By Antony Teofilo
One of Hollywood's greatest horror stories isn't a gore-fest, it's a brilliant
flick called SWIMMING WITH SHARKS. If you ever wanted to know what life can be
like for a podunk hick from his or her first day in the Hollywood system all the
way through to the fateful day they ultimately sacrifice their soul to become a
high priest of the god of the silver screen (or Executive Producer, in the
vernacular), this movie is required viewing. It doesn't matter who you are:
prop master, grip, writer, director, producer, or studio head, you always start
out in the same place: assistant. The job of an assistant is Hollywood's great
equalizer, and most of Hollywood's best (if unprintable...no libel suits here,
thank you) stories come from the folks who serve the mighty.
Production Assistants have a tough job...they're the lowest folks on the totem
pole. And the higher you go, the the tougher the jobs get. But there's one
assistant who's got a job chock full of the dirtiest, grittiest, most
exhausting, (and ultimately damning) details of a life in Hollywood: Personal
Assistant to the stars. It takes a special sort to run the life of a Hollywood
personality, and it's not always a picnic for either side. David Spade's
personal assistant gave him a rather unpleasant wake-up call one morning a few
years ago when he entered Spade's bedroom and roused him from a deep
slumber...with a stun gun. And a severe beating. It's a job that can twist a
decent human being into a type-A top-notch nutball.
And then there's Chay Carter, who's a personal assistant on the set of
JERSEY
GIRL. She's always on her cell phone, or bustling about. But there's no air of browbeaten submissiveness on her face, and she doesn't flinch or snipe at the
people she sees each day. She smiles, and laughs, and jokes, with the cast, the
crew, and in the presence of her charge: Ben Affleck. As you'll read below,
Chay won the lottery when she took the reins of the life of a Hollywood
luminary
who's reknowned in tinseltown's annals as a charming badboy party animal. Not
so, she says. He's a decent guy, and she should know, since she's with him
nearly twenty-four/seven. Where he goes is...
Where She's Ben
An Interview with Chay Carter, Personal Assistant to Ben Affleck
AT: What are your duties as a Personal Assistant?
Chay Carter: Everywhere he goes, everything he does, I am a part
of it.
I am an extension of Ben in a way. I am the liason. When we're on a movie set,
it's everything from keeping him hydrated to knowing his schedule to getting him
to the set on time. I do personal stuff, and a lot of business stuff.
AT: What sort of background does someone need to have to be in your line
of work?
CC: The person needs to be detail-oriented, needs to have a lot of
follow-through, and be really organized. The biggest thing is that you have to
be able to mulit-task, and creatively re-organize a day or a week because that
happens all the time.
AT: Is there a sort of support group of personal assistants that you can
talk to so you can get the lowdown on how things work?
CC: No. I knew Ben's previous personal assitant, but I've only
been
doing this about two months. My previous background is in public relations. My
first job was doing entertainment market research for a very short seven months
in Los Angeles. Then I went on to Disney and worked for two years in public
relations.
AT: What course of study did you follow in school?
CC: Communications and psychology.
AT: How did you end up as Ben Affleck's personal assistant?
CC: All through my career, I've been fortunate to have luck and
brilliant timing. With Disney, I had a friend of a friend who served on a
committee with someone who said they needed a PR co-ordinator at Disney. I sent
my resume' over through the back door and got hired a month and a half later,
which is quick for Disney, and was there for those two and a half years. From
Disney, I went over to LivePlanet, which is how I met Ben, and how I got to know
his personal assistant. I never thought I'd be doing this job, but the timing
and circumstance were how it happened.
AT: Do you have a life of your own?
CC: It's very difficult. But I will say that from what I've heard
from
other people who do this job, most of them don't have a life at all. I'm lucky
that Ben is very understanding and thoughtful and sensitive to knowing that I'm
with him most of the time, that most of my life is about his life, and
organizing his life. Every once in awhile if I'm working at night, he'll tell me
to go home and get some rest, or go back to the trailer and just do what I need
to do. On a Saturday, he'll tell me that he doesn't really have much going on
that day, and that I should just go out and have some fun. He's really sweet in
that he'll tell you he appreciates you, and when you work hard, he'll tell you
that he knows you do. He'll say to go have a dinner on him after a hard day,
because he wants to give me a break because he's respectful of what I do.
AT: Where do you see yourself going from here in the movie business?
CC: Well, right now, I'm very happy with working with Ben. I
learn a
lot every day. I hear a lot of what goes on, and how he handles business. He
lets me ask a lot of questions, so I learn a lot that way. One day I'd like to
go into producing, but I don't know what that entails right now, so I'm trying
to figure it out. I know I won't be a personal assistant forever, because I
don't think anyone has that kind of stamina. I definitely see myself working
this job for a couple of years, though.
AT: What have you learned about Ben Affleck that we in the general
public might not know?
CC: I'll tell you what I appreciate and respect about him:
instead of
teaching me bad habits, Ben actually teaches me to enhance my good habits. He
treats everyone with respect. He doesn't throw around the star power that many
people in his position do, which I also appreciate. He's candid, but diplomatic
at the same time. He handles thing very professionally.
AT: What's the worst thing about being a personal assistant?
CC: I have to get up really early in the morning. [Laughs] I'm a
sleeper, so I'm not used to that. And it's not always that way. Everyone says
that I'm spoiled because we don't get up that early. But on a day when we're
going to be on set and our pickup is at 6:00, I have to be up earlier than Ben
so that I'm sure that he's ready to go. The worst part is the fear the night
before. What if I don't hear the alarm? What if I wake up late? What if I
make him late? I'm responsible for that. Sot the worst thing is probably that
anxiety factor. At the end of the day when the whole day has gone well, you end
feeling very good and self-sufficient.
AT: What's the best thing about being a personal assistant?
CC: That I get to work with Ben, first of all. And that I get to
travel
to all these places, and meet new people all the time. Everyone on a set has
something that's really their specialty on set. Learning about that is great.
On JERSEY GIRL, I'd say the entire company is smart, good at what they do, and
willing to share their knowledge. I love that.
