People I’d Like To Play Me In A Movie About My Life
By Kat George
I’m going to ask you to do something I’ve never outwardly asked of you before (although I’m sure just by virtue of my being here it’s an implied request)—please suspend your disbelief. That is to say: for a moment, let’s imagine that I’m not just Kat George, the schmuck writer, John McClane enthusiast and possible future romance novelist from Brooklyn by way of Australia. Let’s imagine that I’m Kat schumuck-McClane-throbbing-member-Greek-Australian-Brooklynite George but that for some inexplicable reason all this is incredibly interesting, more interesting than keeping up with the Kardashians even, and Quentin Tarantino, or Spielberg-Lucas or Disney decides that the story of my life would murder the box office and so they decide to make a movie. Just in case the cinema world ever really does flip its lid and want to make a movie of my life (I’m looking at you, Woody) I’ve preemptively complied a hypothetical list of people I’d like to play me across a range of genres…
Kat George: The Musical, starring Beyonce Knowles
Beyonce and I have more in common than you might think—we both know all the moves to the “Single Ladies” dance, we’re both blessed with an ample rump and we both love Jay-Z. This cinematic version of my life involves the hit Oscar nominated songs “Oh No! (The Internet Stopped Working)” and “I Left My Heart At The Lucky Dog”, as well as choreographed dance sequences on my stoop, the bodega across the street, at the Endless Summer taco truck and on the L train.
Kat George: The Romantic Comedy, starring Jennifer Aniston
In the rom-com my clumsiness, irreverence, hopelessness with men and affection for dogs are all accentuated, which makes me incredibly relatable and loveable to the audience. So much so that despite my lousy singledom, characters played by Ryan Gosling, Mark Ruffalo and Jason Segel all fall in love with me. I can’t decide whether I’d want down-on-love Greek girls Jenny A and I to have a credits montage, beach wedding scene happy ending (I chose you, Ryan) or if I want us to ride into the sunset on our own with an open-ended independent-woman type ending.
Kat George: The Tale Of New York City Neurosis, starring Laura San Giacomo
In an ideal world, Woody Allen would direct a movie of me hanging out in Brooklyn dive bars with Marisa Tomei playing me, drinking Bud after Bud and psychoanalyzing relationships. In reality, it would probably be that small annoying lady with the big eyebrows from Just Shoot Me—Laura San Giacomo. I would have a foreign lover, played by Javier Bardem, and as well as a significantly older suitor, someone like Bill Murray or Jeff Bridges, and finally someone wildly appropriate but dry like Luke Wilson. Everyone is, of course, completely neurotic, and I have many interesting monologues over sweeping, romantic imagery of the Williamsburg Bridge and the East River.
Kat George: The Witty Indie Drama, starring Natalie Portman
This is where I get to be really narcissistic and cast Natalie Portman as myself and Julianne Moore as my mother. Directed by Sofia Coppola with music by Phoenix (duh), the film focuses on my relationship with my mother, flashing between my competitive, lonely New York life and it’s empty, fleeting encounters, my mother in Melbourne, her domestic suburbia and descent into menopause and the years she spent as a single mother alone with me, before remarrying (with Kiernan Shipka as a younger me). The film will highlight how, even though we are oceans apart, I am becoming my mother, in the best, most heartwarming sort of way.
Kat George: The Action Epic, starring Bruce Willis
In the action epic, terrorists hack into the Thought Catalog website and plan to use it to brainwash an army of youth into doing their bidding. For some reason there are many explosions, and I am a man. I also win, even though in the two hour nail-biter I’ve smoked about 3 packets of cigarettes, have said nothing but “fuck”, am slightly drunk, and my MacBook is destroyed in one of the many dramatic explosions (which is what sent me into a blind rage in the first place, giving me the impetus to seek revenge against the terrorists, much the same way the slaying of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s family in Collateral Damage motivated him to murder everyone).
Kat George: The Sci-Fi Trilogy, starring Kevin Sorbo
I can’t decide whether it’s the future and my life is supplanted into space where I float around in my spaceship solving literary crimes or if it’s the present and I get sucked into the Internet where I find that Google is actually evil and I become embroiled in a cyber-war, which I obviously win, and wake up from as if it were all a dream. Either way, Kevin Sorbo plays me, he’s due for a comeback. Jeff Goldblum is the ageing, sexy sidekick with great research skills and heartfelt insights. Maybe we get gay.
Kat George: The Slasher Horror, starring Salma Hayek
Knowing my luck they’d cast someone who screams a lot like Rachel Weisz and I’d get hammered in the first scene, but if I had it my way, I’d be a buxom Salma Hayek, somehow locked into the Bushwick lofts during a raging warehouse party with some sort of faceless murderer after me. I’d find an axe, and while the bloodbath raged around me, I’d defeat the murder and make it out to the L train, MacBook safely under my arm, sweaty bosom heaving.
Kat George: The Low Budget Australian Film About Greeks In Melbourne, starring Nick Giannopolous
Australia has lots of movies and shows about being Greek in Australia, and even if the film itself isn’t about being Greek in Australia, there is always at least one Greek character. Basically, Australia is essentially Greece (especially Melbourne). Having Greek-Australian stand-up comedian and actor Nick Giannopolous play me in a story about being Greek in Australia makes perfect sense.