I delivered my classical monologue first, then contemporary, in front of a well-dressed older man—round glasses, sweater, sports coat—sitting behind a folding table. I later learned he was popular UCLA theater professor Gary Gardner. “I’ve been doing this for twenty-two years and nobody has ever chosen a chapter from The Catcher in the Rye before,” he grilled. “Why did you pick something from a book when the instructions clearly said to deliver a monologue?” I was momentarily intimidated, but it’s not like I hadn’t noticed the instructions when I chose it.
“Well,” I began with an honest smile, “I love The Catcher in the Rye. Holden Caulfield is so different from who I am in real life, but when I read that book, I found that I could identify with him intimately. I probably won’t ever get cast to play him—or to play any rich New England boarding school kid for that matter. But I assume there won’t be a Catcher in the Rye movie anyway because Salinger has always refused to sell the rights. So, I figured this is the only time I would get to bring Holden Caulfield to life. And in the application, I noticed the instructions said the monologue just needed to be a contemporary piece, not that it had to be from a play or couldn’t be from a novel. The whole book is written in first person. It’s actually one amazing, gigantic monologue, and the beginning of chapter three seemed self-contained enough to make sense for me today.”
Gary Gardner smiled.
I left.
My dad was in the waiting room when I got out of the interview, and we made the treacherous drive back home, where Mom was waiting with lunch.
* * *
I guess this is a good time to tell you about my spectacular rejection from Yale that winter, where I had applied early action. Mr. Green had encouraged me to apply early, as had my cousin Rita (then a second-year at Yale) and a couple of older friends and relatives sprinkled across different universities. They all thought I was the kind of well-rounded student Yale might be looking for. “Literally everyone here is great at multiple things,” Rita said. “You’d fit right in. You can do both theater and international studies. It’s not just about your SAT scores up here.” The more I learned about Yale, the more sure I was that this was where I needed to be. I toured the beautiful campus (students seemed both motivated and social), completed the application (kind of fun because I like essays), went through an alumni review (stressful but quick), and then rushed to the mailbox every single day looking for the acceptance letter that my mom said she was certain I’d receive “because God told me in a dream.”2
Instead, I got a tiny envelope rejecting me outright. I dramatically barked to my mom that she should ask God why he lied to her, went upstairs and shaved my head in the bathroom, while cursing Mrs. Teller for my own shortcomings in math and science. If that doesn’t scream, “What a fucking crazy person! Obviously you need to become an actor,” I don’t know what does. Two weeks later, I had gotten used to my wonderful new crew cut and had refocused my attention on the fifteen remaining applications, which I had divided into broad categories.
* * *
As I awaited results from the other fifteen schools, I toured more campuses. They all had different things to offer—positives and negatives blended together: Earlham and Hampshire Colleges only have about two hundred and fifty students in each graduating class, which means lots of personalized attention, BUT Earlham is in a rural, isolated part of the country, and Hampshire seemed to have an insular student body. None of that exactly envisaged “boundless possibility.” USC is in the middle of sunny Downtown Los Angeles and close to Hollywood, BUT since USC is in the middle of sunny Downtown Los Angeles… what if I get murdered?
The game changer came when I set foot on UCLA’s campus and immediately fell in love. It all felt right—the picture-perfect East Coast look sandwiched into the west side of LA just a few miles from major film studios. It had the perfect balance of academia and the arts, and, for a theater and film student from out of state, was oddly far more competitive to get into than any of the Ivies.
I received rejection letters from two University of California campuses that should have been easier to get into, so I was bracing myself for a sound rejection from this one as well (and possibly another dramatic bathroom buzz cut?). When I called home from an after-school drama club meeting one afternoon to see if any letters arrived, my younger brother, Pulin, told me there was actually something there from UCLA. “Open it and read it to me!” I commanded. “Right now!” He got as far as “Congratulations! It is our pleasure to offer you admission to—” before I started yelling loudly down the main hallway of Freehold Township High School. I made my brother read that beautiful letter to me six more times before the pay phone cut us off.
By the very end of the college application process, my admission rate mirrored everything else until this point: Half the schools said yes, half said no, and one wait-listed me before rejecting me (such a Wesleyan thing to do, Wesleyan).3
* * *
I was determined to craft the life I wanted, and I knew UCLA would give me the space to find the perfect balance: arts and academia, proximity to the entertainment industry and a lower risk of getting murdered. Going to college so far from home was also a chance to move beyond the pressure of Pussy Auntie and her crew. The distance wasn’t something my parents had hoped for, but they recognized that the opportunity I had in moving all the way across the country to study in Los Angeles was in many ways not unlike the opportunity they themselves pursued in moving halfway around the world to start a life in America.
1?LOL
2?She is not normally one of these people.
3?In 2015, Wesleyan paid me a bunch of money to deliver a guest lecture on their campus, so we’re cool with each other now.
CHAPTER FOUR WHY DO YOU DO THESE WEIRD THINGS?
The summer before I left for UCLA was an exciting time, and not just because I’d never have to take another boring class with Mrs. Teller. With the pressures of high school behind me (yes, Pussy Auntie, I am going to be a theater major!), I started planning for my life in Los Angeles. Film. Television. Hollywood! Opportunity! I would work my ass off to make it in the entertainment industry. Do whatever it took. I could apply all the skills I learned in those public arts programs to earn real roles in Hollywood. Maybe I’d even rub elbows with some of my favorite characters and actors. Did Will Smith really live in Bel-Air? Would I run into Steve Urkel at the grocery store? Would D. J. Tanner and Kimmy Gibbler be at the laundromat? (Did they even hang even out in real life? Did celebrities actually do their own laundry?!)
Before getting on the plane, I needed a summer job to save up for practical acting-related things like headshots, a gym membership, and (long-term goal) a car so I could get to auditions across sprawling LA.