No. 5: 😴🧚🏼‍🚗

The props guy says you remind him of his daughter. She’s on suicide watch again but he’ll lose this show and, you gather, their health insurance if he takes time off to be with her. His paternal affection twinkles whenever he hands you glasses filled with apple juice for whiskey or makes sure you have car keys when your scene requires fake driving.

It’s your third-ish show and you’re learning This Is the Way Things Are. 12-hour days are 16-average and you typically start work Mondays at 5am. So you wake up at 4 along with transpo, PAs, hair, makeup, catering, and others before the rest arrive at the official crew call of 7. You’ll wrap around 9 or 10pm that first weeknight. To avoid penalty pay if actors don’t get a 12-hour break before their next call time, crew call is pushed back and back until Friday’s is 2pm. You wrap at 6am Saturday morning, spend Sunday a zombie, and wake up Monday at 4 to do it all over again.

You’ll never have a job where you don’t get sick. You, young and childfree and the catered-to star, are one of the lucky ones.

One makeup artist reminds you of the green fairy in “Sleeping Beauty,” all kindness and fairness with soft-handed wisdom. She sees you cry more than your own mother and overhearing her on the phone one day, asking how her daughter’s test went, you’re keenly aware that you receive the daily nurture her daughter should be getting.

Once, you ask hair and makeup a question you don’t yet know is rude: How do you juggle parenthood and your job? The silence aches, choked with missed recitals, family dinners, and needed hugs. They can’t, you realize. You wonder how they manage to throw their kids birthday parties on weekends when you know how tired they must be, arriving before the earliest actor and staying longer than the last to offer hot, steaming face towels and head massages when bobby-pinned updos come down.

Wrap is a formality. Most crew stay long past, cleaning sets, hanging wardrobe, tidying trailers. You’ve nearly fallen asleep at the wheel driving home. One day, you’ll know an actor who does. You won’t know how many crew members do because their names don’t make headlines.

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Alice in Hollywoodland is a memoirette series started on Instagram by Alice Greczyn, written with creative liberties such as changed names and timeline forgetfulness, alternately thought of as Los Angeles & Me: Two Decades in the City of Angels. All rights reserved by Alice Greczyn.

NOTE: Please, please follow @IA_Stories to learn why @IATSE, the crewmembers’ union behind entertainment, is preparing to strike. They’re fighting for Reasonable Rest, Sustainable Benefits, and Living Wages. They’re fighting for humane working conditions. I stand with them. None of your favorite shows or movies would be made without their hard work, and the changes they’re advocating for are long overdue. I’ve held one of the most privileged positions on a set and if my small voice can help their cause in any small way, I want to dedicate this Saturday’s post to them and have signed IATSE’s petition for the AMPTP to give film and television workers a fair deal. 👉🏼 Link in bio to sign yourself!