I see everyone getting their movie stories in. All of a sudden, just because Bennington becomes best friends with Quentin Tarantino, everyone wants to read about it. You all make me sick. He’s being used, or he’s completely delusional like I’ve always suspected. Rooster got all the sanity in his family; Bennington has brains, and probably more heart than me, but he’s MEAN, and his behavior is WRONG—I won’t let him monopolize this space. My space. My MySpace. That’s a good idea… maybe I can make some money off of this. I haven’t worked on a film in years—a real film, not the ones Nicky makes (“no budget filmmaker”? More like no idea filmmaker).
Back in the summer of 2000 I worked on Zoolander, the comedy classic directed by Ben Stiller and ripped off from the 1998 Bret Easton Ellis novel Glamorama. Bret (a friend) sued Stiller and the producers and quickly settled out of court. Sometimes the wind blows both ways for you. “I got paid more money than most people who actually worked that on movie,” he told me once. I think. It’s hard to remember now. Coke bloat. No, I’m kidding. How else would I maintain my figure? You’re laughing. You’re laughing at me. You’re laughing at me now. Still. What’s your problem? Never seen a live hen talk in full on SASS before? Well buckle up, buddy, because you’re going to have to learn Chinese if you want to earn my respect. Do something hard, like start a band or open a checking account. If you wanna be my friend, you’ve got to get with my lovers—multiple animals among them. Sorry, no. I’m kidding. I don’t cheat on my husband. Stop throwing shoes at us.
We were at Broadway shooting the famous gasoline fight when a passerby dropped to the ground, dead of a heart attack. The guy happened to die in the lower left of Ben Stiller’s master shot, so half the day was wasted chasing light and trying French reverses to no avail. We came back a couple of days later and did the scene, but Stiller (not a friend) was still annoyed. “Why would someone die in my shot?” He kept saying this, as if we were as annoyed as him rather than horrified. Apparently there were still “stains” on the sidewalk that showed up in the shot, but no one would listen to Stiller because no one could tell the differences between the dead guy’s “stains” and the rest of the eternally dirty Manhattan sidewalk. “This is it! I’ve had enough. I want my Berry Arugula.” This was interesting—he was verging into character for the first time in real life, the epic stress of co-writing, producing, directing, and starring in a film finally coming to a head. I knew it: he was going to die. And I would assume the role of director, natch. I mean obviously. Why not me?
Because I’m a hen, “chicken” you call me, but to them I was just another bitch they were never going to give a chance to, even if the director of the movie died during production. I thought about sabotaging Stiller’s trailer or leaving glass in his shoes in the morning, but I knew that someone else would get the job, probably Owen Wilson, and I’d just be another innocent hen with an unjustified guilt complex. What, you’re saying I should feel bad for having these thoughts? I’m just a professional in Hollywood, honey. Well, I once was. Now I edit movies for people who don’t know how to drive.
Stiller and I never became close. He’s not a friend, and I know Bennington has had worse experiences with him; but that was probably just Bennington being Bennington. He’s annoying, and, frankly, he’s scary and unbalanced. You don’t want him around you or your belongings. If he were on set that day, he might’ve tea bagged the dead guy’s corpse while it was still warm, and he might’ve tried to drink the gasoline which was really just Lipton’s iced tea. Rooster would’ve been sitting by the monitors complaining about the weather and the lack of good coffee, because apparently “Starbucks doesn’t count.” That was 2000, and he still doesn’t like Starbucks. I’m on the fence: they do serve bird flesh, but not nearly as much as their competitors, and their bathrooms are really nice if you need a place to stay.
If you’ve seen the movie, you know that Starbucks features prominently in Zoolander, particularly this scene. Derek Zoolander (Stiller, still not a friend) is taken out for mocha frappe cappuccinos after he embarrasses himself at an awards ceremony. His roommates accidentally light themselves on fire when one of them lights a cigarette after having a gasoline fight; Derek’s spared only because he walks away and looks at a magazine about him in the garbage. This is the shot where the guy died in the background. There was no incident, but Stiller didn’t create a warm vibe on set. That’s cool, he’s focused, and it paid off: Zoolander is a masterpiece, one of the best comedies of the 2000s. But I wanted to have fun in Hollywood and live the movies I was making. It sounds like that’s exactly what Benny’s been up to with his “Sensei” this past year. That’s fine, that’s cool, I’ll keep working with “you know who” for now. But I do miss those days of Chapman cranes, dolly tracks, and the sound of 35mm film whirling in the camera, like minor gunfire, ACTION in every sense of the word. Even when you’re the assistant to the assistant to the assistant to the assistant to the production assistant of the set photographer (all jobs are important on a film set).
—Follow Monica Quibbits on Twitter: @MonicaQuibbits