Simon Doonan - Hollywood Calling...But Not Really

 

It's 2003, and The Devil Wears Prada hits the bookstores. I try reading it and find quickly that I would really rather prefer having sex with a dead relative. [audience laughter] So, here's my issue, I've been in the fashion world a long time, and what's great about fashion is that it's a refuge for very eccentric, quirky people, idiosyncratic people, outliers, gypsies, super freaks, hello. So, all of these people seemed completely missing from this book. Instead of all these creative people, there were sort of a lot of careerist bimbos in high heels. 

 

And the Anna Wintour character, the editor in chief, seemed like this cartoony, cantankerous, coat-flinging caligula. [audience laughter] And really, Anna Wintour is not that like that at all. She's actually a den mother for all the creative outliers and people that she's put around her. 

So anyway, two years later, my phone rings, and it doesn't ring very often, but I pick it up. A voice says, “Hello, we're casting a major motion picture, The Devil Wears Prada, and we want you to audition for the role of Nigel.” [audience laughter] Mysteriously, all my disdain for the book just [audience laughter] melts, like so much Velveeta, and I grab my dog, Liberace, and I say to him, “This is incredible. We're going to claw our way to the top. This is going to be unbelievable. We've made it.” And he gives me this slightly skeptical look, and I said, “Oh, okay, fair enough. Well, at the very least, it will be a righting of wrongs.” If the book didn't have the freaky super freaks like the film would because of moi. 

 

So now, did I have any misgivings about being able to act? Of course not. [audience laughter] Movie acting always seemed to me a complete doddle. I mean, no offense, Meryl, Brad, George, all of you, academy Award wins, no offense, but I really think anyone could do it. Just standing, hitting your mark over and over again with a lot of makeup on. It's not like doing King Lear one night and then Othello the next stage acting, that would take a bit of effort, but movie acting, hello, that's why children are so good at it, anyone can do it [audience laughter]. 

 

I did have one teensy weensy misgiving. The character of Nigel in the book is a sort of helpful homo. He's a soothing presence, he's a problem solver, he gives good advice, I never had-- this was going to be an effort for me because I'm just not a helpful homo [audience laughter] and people often ask me for advice and I just give horrible advice, like they want help with their appearance and I always tell them something like, “Just get a blue stripper wig and wear a monocle or a Miss Marple cape.” Or if they want beauty tips, I say, “Just run home and plunge your breasts into ice cold water.” [audience laughter] Like my advice giving, I'm not helpful. I never was. I could never be on that show Queer Eye for the whatever. But I thought, it's just a film, I can channel a bit of helpfulness. 

 

And so, the day before the audition, I called my dad, my 80-year-old dad in England, and I said, “You're never going to believe what's happened. I'm auditioning for a movie opposite Meryl Streep.” And there was this pause on the phone and he said, “Wow.” He didn't say wow. Because he's English, he said, “Good heavens.” [audience laughter] He said, “Good heavens, if they called you, they must really be scraping the barrel. [audience laughter] What are they thinking?” And you know, he's always been the wind beneath my wing, so, I thought about his advice and he did have a point. I mean, what were they thinking calling somebody whose entertainment resume consists of three appearances on America's Next Top Model, one cameo on Gossip Girl, an endless catty bitchy talking head thingies on VH1. But putting these concerns aside, putting aside the concerns about my helpfulness, I went to bed early, woke up bright eyed, bushy tailed, arrived at the audition office embarrassingly early, and the casting director showed me in. And I did what I consider to be a pastiche riddled impersonation of a gay fashionista. I windmilled my arms about, there was a lot of physicality, a lot of sighing and zhushing and she ran towards me and she said, “You are incredible. You have to come back and meet the director immediately.” Wow. Lights, camera, action. 

 

She handed me the script with all kinds of post its in it, learned these pieces of dialogue. So, I went home and set about the task of learning the dialogue. And the funny thing happened, like the long-complicated bits were really quite easy to learn. It was the short bits like “Hello, yes, I'd love to,” or “No, not today, thank you.” Those short sentences were oddly much harder to memorize. And I began to sort of empathize with Marilyn Monroe who first famously could not remember the line, “Hello, it's me Sugar.” And had to do 50 takes. And her name was Sugar, so she kept getting it wrong, “Hello, it's me Sugar.” [audience laughter] And they ended up writing this-- everyone says, well, she was like that, she was drunk or whatever, but I think it was just those little sentences are really hard and they ended up writing it on this chest of drawers, “Hello, it's me sugar.” Take 50, she got it right. 

 

So, I go in to meet the director. Having learnt my script again embarrassingly early, I'm sort of channeling Barbara Stanwyck, who was very professional and nice to everybody on the set, and early. I thought, I'm not going to let Hollywood eat me alive. I'm going to be that celebrity, the one who's just totally professional. So, I go in and I knock it out of the park. I'm unbelievable. I milk the camera, I make love to the camera and the director is smiling from ear to ear. And after I finished, he said to me, “So, tell me about Anna Wintour, what is she really like?” And I said, “Well, she's nothing like the character in the book. She's actually very straightforward and incredibly fair. Very well-liked by her employees and is an incredible mother. Her children, have you met them? They're just exemplary.” And he'd already glazed over, this wasn't what he wanted to hear. 

 

So, I think-- get out of the casting office. Well, you know, and obviously I've got the part. So I go, I'm leaving the casting office and I run smack into Phillip Bloch. Phillip, like me, is also a fashion commentator, a Telly Nelly, as it were. And he said to me, “Yes, I'm here to audition for the part of Nigel.” And I gave him a look like [audience laughter] take my part and I will cut you bitch, that was the look I gave. I didn't say it. And I was riding the limited stops bus home thinking this is the last time I'm going to be able to do this kind of stuff because I'll be famous and I won't be able to ride the bus. [audience laughter] So, I'm on the bus and I think Phillip's never going to get it because Nigel is English. So, I have such an advantage there with the accent and everything. 

 

So, the next morning, I get up early, take Liberace out for a poop, and I run into Robert Verdi. Robert Verdi, another gay fashionista, amazing guy who tells me, “Yes, he's been auditioning for the part of Nigel.” So, I walk to the end of the block with Liberace’s poop in a little bag, which I very considerately knotted the top of the bag to put in the trash. And Liberace looks up at me and he gives me another one of his skeptical looks. And this time it's a look which says, “You've been had.” And as I dropped the poop into the receptacle, I thought, yeah, I think I might have been. And these dark suspicions were confirmed a couple of days later when it was announced that a straight actor, Stanley Tucci, would be playing the part of Nigel. Clearly, all these efforts were a piece of cunningly orchestrated unpaid research for some overpaid heterosexual Hollywood actor. [audience laughter] 

 

So, the premiere rolls around after I've made the movie. No tickets are forthcoming, which is quite bizarre when you think of the massive contribution I've made to the movie in terms of research. Anna Wintour, in a gesture of exquisite magnanimity, shows up at the premiere. And where am I? I'm left on the corner of Hollywood and vine, clutching the shards of my broken dreams. But it's been five years, and tonight I'm asking myself, “What would Anna do?” Anna would put on her shades, pick up a Chanel bag and move on. And that's what I'm going to do. No, I'm really going to do it. I promise you. Thank you.