Friendship. Loneliness. Grief.

— Written April 2018

Bad toasts, secret love notes, and a panda sidekick.

Doing The Smile! Project series of shorts was a dream that came true in 2017 and 2018.

The goal: Great parts for great actresses, using an all-women and non-binary crew.

The process: Rehearsals during which the actresses and I talked about the stories and the characters. They generously gave me feedback and shared their thoughts and experiences, giving me the feedback I needed to rewrite and shape the characters a bit more to them.

I’ve been working as an actress in commercials for over 17 years, and I’ve been writing since grade school, and I’ve been seeking out movie or TV depictions of women like the women I know for forever. The women I know are hilarious and full of stories and facing life with courage and strength and humor every day as a matter of course, but the characters I found are too rarely representing this wide and interesting spectrum of behavior. I also rarely see stories about the relationships women have with each other, which are crucial to our well-being. The concept of “mean girls” caught on, while the reality of women supporting and sustaining each other is still too rarely depicted.

The social and political, uh, challenges of the last few years convinced me to start creating the work I’d like to see. It’s a huge bonus that I know, or know people who know, outstanding actors that I couldn’t wait to work with. As an actor, I’ve very rarely even auditioned for a female director, and I’ve never worked with a DP who was a woman. Same goes, with rare exceptions, with camera and sound crew members. Imagine being asked to be vulnerable and emotionally honest in front of the camera when every face behind it is male. So I decided to put together an all-female cast and crew*, and to write about women like the women I know.

THESE THREE STORIES
Years ago I wrote a story about a college student who tucked love notes into library books, which I based on a note I found as a child and a mysterious note I found in a library book many years ago. I had my character leave notes for a male professor who had a reputation for cozying up to his young female students, because I had had a professor like that in the days long before #MeToo. Last year I wrote a monologue about a woman in her late thirties who believes her friend is marrying because her time is running out and not because she loves the man she is marrying, because I’ve known a number of women in their late thirties who talk about and struggle with this exact issue. And I wrote about the tortuous process of grieving for your mother, because I have been grieving for mine for a few years now.

INSPIRATION
IN TREATMENT — the outstanding HBO show starring Gabriel Byrne and an incredible cast, mostly sitting on couches talking about their lives. I was enthralled by the unfolding of the stories of their lives.
DEREK — the hilarious Ricky Gervais Netflix show that is all about friendship and kindness, told through camera confessionals.
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: DIRECT FROM BROADWAY — I saw this on HBO when I was a kid and was astonished at how deeply personal, funny, perceptive, and relatable it was, and how effective the directness of the storytelling was.
WOMEN WITH ALTITUDE — my friend Sarah Vaill directed this documentary about her all-women mountain climbing expedition. Her perseverance in creating, finishing, and marketing the doc was a major inspiration to me.

FAVORITE MOMENT
My young daughter helped deliver food to the set, and hung around a bit watching our all-women cast and crew work together on these stories about women. I was thrilled to have her witness this great example!

* With an exception for my husband, our craft services guy and biggest supporter.