Unqualified Read online

  —Maddie

  The lesson here? Screw the labels. But also, there’s power in sharing our stories.

  Also, did I mention that you guys are awesome?

  Proud and Angry

  In August 2016, Patti Stanger, the Millionaire Matchmaker herself, appeared on an episode of Anna Faris Is Unqualified and told a female caller that to attract a man at a bar, she should simply “smile and signal.” No approaching a man, Patti said, not even to ask the time or the score of the game.

  It was an eye-opening strategy for me, since for a long time my approach was pretty much the opposite of smile and signal. Instead, I called it “proud and angry.”

  For a long time, I had incredibly low expectations of men, and I felt so smug every time a guy proved me right. I loved manipulating them into doing something to show they were as shitty as I thought they were.

  It started in college. In the nineties, the University of Washington had about forty Greek houses and for whatever reason (or, for a very specific reason named Chad Burke) I wanted to lash out at them. And so I would crash their frat parties.

  It was my freshman year, but I looked quite young. As the daughter of a sociologist (my dad was a professor before joining the advertising world), the concept of field studies was a familiar—and enticing—one. So I decided to conduct them at the fraternities. I played this really fucked-up game where I would crash their parties wearing tiny Catholic schoolgirl skirts and raver boots with garter belts and stockings and little crop tops. When I walked into the fraternities, I was clearly not a sorority girl. There was this rhythm I found. Guys would talk to me briefly and then say, “Do you want a tour of the house?” which I learned meant, “Do you want to go to my bedroom?” They barely talked to me before inviting me for the “tour.” I was in such an angry place that I loved the idea of guys validating what I already thought I knew—Men don’t want to get to know anybody! They just want to take advantage of women!—and they almost always did. I wouldn’t actually cash in on the bedroom invite, I just used it as proof that guys were as scummy as I thought they were.

  Then I started creating this charade where I would pretend to be a fourteen-year-old high school student whose sister, Meghan, was a Tri Delt. Meghan was at the party, I’d say, but nowhere to be found. The test, as I saw it, was simple: “Is this guy going to try to fuck a fourteen-year-old?” The answer was always yes. Though, I should clarify that I probably didn’t actually look fourteen. And I was probably sort-of known because I went to school there and had hung out at fraternities before. And I was playing a very flirtatious fourteen-year-old. So in defense of the fraternity guys at UW who aren’t scum, which is probably most of them, I should point out that perhaps they weren’t all perfectly willing to screw a fourteen-year-old and commit statutory rape. It was not a very scientific experiment.

  I’m not entirely sure why I was so proud and angry. I think part of it was just being a college kid who didn’t realize that it was okay to admit ignorance about something. There was so much I didn’t know and hadn’t experienced, and instead of owning up to that, I thought behaving like a confident cynic would fool people into thinking I had everything figured out. But the facade also came from what I imagine was a very common goal of reinventing yourself when you get to college. Once I got to UW, I jumped at the chance to shed my theater nerd stature from high school. I did that by dressing unbelievably inappropriately. I’d wear the same plaid skirts and garter belts that I wore to the frat parties around campus. My brother, who was a senior when I was a freshman, once spotted me smoking a cigarette and dressed like I was going to a rave and marched over to me and said, “What the fuck are you doing?” He was appalled. That was when he was engaged to his first wife and about to graduate and was a brilliant academic. You know how in some families the siblings flip-flop who is the favorite and who is the black sheep? At that stage I was the bad kid and he was the star. (We traded roles for a while, but finally, at forty and forty-three, we’re on equal footing. He’s a professor who helps prevent the bullying of young kids; I cameo as coked-up versions of myself in films named for cats.)

  My proud and angry bit inspired other weird practices that, looking back, are even more bizarre than I realized. For example, for a long time in college I loved doing this strange card trick that was basically an inside joke with myself. I would ask people to draw a card and I’d explain that I was actually a card reader and could tell them their destiny. No matter what card they drew I would say the same thing. “Oh, you drew the jack of diamonds,” or nine of spades, or whatever. “That means you are really creative. You have some obstacles ahead of you, because you don’t know how to achieve the leadership role you’re destined for.” Just the idea that I could say the same thing to every person and they’d always be like, “Oh my God, that’s so true,” made me feel superior. In retrospect, it’s odd and disturbing that I took such pleasure in people living up to my low expectations of them, but it served as confirmation that my loneliness—because I didn’t have a ton of close friends—was warranted. This is why I’m lonely, I’d think. These people are minions. When truthfully, other people’s intelligence level had nothing to do with why I didn’t have a close circle of friends. It was that I was shut off and relished my loneliness and I baited people to give me what I was looking for.

  There was also this game I played when I studied abroad in Italy in which I would jumble up English words to “test” Italian men. So if I was talking to an Italian guy who was fluent in English, I would say “power feeling” instead of power trip, for example. The test was Is this guy going to pretend to understand me? It was weird, especially since I was basically just mocking someone’s admirable attempt at speaking another language. I don’t know where I got that from, or why I wanted people to let me down. I think there was an element of guarding myself against rejection—you are going to disappoint me, so I have to reject you first.

  Maybe I played up the proud and angry persona because I was always attracted to those same qualities in men. I don’t know why. I didn’t date much, but there were maybe one or two nice guys I went on a couple of dates with who I remember not being interested in. It had nothing to do with their level of attractiveness—I just wanted an asshole.

  I don’t know why women are always attracted to bad guys. Even after being one of those women, I still don’t get it. In my case, I was partially drawn to that kind of person because I was a late bloomer and I didn’t feel very attractive, so any time someone remotely good-looking glanced my way, I fell hard for him—and I think asshole guys can sense that and take advantage of it. But I shouldn’t tie that to gender. Guys fall all the time for women who are perhaps not the most stimulating other than their physicality, and it’s the same thing. A person is willing to put up with a lot when they’re just so grateful for the attention.

  I don’t know when the shift happens to realizing, Oh yeah, I actually like being with someone who is interesting or makes me laugh or makes me feel good, or at least someone who doesn’t belittle me or make me feel bad. I certainly don’t think all my exes intentionally wanted me to feel shitty, I just think that was part of the narcissistic type that I was really drawn to.

  Basically, I spent way too long subscribing to the proud and angry approach—the trappings of a youthful immature person. I should have just smiled and signaled.

  Turning the Tables: Not-So-Rapid Fire

  Since we started the Unqualified podcast, our guests have been good sports when it comes to the recurring segments, which can be silly and, sometimes, kind of wild. But we’ve never turned the tables. I’ve never been on the receiving end of “Not-So-Rapid Fire” or “How Would You Proceed?” or “Deal Breakers,” so I decided to put myself in the hot seat for this book. I asked my friend Cassie Daniels, a screenwriter and a segment producer on the podcast, to put together some questions and surprise me with the classic Unqualified treatment—and it made me weirdly nervous. It’s odd to b
e on the opposite end. I feel like I need to call all our guests and apologize.

  NOT-SO-RAPID FIRE WITH ANNA FARIS

  Would you rather lose your orgasm or your sense of humor?

  My orgasm. It would be sad, though. And the two are kind of linked, aren’t they? If you’re in a happy place and relaxed and really love your partner, it’s so much easier to have an orgasm. And I can’t be in a relaxed happy place with someone who doesn’t make me laugh. But! If the two were completely separate then, yes, definitely the orgasm.

  What’s your survival plan for a zombie apocalypse?

  I’ve actually been told that I should head immediately to the west side Ace Hardware because the whole building is surrounded by high, curved metal fences that the zombies can’t get into, and we would have plenty of supplies like shovels. It was the Yuan twins, who worked on Observe and Report and have written a zombie film themselves, who told me that.

  “Well, what can I bring?” I asked.

  “We’re not even quite sure we’re going to let you in yet, actually,” they said. “Because you aren’t going to offer a lot.”

  “What if I offered comedic monologues to keep the morale high?”

  “Well, you’d still be taking our water supply,” they said.

  So I offered to help procreate, but they were iffy on that, too, so I guess if they didn’t let me in I’d stay at my house and I’d let people come over. I’ve got a nice candelabra and some weaponry to smash a zombie’s brains in, and lots of earthquake survival kits that my mom gives me every Christmas.

  Think of this like “fuck, marry, kill” but instead you have to hide a dead body with someone, call them to bail you out of jail, or get anal bleaching together. And it’s the costar edition. Here are your options: Allison Janney, Regina Hall, Emma Stone.

  I think I would hide the dead body with Regina, because she’s pretty cool under fire. She wouldn’t panic under the stress of that. I’d call Emma Stone to get out of jail, because she’s really crafty and quick on her feet and she would create a plan. I think she would be a little surprised to hear from me, though, because it’s been a while. “Hey, Emma! I’m in a little jam!” But I think she would answer the call. And then Allison, yeah, we could do anal bleaching. We’ve seen a lot of each other’s bodies. But truly, I think any of these women would perform well in any of these scenarios.

  If you could erase one audition from your memory, what would it be?

  There was an audition I did in college—I can’t even remember what play it was for anymore—but it was at the ACT Theatre in Seattle and I remember working really hard to prepare and knowing from the moment I opened my mouth that they weren’t into me. I did a monologue and then I read from the script with another actor and I knew I was tanking. I wasn’t doing well in my theater classes at the time, either. After the audition, I ran into an older actor outside the theater who told me that if I can do anything else, I should.

  “Do you want to act?” he asked me.

  I said I thought I did.

  “Are you any good at anything else?” he asked.

  I said that yeah, I probably was.

  “Then that’s what you should do,” he said. “If it’s not torment to not act, then you shouldn’t act.”

  So I thought, Okay, I’m not going to act anymore. I dropped out of the drama program at UW and went into comparative literature, and then Greek mythology, and then communications, before I finally landed on an English major. That was the audition that made me say, “All signs are pointing to me not being an actor.” I felt a little bit bummed about it, but the idea had been growing in me for a bit. I was practical and realistic and I had already worked with enough struggling actors to feel confident that I wasn’t going to just go to Hollywood and make money acting.

  So I stopped. But I had a Seattle-based agent already, so I thought, If she calls me I’ll still audition for commercial things in case I can make a little money here and there. And she did call, about a horror film that would eventually pull me back to acting.

  If you had a wrestling move, what would it be called and what would it be? And what would your wrestling name be?

  The move would be the Faris Wheel Fairdown. It would involve me being in a handstand and swiveling my legs and wrapping my ankles around my opponent’s neck and taking them out headfirst. It would be pretty dramatic. My wrestling name would be . . . the Ah-minator? Like, rhymes with Dominator? That doesn’t make a ton of sense, but she’d be a pink dominatrix.

  You are serving seven years and four months at a maximum-security prison in Wichita. What are you in for and what is your prison job?

  Easy. I’m in for using a big Bowie knife to stab and murder a home invasion burglar who ended up being unarmed. I stabbed him, maybe, twenty-four times. So the big question became, Was this self-protection? Maybe it was an acquaintance or someone I knew a long time ago, so while it seemed like maybe he came to rob me, the details are a little hazy. But I thought he was trying to rob me when I stabbed him, or that was my defense at least.

  I would like to say that I’d work in the prison library, but I think I’m too chatty, so I think I’d want to do food service. But not dishwashing, though I’d probably have to work my way up. Or I could do laundry, but there’s a lot of noise there, so I wouldn’t get to be too chatty. My volunteer work would be in the theater program. The Glass Menagerie over and over again. Sometimes I would play Laura and sometimes I’d be the gentleman caller.

  This doesn’t sound too bad, actually. Maybe I should stab someone twenty-four times to get to do this. I would excel in prison. I do like to make the best of a bad situation, and I don’t like drama, so I’m not going to be starting shit. I would learn to lay low until I got theater respect.

  Who was the bigger gold digger: Belle or Aladdin?

  With Belle, I think the whole thing was about aesthetic, so I’ve got to go with Aladdin. But I am fascinated with successful real-life gold diggers. They’re amazing to me. You see them a lot on Real Housewives, and it’s an art. How do you get elevated to marriage status? It’s a big red flag when a hot young girl has been with a rich guy for six or seven years and there still isn’t commitment. A successful gold digger makes it happen in the first two years. The proposal isn’t going to happen if you got too far down the road. Here’s what I think it takes to get to marriage: The girl can’t have slept with any of the man’s friends. She has to give good blow jobs. She has to be mildly flirtatious with the guy’s friends but not too much, because the friends always have the guy’s ear. She has to be very pleasant and laugh at everyone’s jokes. It sounds exhausting.

  Would you rather eat your own placenta or be in labor for seventy-two hours without an epidural?

  For sure eat my own placenta. I’m not thrilled about that idea, don’t get me wrong, but when I was in labor before my epidural, that was like nothing I’ve ever known. I always thought, until that day, that I had a high pain tolerance. I still think I do—but labor is a whole other kind of pain. Next time, if I were to ever get pregnant again, I would know when to start asking for the drugs. You think the epidural is going to be some quick thing and that you have time before you need to ask for it, but no, it’s a whole production—you need to sign consent forms and your husband has to leave the room. Contractions are a mind-numbing pain. I remember Chris complimented me, like, “Babe, you didn’t even scream!” And I said, “Because I couldn’t. I was so consumed. I had nothing in me.” I remember in the moment telling myself, There is going to be a time where I am going to forget this pain. Anna, do not forget. Do not forget do not forget do not forget. But then you do.

  Waiting . . .

  I was lucky to land a gig early enough into my time in LA that I didn’t have to do the whole waiting tables while hoping for my big-break thing. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t done my time in food service.

  In college, I waited tables at a
high-end retirement home. Not because I love spending time with the elderly or because I felt like this would be more meaningful work than serving rich finance guys. I wish I was that good of a person. It was just that the other restaurants I applied to wanted me to be a hostess first, while at Ida Culver House Broadview, I could immediately be a waitress. I figured I could wait tables for a bit, then I could leave and get a better waitress position at a fancy restaurant soon after. I got $5.25 an hour, no tips. Not until Christmas, at least. The other workers there kept telling me to “just wait until Christmas.” For what? Some old dude to give me fifteen bucks?

  It was tough work. Not only is it grueling to be on your feet all day, but it’s also so incredibly boring to listen to people tell you what they want to eat. Figuring out how to focus on the words coming out of people’s mouths while they told me their food order was seriously my biggest challenge.

  Of course, it didn’t help that I would go to work stoned, and I’m not a good stoner. (Despite repeated references to smoking weed in this book, the activity actually makes me paranoid and weird and that’s why I don’t do it anymore.) Once I was taking the order of a four-top—four little German ladies in their late eighties who sat together every dinner. They placed their orders and I said “Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh” as I wrote everything on my pad. (I always used a pad. I don’t understand those servers at fancy restaurants who don’t use a pad. I memorize lines for a living but I would never be able to keep orders straight.) After the last lady put in her request, I walked back to the kitchen and looked down at my pad. It was all just scribbles. I hadn’t written down any actual words. I went back to the table in a sweat trying to figure out what I was going to say. If these ladies had had dementia I would have had some hope, but no luck. They were a sharp posse. So I said something about a cook dropping their order, but it was still embarrassing. Especially since there were only four options on the menu.