Laura Ann Tull

I WANT EVERYONE TO UNDERSTAND THIS- I DO NOT WANT TO SURVIVE IF I HAVE TO DO ANYTHING WITH THE LEGAL PROFESSION. PERIOD. I would have gladly kept my breasts and died of the CANCER if I could not spend the rest of my life fighting to work in the industry, act, or make film. I HAVE NO DESIRE at all to work in any other field or area. NONE.

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Well part of it.  There are details I did not include because I had to make this one page.  I have been working on a script but then it was fiction.  A girl acting and beating cancer.  My dream of what I wanted for my life.  Make fun of me for thinking I am an actress.  Call me crazy for just wanting to do what I loved.  I moved to Los Angeles to get away from the east and marriage and kids and PTAs and I wanted to find people who loved to be expressive. Someone keeps telling me I need to just keep creating, but I can’t- not when I have been told I can not be on sets anymore.  I feel as though I am now a disgusting human being that should have died in 2005.  there are no knights to save me.  There are no people to give me hope.  I was fighting to take care of me.  I just found out they want to interview me for a program to become an editor- but I feel as though it is false hope.  Plus I can not lie- I love acting.  Part of me will always want to do that and part of me feels like this world wants me now to teach the next generation or get out of the way.  If who ever yanked me off sets in 2008 though Had left me alone_ would be interning now and editing and acting in shorts on the weekends and having a life.  I may not have belonged to a church or had a cubicle in an office assigned to me but despite my parents view that I was living like an animal- how do they know when they have not been in my world since I was 18.  I have for now a roof over my head.  

MY STORY:

I have been working on a script fictionalizing what happened to me when I had cancer.  Well for school I have to tell a story for my story class and one that is REAL.  I have decided to write the real story, or at least the start of it.  this is a one page break down of my life from June of 2005 until December 2005.

“In the Moment” - The Real Deal- By Laura Ann Tull

In the summer of 2005 I was working full time as a background artist on sets.   My first set was “the Practice” in 2003.  Finally in January of 2005 I was SAG eligible.  I had some debts I needed to figure out how to pay.  I needed to find a way that would allow me to be a part of the film making process and keep the bill collectors happy.  So I started thinking about how  everything was moving to the internet in the industry.  I found a bunch of courses that looked promising on-line at SMC.  I signed up for a web class and thought- I found my future.  That summer though things would change.  I found out I had breast cancer.

I was scared.  I was alone.  My parents were non-emotionally devoid of any form of ability to connect or relate to me on any level.  My disease would get compared to someone’s liver transplant down the street or ignored all together.  I would and did at one point start to get harassing phone calls about my finances and my life style and me.  Despite the cancer I still took that first internet class.  Between doctors’ appointments to figure out what I needed to do to save my life, it gave me something to keep my mind busy while working on sets and hope I would be able to take care of me and act.

I went to 3 different doctors.  One I rejected for wanting to give me balloons for boobs.  One I rejected for telling me how they would cut me open and told me how he was more concerned for getting me on the table as soon as possible to save my life, not how I would look.  A medic from the set of 24 gave me the number of a plastic surgeon he knew and we talked about my options on the phone.  I never went with him though.  Instead I found a doctor through Cedar Sinai.  She was young and reminded me of a Barbie Doll, or a 1970s blonde short version of Wonder Woman.  She was spunky and smart, though she reacted strange to a shirt I was wearing.  It read “I’m In the Band.”  I bought it at Macy’s for $5.  I hung out with musicians sometimes.   It turns out my doctor operated on the famous band groupie “Des Barres” who wrote the book “I’m in the Band.”  God’s way of saying I had the right doctor?  She later operated on Cheryl Crowe and can be seen on the show “the Doctors” sometimes as a guest speaker. 

I had my mastectomy in September of 2005 and the surgery went well.  My plastic surgeon was the fan of the show “Carnivale” and saw me in it, or so she told me.  I took about two weeks off for the surgery but as soon as I could I was back on sets.  Every two weeks I had to go in for injections for the next 4 months.  (I spent those days at “The Late Show with Craig Ferguson.”)  That summer I had a crush on a guy and never told him I was sick, but then I had also just broken up with a guy I had known for a year and dated for a few months.  I had more important things to worry about- debts to pay, work on sets to do, and somehow I wanted to end up not a star but an actor in a town where you either are a celebrity or you are not- well to some.  Being a working actor just did not seem like an option or acceptable.  I made it through the final set of injections and then I had my reconstruction surgery the Tuesday before thanksgiving.  I remember I worked the movie “Bobby” and these mean girls kept commenting if I was not there.  The crew the last day would come up to me and say- “we want you back but we know you have something more important to do.”  Can I tell you I love Emilio Estevez?  His production office let me fax documents to the hospital so I could have that final surgery and I told casting NOT to fire those mean girls.  I was better than that.  I had my surgery, and within a week I was back on sets.  Had some physical therapy could not lift anything heavy for a few weeks, but I made it.

I NEVER WANT TO SEE BLAKE SHIELDS OR THE ACTORS FROM GREY’s Anatomy again.  I told him I wanted Jeremy Gilbreathe to stop abusing me and I got put on a list.  We live in a world not where women are at fault for abuse.  And my life ended the day I turned 35.  I am in two movies and I got into my first from my first audition.  If you teach that there are people who spread hate and cause conflict then you create conflict. If you teach that being good to others and accepting others as they are, you build bridges to last for ever.  

Went to the premiere of “the employer.”  good little indie.  Great script.  ran into a Brit actor acquaintance- just that- though good conversation.  He likes the Beetles and I love Bowie.  I hope he gets his audition today though.  Malcolm McDowell was funny. “Acting is a noble profession in the UK,” says McDowell.  I loved that.  It is a career with a UNION but treated like a farce in the USA.  Seriously, I was not relying on my parents from 2003 to 2008 but paying my rent by working on sets.  I will not make money unless being on sets is a PART OF MY LIFE. I am not going to go off, have some kids, get a real job, and then what when I am 55 go back to try to act.  If that is my future, living for the debt for a degree that to me represents evil, greed, corruption, and in law school my fellow students had all kinds of stories of revenge and I HAD NONE.  I will not associate with people who do not LOVE acting. My plan, not that anyone cares in the USA, I mean I am a girl and have no rights in the USA anymore because I am of an age where I need to be making babies or the USA has no use for me on sets period.  My plan was to start my own business of some kind- teaching photo shop privately or designing things and working toward working on POST.  Three years ago, I lost my rights to be on sets- WHY?  Where in the Constitution does it say that someone with an education MUST USE IT.  How many lawyers actually end up practicing?  SERIOUSLY- I worked for COURT TV in law school and the law firms i worked with all figured out I hated it.  I worked for an AMERICAN INDIAN Law firm for 6 months, and for a COMMUNICATION law firm.  AND THERE IS NO WAY WHEN I WAS SEXUALLY ASSAULTED AND THAT MAN GETS TO STILL WORK ON SETS BECAUSE HE HAS A CUTE GIRLFRIEND that I will have a child unless I CAN ALSO WORK SETS.  I WANT REVENGE NOW- but in the form of JUSTICE- Restitution for my rights being violated and for slander and lies.  I DID NOTHING WRONG and I WORKED MY TUSH OFF TO HAVE A GOOD REP on sets.  I WILL NOT GO OFF AND BE A LAWYER IF I CAN NOT SUE THE UNIONS AND ABC FOR VIOLATING MY RIGHTS.  My soul mate is on a set somewhere acting and I will not have a man in my life unless he or she is my other half.  HOW DARE LAWYERS try to make me HAVE THEIR PROFESSION when I DO NOT WANT IT. I WAS A PROFESSIONAL ON SETS FOR YEARS AND THAT WAS MY CAREER. More than that- it was why I chose life when I had cancer.  And I do not want life without being on sets and acting.