Lisa Ann Walter is an actress, comic, and television creator/executive producer including Oxygen network’s Dance Your Ass Off. Best known for her work in movies like The Parent Trap, Shall We Dance, Bruce Almighty, and Killers, she is also a well-known name on the stand-up comedy circuit. She lives in Los Angeles with her four children—one foot planted on the red carpet, the other firmly at Costco. (via HERE)
What do you get when you drop a longtime self-loather into the glitz and glamour of Hollywood? This hysterical, and brutally honest, look at the impossible standard of perfection for which so many of us strive. Walter shares her life-long struggle with self-esteem—which, in her case, includes plenty of painful auditions, failed relationships, and awkward celebrity encounters, plus lots of impossible diets, questionable injectables, and dubious cosmetic procedures. Along the way, the “celebrity adjacent” Walter also tells her sometimes warm, often cringe-worthy, and always funny Hollywood stories (including the reason she’d kill for Richard Gere).
Always the “chubby girl,” Walter never imagined she could be a Hollywood star. And yet there she is, appearing alongside the likes of Jennifer Aniston and Katherine Heigl. Still, she’s just one of the girls at heart, and The Best Thing About My Ass Is That It’s Behind Me always rings achingly true—whether Walter’s describing her first Weight Watchers meeting at the age of twelve, divorce, motherhood, or the beauty trends she still can’t pass up. But this isn’t a tragic tale of defeat. It’s the fierce and fearless story of how one woman faced her challenges and insecurities, took on the most competitive business around, and realized that she—like women everywhere—deserved to feel beautiful.
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Now get ready for some ENTERTAINING answers...
Where are you from?
Bellefonte, Pa (til 6 mos)
Palmer Park, Md (home of Sugar Ray Leonard - til 18 mos)
Silver Spring, Md. (til College with the exception of see below:)
2 years in Heidelberg, Germany (and a tour of Europe) for 1rst/2nd grade
D.C. - college and 2 years after
Cape Cod - 1 year
New York (well, really Jersey, but I worked in NY!) for 8 years
And L.A. since 1995.
Tell us your latest news?
I got funded to make pilots for 3 reality tv shows. Today. (coincidence that they all came in today! - day of the interview)
When and why did you begin writing?
I've written my thoughts and sort of stream of consciousness journal stuff as therapy for insomnia and to help with my severe anxiety attacks when I was 16. I'm pretty confident about writing emotional truth, but tarting it up inside of funny, relatable stories. It's what makes me who I am - as a comic, an actress and now, as a writer.
What inspired you to write your first book?
There was a lot I wanted to say about the time we waste self-hating - and my friends and family can only listen to my rants so many times....
Is this your first book?
Yes.
Do you have a specific writing style?
I write like I talk - the book feels like a conversation in my kitchen. I was very specific in my punctuation and using dashes, ....'s etc - to make it feel like my comedy rhythm. When I read something funny, it's that much funnier if I can get the rhythm - the voice, if you will - of the writer. So that's how I like to express. I think we (and by we I mean me and a veeeerrrry patient and gifted genius of an editor, Nancy Hancock, at HC) made it work that way.
How did you come up with the title?
See above! It was Nancy's suggestion from a line that I like to use and is in the book - the rest of the title is, The Best Thing About My Ass Is That It's Behind Me...and I don't have to look at it all the time. I originally wanted either "I Hate Me - My Adventures In Self-Loathing!" or "Self-Loathing is For Losers!" Because they made me laugh. But better brains triumphed over my madness and assured me that negative titles don't sell. I actually get tons and tons of compliments about the book title and I'm very glad she won.
Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
Hating yourself is an ridiculous, epic waste of time and energy. That's what exes are for.
What books have most influenced your life most?
I don't know about "influence"...! umm...would it be overshare to say "9 1/2 Weeks"? What can I say, I read a lot of smut, bodice rippers and "The Total Woman" that I found in my Mom's closet when I was 15. I also remember reading a book called "Giants Come In Different Sizes" - a third grade level book - when I was in Kindergarten to the first grade class. My Mom was a teacher and taught me to read when I was 3, so while the other 5 year olds were learning their letters, the teacher was smart enough to let me read to the older class - or I would have been running my mouth and bothering everybody.
I was an extremely prolific reader, couldn't hear when people would talk to me if I had my nose in a book. I would regularly stay up all night reading - and would bring books I just couldn't put down to class and stick them in my text-books to hide them from the teacher. I remember reading Gone With The Wind in Economics in High School and getting totally bagged by the teacher. Luckily for me, she was a fan and I think she was pretty onto the fact that I wasn't gonna make it as an accountant or Financial Planner. So she let me keep on reading!
What book are you reading now?
I have three that are on deck - and now I want to read Rob Lowe's book (and not just to look at the cover). I am a Diana Gabaldon Outlander series freak. So I have the latest "An Echo In The Bone" saved up for a beach weekend that hasn't happened since it came out - as I noted above, once I start - I can't stop. So I don't want to pick it up and get into it until I have 3 days of no kids and no work. Book's been out a year and a half already. I don't know when that 3 days is gonna happen, but I'm prepared.
I also have Hellraisers (bio on 4 drunk Brit actors i.e. Peter O'Toole, Richard Burton but it starts out boring, so I dunno). I love biographies.
And a book that my editor sent me that she did at HC about a guy who got amnesia and forgot his wife and kids and yet that stayed together and he never remembered his life before - but they started a "new" life together. Cute, huh?
What are your current projects?
I have several reality projects in various stages of production, a movie script that I co-wrote and am producing and starring in with my co-star from The Parent Trap, Elaine Hendrix. I have lots of other scripted and unscripted television projects that I'm out with and a lot of interest in a comedy/talk show with my real-life girlfriends as well as a half hour comedy. I'm currently filling a slot at KFI 640 am here in L.A. (but available on-line nationally!) from 4-7 p.m. Saturdays - and I'm having a ton of fun doing that! Just gabbing and taking callers for 3 hours straight. It's fantastic.
Name one entity that you feel supported you outside of family members.
Michael Broussard - book agent extraordinaire. He's the best cheerleader, team leader and full on crazy bastard I've ever met in this full of shit biz. I love him.
Jim Kellem, my lit agent. He believes in every crazy scheme I've got. a really great guy.
Do you see writing as a career?
Certainly one of them - but everything I do involves writing in one form or another. Stand-up is all writing - and performing that writing - it's the most personal of performance formats. TV - both scripted and unscripted, it's all story.
If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your book?
Just increase the advance!
Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
Finding blocks of time where everyone leaves me the hell alone!
Who is your favorite author and what is it that really strikes you about their work?
Margaret George - she's brilliant. It's historically accurate, epic soap opera. I love nothing better than falling through the worm hole of her writing and experiencing different times and places. Genius.
Who designed the covers?
It was a group effort - Michelle Wetherbee at Harper Collins, my editor Nancy Hancock, Michael Broussard - me...my fab hair/make-up/wardrobe guru Rockin' Raul - he's a one man entourage. But the cover art team at HC, led by Michelle are the heroes here. And I looove the cover! (even if I judge my tummy...cause it's really actually very flat - especially for having four kids! see I can't help the self-snark!)
What was the hardest part of writing your book?
The chapter where I detailed my relationship with my twins' Dad. Most of it was cut. It was too hard to read and not as fun and frolic as the tone of the rest of the book. But writing it was cathartic and that's my writing background as I explained at the top of this!
Did you learn anything from writing your book and what was it?
That I'm really quite a good writer. The publishers and book companies were extremely impressed and that was such a huge compliment to me. I felt embraced, and it had to do with what I carry in my heart, my head - in Hollywood it's so easy to get caught up in how people judge you or pigeon-hole you. I am very vocal to my friends about not letting anyone else determine their creativity. Do your own thing, I tell my girlfriends in this biz. Don't sit around waiting for other people to make opportunity for you. YOU do it. No one is going to offer women over 40 anything - you have to make your own fabulous.
....not that I'm over 40 or anthing..... er....
Do you have any advice for other writers?
Tell good stories. In an interesting way. It's a very popular combination
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Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?
Please let me know which pieces of my advice you use - FB me - I write back! And I know they'll use some of the advice in this book - there are at least 6 secrets I give the readers that will pay for this book many times over the first time you use them. So holla at your girl!
Lisa Ann Walter
MissLisaAnnWalter@yahoo.com
LisaAnnWalter.com
MissLisaAnnWalter@yahoo.com
LisaAnnWalter.com
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Thank you to Lisa Ann Walter for doing an interview with us... and for donating a book for a GIVEAWAY...
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