I Was a Sex and the City Stand-In. It Made Me Quit Hollywood Forever

[TMC]

https://ca.style.yahoo.com/sex-city-...153000301.html

She worked four seasons as Kristin Davis stand-in - she writes

Some crew members cracked unprompted jokes about me having a boob job. (I didn’t.) Worse, some suggested I had given blow jobs to a colleague who was in a position of power. (Again, I didn’t.) After that, I didn’t always want to come to work, but I needed the paycheck. So I brushed off the comments. Until, one day, I couldn’t.

Season 4, episode 2—“The Real Me”—was filmed on a set that resembled a gynecologist’s office for a storyline about Charlotte’s “depressed” vagina. While the actors were in hair and makeup, it was my job requirement to hold the exact position of what the character would later do when the cameras rolled. I did as instructed and laid down on the gynecologist table. The set up was expected to take a long time because of the complicated lighting. The director, writers, and producers left for a meeting.

“I don’t have to put my legs in those. Right?” I asked a crew member, pointing to the stirrups. I was told I needed to for the lighting.

My cheeks burned. I spread my legs, my jeans tight on my thighs. Lights went up around me. Thirty minutes passed. I breathed, relaxed. It was about 4 a.m. on a Friday, and we had worked about 60 hours that week. My eyes began to close. I fell asleep.

I awoke to the sound of masking tape. One of my feet had been taped to the stirrup and a crew member was taping the other, smiling and laughing. I was horrified.

Another crew member took photos of me in this position from the video monitor. A handful jeered at me. I wanted to scream. I wanted to rip my feet out of the tape and jump off the table. Instead, I made funny faces. I wanted to pretend that I wasn’t humiliated, scared. I could feel in my bones this would haunt me forever, especially at annual doctor visits.

As soon as I could, I retreated to a quiet place, my 12-foot-by-12-foot rent-controlled studio apartment on New York’s Upper West Side. I couldn’t afford to quit, and I worried that if I complained I would be fired. So I kept it a secret. I felt the heat below my skin burn. I alternated between chain smoking and puking.

[Editor's Note: HBO responded, “We have always taken seriously our responsibility to create a safe environment for everyone working on our productions, and we are very disappointed to learn of Ms. Kristin’s experience 20 years ago.”]

[biffbronson]

Conditions wee so terrible, yet she remained with the job for 4 seasons. The last time I had a bad employer, I began looking elsewhere -- 4 years would've seemed like a lifetime.

[OH Nuts!]

Originally Posted by biffbronson

Conditions wee so terrible, yet she remained with the job for 4 seasons. The last time I had a bad employer, I began looking elsewhere -- 4 years would've seemed like a lifetime.

From the benefit of a lot of life experience, you are absolutely right.

I suffered in a job for 10 and a half years, but it wasn’t quite as bad as what this gal went through. My manager was a rage-o-holic but did have occasional good moments and most of my co-workers were nice. Finally one day she asked to change a report to numbers I knew were wrong. I told her they weren’t correct, she got an inch away from my face and hissed change them.. I decided that was it and resigned. I ended up getting a job paying $10,000 more with better benefits three months later. Still at this “new” job many years later—everybody’s great at it too.

And what happened to her and her biggest stab-you-in-the-back suck up? Their department got phased out, both lost their jobs, and he hasn’t been able to get a steady job since. His reputation as an untrustworthy back-stabbed followed him practically everywhere.