Confessions of a Hollywood Star

Move Over Scarlett Johansson, Here Comes Lola Cep

I
was never really interested in being a movie star. Since I’m destined to be a great actor it’s always been the theatre that held my heart in its noble and passionate grip. I longed to feel the ancient boards beneath my feet, to smell the greasepaint and hear the roar of the crowds – not compete with Mickey Mouse.

But life has a way of changing things, doesn’t it? A person has to be flexible and willing to compromise when the Fates so decree. Face it – never doesn’t mean
not ever
so much as it means
not until I have to
. So if Opportunity shows up in your front yard, you don’t tell her to go away because she’s wearing a Dior evening dress instead of Lady MacBeth’s robes.

You say, “Come on in!” You say, “OK, maybe this wasn’t exactly what I was planning, but it’s a step in the right direction.” (I mean,
eventually
I was going to do movies – after I established myself on the stage – so really what was the difference if I did it the other way round?)

Anyway, there was Opportunity, standing right in the middle of the lawn, but instead of coming in when I called her, she bolted. I couldn’t believe it.

Luckily, like all great actors, I don’t give up easily. I watched Opportunity run away – and then I chased after her.

Which is why I have a story to tell.

My Mother Strikes Another Blow For The Philistines

I
was looking forward to graduating from high school the way Robinson Crusoe looked forward to getting off his island. Talk about dreams come true. As soon as it was over I would vacate my child’s seat in the world’s audience and my true life would finally begin! It was the moment I’d been planning from my first day in kindergarten. And since my mother had dragged me from the bright lights of New York City to the twilight zone of Dellwood, New Jersey, I had even more reason to look forward to the momentous day when I set out to seek my fortune in the real world. Not only would I finally escape the hopelessly dull tedium of my family, but the hopelessly dull tedium of suburban life as well. (Shakespeare’s the only real connection I have with true passion since I moved here, but if you ask me even he would’ve been defeated by suburbia. Gone would be the stuff of true drama and he would’ve wound up with Richard III standing in the supermarket offering his kingdom for a shopping trolley.)

I had everything figured out. Following in the footsteps of so many great thespians before me, I would study acting somewhere that pulsated with energy and creativity – a place who’s spirit paid homage to the noble tradition from which it had sprung. Then I would wait tables (or possibly drive a cab) while I got whatever parts I could in serious plays performed in church halls and on the backs of trucks until I got my big break and made my (later to be legendary) Broadway debut. I couldn’t wait. Just thinking about it made my blood bubble.

My first choice of drama school was the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in England (known to its intimates as RADA). I didn’t really consider it a choice. I mean, just think about it. England is the birthplace of Shakespeare, Laurence Olivier, Dame Judy Dench and George Bernard Shaw (to name but a paltry few). And though I know that theatre started in Greece, it’s pretty obvious that it would have started in England if England had been more than a few druids painting themselves blue at the time.

And RADA’s in London, which is the cultural capital of the Old World. I ask you: is there a single great actor who hasn’t performed there? A single major writer, poet, playwright or artist who hasn’t at least visited? The answer is a resounding NO! Say what you will about the Old World, I think history is exciting. The streets of London are filled with plaques that mark the passing of the burning stars who have lit the darkness of human dullness and ordinariness for centuries. You know, Charles Dickens lived in a house on this site … Oscar Wilde was arrested in this building … Richard Burton passed out in this pub…

I mean, where else would a serious actor destined for immortality go to study her art but London, England?

I was still waiting to hear if I’d been accepted or not when my mother decided to tell me where else I could study. According to Karen Kapok, the serious actor destined for immortality would go to Brooklyn.

Of course I’ve always known that my mother’s soul is as pedestrian as a pavement (she’s a potter for God’s sake, her life is all about mud), but this shocked even me.

“Brooklyn?” I cried. [Cue: rolling of eyes and moan of disbelief.] “You can’t be serious.” I’d applied to Brooklyn because she made me, but I thought it was just a fail-safe. You know, in case the wicked Princess Carla Santini cast a spell on me and I didn’t get into RADA after all. “I’m not planning on a career in Mafia movies you know. I want to play Hamlet and Lear.”

“As far as I can tell, you play Hamlet and Lear every day of your life,” said my mother. “And I told you right from the start not to bother applying to RADA, didn’t I?”

Did she?

Since it’s not the kind of thing you could expect her to know, I explained that although the creative soul can survive without privacy or new clothes or its own phone, it cannot survive without spiritual nourishment.

“London is to the creative soul what a six-course dinner is to a starving man. Brooklyn’s more like a McDonald’s Happy Meal – and we all know how much nourishment’s in that.”

“You can forget the histrionics,” said Karen Kapok. “You’re not going to London. We can’t afford it.”

Like Life, true genius requires flexibility of course (you can’t always get the lead, sometimes you have to accept a small, supporting role and make it big), so I was ready to compromise.

“OK,” I said. “I’m willing to go to LA instead. Maybe they take late appli—”

“LA?” My mother has a very irritating laugh – something the twins have inherited from her. “I thought LA was a crass, materialistic, spiritual wasteland run by Satan wearing Mickey Mouse ears.”

It never ceases to amaze me how a woman who can’t remember to shave her legs more than once a year can remember practically every word I ever said and throw it back in my face.

“I may have said something like that once,” I replied coolly, “but you’re taking it out of context as usual. And anyway, I’ve revised my opinion since then. Many truly great actors have worked in Hollywood.”

Karen Kapok proceeded to grind my hopes and dreams under her clay-covered foot. “But you’re not going to be one of them. Brooklyn College has a perfectly good theatre department, and that’s where you’re going.”

“Perfectly good for what?” I demanded. “Ralph Fiennes, Dame Diana Rigg, Sir Anthony Hopkins and Kenneth Branagh all studied at RADA. Name me one actor of any renown who studied in Brooklyn!”

“Dominic Chianese,” said my mother.

As you can imagine, I said, “Who?”

“Dominic Chianese. He was Uncle Junior in
The Sopranos
.”

Oh ye gods! And to think that my being related to this woman depended on one infinitesimal sperm being a good swimmer. It really makes you think.

“Well there you are!” My laugh was as bitter as bile. “Eat your heart out Ralph Fiennes! You can’t compete with Uncle Junior.”

Being a potter, Karen Kapok is a major aficionada of the obvious. “He’s an actor,” said my mother.

I reminded her that he’s an actor who didn’t work until he was in his seventies. “Do you expect me to wait over fifty years to get a job?” I demanded.

“What I expect is for you to go to Brooklyn College and live with your dad during the week, that’s what I expect.” She was in her Martin Luther King we-shall-not-be-moved mode. “It’s all arranged.”

“Without consulting me of course!” I wailed. “After all, why should you consult me? It’s only my life you’re destroying. It’s only my career that you’re shredding into tiny pieces and sprinkling all over the grimy streets of Flatbush!”

“I’m glad that’s settled,” said my mother.

Let’s face it: this is a world where one person’s tragedy is another person’s good fortune. There are women and children in Africa who have to walk six miles a day for polluted drinking water. You can’t call them happy. But the men who are responsible for this long walk to get cholera are happy. Their factories are making so much money they can buy twelve-thousand-dollar showers and four-hundred-dollar bottles of wine.

And so it was for me with this cruel blow to my young dreams. Not everyone was as devastated as I was by this tragic turn of events.

Ella, for one, was ecstatic.

“But that’s fantastic. I’ll be practically right around the corner from your dad’s.” Ella was going to NYU. She hugged herself the way she does when she’s really happy. “We can hang out just like always.”

I don’t want you to think that being able to see the best friend I’ve ever had every day didn’t make me happy too. It made me happy. But not as happy as studying at RADA would have made me.

“Thanks,” snapped Ella. “I’m so glad you value our friendship as much as I do.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic. Of course I value our friendship. But our friendship will endure the trials of time and distance. Whereas I may not be able to endure four years in a city whose only claims to fame are a baseball team that moved to California and a bridge.”

“Woody Allen was born in Brooklyn,” said Ella. “And Barbara Streissand.”

I know she was trying to console me, but it was like throwing a drowning woman a feather.

“So what? I bet they left the first chance they got.”

The other person who wasn’t devastated that I couldn’t
cross
the continent, never mind leave it, was Sam.

Sam wasn’t going anywhere after graduation. He was staying in Deadwood and working at his dad’s garage (which is pretty much what he’s done his whole life; he’s a genius when it comes to the internal combustion engine). Sam says he doesn’t need to go to school to read a book or learn something new, which in his case is true. He’s very self-motivated. And he doesn’t like institutionalized education. He says it doesn’t teach you to think, just to memorize.

“Brooklyn?” Sam whooped. “But that’s great. It’s practically next door.”

As the Karmann Ghia flies.

I felt like tearing out my heart – or at least my hair. “It may have escaped your notice, but proximity to New Jersey isn’t actually a guarantee of excitement, culture, or intellectual and spiritual stimulation.”

“No, but it means I can come and pick you up on Fridays.” He turned his attention to the toe of his boot. “I don’t like the idea of you going thousands of miles away. I could die of boredom.”

I clasped my heart. “Why Sam Creek – I didn’t know you cared!”

He looked up. “Yes, you did. What I’m trying to figure out is if it’s mutual, or if I’m all alone at the bus stop in the middle of the night and it’s raining.”

“Of course I care.” This is true. The only fault Sam has is that my parents like him. “But you know I’m not ready for a serious relationship. Not until my career is on its way. Until then, I have to think of myself as going steady with my art.”

“Well I like it better if you’re going steady with your art in Brooklyn rather than England or LA.”

I, Lola Elizabeth Cep (or possibly Sep – I still haven’t decided which would look better in lights), do have a very resilient nature of course (as all true actors must). I wasn’t going to let this tragic injustice ruin the end of my senior year. After all, I was still getting out of Deadwood, New Jersey, Carla Santini Capital of the World; I was still crossing the threshold of womanhood; and I was still going to pursue my heart’s passion, even if it was among people who say “tamayda” and not “toemahtoe”.

I put my disappointment behind me and threw myself into the end of high school life with my usual high spirits and enthusiasm. I am, of course, destined to be one of the truly great actors, so it’s no surprise that I convinced everyone that I didn’t have a care in the world.

Even Mrs Baggoli, the drama coach, who was the only person besides Ella and Sam that I told about being sent to Brooklyn like prisoners used to be sent to Australia, was fooled by my performance.