| 2:53p |
Just Desserts
There was a time when I really did want to live a life of song and dance. If I hadn't studied visual communications, I was super-keen on becoming an actress. When I was in high school, we put on an all-girls musical. The reason it was all-girls was because, as I soon discovered after a couple months there, my high school was regarded as the local tart school, and no boys school wanted to be associated with us in anything that wasn't related to an underage dance party. I guess that it didn't help that we all went around wearing really short skirts and lots of black eye makeup and generally looking like Britney Spears in her "Baby One More Time" clip. Anyway, the musical was called "Just Desserts", and it was about a group of girls who worked in a supermarket. I sing the songs to myself sometimes when I'm stacking the shelves at Myer. There was one song called "The Super-Saver Market Store" (or something like that), and it went something like this: "Theeeeere'll always be a supermarket / A Super-Saver Market Store / Everybody needs one like they've never needed one befoooooore / Shelves of goodies wrapped, packed and scaaaaaaaned / And the red-light super-specials hardly ever maaaaaaanned!" There was also a song called "The Check-Out Chicks", and it went, "From eight til five our feet get sore / At the Super Saver Market Store / We work real hard to get our paaaaaaaay / Stocking shelves everyday / With a price-check here, and a price-check there / Customer service everywhere! / We're the check out chicks (check out chiiiiiiiicks) / We're the check-out chicks (check out chiiiiiiiiiicks) / Don't think that we just do it for kicks / We're the check-out chicks, we're the check-out chicks!" I played this crazy customer who basically came on stage and just yelled at everyone all the time. I think that I was one of the only girls in school who could act nutso enough for the role. It was lots of fun- it wasn't professional at all. We had to make up our own costumes, and our sets were made out of cardboard boxes, and most of us couldn't sing properly. It was the best.
I have an agent, too, but she doesn't really do anything. I went to visit her in Bondi about three years ago, and did a monologue for her (I recited it all back-to-front, because I forgot some of it). I had to fill in this weird form that asked me if I could smoke a pipe, and if I could rollerblade or waterski, and what sort of accents I could do. I also made it really, really clear that I wasn't going to swear on camera or do nude scenes or sex scenes. It turns out that none of that really matters, though, seeing as I've never gotten an acting job. But my agent did make me feel like a real actress once, because she called me one time and asked me if it was true that I'd had plastic surgery. What I'd had done was maxillofacial jaw realignment surgery (I think that's what it's called, anyway), which means that I went to hospital and had my jaws realigned because my bite didn't match up properly, thus making it hard for me to eat properly. I really wanted to be able to eat properly and stuff. I used to have this really cute little lisp, but it's gone now, which is a bit sad. Anyway, when my agent called, I was still in bed with one of those stupid ice-packs around my face, and my mum answered the phone. I heard her get really angry, saying, "No, Carla did NOT have plastic surgery! Well yes, I'm sure she will get you a new head shot WHEN SHE'S READY. No, it WASN'T PLASTIC SURGERY! SHE COULDN'T EAT PROPERLY!"
Sigh...denying eating disorder rumours and plastic surgery rumours can be really hard when you're a young Australian starlet, especially if you haven't even debuted in anything. As Holly Golightly from "Breakfast at Tiffany's" said: certain shades of limelight can ruin a girl's complexion. |