Newspaper Article

Revenge of the desk slaves; Hiding behind a website, one of Hollywood's lowliest creatures creates an instant -- and all too hot -- hit

Confalone, Nick

2007

Overview

The first thing I did that morning was run to Starbucks and get my boss' drink of choice, a double tall latte with caramel sauce, not caramel syrup because \"it tastes like trans fats.\" I was a Hollywood assistant, one of hundreds of young, ambitious college graduates in L.A. getting coffee that morning. It was always better to get the coffee before we got busy rolling calls. (Rolling calls, for the uninitiated, is when an assistant acts as a telephone operator. The boss calls from out of the office. Then, with the boss still on the line, the assistant calls someone else and links them together.) LUNCH IS AT 1 o'clock, every day, no exceptions. Our bosses disappeared to Ammo, Art's Deli, Ivy -- wherever we told them to go. Assistants usually can't leave their desks, so I ate a sandwich and sent instant messages to a co-conspirator. Together, we sketched out the website. Unlike the Hollywood Reporter's list, we'd judge Hollywood assistants based only on their looks. We decided to include male assistants, like ourselves, because we didn't want anyone to accuse us of being sexist. (I'm now aware that intentionally \"including men so we don't seem sexist\" definitely makes an already sexist idea even more sexist.) To quell the fury, I signed every apologetic e-mail from [Leo] with a suave invitation to drinks. Female assistants were usually happy to meet. Girls liked Leo Roquentin more than they liked me. I briefly toyed with the idea of following through with drinks, incognito with a French accent and optional monocle. But I shelved the idea when I couldn't even grow a convincing mustache. In fact, I looked like I hadn't slept for days. Leo was an Internet celebrity, and I was a mess.

• Publisher: Los Angeles Times Communications LLC
• Subject: Gossip / Motion picture industry / Popularity / Web sites / Work environment