"THE SHERRY"
My pal Sherry despises Matthew Fox.
It's not HATE hate, where she might "accidentally" run over him with her car if given the opportunity. It's more like she finds him profoundly offensive. You see, Sherry believes in a bottom line of human behavior. Anything below this line is Rude, and anyone who knows better but still hangs out below that line is a Jackass. Since most people you meet instinctively try not to be a Jackass, pretty much anyone at any given time can meet you halfway even if it's no more than a "Hey" when you catch their eye as you pass by them on the street. This is the key to Sherry's super powers: she gives everyone the benefit of the doubt and a minimum level of respect before she ever says a word.
[Well, that and the fact that she's totally hot.]
She and I have discussed this at length, and although we do agree that "Feigning Ignorance and Interest" is the best way to get a man talking, we disagree on the level of skill it takes to schmooze like she can. She says that all you have to do is ask, and I say, no, all you have to do is ask the right person the right way at the right time. There's a big difference. What she does is put the whammy on people with her fantastic PR skills. It's so amazing to watch in person, I started calling it "The Sherry."
For instance, during our day shooting Christian's funeral, Sherry chatted up the crew, who are mostly male and mostly home-grown [born and raised in Hawai'i], about what it's like to work on LOST full-time. They liked her so much, they gave her a crew T-shirt [unavailable to the public, mind you] AND a copy of the call sheet for the NEXT DAY [a REALLY BIG Deal]. She got a crew member to snap a polaroid of me and Shawn on set, which was the only picture of any extra on set that day because our cameras were not allowed. [In fact, if anyone was seen with a camera or shooting pictures with their cell phones they were immediately tossed out on their ass.]
And she did all this without actually asking for anything because that's not why Sherry does what she does. She just likes meeting new people. Period. And they like meeting her because she's friendly, interesting, intelligent and fun, [And totally hot. Let's not forget.] and they give her stuff just to make her smile [because she has a really great smile].
What makes it even worse is that she's a genuinely nice human being. More than once, she's gone out of her way to help me out of a jam, and she's the first one to defend the cashier at the grocery store if the customer in front of her is acting like a total jerk. For minimum-wage-earning retail alumni (like me), Sherry is a dream come true in a sea of jerkies!
So it really cracks me up that she can't stand Matthew Fox.
THE BIG SCENE
When it was time for us to file into the church, Sherry and I were right close to Tiffany (where we belonged), and because of this, we ended up sitting front and center during "Jack's" eulogy. This was most excellent, of course, because we were two rows behind the remaining Oceanic Sixers: "Hurley," "Sayid," "Kate" and "Aaron," along with "Nadia," "Sayid's" tragic love interest.
Luckily, we stayed front and center. I say that because after we were staggered [I am two rows behind Kate, but it looks like I'm further back], the director looked us over through the camera, he had Lewis (semi-uber PA) shift us around, swapping this person for that one, until we looked "real" enough for television. We felt rotten for this one girl sitting behind us. She was moved twice and then, at the last minute, bumped for some other woman to sit there.
[Funny but true: When this new woman arrived, Sherry turned to her and said, "Who are you supposed to be, Claire's mom?" She shrugged as we laughed and went about the business of looking "mournful." Turns out, it WAS Claire's mom!]
Front and center was not ALL laughs. We were also uncomfortably close to the huge lighting lamps. There's no AC at St. Patrick's [see the fans on the walls?], and it got hot. Fast. Lewis actually turned on all the fans between takes to keep us from dying.
And turns out sitting "behind" "Kat
e" wasn't all that fun either [my worst, flipping NIGHTMARE].As close as we were, we got a bird's eye view of how things work on set. The stand-in was standing in, measurements were taken, and lighting installed [a lighting fire avoided -- thank God]. Our faces were blotted, and tissues were distributed to those extras who were to dab their eyes during the speech. In all the doings, no one noticed that Matthew Fox had taken his stand-in's place at the podium.
I didn't notice until Sherry reached way over [we were very spread out on the pews] and poked me, saying, "There's your boy." By then, the principle cast had arrived and taken their seats on the first pew, and they and MF were joking back and forth to each other, especially E. Lilly. AND since MF was elevated on the altar and I was right over E. Lilly's shoulder, whenever MF waved, smiled, mouthed a question or made a face, it made my guts blanch because, even though I KNEW it was a trick of angles and line-of-sight, it LOOKED like he was smiling/winking/talking at/to me.
FLASHBACK OF HUMILIATION
I've only felt that way one other time. When I was 15, I went on a skiing trip with my youth group at church. For our group lesson, we had a ski instructor who was just disturbingly hot, and in 15-year-old fashion, I stood FAR away from him and didn't make eye contact because, like any rational person, I don't want anyone to actually KNOW when I've gone Dork on them.
Well, this guy, sensing my distance and perhaps wanting to "make that poor (probably retarded) girl over there feel included" made a point of standing next to me and demonstrating various ski techniques ON ME in front of EVERYONE ELSE by moving my arms and legs ("Knees together, sweetie").
This sent me into a Dork Spiral of slurred speech and nausea so bad, I had to go back to the lodge after the lesson.
At the time I remember thinking: OMG! Can't this guy see the villiage idiot smile on my face? Is he torturing me on purpose? He has to be torturing me on purpose -- f****r!
[Turns out that church thing was a phase.]
At the time I also remember thinking: Okay, just hold it together until this nightmare ends, but whatever you do, don't be the dork who thinks the hot guy's actually interested in you just because he's being nice, winking, flirting and putting his hands all over you. That'll just make you look stupider than you already look, and we are trying to avoid puking in public this week.
GLANCE-A-THON
There I sat, unprepared and right in the middle of a painful flashback so very much trying not to look at MF while he was goofing with his pals. It was not easy, either, because I was very interested to watch the stars interact with each other, and, let's be honest, MF is lovely to look at -- even more so in person -- and NOT looking at him when he was off camera would be stupid. However, being in his line of sight got worse and worse when they started shooting because he was unable to talk to the guys on the bench, and he started looking around a lot more between takes.
I all could think was: No matter what and whatever it takes, don't be the pogue who thinks Matthew Fox is looking at you.
So I did the only thing I could think of. I took off my glasses. Genius, right? That way, I wouldn't really be able to see where he was looking, but I could still see the only other thing worth staring at: the windows in the church. Plus, I was pretty sure that my glasses would make The Jacket [and matching hair] look worse. I also thought that the lighting might spark up my glasses on camera, and I was taking a break from being yelled at by PA's ["Show some RESPECT for the LIGHTING!"].
Only one problem. My eyesight, when I concentrate really hard, isn't that bad. It wasn't too long before I was watching Matthew Fox again, except THIS time, my face was all screwed up and squinty.
However, thinking about avoiding a Dork moment got me settled down, and I was ready the next time it looked like he was looking at me. When it happened, I quickly glanced away and squinted at the windows.
But when I looked back, I noticed that the cameras were set up in front of the principle cast! He couldn't see them from where he was! And when I looked back at him, he was shrugging with his eyebrows high, like "Okaaaay, nevermind. . ."
I looked at Sherry, who later said she'd never before seen anything more pathetic than my face looked at that moment. And why shouldn't it? I had taken Dork to a whole, as-yet-undiscovered low.
JACKASS LEVEL: 7th Ring of Dork Hell
I was the pogue who blew off Matthew Fox when he was actually looking at her.
****!
Next Up: Don't be the Pogue, Part 2
[Oh yeah. It gets worse!]
