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I also saw God Said, Ha! —Julia Sweeney is remarkably adept at letting an audience release their anguish and laugh with her. Watching their shows, I was in awe of their ability to be erudite and eloquent while remaining relatable.
    I ached to be onstage, in a film, on TV, anything. I was grateful to now be making a good living doing voice-overs on commercials for Bud Light, Kraft, and Home Depot. But that’s not what I’d come to Los Angeles to do.
    Like most actors trying to get a job, I’d given my on-camera agent a series of expensive headshots. But I had only gotten about four auditions a year. To put it in perspective, Ian and our friends were auditioning four times a week. So I asked for a meeting with my on-camera agent. I planned to suggest I meet with casting directors, so they could put a face to the headshot they’d been receiving but not booking for appointments.
    I sat across from my agent and she bluntly told me she’d been sending the latest round of one hundred headshots “out like crazy for a year,” but no one wanted to see me because, in her opinion, I didn’t “look like anyone else in the city.” I was surprised by that. I was 130 pounds, a size six, and my hair was long and curly. I thought I looked about average. Or at least normal. I mean, I was married but I did get hit on, so I didn’t think I was delusional in thinking I was not a model for a building gargoyle. But I noticed my agent regarding me as if I was indeed a creature attached to the corner of her desk. This was Los Angeles, after all—the land of size zero actresses with imaginatively enhanced breasts, tiny noses, and butter-colored hair. Looking me over, my agent brusquely announced she now realized the problem. She said I was “not pretty enough to be a leading lady and not fat enough to be a character actress.”
    That hung in the air for a sec. I paused just in case she wanted to correct anything. Nope.
    She then asked, “What are you? Latina?” I said, “No, I’m Greek,” and she said, “Well, that’s the problem. We’re going to change the spelling of the last part of your last name from ‘os’ to ‘ez’ and send you out as a Hispanic.”
    I felt the blood leave my face. Change my name and sit in a casting waiting room with real Hispanic actresses, many of whom I knew? I said I didn’t think I should do that.
    She said, “Well, there are no Greek parts, so I can’t get you work.”
    And she dropped me.
    Dolefully agentless, I shuffled into her storage room to pick up my remaining two or ten headshots. There were over ninety of them there.
    It looked like she hadn’t been sending them out at all. She was either too lazy or didn’t know how to market me, so chose instead to belittle me and my physicality. I yawn when people say it’s a man’s world and women have it so tough. We don’t need the male species to oppress our ascent; we do a fine job of it ourselves.
    I drove home doing that crazy snicker-snort when you don’t realize people are watching from the next car. I was furious, amused, bemused, empowered, and somehow relieved. I decided to not put myself into anyone’s hands again. I had given this woman several years of my life and she had wasted them and declared me not castable because I was Greek? I decided to turn my problem into the solution: if there weren’t Greek roles, I would write some. I had just spent many years at Second City writing my own material. I could write myself a role.
    I sat at the kitchen table and listed every family story I’d been telling at parties for years. When I was watching Ian meet my family, I saw them through unsullied eyes. I saw all the joy, all the quirks, all the devotion. When Ian was getting baptized so we could get married in the Greek church, I was truly touched by how gallant it was. And a minute later, the mercenary side of me thought, Hmm, this could be a movie . So after I made a list of stories about my family, I decided to shove them all