Breaking it Down with Serena: Hollywood
Serena (voice over as a woman, the publicists, walks her dog towards a trailer, they enter the trailer and you see Ashley Scott in a white shirt trying on clothes for a photo shoot): Cindy Guagenti is one of the most powerful publicists in Hollywood. She handles people like Brad Pitt, Adam Sandler, and the Rock. Her job is to keep her A-list clients on top while moving her new clients up the food chain. I caught up with her and her new client Ashley Scott, star of the new WB series ‘Birds of Prey’.
Serena and Cindy talk while Ashley is off trying on another outfit.
Cindy: She’s the daughter of Batman and Catwoman
Serena: Okay.
Cindy: and its…
Serena: She’s going to play the daughter of Batman and Catwoman.
Cindy: So she has these extra, she could explain it better than me. She has obviously the powers, and she joins forces with two other women who they fight evil and I think its in Gotham.
They show the scene from the very end of ‘Pilot’ where Helena and Barbara are sitting in front of the Clocktower.
Barbara: I can almost feel it what it was like to race across rooftops under the moon.
Helena: Cold, wet, and hell on your nails.
Serena (voice over while they show Ashley trying on clothes…Ashley is wearing a short blue skirt, white shirt, and black vest): In this case Cindy is trying to create a buzz about Ashley.
Serena is standing next to Ashley.
Serena: Why did you hire Cindy?
Ashley: Um…well because Cindy rocks.
Serena: When you got the job then you were like okay I need to get someone now or once you got it then you decided?
Ashley: Yeah when I got the job I realized I needed to kind of, you know there’s a whole package. You know I do my job on set and I make, you know play my part trying to get the show to go. But there’s all sort of other things that come with it you know promoting the show, promoting myself.
Serena: People don’t magically end up on magazine covers.
Ashley: No, no, no apparently not. (smiling and laughing) You can’t just wake up and be hot. (serious) No, you know she makes it happen.
Serena and Cindy are waiting with a guy for Ashley to come out and show them another outfit.
Serena: What’s the photograph for is it a cover of something?
Cindy: Yeah, Inside Details…what’s it called the new ‘it’ girl.
Serena: New Face…It Girl.
Cindy: Something like that.
Serena (voice over as they show Ashley wearing a pair of blue jeans and a blue jacket with black trim around the neck, arms, and bottom; they have the zipper down showing cleavage and the bottom pulled up showing her abs and on her back you can see her tattoo; she is adjusting the jacket to show more skin): Since Ashley is an unknown actress Cindy’s strategy is to get her as much exposure as possible.
Serena and Cindy are looking at what Ashley is wearing.
Cindy to Ashley: I’m thinking maybe more skin.
Cindy: Skin without showing.
Serena: It doesn’t hurt right.
Cindy: That’s right but you know without really showing a lot.
Ashley walks out (two men, Serena, Cindy, and another woman are there) smiling wearing a black (club like shirt thing) cover that is open in the back and shows her full back (she keeps trying to hold it in place so its not exposing anything) and when she turns to the side it doesn’t cover much, she is also wearing white dress pants.
Ashley (comes out laughing and smiling): Not much to this one.
Serena: Got that out of the shower look, the towel around the neck.
Ashley: Apparently yeah. Doesn’t it tie or something?
Woman (comes up and pulls it around Ashley to secure around her sides and holds it behind Ashley): I could do it like that.
Serena: How would you wear it in real life?
Ashley: Just like I had it.
Woman (adjusts it again): Or I could do it like that.
Man #1: Arms crossed.
Ashley covers her arms across her chest (covering the important areas) and everyone starts laughing.
Ashley: We could use a pin or something.
The woman adjusts the outfit and adjusts how much cleavage is showing.
Man #2: Hee Haw Cindy. Hee Haw.
Everyone laughs.
Serena (voiceover as Ashley walks out of the trailer wearing white dress pants and a tan coloring silk shirt): After hours of wardrobe and make-up they finally agreed on a look.
They show Cindy walking with her dog to the photo shoot. Serena is also walking to the photo shoot.
Serena: The make-up artists is like I know I’ve worked with you I know we’ve worked together, we know each other. You know everybody really does know everybody in Hollywood or that’s just sort of the line that everyone uses ‘like I know you’ because then immediately you know each other like ‘yeah yeah we go way back’.
Ashley is standing on a lakeside beach while a make-up artist touches up her make-up. Cindy shows the camera a picture of Ashley in black and white.
Cindy: Pretty right?
Cindy shows Serena the picture and points out that Ashley’s hair was covering her eyes.
Cindy: See we don’t want to cover that.
Serena: Right, Right.
Cindy: Make-ups good.
Serena: Very pretty.
They show several scenes of Ashley posing for the camera.
Cindy: I don’t represent a lot of girls I usually represent men because they are a little easier to work with in terms of you don’t have two hours of hair and make-up.
Program aired on MTV
Transcript thanks to Aimee
September 2002