is waif
THE HEIGL INSTITUTE
it’s 9:43pm and i am using the bathroom at a local bar. there is a Wrigley’s chewing gum wrapper in the toilet bowl and some recent urine. i pee, hitting the gum wrapper full force. this takes me back - back to the HEIGL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY...
from about the age of 13, i can remember wanting to be a famous actor. i didn’t really care so much about the actual acting; i think i just wanted to be on TV and famous. i wanted the attention and for people to know my name. i wanted to be rich. i was a very shy kid growing up and this made it difficult for me to tell anyone what i dreamed of doing, because how could i be an actor? i was the quietest person in the room. but i eventually did tell my family and they were supportive, they wanted to help me in anyway that they could. without any information or insight into the entertainment business, they turned to the yellow pages phone book to find some acting classes for me to take. and that was the beginning of my metamorphosis into a true artist.
“take this in. remember this. you want to win a PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD someday? then remember this.”
ONE FOR THE MONEY, ROSWELL, JENNY’S WEDDING, ZYZZYX ROAD, 27 DRESSES, GREY’S ANATOMY. these are all film and television projects that share one thing in common, one great thing. KATHERINE HEIGL. when we say that name out loud it does something. it hits us with a wave of emotions. and rightfully so, she is the greatest actor the world has ever known. KATHERINE HEIGL has more talent in her toenail then meryl streep on her best day. she truly is the definition of the word ‘amazing.’ many say she was the first choice to play vito corleone in the godfather before she turned it down, opting instead to do 27 DRESSES. the studio had to settle for marlon brando....
and i got to train underneath her greatness at her hidden, secret conservatory in the san fernando valley at a location that i can not mention because the pure beautiful work KATHERINE does cannot be interrupted by the distractions of the outside world. also i can’t say the location because i truly don’t know where it is. the only reason i know it’s in the valley somewhere is because i faintly remember the drive there when i was 13.
my first day at the conservatory was not at all what i had expected. my parents came in with me and said hello to the lady at the front desk, we all thought she had looked incredibly familiar but we could not place our finger on it. Her name tag said sandy. after some small talk between sandy and my parents, they signed me in and headed out the door. sandy turned to me and said “follow me”. something about her demeanor gave me chills. she led me down several dark hallways with painted black walls and black ceilings. the only light came from lights around framed movie posters. she didn’t say much and it felt like we were walking through an endless maze.
(walking, on the left THE UGLY TRUTH. on the right KNOCKED UP. two steps later, on the left LIFE AS WE KNOW IT. on the right 27 DRESSES. more steps later on the left THE NUT JOB 2: NUTTY BY NATURE.)
taking a glance at every poster i passed by, i noticed they all had one actress in common, KATHERINE HEIGL. the name sounded familiar and i remember seeing previews for some of those movies, but overall i didn’t really know who KATHERINE HEIGL was.
sandy stopped when we got to the end of this very long hallway, there was a red door. and on the right there was one last poster, it was for a film called KILLERS. sandy said “what did you think of this movie?” and i said “oh, i haven’t seen this one.” the look on sandy’s face was terrifying, it looked as if she was about to kill me in the most horrible way she could come up with. after what felt like an eternity of silence, she forced a smile and said “you stupid child”. she pushed open the red door, ripped off her wig (i didn’t even know she was wearing a wig) and took her glasses off. i didn’t know what to think, it all felt so shocking. but here’s where things took a major turn. she took off her name tag that said “sandy” and replaced it with one that said “EMMY AWARD WINNER KATHERINE HEIGL”…
when sandy unveiled her true identity(KATHERINE), i was at a loss for words, and quite scared. i didn’t know what was going on, and it felt like it was silent for a good while.
it wasn’t until KATHERINE spit in her hand and extended it to shake mine, that i felt a strange sense of calm. i reached out to meet her hand. she said “this must all feel very strange for you, understandably so. but in the next 5 years i will shape and mold you to be the best actor you can possibly be. you will never be as great as me, and that’s okay. but since you are my student, i love you. and by the end of your training, your heartbeat will be in synch with mine, and that’s how i will know my work is done. she began to tell me about her long career and how hollywood had let her down in many ways and betrayed her, but she also told me about the times in her career when she was on top of the world, and there was a glimmer in her eye, and a slight smile. this was the only time in my five years that i saw that. in that moment i felt close to her. like she had shown me a soft and special side that is rarely seen. but very quickly, her wall came up, and it was time for work.
my first week at the conservatory was intense. i was the only student, because KATHERINE doesn’t like to teach more than one at a time because it takes a lot out of her. the first thing we worked on was called “EMOTIONAL CONDITIONING FOR A NON HEIGL”. this is a process of experiencing intense emotions and pain so that you can recall them later on during a performance. so to learn this, HEIGL straps you down to a chair and takes off your socks and shoes, she then slowly begins to pull your toenails off one by one as you squirm and scream, she holds your hand tightly and quietly chants “take this in. remember this. you want to win a PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD someday, then remember this.” i almost cried myself to sleep that night, but right as i had stopped crying and was drifting off to sleep KATHERINE came over and forcefully kept my eyes open with a specula. this was the next technique i was exposed to at the HEIGL INSTITUTE. it was called “LEARNING TO OBSERVE FOR A NON HEIGL”. the purpose of this technique is to remind you to observe your character’s surroundings and really learn to see through their eyes. this was one of my least favorite techniques just because it prevented me from getting any sleep. when i told her i was extremely tired and needed to get some sleep she told me that hollywood does not allow their actors to sleep, because if you sleep you age, and when you age, you lose out on roles. i so badly wanted to close my eyes, but they were being held open with the specula. at this time i didn’t want to be an actor anymore, it was too much work and too painful. i wanted to go home and be with my family. but something strange happened by day 5, i felt well rested. i was confused because my eyes were still being held open, and i had been so tired from not getting any sleep, so how could i feel rested? KATHERINE came over to me and gently removed the specula. and she said, “you’ve learned how to sleep with your eyes open”. this felt like my first win, and i was excited. after success comes failure and then success again. after i had learned to sleep with my eyes open we moved onto “HOW TO BE MESMERIZING FOR A NON HEIGL”. this technique was all about figuring out a way to make yourself stand out and capture the attention of others. especially in the audition room!KATHERINE would set up a mock audition room for me and have me try multiple times to capture her attention, on my first attempt i tried to just do the scene as best as i could and make it interesting. at the end she said that i would never get a job with that audition, and that I had failed. she came over to me and said i have to stand out the moment i walk into the room, including physically, but also in my performance, she could tell i was upset and she assured me that she would help me figure it out, she said we were finished for the day. that night at bedtime, she asked me to sleep with my eyes closed for tonight. i was very confused because i had just learned how to sleep with them open, but she said it was important. i woke up in intense pain and looked in the mirror and saw that i now had a big scar above my lip just like joaquin phoenix. i panicked, but KATHERINE quickly assured me that it added an extra edge to me. she then said i should start rehearsing my scene as loud as i can in front of all of the other actors waiting to audition, to let them know how strongly I believed in myself and that they had some serious competition. this became ingrained in me, a feeling of complete confidence.
as time continued on i’d learn new techniques, talk with HEIGL, listen to her advice, and mentally prepare for my mission ahead, to become a successful film actor. the day i graduated was one of the most exciting days, i felt like i had been training forever and i couldn’t wait to get out there and show the world what i could do, and i was ready to show KATHERINE that i would conquer hollywood. she set me up with an agent and i began to go on auditions, most of the time early on i would get close, but they wouldn’t pick me in the end. this became very discouraging and i would fall into a deep depression. i began to think about my schooling and i would become angry, feeling like KATHERINE didn’t properly prepare me. but just as i was thinking about giving up, i got a phone call from my agent, he said i had landed the lead role in a film called “Mom? Is That You?”. it was a story about a young man trying to communicate with his mother after she has died. i was over the moon excited, after we finished filming, the movie and more specifically my work in the movie was getting a lot of buzz and talk around town. soon after the awards for my work started rolling in, peoples choice, critics choice, sag, golden globe, ACADEMY AWARD. i won all of them. people were always confused about my name that i go by, HEIGL STUDENT #1. it was always a big headline on the press junkets, they all wanted to know my birth name. but i assured them this was my birth name, my birth as an artist. i made sure to mention my great teacher KATHERINE HEIGL to the press, but they would only ask if she regretted the choices she made, and they would ask this in a mocking tone. this enraged me. every time she was mentioned they would mock her and call her a has been, they would say “those who can’t do, teach.” the press was ruthless. even my publicist and agent suggested i change my name, they said it wasn’t a good look to be associated with a has been that no one cares about.
the first time i heard someone refer to KATHERINE as “a has been that no one cares about” i stayed up all night thinking about it. she wasn’t a has been, she’s a legend. and i cared about her. i love her with all my heart. i began to realize that hollywood and the world builds us up and then they tear us down. they turn on us, they paint us in a negative light, they hate us. i now know, everything KATHERINE taught me at conservatory was not to teach me acting, but to prepare me for the brutality of hollywood. EMOTIONAL CONDITIONING for the rejection, OBSERVING the reaction to us, and finding a way to still MESMERIZE the audience . she was putting me through the ruthless course that she knew hollywood would make me go through, just as they did to her…
Katherine once said “at the end of your training, you’re heartbeat will be in synch with mine”
it’s 8:53pm and i am using the bathroom backstage at jimmy fallon’s, there is a wrigley’s chewing gum wrapper in the toilet bowl and some recent urine. i pee. hitting the gum wrapper full force. i’m riddled with anxiety, my heart beating a million times a second, but i know that somewhere out there, KATHERINE’S heart is in synch with mine.
LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, PLEASE WELCOME THE STAR OF SUMMER’S BIGGEST MOVIE AND RECENT ACADEMY AWARD WINNER HEIGL STUDENT #1!