Free Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology by Leah Remini, Rebecca Paley Page B

“Okay, come back tomorrow at four. There’s a producers’ session. Maybe you’ll do better.”
    Oh, I’d definitely do better. I thanked John for the second chance, told him I wouldn’t let him down, and then called my agent’s office, where I left word with her assistant about what had happened.
    I was pretty pleased with myself until later that day when I got a call from my agent screaming at me.
    “If you ever harass a casting director again—,” she yelled.
    “Wait a minute. He told you I harassed him?”
    “You listen to me. You don’t call them directly. That’s not the way it’s done here in Hollywood. Got it? If you pull a stunt like this again, I am going to drop you so fast.”
    John Levey was the biggest jerk-off in the history of Hollywood. For him to call my agent and say I was harassing him after he told me how fucking cute I was? When I made it big, I was going to thank John Levey for being such an asshole. Publicly, while accepting an Emmy. I had it all planned out: “And lastly, I would like to thank John Levey, jerk-off of all jerk-offs, for being a two-faced…”
    I was at work the next day when the phone rang around five in the afternoon.
    “Survival Insurance. This is Leah. Can I help you?”
    “Leah, it’s John Levey. Why didn’t you show up to your appointment?”
    I didn’t even let him finish his sentence before I started in.
    “You asshole! I thought you were going to be my buddy. And instead you complain to my agent that I’m harassing you? What kind of dick fuck…”
    John told me to shut up and went on to say that he never said anything like that to my agent. He explained that he had called Natalie’s office the day before to confirm the appointment and let her know there would be more people in the room so that I’d be prepared. He had told her assistant what I had done to get back in the room with him.
    “Look,” he said, “your agent said that because you had the balls to call me. And I’m telling you now, I don’t want you to change, Leah. Don’t listen to her or people like her. You did what your heart told you to do. And I hope you always do.”
    “Thank you, John,” I said.
    “No problem.”
    “Sorry about calling you an asshole.”
    “No worries.”
    “And a dick.”
    “Okay, honey, I got to go.”
    “And a fu—Hello?”
    Okay, I guess he had to go.
    But
Head of the Class
wasn’t going any further.
    Still, he made good on his promise—that he would keep me in mind for any part he thought I’d be right for. He was my champion, calling me once a week for auditions, where invariably I got nervous as soon as I got in front of the producers.
    “Don’t turn into an asshole when you get into the room,” John would say while walking me down a hallway in the studio for my audition.
    “You’re the asshole.”
    “You get crazy when you get in there. You get weird. And you start rambling. I want you to shut the fuck up,” he said, right before opening the door to the room where the producers were waiting. As soon as we stepped inside, his entire demeanor shifted. Beaming a huge smile at the suits, he said, “Hello. This is Leah Remini. You are going to love her.”
    Well, they didn’t love me. Instead, what I got from that audition and dozens if not hundreds more was “It’s not going any further,” and an all-new rejection: “They went another way.”
    Apparently my car wasn’t going to go “any further” either. Side note: When the Ford Motor credit guy tells you that you are behind in payments ninety days and that they are going to repossess your car, they mean it. Despite the fact that you went out of your way to make them laugh. My car was repossessed shortly thereafter making getting to auditions, where I would lose roles, all that much harder.
    Each time I went to an audition my mom would say, “I know you’re gonna get this part,” and each time I had to come home and tell her that I didn’t. That we were going to eat Taco Bell