As any regular STA reader knows, I’m a big Conan O’Brien fan. Even though I wish he would still go back and write episodes for “The Simpsons,” I’ve been totally grossed out by the way Jay Leno and NBC have treated Conan during his stint on “The Tonight Show.” One of the upsides of the whole late night war, though, is all the awesome television coming out of it. Conan has not pulled any punches, making fun of NBC and Leno as much as he can before leaving the network. This clip, though, was one of the best yet: a crossover with fellow NBC star Jack McBrayer in character as 30 Rock’s Kenneth the Page. And what was Kenneth doing at the Tonight Show? Giving a studio tour, of course.
Tag Archive for 'Fictional Assistants'
Elisabeth Moss may be a brilliant actress, but it seems like her success as Mad Men’s secretary-cum-copywriter Peggy Olson could be backfiring for her. Since the show has started, she’s been part of two other high profile projects - and she played an assistant in both of them. First, she costarred with Raul Esparza and Jeremy Piven in a Broadway production of David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow, which concluded with Piven’s hilarious fake “mercury poisoning” incident. Now, she’s in the new Sarah Jessica Parker/Hugh Grant vehicle Did You Hear About the Morgans?, where the two actors play a couple who accidentally witness a murder and are placed in the Witness Protection Program. Elisabeth plays SJP’s character’s assistant. First Jennifer Hudson and now this - how does Sarah Jessica Parker keep getting such high-caliber actors to want to play her second banana?
Anyway, Elisabeth is pretty awesome playing non-assistants too. I loved her as Zoey Bartlet on The West Wing (minus that whole terrible storyline with the gross French boyfriend and the kidnapping), and recently she did this great Funny Or Die video with now-husband Fred Armisen:
Receptionist Pam Beesly of “The Office” was recently crowned “Employee of the Year” by Us Weekly. Well, more specifically, it was Pam’s portrayer, Jenna Fischer. She was one the honorees on Us’ “Hot Hollywood” list, along with American Idol Kris Allen (”Victor of the Year”), The Soup’s Joel McHale (”Comic of the Year”), and Leona Lewis (”Chanteuse of the Year”).
I love Pam, and Jenna Fischer seems pretty awesome too.
That said, does Us Weekly know there is a difference between actors and the characters they play on TV?
Sometimes life really does imitate art…well, not that “Entourage” is art, but you get the idea. Just as his character Lloyd is mocked on the show by being called “The Gaysian,” his portrayer Rex Lee also gets shit from crew members while on set. Lee admitted to TMZ that he’s sometimes a target of jokes about his race and sexuality at work, and that it bothers him.
After the story broke, “Entourage” creator Rob Ellin responded that he was “horrified” to hear of Lee’s on-set harassment. He said that when the show resumes filming he’ll be giving everyone a lecture (sensitivity training class, perhaps?) and insisted that “[Harassment] is not something condoned or acceptable.”
I’m glad to hear that Ellin is laying down the law (even going so far as to say he’ll fire people who make homophobic comments), but did it really have to take this long? How many years has Lee been on the show? Is this a recent problem or something he’s just speaking out about now? Either way, I’m glad that Ellin seems to want to do the right thing.
Remember when Conan hired a zombie to be his personal assistant on The Tonight Show? Well, he’s keeping the bit going - and mocking Twilight in the process, which is always fun. Enter the brooding vampire, the hot werewolf, and … the sexy mummy?
Now that Conan O’Brien has moved to LA, he needs to hire some new employees. And why not start with assistants? And, because this is Conan, he always does his part to stay connected to current trends:
This weekend, the New York Times did its weekly “A Night Out With…” feature about Rex Lee, best known as Lloyd the long-suffering assistant on Entourage. The Times followed Lee and several friends as they went to the hugely popular restaurant Koi in Los Angeles. Some choice selections:
Seated at the head of a table decorated with an orchid and a bottle of low-sodium soy sauce, Mr. Lee played host to six friends, most of whom he worked with when he was an assistant to a commercial casting director. After dinner, everyone would walk to Mr. Lee’s nearby condominium to watch the latest prerecorded episode of “Project Runway.”
After four years of playing Lloyd on “Entourage,” the frazzled, gay Chinese-American assistant who suffers the homophobic and racist insults spit out by his manic boss, Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven), you might think Mr. Lee would be tired of melodrama. But that’s exactly what draws him to “Project Runway.”
What a cutie. Team Lloyd!
Last night I went to see the new Alexis Bledel movie Post Grad with a friend. The movie stars the former Gilmore Girl as Ryden, an overachiever who has planned out her entire life already. So far, she’s checked high school and college off her list of achievements, and the next item is landing an assistant job at “the most prestigious publishing company in Los Angeles” (I smothered a couple of laughs at that one). When the job goes to her college rival instead, Ryden has to deal with what happens when your big plans don’t work out the way you wanted.
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Robert Rave’s “novel” Spin isn’t even on sale until tomorrow, but there are already talks of turning it into a feature film. The book, which Rave swears isn’t based on experiences working for his former boss Lizzie Grubman, seems to be on its way to becoming The Devil Wears Prada, 2.0. Unlike Prada, though, the book has a male protagonist, Taylor. He’s a perfect assistant lit cliche - young, wide-eyed, Midwestern, and with aspirations to make it big in New York City. Who could play the role? Some sources claim that High School Musical star Zac Efron is up for the part. This could be a smart move for the teen idol - after all, Prada helped its assistant portrayer Anne Hathaway become a star. It could also help him shed his squeaky clean image - Spin contains plenty of sex, drugs, and blackmail.
The thing I really care about, though, is who will play nightmare PR boss “Jennie.” Jennie is described in the book as being overtanned, coked-up, entitled, and abusive. Perhaps Maya Rudolph as Donatella Versace? Heather Locklear in Amanda Woodward mode? Or maybe this could be the perfect comeback role for Tara Reid…
It’s certainly an odd movie to claim taught me something about the workplace, but Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, the great ’90s movie starring Christina Applegate when she was still best known for being Kelly Bundy, actually gave me a really useful piece of work advice. When Applegate’s character, Sue Ellen, fakes a resume and gets a job as an assistant at a fashion company, her boss, Rose, teaches her an incredibly useful phrase: I’m right on top of that, Rose. Sue Ellen learns to use that phrase anytime it needs to look like she’s working on something or a higher-up wants to know how a project is going. Sue Ellen may not even know what the hell they’re asking about, but she sure as hell will claim to be “on top of it.”
While the movie is completely unrealistic, that notion of saying you’re doing something when you don’t have any plans to do so is a pretty common office phenomenon. At my first assistant job, I used “I’m right on top of that, [Evil Boss' Name],” all the time. My boss, who was in his 70s and had no idea that I was quoting a movie to him, would always seem satisfied with my answer.
This line is also incredibly useful with your parents, your neat freak roommate, your professor, or anyone else who is trying to make you behave like an adult when you don’t want to. Are you done with that term paper? I’m right on top of that, Professor Rose. Are you planning to come home for Christmas? I’m right on top of that, Mama Rose. See? It really is perfect. Thanks for that, Christina Applegate.