Why Didn't the Dream Work?

Or, My Misadventures in Hollywood, 20 Years Later...

As an American military brat in an English school, I was frequently bullied for wearing my Christian faith on my sleeve. To cope, I indulged in dreams of my future. As an aspiring filmmaker, I dreamed about getting to Hollywood by hook or by crook, and then somehow I could make movies just like my idols Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. And after huge success, I could then turn around and tip my hat to Jesus.

That was the dream, at least, and ten years after high school, in September 2004, the dream appeared to be within grasp…

I had to pass through three security stops before I could interview for a job with Steven Spielberg’s former assistant turned new producer. I laughed to myself when I saw the main entrance was through the monolithic gates from Jurassic Park. The security guards eyed my dust-brown, green ‘99 Civic as they double-checked their listings for my name. The waiting room displayed several Oscar statuettes very proudly. I was both intimidated and thrilled.

“Jennifer” took me from the main courtyard back to her offices, punching a few security codes along the way (I’m changing the name of my immediate boss to Jennifer for the purposes of this essay). She briefed me on what my internship would entail (photocopying, running errands and answering phones), and revealed that internship existed because they were making a thriller called RedEye. She gushed about how nice Rachel McAdams was on set. She gossiped about how cool Cillian Murphy was. She handed me the piles of paperwork that had to be filled out. “Well, your resume looks really good! We’re glad to have you!”

Months later–on my 24th birthday as it happened–Steven Spielberg came to the office next to me to discuss budget difficulties with War of the Worlds. Three hours before he entered the building, his core group of assistants scouted the place and planned his menu, his seating arrangement and his every move. They glared at the odd intern sitting alone in the new office. I smiled and waved.

I wondered if I would see Spielberg walk past. Maybe I could accidentally be in the hall when he walked in? Later, sitting at the desk eating my lunch, I heard the ‘meet and eat’ just behind the wall. And sitting there, listening to Spielberg talk, it seemed as if my dream was just a hair’s breadth away – and yet in reality it was further away than ever.

Why, you ask?

Well, first let me explain how had I gotten here.

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I’d left Virginia in August. I’d put everything I owned into my trunk, and it had taken me over a week to drive cross-country. I emptied my bank account to afford the trip. The gravity of this place drew me in. Most film jobs were in LA and you had to be here to get them. Four years of studying film had not prepared me for Hollywood and I knew it, but I was optimistic I could make it work somehow.

I drove to an address of a cousin in Long Beach who said I could temporarily crash on his sofa. The last time I’d seen this cousin was when our grandfather was dying from cancer. We hadn’t kept in touch but after a few phone calls, here I was on his doorstep.

(My cousin only let me know that he’d picked up the sofa off a random curb after I’d slept on it several nights.)

Regardless, here I was… the prototypical ingénu fresh off his bus to LA to follow his dreams, and I’d stumbled into DreamWorks no less!

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Jennifer had said I could read whatever I wanted while waiting for calls and in between tasks. Mostly I’d been reading optioned screenplays from a nearby closet full of them. After reading the umpteenth quirky comedy about assassins, I decided to risk professional suicide. Normally, I did my daily Bible reading at home to avoid any risk. But for 90% of the day the office was completely empty. All of the rest of the staff worked on the RedEye set.

My main role as an unpaid intern was primarily to avoid the bad look of a new production company having completely empty office. Basically, I was a living mannequin. So why not use my isolation? I could quickly and quietly read my Bible at lunch, hidden below the desk while I ate my food. I’d learned at Duke University to move my faith from my sleeve into my pocket.

No one at DreamWorks would ever be the wiser. My timid brand of boldness very much impressed me, and after getting away with it for a couple of days, I decided to bring the Bible actually onto the desk to read it!

Unexpectedly, my boss Jennifer chose that day to pop into the office. She saw my Bible and stopped right in her tracks.She stood speechless for a moment before smiling. She talked about an interview she’d read where Denzel Washington had said the Bible was his favorite book to read. Denzel was really cool, she said. If he liked the Bible, what was so wrong with it? She wondered aloud how people could be so shallow to judge other people’s reading choices. That was so uncool, she said.

Yet, after that day, my internship at DreamWorks was over. Jennifer never said why she ended my internship a month earlier than scheduled and she never contacted me about her promised renewal of the internship for 2005. There was never any discussion of the potential paying job that had been dangled as a carrot at the end of the internship.

Yes, true, my internship would still look great on a resume, as Jennifer had assured me before I left. However, my first burst of heedless optimism was gone. I realized suddenly I was broke and sleeping on a sofa. I had mortgaged everything on taking this one shot and I’d missed my shot. My hands were empty except for the Bible still in them.

For a months, I was frustrated with God. Why did Jennifer have to walk in on me right then? Why did God let me get so close only to fail on the doorstep of my dreams?

It was only years later that I realized that God used this experience to shatter my quiet pride and reorganize my priorities. Yes, I really believed I could have my cake and eat it too. I could be wildly successful in my line of work and could tack on Jesus too. I could have people love me, and I could be holy and disciple after Jesus.

True, I’d often read where Jesus said you cannot serve two masters, but I sort of hoped he hadn’t meant it. I refused to choose. But I knew if I was savvy enough, and worked hard enough, I could make it work. I could have it all. I could make the one master think I was serving them, while secretly serving Jesus on the sly.

But as it happened, my act of timid boldness made the choice for me and God redirected my career path from filmmaking toward writing novels and short stories.

But even in this new world of publishing, I have often still found myself slipping into the attempt to serve two masters.

But remembering back to how the dream didn’t work at DreamWorks is always a good corrective. I still need to put Jesus first, and just let everything else fall where it may.