10.
Expectation:
You visit the set of a music video as a VIP guest. You’re in an air-conditioned hangar where the actors are all sitting in their labeled chairs. The food on set is hella tight, with everything from lattes and cocktails to fruit, pastries, desserts, and platters of barbecue and steak. The actors get the shot in one take, and then celebrate by popping open some bubbly.
Reality:
The shoot is in this abandoned building in Downtown Los Angeles that you have to be transported to via van. The set food? Lukewarm ham and cheese sandwiches. You sit in a hot, unventilated room and watch them film the same take over and over and over again until the director eventually cuts for break. The production assistants ask you to keep your distance, and the song for the commercial sticks in your head on an endless loop.
11.
Expectation:
The Hollywood clubbing scene is all about popping bottles and letting the good times roll. There's smoke, lasers, and go-go dancers shaking their scantily-clad hips on stage. The bartenders are easy flirts and the DJ is playing the hottest remixes.
Reality:
The lines to get into a club are long AF, and once you get to the front you have to pay a $20 cover, which only increases to $100 after midnight. A simple vodka soda sets you back $15. It’s too crowded and you want to go somewhere else but you can’t imagine walking the five blocks to the next club in your heels, only to wait another 20 minutes and pay cover anyway. You hit the bathroom where some attendant tries to charge you a tip for handing you a sheet of paper towel to dry your hands.
12.
Expectation:
The weather is always a pleasant, breezy 80 degrees. Celebrities are out and about, walking their dogs and stopping to chat with passersby.
Reality:
Smog everywhere. LA runs along something called a spider fault, which basically makes the city cave inward, and none of these pollutants can escape over the mountains. And you’re breathing all that garbage! It rarely rains, but when it does, 200 cars get into accidents and the city grinds to a standstill until the “storm” passes.
