When you work on television and movie sets for a living, your employment is inconsistent at best. You'll be on one project for a few months, then you'll be scrambling to find your next gig. I was recently in this predicament, having just finished a job as a production assistant, when a friend of a friend connected me to
their friend (yes, this is really how it works) who happened to be the former personal assistant to a Very Important TV Star. That former assistant recommended me for their old job and…here I am. Since I'd already been tending to multiple actors on-set, I figured there was no way it could be harder to tend to just one, right? Well.
The thing is, if your boss is famous enough, like mine is, an assistant's role is basically to take their place in "normal" life. I do things like order their lunch, answer their emails, make all their hotel reservations under an alias, and run across the city to fetch birthday gifts for their A-list friends (who never know the card in the box was written by me). To help my boss avoid getting bombarded by photographers and fans, I also take their kids to the park and sign for their packages—nobody wants to be papped like Ben Affleck dropping his Dunkin' while opening his front door.
I know entire staffs at restaurants so we can walk through the kitchen instead of the main entrance, and I have the key to the back door of my boss's favorite hotel so that we can avoid reporters out front. My boss's movements are always intentional and direct—our time outside is basically going door to door with no ambling or meandering. I've seen firsthand how weirdly isolating life can be for really famous people.
And I do feel bad about that. But…being a celeb's personal assistant is also essentially like adopting a human child in the body of an adult.
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