vicious catfight on Empire, the next day many sites called it an homage to my Generations battle. Then all my friends started emailing me a YouTube video. The subject line was generally “OMG!!!” Two men had painstakingly re-created the catfight shot for shot, delivering every line and blow to perfection. I was so touched and I laughed and laughed. Now, you know I value, respect, and cherish my gay fans. But I have never loved them more.

  Around this Generations time, I had a dear friend come out to me. Well, I made him come out to me. He spent a lot of time talking about women around me, and I could tell he was just trying to prove something to me that was false. And I didn’t want that for him.

  “Okay, sit your ass down.” I said. “I need you to stop trying to act like you like girls. You’re gay. Aren’t you?”

  “I am,” he said. His whole body exhaled. He hadn’t told anybody. Can you imagine not telling a single soul who you are? He grew up in the Bible Belt, and thought he had no choice. “Are you going to think I’m a bad person?”

  “Absolutely not,” I said, crying that he even thought that. “I have no right to tell you who to love. You know what I have a right to tell you: to be happy. Because I love you, and I want you to only do stuff that’s gonna make you happy.”

  Everyone needs to be told they’re great and deserving of love. God knows I do. As I was writing this book, something I said in a radio interview about Vivica’s Black Magic was seen as homophobic. I was asked if my guys danced for men. I said no, that this was the ultimate girls’ night out. I was thinking of my girls, and was also overly defensive of my guys, who have been called gay on social media by insecure people jealous of the attention these dancers get. I phrased it badly, and it turned into a headline. I didn’t get much sleep for a few nights because I was trying so hard to apologize. If you need to hear it again, let me tell you now: I love you.

  *   *   *

  Once I started making a little money, I had one big wish.

  “Mom, I really want you to come out here,” I said. It had become a constant plea on our weekly calls. I wanted Everlyena Fox to see the mountains with her own eyes. I knew I couldn’t get her to dip a toe in the ocean, but I at least wanted her to see its beauty.

  Finally, she relented and came to visit me. I picked her up at the airport and gave her the biggest hug. There was so much I wanted her to see.

  “You wait here,” I said. “I’ll bring the car.”

  When I drove up in my ride, she about got back on that plane. “What kind of car are you driving?” she said.

  It was a burgundy Jeep with chrome wheels, my absolute pride and joy. God, I loved that car. The Jeep sat up a little high, and Mom kept alternating holding her seat and the door as we drove.

  “I want to show you something before we go to my place,” I said. I had it all planned out. I drove her up Beachwood Canyon in the Hollywood Hills, just to where you could see the Hollywood sign. It’s a windy, twisty road up, and as we got higher, she kept asking how much farther it was.

  “Just a little ways,” I said, heading up the canyon. I kept thinking how fabulous she would think this was.

  Well, she had never been so high before, and started to become terrified. “Angie, you turn this damn car around right now!” That only made Adventurous Angie try to get there faster, which, well, only made her yell louder.

  When we finally stopped, she turned and hissed at me, “Girl, if you don’t take my ass down from up here right quick…”

  I did. She didn’t like the race down the mountain either. I should have checked with her. But she liked my place, and that it was clean. I took her out to eat at some of my favorite places. There was one moment when we were just starting lunch, when we held hands across the table to say grace. As she spoke, I peeked up to see the California light falling on my Indiana mom, a palm tree swaying behind her. She looked beautiful. We made it to Hollywood, I thought.

  After we said our amens, I had to ask her something. “Are you proud of me, Mom?” I asked. “I’m working.”

  “I like that you’re being responsible and keeping your home so neat, Angie,” she said. “You were always neat.”

  I understand now that this was the highest praise she was able to give me at the time. But back then, I just wanted her to tell me she was proud.

  *   *   *

  Generations was great for me, but as my story line built up, I wa
s only working three days a week. That left plenty of time for me to keep my waitressing job. Yes, I kept my day job! I’d started working at the L.A. Pasta and Pizza in the Beverly Center, L.A.’s fancy mall. I was sort of half in, half out as a working actress.

  One day, in the middle of a shift at the L.A. Pasta and Pizza, I brought the check to a nice couple sitting at a two-top.

  “Can I ask you a question?” the woman asked me.

  “Of course.”

  She paused. “Aren’t you on a soap opera?”

  “Yes,” I said, still in my accommodating waitress voice, like I was saying we had a booth ready. “Generations.”

  “You play Maya, right?”

  I couldn’t hold it back. “Yeah!” I said. I was so touched to be recognized.

  “I thought that was you!” she said. “I love you!”

  “I love you back!” I said. And I did.

  That was the defining moment. I was like, Okay, if you’re gonna do this acting thing, you’ve gotta commit. Yes, keep your day job, but be ready to commit to your 24-7 dream job.

  As soon as Generations upped me to four and five days a week, I quit L.A. Pasta and Pizza. Then, wouldn’t you know, Generations got canceled! But I didn’t regret my decision, mainly because I had $25,000 in the bank and I thought I was rich. I was sitting like a fat cat on that pile of FU money. But that money started saying, “See you,” right quick. I was burning through it, auditioning again and wondering if I’d made a mistake leaving waitressing.

  I turned to a friend for advice. (See, that squad comes in handy!) While doing Generations, I’d met a wonderful actress by the name of Sheila Wills. She’d done a lot of work in soaps and she became a real mentor to me. In fact, she is my acting coach to this day. I told her how frustrated I was getting.

  “Vivica, stay ready,” she told me.

  For an actress, she told me, working or not, I had to take care of myself, stay in shape, and keep my skills sharp.

  “When it’s your turn,” Sheila said, “if you are not ready and you miss out on that job that could change your life, the only person you have to blame is yourself. Your turn will be coming. Stay ready.”

  I treated auditions like learning experiences, meeting people and experimenting with different types of dialogue. I did stand-in work to get a sense of different sets. I didn’t let anything slide.

  Then I got The Young and the Restless. Playing sweet Dr. Stephanie Simmons seemed like winning a prize. And I got to kiss Shemar Moore, who back then was all that and a bag of chips with a helping of hot sauce.

  So why wasn’t I happy? I wanted more. I didn’t know it at the time, but The Young and the Restless turned out to be my golden ticket to becoming a movie star.

  LESSON FOUR

  KNOCK ON SUCCESS’S DOOR, HONEY. HELL, KICK IT IN.

  I have learned that real empowerment, for women and men, is taking charge of your life and becoming your own boss. And in building careers, some people say good things happen to those who wait. Not me. I believe good things come to those who go out and make it happen. Success won’t come knocking on your door. Knock on success’s door, honey. Hell, kick it in.

  That’s what I did on a morning in 1994, when I marched into my agent’s office with one goal. All the black girls in Hollywood were talking about it. Everyone was going out to get Independence Day. There was a role for a kick-ass black woman in this film: Jasmine Dubrow, a love interest for Will Smith, who I liked so much from when I did an episode of Fresh Prince.

  “How come I’m not getting an audition for Independence Day?” I asked.

  “Aw, baby, you’re on a soap opera,” she said. “You know you ain’t got a big enough name for that. That’s a big ol’ movie.”

  I nodded, but I didn’t accept it. She was telling me to know my place: “Go on back there and learn your lines.” I liked working on The Young and the Restless, being allowed to come into people’s homes and entertain people who wanted a little escape. But I had a little voice telling me I needed to go take my career to the next level.

  It turned out the wife of an Independence Day producer, Bill Fay, was one of those fans watching me at home. Jody Fay was laid up at home, pregnant, watching me play Dr. Simmons on The Young and the Restless. She called her husband. “Are you still having trouble casting Jasmine?” she asked him.

  He told her that no one was sticking, and she said, “You really should try this girl.”

  My agent called me that day, sounding pretty amused. “The Independence Day casting folks called,” she said, “looking for you.”

  I thought she was teasing me. “They called looking for me?” I said. “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope,” she said. “Now go on out there and go get it.”

  It was one of those moments where you realize your life is about to get a turbocharge. I distinctly remember hanging up the phone and saying aloud, “Here it comes.”

  Now, Jasmine is a stripper in the film. So, honey, I went out and got me a patent-leather white jumpsuit and killer heels. I went into that audition with my stripper gear on, and I thought I was just too fine.

  The casting director was Wendy Kurtzman, a kind and direct woman. I did my read-through and she smiled. “It’s a good thing you can act, dear,” Wendy said. “Because that outfit? No.”

  “But she’s a stripper,” I said, suddenly feeling much, much less than too fine.

  “Dear, she’s a stripper with a heart of gold,” she said, no-nonsense. “She strips for a living. Now, I want you to watch the movie Speed and study Sandra Bullock. That kind of look. You have to have that kind of feel to you. You can audition again.”

  I am so glad I stayed present and took the note not as criticism but as insight. She wanted me to succeed, and her comments were the tools I needed to do better. You can’t swat away advice like that. Take it, consider it, and decide if it’s something you need to hear.

  So I did my homework. I rented Speed that night and I was like, Oh, I get it now. And when I went back in to audition, I wore a cute summer dress and I’d got me some little combat boots and ankle socks with lace on them.

  As soon as I walked in, Wendy said, “There you go. Now you understand.”

  I had the look, but I still needed to get the role. In total, I had to audition six times. Finally, they called me and said, “Vivica, you got the part.” I ran around my house screaming. They’d been stuck so long on Jasmine they needed me the very next day. It was like, boom, I’m racing around in a truck and jumping over stuff. They thrust me right in there.

  But I’d prepared. I knew every line and was ready. There were no excuses. And it’s a good thing, because the director, Roland Emmerich, told me a secret at the Independence Day premiere. “Did you know,” he asked in his cute German accent, “that if you didn’t do good your first day of filming, that we were going to fire you?”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, because there was one girl that was our first choice, Kristen Wilson,” Roland said. “But she was doing a show with Montel Williams so she was unavailable. Your first day of filming they called and said, ‘Okay, we’ll work with your schedule. She’s available now.’”

  Roland laughed at my look of shock. He’d clearly been sitting on this one for a while. He said he and the producers immediately looked at my dailies. “Nope,” he remembered them all saying, “she’s right for Jasmine.”

  My entire career was on the line that first day on the set, and I had no idea. You’ve got to show up and be present, because you never know who is watching you and deciding if you need a promotion or a job. When you are doing the work you love, not calling it in on some job you’re coasting in, you need to be on it every single day. That’s what makes a boss.

  *   *   *

  Meanwhile, during filming, I thought the biggest pressure on me was my stripping scene. You know I took that seriously. I even got a stripper tutor. They found a local strip joint, and I met a stripper there at nine o’clock in the mornin
g when the place was closed. We had “class” every morning for a week, and sister was strict. Like she was doing freaking Juilliard for strippers.

  She gave me the ground rules the first day.

  “I want you to lose your inhibitions,” she said. “I want you to come in from now on in four-inch heels. You can have shorts on, but I want you to wear a G-string underneath.”

  “Okay,” I said, in the meekest little church-girl voice in the world.

  But I did it. Next time we met, she was still all business. “Take off the shorts and walk around,” she said. “Let’s get you comfortable parading around.”

  “All right,” I said back. “Time to get comfortable being uncomfortable.”

  She turned out to be the perfect teacher for me. By the time we were filming they had this big bikini bottom thing ready for me to put on, and I was like, “Nope, I’m committed. G-string.” She had made me so comfortable that I didn’t even realize I would be on film walking in all ass out. At the premiere, I won’t lie, I was like, Whoa. My mom was shocked. “You had your butt out there for all to see!” she said. But at least it’s nice and tight.

  *   *   *

  I also had a personal trainer named Will Smith. Yes, that one. Lord, he did not give me a break. We were filming in Wendover, Utah, which we all called Bendover, Utah, ’cause it was such a small town that there was fuck all to do there. We were there two weeks, and early on I had a couple of days off. They’d put us all up in this big house, and I was hanging out by the Jacuzzi, having a margarita. What else was there to do?

  Then Will walked by and did a double take.

  “What are you doing?” he said, as serious as a heart attack.

  “Um, having a drink? It’s my day off.”

  “Vivica, come here,” he said. “We are going upstairs and we are gonna do push-ups and do weights. You have to realize this movie is going to be big. This movie is going to change our lives—it’s important for us to show up and be good.”

  I put down the margarita. He was a tough taskmaster, but he was right. When you have the gift of an opportunity in your career, do everything you can to make the most of it. Don’t let someone else work harder than you, because you will be handing them the keys to your dream.