Shared Darkness

I’m sorry, but this story about Jenna Fischer, and her years-ago encounter with creep-o writer-director Shem Bitterman, needs to be put further out there. Apparently recounted during an interview with Playboy (how’d I miss that?), Fischer talked about her most memorable encounter with a sleazy industry-type.

An excerpt: “I had been living in Los Angeles for about a year and was a member of
a theater company. One night, after a play, I went to a party and ran
into the playwright. He said, ‘What’s your story?’ I said, ‘I’m from St. Louis. I just got here. I want to be an actress.’ He said, ‘I’m writing a film, and I think you’d be great for it. But I
have a question for you — would you ever do a raunchy sex scene in a
movie? Like really raunchy, with nudity?’ I kind of laughed and said,
‘Well, I wouldn’t do anything I wouldn’t be proud to show my parents.’
And he said, ‘A real actress would say yes. A real actress would piss
herself on stage if that’s what it took. Sylvester Stallone did porn, Shelley Winters pissed herself on stage. Every play, every movie I
write has nudity in it. You know why? Because that’s how I know if I’m
working with real actors. You’re not a real actress. You should just go
home. You don’t have what it takes.'” Fischer then went on to say that she would now gladly urinate on Bitterman, which would be a good thing to see.

Tool-bags like Bitterman are sadly about a dollar a half-dozen in Hollywood, and I’m depressed to say that I’ve personally overheard a conversation very similar to the one above at a party. It’s a sad fact — fringe-dwelling guys and self-touting producers pull crap like this as a way to try smoke out the most impressionable and psychologically persuadable aspirant starlets out there, fresh off the bus from the Midwest. It helps them save on buying drinks, I guess.