A true Hollywood story

During the first few months of 2003 I worked in LA as a production assistant on a David Mamet film called “Spartan”. My job consisted mainly of office work during the preproduction phase; answering phones or compiling color-coded copies of the script, a script which made no sense to me at all. Once shooting began I became a driver and was sent out on runs back to back thirteen hours a day, crisscrossing Los Angeles like a maniac, holding a page printed off of mapquest.com to the steering wheel with my thumb and glancing down at it every once in a while, hoping not to crash in to the car in front of me while I read the directions.

A few weeks into the shoot one of the PAs was recruited to act as chauffer for one of the female leads. The actress was reportedly hot, and so one of my fellow PAs and friend Michael campaigned for the position. I gracefully backed out of the race, and Michael happily became her driver for the next ten days. A week later Michael was not as happy. The actress was impossible to talk to, he said, she was dumb as a shoe, and worst of all – she seemed to bathe her entire body in some cream or lotion or soap that reeked of fake peaches. She was stinking up Michael’s beloved truck. He couldn’t handle another day with her, and asked me to take over for at least one trip.

I drove out to her hotel on Sunset Boulevard to pick her up. She’d never met me before, so I leaned on my car and waited for her to come out. She was not my type, but she was definitely many people’s type. When she walked out of the hotel, she asked a random man who was passing by her if he was there to drive her to the set of the film and without blinking the man said “Yes, yes I am. My car’s right over here.” I rushed up to her and introduced myself as her actual driver, mentioning the film’s title and Michael's name. The man walked away and she followed me to my car. Instead of being scared or at least astonished by that stranger’s boldness, she laughed the kind of laugh that left no room for doubt about how stupid she was, and said “Did you see that? He said HE was the driver! How funny is THAT?”

On the road she asked me what my name was. That’s a very special name, she said, and I explained that I was Israeli. “Oh my god!” Her eyes lit up. “Maybe you can help me then! Ok, we’re doing my death scene tonight, where I, like, get shot to death. So like I want to research this, so I know how to do it right. So what’s it like to be shot?”

It took me a moment to realize that she wasn’t asking that rhetorically, she was actually waiting for a response. “Uh… I’ve never been shot.” I said.
“Oh.” She almost seemed disappointed. “Well, do you know anybody in Israel who’s been shot?” “No, I… I don’t. Not personally.”
“Oh.”
“Sorry.”
“No, that’s ok.” She sighed. “I’ve like been trying really hard to research this. I even went to an emergency room and I asked this ER doctor what it’s like to be shot, but he also said he’s never been shot. It’s like I have no luck.”
“Yeah.”

I've carried this secret with me for years: I am an Israeli who's never been shot. And as if that wasn't enough, I never even had the chance to feel a gunshot wound vicariously through the experience of any friends, relatives or even acquaintances of mine. Sometimes when I tell people I'm Israeli I feel like a liar.

And my car smelled like fake peaches for a week.