How It Began

FELICITY was my very first staff job. Well, SNOOPS actually was, but it only lasted half a season. I joined FELICITY in Season 2 – the infamous season when the star cut off all her hair… the hair that she was famous for!

The Hair

There have been many stories about how and why it happened, but the Truth is – Keri Russell was a very serious actor, and she had just won a Golden Globe, yet the media still focused on nothing but her gorgeous mane of hair. She was sick of it. She had done a photoshoot for a magazine (Interview, maybe?) where she had worn this super cool short wig. Keri showed the pics to JJ Abrams (the showrunner) and he and his partner Matt Reeves conceived the idea that Felicity would cut all her hair off as a signal for big change in her life. She was NOT the same person from season one. 

There was only one problem… the wig from the photoshoot was a $3000 custom job made by a specialist in France, and to get Keri’s real hair to look like that would require not just the perfect haircut, but about 2.5 hours in the makeup & hair trailer each morning. But Keri was undaunted. She wanted to get rid of the hair. She left set on Friday vowing to just get “something a little similar to the wig” from her hair stylist over the weekend. 

On Monday we were all shocked when we saw that the only thing resembling the French wig was that she now sort of looked like a little French boy. But in all honesty, everyone was okay with it because Keri was thrilled. Life went on. Until the media saw it and thus, it became part of television folklore. 

The Gig

For me personally, FELICITY was an absolute nightmare. I can look back on it now as a blessing because of the lessons it taught me, but of all the movies and television series I’ve done in over 20 years as a screenwriter and producer, that one season on FELICITY is still the worst experience of my career. 

The cast was fantastic – one of the best I’ve ever worked with. And the crew was generally good people. Matt & JJ were stellar humans. So, what does that leave? The other writers. I wanted to quit after the first month. I called my agent and told him. He said, “This is your first gig. You have to do everything in your power to make it to the end of the season, or you won’t get hired again.” So, I sucked it up. I made it to the end of the season.

By season’s end, I had proven myself, and when the show offered to bring me back for the next season, I politely declined, never saying another word about what went on during that year. My agent was right, and I’ve been blessed to have never been out of work more than six months since then. I’m sure many of you want to know what I was subjected to that season. Too much to type here, but you can read about it in Kill The Dog.

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