Famous Guys I've Called Daddy

And why ice cream is my secret to success

Hi from Long Island 👋

“Are you still acting?” is what I’m asked most any time I’m schmoozing with acquaintances. Visiting my husband’s large family and their plus-ones for Thanksgiving in New York, I mentally prepare myself to dance around the question. I know my short answer will never be all that satisfying for anyone, and the true story is too long winded to deliver in between breaths of smalltalk. I audition every once in a while; I make my own videos that I’m sometimes paid for; and I’m a terrific liar. So in a way, yes, I’m still acting. But I know that “Are you still acting?” is searching for a sign that I’m working as often as I used to. “Are you still acting?” is really asking for a sparkly new Deadline headline.

Mine might read, DEADLINE: Alexandra Kyle signs overall deal with sobbing into her silk pillowcase after famous comedy director doesn’t get hard from just looking at her.

Because I’ll never tell this story casually with a plate of stuffing in my hand —and because I’m asked about my career more than ever now with a baby on the way— I thought my most honest answer to this question that I love avoiding would best live in episode 2 of Leather & Silk. Here goes.

A toasty October afternoon, at the fleeting age of twenty six, I danced by my bed, in front of my two splayed out cats, the way I always prepared for an audition. I’d been called back for a director’s session to play lead in a comedy feature I was hungry to be apart of, and was told it was down to me and two other young women to play opposite Bryan Cranston. Comedy with true talent: the kind of work I believed wholeheartedly I was born for. Casting had given me no new notes, meaning I was to meet the director and do exactly what I’d done for the last callback. Same clothes. Same performance. Just do it again for the director. Easy! I live for auditions like this, where the part fits so seamlessly I only need to show up; I’ve already impressed them. Confidence runs the show.

Before leaving my apartment, I double checked my deodorant stick to see if it had an expiration date; my Dove Extra Strength wasn’t flying. But my sticky pits didn’t deter me. My one and only goal was to make this guy laugh. Make him laugh and it’s a win, baby.

Backtracking a bit. My first time auditioning for a movie I was just six years old. A casting director, who was friends with my school principal, plucked me out of my first grade class room wanting me to audition for a lead in a drama. Understandably, my overworked single mother wasn’t into the idea, unsure of how stage parenting would fit on her schedule. But a friend’s dad offered to take me to the audition along with his daughter; I remember just thinking of that day as a bizarre playdate. For the audition I was asked to cry and pretend to be terrified of a moth, so I cried and pretended I was terrified of a moth. I was hired, and also in heaven pretending Sally Field and Ed Harris were my still-together, loving parents. A girl often confused by why her actual father disappeared from time to time, I asked Ed Harris if he’d be my real dad after a few months of working together. (I guess he had one hell of a performance). I don’t remember his response but I remember that it was gentle, and when we finally wrapped filming, Ed gave me a heart locket necklace as a congrats on your first job gift. (That locket now carries a photo of my husband… sorry, Ed.)

Did you watch Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal on HBO? I would’ve identified with six year old Remy, feeling a bit tortured by pretending I had a present, fun dad only to say goodbye forever like it was nothing. I did such a good little job in that movie, probably because I lived for playing house; I wasn’t acting.

Eye for an Eye (1996)

I couldn’t wait to work again but I also really just loved auditioning, whether or not I booked, and I have my mom to thank for that. The first time she was able to take me to an audition herself, she took in the sci-fi vibes of a room packed with my equally tiny clones. A mom two chairs down shook some script pages in front of her daughter’s face, desperate for her child actor’s focus before explaining, “Hey! Hey! Listen! If you do a good job in there, if you get this part, we’ll take you to go get ice cream! Ice cream!” Her daughter’s body language responded immediately, the magic words inciting her to focus on her lines. My mom shuddered, disturbed that this parenting style might find its way into my psyche if I continued auditioning without my mother present to defend my innocence. My mom leaned in and locked eyes with me, “No matter what happens in your audition, let’s get ice cream after this.” My mom, a genius if you ask me, planted an invaluable seed that day. I’ve truly never felt an ounce of pressure to book work. I never cared about the result. The process has always been just as fun and estimable. For me, every audition, whether or not I fuck it up, has always tasted like rainbow sherbet.

And that warm, sticky October day wasn’t different. Despite my primal desire to call Bryan Cranston “dad” for a couple months, I was just excited to play in the audition room with a director I greatly admired.

I was almost out the door of my apartment when my manager called me. He told me there was new concern at the casting office that I wasn’t, exact words, “hot enough” to play this part I’d thought I was perfect for, that I needed to show up to my director’s session with a different look than I’d had in my earlier auditions.

“Do you have a push up bra? How much cleavage can you make? Do something different with your hair maybe? Try on some sexier outfits and send me pictures before you leave. Let’s pick the right look together.”

Note to aspiring managers out there: this is not a call to make to your client two minutes before she leaves for an audition – or ever – if you want her to feel and perform her best.

I wondered if I could still make a stranger laugh with this new lump in my throat.

I sent America’s most awkward selfies to my manager in different booby outfits, seeking confirmation that, no, I was enough for this part! I tried my best to sexify my hair and makeup — not a skillset of mine, unfortunately. The selfies were pitiful, my pushup bra and duckface barely keeping me together. They were selfies of someone terrified of being seen at all, an energy that certainly doesn’t lend itself to performing comedy.

But, alas, my manager replied to my selfies matter-of-factly, “I think let’s go with the gray. It’s a little sexier to me.” I tried not to obsess over the words “I think” and “a little” in his response. My sad little photoshoot had eaten up a lot of time, so I darted out, much sweatier than before, desperate not to be named Hollywood’s tardy, smelly boner killer.

In the waiting room alone, I’d inadvertently chosen a seat opposite the only mirror in the room. My own image actually surprised me. I had my own movie moment, hyping myself up in my head, Wow, you look great! You should wear sexy eye makeup more often! This hair volume? You showed that curling iron who’s boss! You are hot enough for this! You’re booking this! And it’ll prove to the WORLD and your ex what a smoking hot babe you–

Kate Upton walked into the waiting room and sat across from me in that exact moment, shutting my inner monologue the fuck up. She was wearing a pullover hooded sweatshirt and jeans. Fabric covered every inch of her body. Call me Detective Holmes because I deduced that she had not been given the same note I’d been given. And through her opaque ensemble she still glowed, an undeniable star. She chose a seat next to the mirror, across from me. This meant that, from my vantage point, she and I were sitting next to each other, our appearances side by side, pressing me to compare my insides to her outsides. It was like seeing @emrata sit next to a tense weasel with teased hair and old lipgloss, and then watching as they wait in silence to be seen for the same job. Why, God? Scrub my eyes!

Speaking of God, it only took a few minutes for me to realize what a gift from the heavens this woman in a hoodie was to me. I thought, Since I’ll never be literally Kate Upton, maybe I’ll just go back to focusing on making the director laugh. They called my name, and moments later I had him laughing so hard that he slapped his thigh like a cartoon cowboy. The lump in my throat left without saying goodbye. I had no clue if I’d booked it, but after the sweaty day I’d had, his laughter felt like its own win worthy of Cookies n’ Cream.

I did not book that job, but I received something even better: another mean phone call from my manager. Knowing I was at the office of my full-time job, he called me barking, “Step outside! Grab a notebook and a pen!”

The director had called him just to talk about me, and asked him to relay some ‘priceless Hollywood advice.’ So priceless, in fact, that I better write it down. Seriously, my manager had me write everything down.

Are you ready for me to share this priceless advice with you, dear reader? Do you have a pen? In an effort to keep this famous director’s exact sentiments from living forever, an act of self support, I’ll only share a few crumbs that have stuck with me. Highlights include the words “fuckability,” “sexy makeover” and “she’s not someone I’d ever think to look at.” I was physically compared to an animal and told, “When Alix opens her mouth you go ‘Wow! She’s really talented,’ but I need someone who’s going to make me look at her before she opens her mouth.”

Crouched in a ball on my heels by outdoor trash bins, pre-therapy me thanked my manager for relaying the message and got off the phone, finally letting my leashed tears free to blot the ink. In my twenty years of auditioning, it was the first time I cried from learning I didn’t get a job. My not enough-ness had never crossed over into to my professional life. But now it was in the damp page of a notebook I had reserved for creativity. The safe playground I’d cultivated in the arts was now infected by two men deciding how desirable I wasn’t over a phone call.

Over the next few months, I let my manager convince me that if I just focused on being “more fuckable,” then I’d have the career, and life, of my sweetest day dreams. He instructed me to follow specific “more fuckable” than me actors on Instagram, insisting that if I learned to dress like them, walk like them, etc., I too could be hirable, of literal value. He told me to make my boobs as big as possible for every audition I had moving forward. I looked for opportunities to object.

“What about this character description?” I asked, “She’s a 22 year old Stanford student with dreams of solving world hunger; there’s nothing in here about her level of sex appeal. I should dress sexy for this audition too?” He seemed annoyed by these questions, like I hadn’t been listening well enough. “Yes, Alix. Doesn’t matter what the character description says. Hollywood wants one thing. Go shopping for push up bras and sexy outfits.”

The next few months, the story only gets worse but eventually my manager and I parted ways. In a barely pre “me too” world I only felt safe saying to him, “I don’t feel we see eye to eye when it comes to my career.”

My drive to audition as regularly as I used to, for the kind of roles I used to, has not been the same since. My drive to write my own characters and stories however, took on a new life, one that I find much more fulfilling than performing alone. Two scoops, please.

It’s a shame my real answer to the acting question is such a juicy story; sometimes it’s hard not to share. But I also never want to paint myself as a victim or speak ill of anyone no matter how icky his behavior was. And yet when someone is essentially asking you, “are you still successful?” I feel a need to defend my abilities, proud of the accomplishments I have achieved and the spirit I’ve maintained in what I consider to be, in many ways, the ultimate mean girl of professions. 13 going on 30 fans always seem especially unimpressed with my wishy washy answer, and then they often follow up with questions like, “well did you keep in touch with Brie Larson?” searching for an ounce of tea about someone with real success. I’m glad I was taught so young to abide by my own definition of success, to celebrate the wins that mattered to me and not others. Saying no to a makeover that’s not right for me feels like success when I get quiet and still and look at the sweet treat that is my beautiful life and family today. Thank god I’ve always been taught not to do it for the glory but for the sweet treats.

Thank you, Mommy.

“Do it for the sweet treats, not the glory.” Write that down.