Career Day. I was standing in line to meet the firefighters — that was the plan. I was going to be a firefighter. Then the alarm sounded, the crew got an emergency call, and the engine pulled away, taking my future with it. Everyone had to go somewhere, and I ended up in a drama class taught by Chip Fields.
I was a class disruptor in those days. Chip had students get up and perform in front of the room, and when they finished, I yawned — loudly. She stopped, looked at me, and asked if I thought I could do better.
She put me in an improvisation with a girl and another guy. I made the whole room crack up. I figured that was the end of it — a good laugh, back to my day.
After lunch, Chip Fields appeared at the door of my classroom. She had come to find me — to offer me a scholarship to study acting with her.
That is how it started.
Chip taught me far more than performing. She taught me the stage itself — the mechanics behind running a play, everything that happens behind the curtain as well as in front of it. And she introduced me to my first agent — the agent who got me Down and Out in Beverly Hills. All of it before the ninth grade.
A fire engine that pulled away.
A loud yawn at exactly the wrong moment — or exactly the right one.
A teacher who answered a disruption with an invitation.
Sometimes a career begins with the future you didn’t get. Mine began the day the firefighters drove off without me.