I hate this. I hate the fact that I feel the need to tell the world what happened to me on sets. I like My privacy. I like to protect the people I know in my world from harm.   I love acting and I don’t need people cutting me off because of the lies of others. I wish I had safety. I wish I had more people, especially ones who love acting as much as I do, who were not so much like the people who hurt me on sets.  I am the type who kept secrets on sets and who did not care as long as I was left to do my job and do it well.  But unfortunately sometimes the selfishness and need to be stars of others can really bite you.  Ms M who I talk about here wanted a cover of People magazine.  I will not give her a name other than that.  I don’t want people looking up her credits though a show did try to make her a character and I am pretty sure she burned me very well with that cast as I believe she did with Eli Stone. 

The next few months were good, but the start to weird.  I was working and loving it.  Looking back though there were strange events that I think led to the events that followed.  

07/02/07 Patron Californication 8 hours

07/03/07 Gambler Viva Laughlin 14.5 hours  This was another trip to Palm Springs.  I remember watching fireworks while getting on a bus to go home on the 4th.

07/04/07 Viva Laughlin 9 hours

07/06/07 Tonight He Comes 8.3 hours

07/10/07 FBI Bones 10.1 hours

I’ve worked Bones before but this was different. I did not recognize Carla Gallo from Carnivale at all and they tried to make me a regular.  Seriously, Central called me at the end of the first day and told me that they had sent over a bunch of people to be FBI (there were at least 20 there) and he told me I was the only girl they wanted back.  I remember saying “thank you” but then not liking that I could not say anything and at the same time feeling bad for the other people not coming back.  the guy from Central’s tone was one of disbelief though, which well I’m sorry.  Not my fault I did a good job.  My dad used to work for the government. I grew up watching FBI types and I’m an actress.

07/11/07 Bones 12.5 hours

07/12/07 Bones 8.3 hours

07/13/07 the Perfect Game 10.2 hours

07/17/07 Photo Journalist Mr Robinson’s Driving School 8 hours

07/18/07 Cloverfield 12.5 hours

07/19/07 Cloverfield 13.5 hours

07/19/07 Mad Men fitting 2 hours

07/20/07 Cloverfield 14.7 hours

07/23/07 Mad Men 9 hours

07/24/07 Office Worker Shark 10.8 hours

07/25/07 Restaurant Patron Brothers & Sisters 14.2 hours

07/26/07 Restaurant Patron Brothers & Sisters 8hours

07/27/07 ND Louie’s Bar Patron Saving Grace 13.0 hours If I remember Holly Hunter asked if it was OK if she could run into me.  I was like sure. 

07/31/07 Eli Stone 13.7 Hours.  First day I worked this the AD put me in a chair next to Johnny Lee Miller and he grabbed a cell phone from me.  No one would tell me what was going on and I had to guess.  I remember the AD apologizing to some union background for not using them and when I went downstairs a woman I will call Ms M told me she was supposed to be a lawyer but got switched to be some one’s assistant.  I ended up at one point very loudly telling everyone I needed to see the pages because I had no idea what was going on.  Sam Jaeger and Johnny Lee Miller looked at each other with surprise and finally I got the Stand in (who worked the show also as crew and before Christmas would say to me “at least I would not be spending my Christmas trying to end my life” before he left for Thailand) to give me the pages so I saw it said that the lead grabbed a cell phone from someone called “Attorney with cell phone.”  I guessed right as to what I was supposed to do to, because the AD at that time kept coming up to me and tapping me on the shoulder and telling me I did a good job.  At the end of the day one of the crew told us that we there were her regulars.  She liked all of us.  Looking back I don’t know if that was good or bad.  I love acting and I would rather be poor and fight to act, than in a safe boring job.

 This is what is strange.  I recall running into Ms M on a commercial and asking her who the cute actor I sat next to was because I did not know who he was?  Honest. I never heard if Johnny Lee Miller before my first day on the set.  And I am a James Bond fan.  According to my records I did not work on a commercial for a month?  I remember after the first day on the set though not speaking to Ms M again until  a commercial.  It seemed shorter.  She looked at me like she wanted to hit me and later sat in a chair next to me and told someone on the phone “Guess who I am sitting next to.”  Or it was some expression like that in a tone like she was sitting next to someone she wanted to hit.  I was beginning to not feel well during this time and not sure why.  I think my only saving grace was I kept playing with my food.  I think I decided to cut out carbs and eat nothing but fruits and vegetables and some meat at this time to see if that would help me feel better.  Yeah I was playing with the fad diets but more for health than weight loss.  I tried to be a vegetarian but it made me feel weak.  I did not find out until 2009/2010 that I was allergic to gluten.  Now that the gluten is gone I can eat dairy and I do occassionally have  clams.  My body smells like fish if I eat fish- unless fresh water- but I seem to be OK with clams.  I figured that out about the same time I figured out I am gluten intolerant.  I’d like to forgo eating meat all together though.   

08/01/07 Eli Stone 12.8 hours My paychecks all read WPK worker which was the law firm.  I had the wardrobe and with the exception of the first day they used my own.  I actually prefer dressing what I call relaxed mod- nice jeans or cords with a nice shirt and jacket.  I was from DC but even back there I stood out.  I liked bright colors or natural neutrals so I fit the San Fran lawyer look.

08/02/07 Eli Stone 8 hours

08/03/07 Grey’s Anatomy 10.8 hours (Pay role switch- now UPS and not Sessions)

08/04/07 Bystander Tonight He Comes 8 hours

08/07/07 Chaperon Moonlight 12 hours Almost always a night shoot. 

08/08/07 Eli Stone 8 hours

08/09/07 Shark Swarm 10 hours  This was shot in Malibu and starred John Schneider.  It was fun.  Dead sharks on the beach.

08/10/07 Eli Stone 11.3 hours

08/13/07 Restaurant/ Defendant/ Visitor Brothers & Sisters 13.0 hours

08/15/07 Lawyer/ WPK worker Eli Stone 11.8 hours  I remember this day because of the categories.  They shot a court scene before doing the office, so they had me and a few of the regulars work with our backs to the camera.  i remember Melinda specifically telling me to not face the camera because I was in the office later.  Mr miller made a comment about “watching the lawyer do her work.”  I knew he was referring to me. Not sure if that was good or bad.

08/16/07 Cop Women’s Murder Club 13.3 hours (huge fan of James Patterson- so happy to get to work this.)

08/17/07 Cop Women’s Murder Club 8 hours

08/17/07 Cloverfield 10/3 hours (Someone on Eli Stone brought this film up and I remember saying “I thought people who worked on it were not supposed to talk about it.”  I know I said nothing until it was out in the theaters.)

08/17/07 Cloverfield11.7 hours (they messed up and had not paid me for a day or two the month before and these checks are the fix.)

08/17/07 Cloverfield 10.5 hours

08/19/07 Restaurant patron The Scene 8 hours

08/20/07 Detective The Watch 13.5 hours

08/21/07 Detective/ Hospital The Watch 14.0 hours

08/22/07 Frost/Nixon 2 hours fitting

08/23/07 Amerimart Staff Big Shots 13.2 hours (This show made me a regular too kind of but not a solid one.  One of the crafty people was really mean to the background and I knew the principals heard me ream him out in holding, though even one or two of the crew were telling him to stop.  And my idea of reaming someone is saying “That guy is mean.”)

08/24/07 Commercial 12.0 hours.  This is what confuses me because I did not see Ms M from Eli Stone until today?  Or we did not talk about the first day on the set of Eli Stone until today?

08/24/07 Eli Stone 11.3 hours

08/29/07 Eli Stone 8.8 hours

8/30/07 Nurse House 9.5 hours

I worked with Ms M on this one too.  I knew the AD on this one.  She was the person who placed me on camera for Carnivale that ended up putting me on HBO’s website. I thanked her again.  She liked me and knew I did good work.  On that set she placed us and told us to just do our job.  She trusted us to do it right.  At the end of the day the guy checking us out told me I would see him next week and as i got in the van to leave Ms M said “She would not have even known if she was not told.”  A guy on set that day tried to get me to go to a Scientology class and I said no. I never got the call to work House as a nurse but later Central wanted me on House as something else and it was weird because the casting agent sounded mad at me when she called.  I think I was already booked though with something else by central and this was like months later. 

8/31/07 Eli Stone 12.2 hours

Sometime in here or earlier they switched the ADs on Eli Stone.  Ms M made the comment to me in passing that Melinda was going to be the AD from now on.  The AD who liked my work the first day was gone, but I knew the new AD.  We had worked together before and she would later compliment me on my work, comment that I was genius and also I recommended to her some things and one of the crew said that was smart, and Melinda said “that is why we hired her.”  Background including Ms M not happy with me at this point, though Ms M was never happy with me no matter how hard I tried to be nice.  I just wanted to do a good job and work. Really seriously if camera time gets to you and you want more on a set, shoot your own video because otherwise you get to be annoying, well at least to me, and if you get upset when someone else gets some, you look like a cry baby, well to me.  I did not get that much face time, and I knew it on Eli, but I got to work and that to me was key. I wanted to go SAG and audition for parts and i was not looking to be discovered from Background.  If good things happened they happened, but having beaten cancer, life is too short for the stuff I was dealing with from Ms M and her friends.  I was OK at this point but later well you will see.   Ms M pointed out her name on a list of I think dancers, and acted like I should know her name and kind of acted like an injured puppy, but we were all put in robes to be choir.  I think she was still upset about the first day.  Later people on other sets would comment about how so and so was a dancer and that was why she was there. I was a lawyer playing a lawyer.  Like seriously I am.  I could also sing, and well I had some dancing training.  That is not the point. If I am going to get fried by background because I am not a trained dancer and not get my day in court at all or due process when I did nothing wrong but get a little girl upset, that to me is just unprofessional and wrong.  She could be a dancer on the show.  She could end up getting lines.  She was in a better position as an assistant than I was.  I am used to taking care of me too and not having other people play games for me or back stab or have others cut someone down for me to come out on top.  I don’t want people like that in my circle and Id rather work with peoplewho are focused on doing a good job and not playing these games that in the end cost me why i beat cancer, or at least it felt like it.  And Ms M saw me in the changing area of a project down town. I think probably Mid August or September.  She knew I was a cancer survivor.  I just wanted to work and not deal with her insecurity. 

Sometime the costume supervisor left Eli Stone.  On his last day I told him, well I guess I will be leaving too.  He liked my clothes and me and sometimes a crew person in that position putting in a good word can keep you on a set.  Well he told me the strangest thing, he said:”Trust me Laura, you will be here for the duration.”  That turned out to be untrue.  The new supervisor & I did not get along however.  She would put me in clothes that matched the lead sometimes and it got to the point where I would ask her do you know what colors the leads are wearing.  I’d end up changing twice.

I also got to see George Michael in concert and work with him on set but that came later too.  I also went at some point to see my friend’s play from Australia.  that was fun.

09/02/07 1972 Street Atmosphere Life on Mars. 13.1 hours

09/04/07 Associate Eli Stone 12.5 hours (This was another time they had me listed as something other than WPK worker- not sure why.)

09/05/07 Clerical Worker The Shield 8 hours

09/06/07 Eli Stone 9 hours

09/08/07 Commercial.  8 hours

09/10/07 Frost/Nixon 10.8 hours. I stood next to Kevin Bacon and they took my picture for the behind the scenes, or the dress I wore anyways while he sat in his folding chair, so I have one degree of separation from Kevin Bacon.

09/11/07 Concert Goer Monk 13.0 I think this was a Christmas Scene.  Monk beat up Santa as I recall.  I realized after I worked this that I promised Central I would not work this again after I was late a year ago right before I had cancer.  But I had beaten the cancer, needed the work, and i knew the AD.  However on set someone asked me about joining Scientology, and my response was “they kind of scare me, no thanks.”  We were shooting at Paramount.  One of the crew looked at me and said “you never know who is one.”  Later he put me beside a car and told me to lean on it.  Then later he yelled at me for leaning on a car that did not belong to me, and I very loudly replied.  “You were the one who told me to lean here.”  They were also using my car.  The AD I knew from “Deadwood.”  I think he heard that.  He thanked me as a left.  I like working with good people and not ones who try to get you into trouble.  Fear breads ignorance and doing that just added to my fear.  I don’t think anyone on a set should ask me about religion in general.  That to me is unprofessional.  We all have the right to believe what we want and not be persecuted for it.

09/12/07 Eli Stone 12.0 hours

09/13/07 Eli Stone- A Unit 8 hours

09/14/07 Eli Stone 11.7 hours

09/17/07 Unhitched 8 hours

09/18/07 Side order of Life 8 hours

09/21/07 Courtroom gallery Shark 8 hours Fox liked me allot.

09/20/07 Amerimart Staff Big Shots 9 hours.  WB liked me too.

09/21/07 Lawyer CSi Miami 9.2 hours.  This was the first time I worked this show.  It was weird because the actor who played the son knew me from somewhere.  We had worked a set together.   I worked with the lead once before at a cross over with CSI NY.  They were really nice there.  I usually would not even submit for it though because well, I look more DC than Miami.

09/24/07 Parent Nowhereland 11.8 hours

09/25/07 Parent Nowhereland 10.8 hours

09/26/07 Parent Nowhereland 11.3 hours

09/27/07 Parent Nowhereland 9.8 hours

09/28/07 Eli Stone 10.8 hours

I really liked working on Eli Stone. I did.  I loved musicals as a kid.  I got to see George Michael play.  One night they kept some of the regulars to shoot a scene with a knight and horse and I remember walking over to the horse to look at it and Johnny Lee Miller was on the other side of it.  They were not shooting at the time. I looked at the horse and Miller and I said “I love horses.  Thanks for letting us see it.”  I knew he was not responsible but I was grateful to be there.  It was one of the most beautiful animals I had ever seen.  With the exception of one time saying hello when I was coming down some stairs to work, that was the only time I ever talked to him.  Ms M they had already sent home.

As to Ms M.  She told me that her friend was Mr Miller’s stand in and he personally picked him.  She told someone “Mr Miller thinks she is disgusting” while passing me and looking me in the eye.   I was getting sick and did not know why.  I wish now I had stayed on my no carb diet.  At one point a woman I knew told me she had celiac disease and it was almost as though she thought I had it.  I found out later my mom has it.  Stuff like that made me think people in my life were playing spy for my family who I wanted out of my life and gone. I am not like them at all.  I am different from them politically, religiously, and even my beliefs about money and work are different.  I don’t think acting is playing or making film is playing.  I know it is hard work and you have to have patience and determination and a willingness sometimes to not be the star to truly survive and work in this town.

At this point in September though I was happier than I had been since working Carnivale.  I let myself love a show I was working on.  I cared about all the jobs I worked, but this was the first time I let one win my heart and loyalty and in the end though I was left with a sense of betrayal and a knife in my back.

The point I am trying to make is, it sometimes is not a question of you versus someone else, with that attitude someone gets hurt.  I did get hurt and I don’t think I deserved it.  I was not in Ms. M’s way though she acted like I was.  Ms M can sue me if she wants, but I ended up losing what I fought to walk and beat cancer for and I know I did not do anything to warrant being treated the way that I was by Central and Gray’s Anatomy. 

I should add one day I heard Mr Miller say he spent the weekend in Santa Barbara.  I knew by this point he had a girlfriend.  I saw her on set.  He would look at her like he was in love.  Ms M that day was wearing what looked like a brand new Harley Davidson jacket with Santa Barbara on it.  I stupidly commented that Mr Miller had spent the weekend in Santa Barbara.  I heard him tell Jason George that.  Marquessa said she needed to return the jacket to Ryan who was Mr Miller’s stand in.  One day I also told Ms M that I had once liked an actor who had a girlfriend and she snapped at me that maybe he would dump her for me.  I would never have wanted that.  I am not that kind of girl.  A guy who was kind of cute checked me out in passing on the lot and I told a friend and I heard her chime up “At least it was not Eli Stone.”  Seriously I was shocked because he looked like he stepped out of G q, though I had dated a model actor type when I first started working on sets (and I ended it bc he as he put it “thought I was the kind of girl who was looking for the one, but just had not found him yet.”  I kind of agreed.  Later he told me I was above most girls.  I am not a toy and he knew it).  I told her once that Miller tried to say hi to me but I did not say hi back because I did not want to get into trouble.  I did not.  I did not know what was going on.  I only know I loved working the show.  I think I only commented on the jacket thing because she had made some snide comment to me earlier.  One of her guy friends sat with me one day and told me how he was thinking of cheating on his girlfriend and also told her so I could hear how Miller did not like my voice.  (I did not talk to him??) One day in a restaruant scene Ms M was sitting opposite of me and she was looking at someone with these puppy dog eyes.  I told her “who are you looking at Mr Miller.”  I was kidding.  Plus she kept ribbing me about stuff like that.  She looks down and says “I have not seen him today.”  Then she looks up and says “But you know I told you I thought he was cute.”    That never happened.  She never told me she thought he was cute.  I said that to her when I did not know who he was.  I felt as though i was in a chess game and I was losing because there were string being pulled and I know she was not being honest with me, to me, or about me.  One day I saw her rushing away from Mr Miller and I heard him say every loudly, “make sure she knows that we don’t condone people sleeping their way to the top.”  I was certain at this point that she told Mr Miller I was there following him.  Her comments about me drolling over eli stone and then there were these bizarre actions and comments by both Miller and George about his actions and plans, though that might have been because of the santa barbara coincidence.  I firmly believe that she was wearing Ryan’s Jacket that day.  She said it is appearance that counts.  I was not talking about Eli Stone off set except to say it was going to be a great show.  Again, not my business, I just wanted Marquessa to stop treating me like enemy number one and let me do my job in peace.  Plus I am sorry, Mr Miller’s girlfriend Hands down much more his type than Ms m.  Sorry but true.  If you saw the way he looked at her, you would understand and I was fed up with being caught in the cross fires.  One of the background even told me that Miller lived near my neighborhood by Hollywood and Highland.  I did not need to know and I was certainly not moving.  I spent 5 years on sets.  I just wanted to love the show and my job.  I also got comments about how one of the leads Sam was looking for a place to live where I happened to have a PO Box, but I actually lived in another part of town.  I did that for my own privacy.  I had a stalker once from sets and my dad is way too controlling and over possessive.  One day when we were at a George Michael Concert scene, casting and I talked and they recalled me so i walked up to Ms M and told her to call in to work.  She told me she had an in.  Later I walked up to her on set and in front of two of the female stand ins asked if she had called and she asked me if I had called like she told me to.  I looked at her and said “excuse me.  I told you to call.”  Both of the stand ins looked at each other and laughed and they were not laughing at me.  I hated petty crap and I wish I had either quit the show earlier or told on Ms M. though in the end I think it was telling on her that cost me everything.  And I tried to say my side on websites beside my own and I am pretty sure Ms M got me kicked off of one while she was working for the next two years on sets.  I sat at home wondering why I had even survived my mastectomy.  I was non-union so I had no rights.  I tried to tell both unions, I was being bullied and lied about.  Recently I figured out why AFTRA would not listen to me.  More to follow….