You Rock

I got an email in June 2011 from my mom that simply said, “You rock.”

I immediately burst out laughing.

This was right after I won the Tony for Anything Goes, and it was so very unlike her. It was the beginning of a two-year period where my mom started acting much nicer to me.

I have Xanax to thank for that.

My father told me, during interviews for this book, that the medication was originally prescribed to him to help him quit smoking. (It didn’t work.) He said my mom wanted to try it for her anxiety, which she knew she suffered from, even though she was never officially diagnosed. My dad said she “loved it” and that she had even said, “I wish I had been taking this sooner.”

That broke my heart. How I wish she had been taking it all along. How I wish she had gotten help earlier in her life. My dad told me that my mom had once talked about seeing someone and getting help, but she never did. I feel so sad about that missed opportunity. But I was grateful for this little glimmer of a happier mom.

That email inspired me to do another paper-on-wood collage similar to BADASS, but with the words YOU ROCK. For this one, I used two large pieces of plywood. I wanted it to be really big so I could remember those words and this time in my relationship with my mother.

There were other things that made this a sunny and optimistic period in my life: I had begun filming the first season of Bunheads and was loving my single life in LA. I wrote my mom an email during this period that said, “I don’t miss New York at ALL! I think I’m meant to live in the sunshine. I don’t think I’ve ever quite felt ‘at home’ in my adult life…with touring and even in New York. But I feel it now. It’s crazy!”

Filming Bunheads was a radically different experience than live theater. My days started with the sun—a hint of orange on a dark periwinkle horizon. I would splash cold water on my face, choke down some coffee, grab my dog Linus, and plop him in the front seat of Dolly, my dolphin-gray Mazda3 hatchback. Then I’d drive from Burbank to the Bunheads set on Sunset Gower, watching the sun rise in the rearview mirror. I’d meet my ballet teacher Jackie at six a.m. in my dressing room, where Amy had asked me to choose the wall color (pale yellow, my favorite) and had a ballet barre installed. I spent the first hour of every day trying to get into “ballet” shape, which was harder than I anticipated. I’m more of a tap dancer, which I had been doing as Reno for over a year! The last time I had taken ballet was in college, so we did a full warm-up of pliés and tendus, ronds de jambe, and developpés every day. My thirty-six-year-old body was not as flexible as it had been in my teens and twenties—it ached its way through each move. It was humbling, painful, and beautiful to revisit something that had been such a huge part of my life when I was younger. I even bought a brand-new pair of pink Capezio ballet shoes and sewed on the straps, just like my mom had done for me as a kid!

I’d next head to the hair and makeup trailer to begin the transformation into Michelle, and then I’d be driven to set for rehearsal of the first scene of the day. (Fun fact: Scandal was shooting on the same lot, so every day I’d wave to Tony Goldwyn and Kerry Washington from our respective golf carts.)

The biggest challenges for me were how many lines I had to learn (there were a lot, and they changed daily) and the schedule (the days were long). Amy Sherman-Palladino is known for her rapid-fire dialogue, filled with pop culture references and sarcastic humor. Her characters are lovable and flawed and often have complicated relationships with their mothers or mother figures. True to form, the Bunheads scripts had a lot of words on the page, which I needed to know verbatim and say fast. In the theater, we had weeks of rehearsal for one scene, but on TV, we’d rehearse for ten minutes. That’s why I was constantly practicing my lines with the production assistants, script supervisor, or fellow actors—because once we stepped on set to rehearse the scene, I had to make quick, hopefully smart choices, and then stick to them. Someone would lay down a mark, and all the lights—and camera—would focus on me, at that mark. In those early days, the camera assistants surrounded my marks with small sandbags, used for novice TV actors like me who would overshoot their mark. This way, I’d end up in the right place without having to look down.

Amy was also known for filming scenes in one shot—rather than using close-ups—which meant there was nowhere to hide. That felt like theater, and I particularly loved filming the dance sequences. There was one in which Fanny (Michelle’s mother-in-law, played by the incredible Kelly Bishop) was teaching a ballet class in her dance studio, which was lined with mirrors—a nightmare for filming. Chris, our brilliant camera operator, danced right along with us, holding the Steadicam as everyone swirled and danced around him. He did all this and still managed to dodge his reflection in the many mirrors. Those are some skills right there! Go watch this scene! Better yet, watch the whole series because it’s really fantastic (and not just because I was in it).

The other big difference between being on a set versus being onstage was that someone was always following me around. That totally freaked me out. In theater, you’re responsible for getting your ass to the stage for your cues. No one escorts you anywhere. But on a TV set, someone would literally broadcast over a walkie-talkie when I had to go pee. The lingo is “10-1,” but I refused to say this code. Instead, I would loudly announce, “I gotta go pee!”

Another big difference? Snacks. For more than two decades, I brought my own water and snacks and whatever the hell else I needed. On set, someone brings you whatever you could possibly want—because they don’t want you wandering off! I was always going rogue because I wasn’t used to people keeping tabs on me.

The last big difference was the “hurry up and wait” principle. You rehearse for ten minutes, then they light and set up for twenty minutes, then you shoot for ten minutes, then they move the cameras and lights to another setup. In those early days of shooting, I would just sit in my cast chair eating granola bars.

Working with Kelly Bishop was a lifesaver. She played Lorelai’s mother on Gilmore Girls and was Sheila in the original Broadway production of A Chorus Line. She is a broad through and through—and she taught me how to navigate this new world.

“Don’t focus on learning the entire script,” she advised early on. “Prep for what you need to do three days ahead. Learn it in little chunks. And when you’re done filming a scene, let it go and move on.”

It was a lot to learn at the age of thirty-seven (I had a birthday in March), but it was exhilarating. I would come home after a sixteen-hour day of shooting, exhausted and brain-fried but ridiculously happy.

On the weekends, I would sit outside in the seventy-degree weather, sipping rosé, learning lines, and throwing squeaky balls to Linus. He’d come with me to set every single day and stay with Brenda, the wardrobe supervisor. She got him a little bed and twenty squeaky balls, which he would chase between people’s legs during their fittings. Whenever he got a little smelly, the groomer van would come to the lot and spruce him up. Linus was loved by everyone.

Perhaps my most surreal moment happened one Saturday, when I was driving to a dance rehearsal for a tap sequence on the show. I stopped dead in my tracks on Laurel Canyon Boulevard, at the corner of Moorpark. There was a giant billboard of me lounging on the ground in a tank top and shorts, with four toe-shoed ballet girls standing behind me and the title Bunheads in big red letters, floating beside my head.  It felt different from seeing my face as Reno on the side of a bus or on a billboard in Times Square. I wasn’t hidden beneath a wig and costume. This time it felt like me up there—and I was about to appear on television screens in people’s living rooms. Including my parents’.

My mom and I were emailing almost every day. The night before the show premiered she wrote, “I hope Bunheads is a smashing success.” By then, she was also on Facebook anonymously—Hunter and I were her only two friends—so she could further keep tabs on what we were up to.

With Bunheads, she could also watch me perform without having to leave her house. After every episode, she’d write me to say how much she loved it (though she also wrote that she had to put the subtitles on because we all talked way too fast). She sent me articles about the series that she found online, and I’d send her pictures of me on set, or of artwork that I was working on, or of Linus being adorable.

Michelle had a fractured relationship with her mother on the show. She also had a brother, and Amy cast Hunter to play him! He was still living in New York, doing more writing and directing than acting. He flew out to LA for the job and we did some great scenes together, including a version of “You Belong to Me.” We both sang, and I played the ukulele! My mom got to watch her two children act together on the screen. She emailed, “Loved Bunheads tonight seeing you and Hunter working together and singing too. Love you, Mom.”

By then, my mom and Hunter were speaking again. After Urinetown, he did a Broadway production of Little Shop of Horrors that had a soft opening in Coral Gables, and my parents decided to get tickets. My brother said they spent the afternoon together as if nothing had happened. It was like they had an unspoken truce to bury the hatchet.

Thanks to therapy, I realized that was their story, not mine! I quit right before I moved to Los Angeles because I finally accepted my mother and stopped trying to change her—and it seemed that she had finally accepted me.

This period with Hunter was special too. It reminded me of that four-day cross-country trip we had taken all those years earlier. Hunter stayed with me and slept in the loft with all of my artwork, including the BADASS collage, which was leaning against the wall. We made fish tacos and guacamole from my avocado tree, and he bought me a grill for the backyard, and we watched Homeland and went on a hike together. I felt more grounded than I had ever been.

After Bunheads wrapped its first season, a friend reached out and asked, “Where are you on the dating scene?” I had maybe gone on two dates since the Bobby breakup and was super indifferent. In truth, I had boarded up my heart with steel gates and nails. Closed up tight. I wasn’t interested in falling in love or being in a relationship. I really didn’t care.

My friend asked if he could give my number to a friend, a director and screenwriter. I said, “Sure.”

That same day, I heard the ping of a new text: “Hi, It’s Ted.” It was the screenwriter/director. “This is what I look like.” And he sent a photo of Zero Mostel.

I laughed out loud.

I sent him back a Google image of an old woman with no teeth and said, “This is me.”

He asked me on a date, but I said, “I am very busy. I only have Tuesday from 2:30 to 3:30 available.”

We were finishing up Bunheads, but honestly, I was just not interested.

He took the date.

We met for coffee at a restaurant on Ventura Boulevard in Los Angeles called Kings Road. I got there early and grabbed a table. In walked a very tall, handsome man, wearing a blue puffer jacket even though it was eighty degrees outside. As we talked, he shared a few personal things, like the death of his father the year before, and a major job that he had been fired from—let’s just say I was impressed by his candor. I liked how honest and self-deprecating he was. He made me laugh. He also clearly loved theater but was not a fan—there is a difference. He wasn’t a stage-door Johnny. He didn’t see me as a Broadway persona. He admitted that he listened to the Broadway channel on Sirius XM but that he couldn’t carry a tune. He also told me that he and his dad had seen me in The Drowsy Chaperone when it played the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles back in 2005.

“You had a broken wrist, right?” he asked.

I did! And I laughed thinking back to that moment in my life. I had slipped and fallen while rehearsing a song called “Accident Waiting to Happen.” (You can’t make it up!) I almost went back to New York in my cast to heal as I had another number called “Show Off,” in which I had to do crazy gymnastic tricks. Rather than sit out the show, I taught myself how to do one-handed cartwheels.

Ted told me that his dad loved the movies and that when he was a kid he memorized every Oscar winner for every year.

“1975?” I quizzed him.

“Cuckoo’s Nest won best picture. Nicholson won actor. Louise Fletcher won actress. George Burns supporting actor, and Lee Grant supporting actress,” he said without missing a beat.

Man, he was cute.

On our second date, he took me to a putt-putt place in the Valley. We now call this our Karate Kid date, as it reminded us of when Daniel takes Ali to Golf N’ Stuff. On every hole, Ted said we got to ask each other a question. Neither of us wanted the date to end, so as he was driving me back to my house we stopped at a dive bar on Ventura and kept asking each other questions over Manhattans.

“What is your least favorite trait about yourself?” I asked.

“I can be a snob,” he said.

I appreciated his honesty.

Then he said, “What’s yours?”

“I’m a control freak,” I said.

We both entered the relationship with self-awareness of the good and the bad.

On our third date, I asked him why he had never been married or lived with someone. He told me that he had been too career-focused and truly felt like he hadn’t met the person he wanted to do that with.

Still, we didn’t kiss until our fifth date—and that was after a breakfast date. He was concerned that we were going to end up in the friend zone. Honestly, I was still scared. My heart was so guarded. We went to a place called Sweet Butter, and I told him I was free until 2:00 p.m., so afterward he drove me to a look-out point on Mulholland and we kissed in the car. After eggs.

Everyone always told me that the right man would come along when I wasn’t looking for it, and that’s exactly what happened. Ted was different from any of the other men I had dated. He was confident and self-assured. Goofy and incredibly smart. Accomplished and not threatened by my career. I felt completely myself around him. And I could see how he could fit into my world. Our romance escalated quickly.

I wanted everyone in my life to meet him. When I introduced him to Stephanie one night over dinner, she followed me into the bathroom, and as I was peeing, she said, “You can’t mess this up! We love him!” She saw how Ted folded seamlessly into whatever environment I brought him into. She could see how comfortable and assured I was around him.

Megan was in town visiting her family in Pasadena, and I remember calling her on the phone and saying, “I think this is it!”

I invited her to come watch the Oscars with us, specifically to meet Ted. When he arrived, he sat on the couch, and Linus curled up at his feet. Megan and I locked eyes—she knew that Linus was my barometer. It was a sign.

On my thirty-eighth birthday, Ted surprised me with a trip to Disneyland. It was just the two of us, and he got me a Happy Birthday Sutton button, which I wore all day. Ted had grown up in Southern California, and he took me to all his favorite spots in the park. We got beignets and mint juleps in the French Quarter and rode the Matterhorn at night. It was really sweet and romantic.

On March 19, I sent my mom an email: “Hey! I’ve started dating someone. He’s a director/writer that a fellow producer friend of mine introduced to me. We’ve been dating since the end of January. It’s been very slow and easy and very nice. I really like him. Smart, funny, tall…handsome…generous, successful and a gentleman. He’s 42, never been married. We had a fantastic day. I’m just taking it nice and slow. Love you.”

She responded, “I am glad you have someone to spend your birthday with. Does he have a name?”

She was deft with Google and Facebook by then. I knew better than to fall for that!

“His name is Theodore,” I responded.

She wrote back, “No last name?”

Early that summer, Michael Rafter and I were working on a concert series and were hired as the entertainment on a gay cruise with two thousand gay men on a boat. I brought Julien as my guest, and we laughed about how you couldn’t pay me to get in the pool with two hundred hunky gay men looking for a good time. We had a ball! The cruise went to Singapore, Vietnam, and then Hong Kong, where it ended due to engine trouble. I was literally on a slow boat to China.

I spent that entire trip emailing back and forth with Ted. It was actually nice to have a little distance, as things were getting more hot and heavy. Every day he would send me a little video clip of something he found beautiful or funny. My favorite was the Firebird Suite animated in Fantasia 2000 (if you’ve never seen it, watch it immediately). I was in the South China Sea watching Terriers, the show Ted had created before I met him, and he was back in LA watching Bunheads.

When I got back to the States in May, I did a concert with Michael at Feinstein’s at the Nikko in San Francisco. Ted met me there, and we spent the weekend in Napa Valley. This was a turning point in our relationship. Was I falling in love? Or did I have to run? My heart was still thawing, but Ted was so patient. He had the “Four Ps”: he was Patient, he was Persistent, he Picked me up, and he always Paid.

That weekend, we both said, “I love you.”

In April, Ted and I flew to New York and stayed at the Empire Hotel. I had been asked to announce the 2013 Tony nominations.

My mother sent me this email message: “Have fun in New York. Looking forward to the Tony nominations. Introduce Ted to your brother. Love you, Mom.”

I wrote her back and simply said, “You rock.”