Coming to LA, Part II: How to be an Impressive Intern

Before I got to LA I applied for several internships.  One was at Toby Maguire's production company and part of the interview process was writing coverage on a script.  That's normal enough except that as part of the coverage I had to write whether or not I thought it would be a good movie for Toby to star in.  The script I read was about a wrongfully imprisoned convict who escapes and seeks vengeance on the people who framed him while trying to hide from the police who are chasing him down.  I could tell that Toby Maguire wanted to do this script,  he wanted to change his image, he wanted to be seen as tough.  So I should have just said "Yes, Toby would be amazing in this."  But I couldn't.  (I think this may have been right before Spiderman came out, but even if I'd seen Spiderman it still wouldn't change my mind)  Toby Maguire just does not strike me as a bad ass escaped con.  He's more like an sociopathic librarian.  Needless to say, I did not get that internship.

 

The internship I did get was at a British production company that had made many of my favorite films.  They only accepted three interns for the summer program at their LA office and I was incredibly proud to have landed such an awesome internship.  I later found out that I had been chosen because the assistant who interviewed me really liked my necklace and thought I seemed "cool" (God knows how she got that impression).  Regardless I wanted to make a good impression.  So when they sent me on my first "run" (errand) I tried to be prompt.  They sent me to a hardware store to get a key copied.  Sounds easy enough.  Not for me.

The offices were located one block from Santa Monica Blvd and the address of the hardware store was only a few hundred off from our address.  In New York that meant it was only a few blocks away.  What with parking the way it is in LA I figured it would be faster to walk than drive.  I would be wrong.  It was two miles away.

I started out walking peacefully along Santa Monica Blvd.  It was a nice day, I was in LA, loving life.  But as each block passed I started to notice I wasn't getting any closer to the hardware store.  I started to walk a little faster.  I was wearing cute flip flops, not really meant for long walks, but I ignored the pain.  Still no hardware store.  I started to run.  Now in LA people look at you funny even if you're just walking, but girls running down the street, sweating profusely in "casual professional" attire definitely draw attention.  Cars were honking at me.  My feet were bleeding.  I took off my shoes and started running barefoot.  

That's when the office started calling me.  I ignored the first call, but after they'd called five times I had to answer.

Production Company Assistant: Where the hell are you?  It should have taken you ten minutes to do this and you've been gone half an hour.

Me: My car went to the place but the parking is bad and they ran out of keys and there was an accident and  zombies attacked and it's the Apocalypse...

Production Company Assistant: Whatever.  Get back here NOW.

I finally arrived at the hardware store.  It took them about 3 seconds to make the copy.  If I had driven it would have taken me all of five minutes.  But now I still needed to walk back.

When I got back to the office I was sweating, dirty, there were twigs in my hair (not sure how that happened) and my feet were bleeding.  It had taken me over an hour to get a key copied and everyone at the office thought I was mentally ill.  And that's how you impress people at your internship.