Working with Vince Gilligan & My Own Crystal Meth Nightmare

“Living with Crystal Meth”

With only one episode left in the entire “Breaking Bad” series, it’s time to share my own story about working with “Breaking Bad” creator Vince Gilligan (briefly, oh, so briefly), as well as my own nightmare with crystal meth.

Oh, I guess I should mention right off the top that I’ve never personally ingested crystal meth. But my former roommate did…

I was living in Los Angeles in a house with two restaurant co-workers, Adam and Sam. The following month, I was moving into a screenwriting teacher’s guest house in Westwood. So in an effort to save a little money, I decided to rent out my bedroom while I slept on the couch.

The renter was a college student that worked at the same restaurant. Young, pretty, blonde… but I can’t remember her name. Let’s go with Amy.

Amy moved into my former bedroom and kept to herself. She rarely brought her friends over. She slept in her bedroom, used the bathroom, went to work, or went out. She was quiet. Almost boring.

Then one Saturday night Amy decided to host a party with a couple of her friends… inside her bedroom. Adam, Sam, and I were clearly not invited. We heard the music and the laughter through her door, but that was as close as we got to the action. Rude? Probably. And I think we were a little jealous.

The night faded to morning and everything was quiet. We assumed the party was over. The rest of us went to work and went about our business.

No one saw Amy on Sunday.

And no one saw Amy at work on Monday. Where was she?

In the evening, we knocked on her door. “Amy? Are you all right? Are you sick? You weren’t at work today.” She didn’t answer.

Now the unique feature of that bedroom was that it had its own entrance through the sliding door in the backyard. You could lock it from the inside but you couldn’t enter from outside if it was locked. So as long as someone remained in the bedroom to open the door, you could shuttle your friends (and food) in and out of that bedroom undetected. And Amy put this feature to good use during her three-day party.

Finally, on Tuesday evening, Amy emerged from her bedroom to go to the bathroom. Adam, Sam, and I walked inside her bedroom to investigate. She had moved all her meager possessions against the wall. Scattered on the floor were take-out pizza boxes and Subway sandwich wrappers.

And scrawled on every wall were curse words – so many curse words – with the F-word being the overwhelming favourite. And I mean they were scrawled on every wall, from top to bottom… even the inside wall of the walk-in closet. Big words, small words… all in black permanent marker.

Then we noticed the drug paraphernalia on the floor. Amy and her vanished friends had just completed a three-day crystal meth bender.

We didn’t yell at her. (It might have been the shock.) However, Adam, Sam, and I confronted Amy outside the bathroom. “Ummmm, you have to go… right now.”

Amy showed no emotion and murmured that she would call her parents.

When her parents showed up to help her move out, they never once looked me in the eyes. I’ve never seen such shame. They just grabbed what they could carry and silently shuffled out of the house.

Over the course of the next week, Adam, Sam, and I learned the true meaning of the words “permanent marker.” Despite applying a grey primer and six coats of paint over six consecutive nights, we could not cover up those curse words. The F-word and its rude friends continued to shine through the layers of paint like a foul-mouthed ghost.

Finally, we just left it. The room was now “un-rentable.” Meanwhile, I was leaving for Westwood, Adam decided to move in with his girlfriend, and Sam opted to go back home to his parents.

None of us wanted to be around when the landlord inspected the house. We had already given up all hope in getting our deposit money back. We just left the front door open and piled our keys onto the kitchen counter.

Later, the landlord left a long message on Adam’s answering machine. And you know what? It sounded just like he was quoting the curse words from Amy’s bedroom!
 

“Working with Vince Gilligan”

I don’t know Vince Gilligan’s own personal experience with crystal meth, but he’s surely done well by it with the creation of his huge hit, Breaking Bad.

I also had a personal experience with him during the Banff World Media Awards. He was a presenter for two awards, the Best Continuing Series and Serial Program and the Best Mini-Series (otherwise known as Rockie Awards). And I had to write his scripts for him.

During rehearsal, he was humble and affable and presented no issues with my words. However, later there was a controversial decision about the winner of the Continuing Series award. It seems the international jury wasn’t too happy with the year’s nominations and decided to reward another TV series that wasn’t even nominated!

The minute I found out about their misguided decision, I had to hurry to the rehearsal stage and amend the script for Vince. While he patiently waited at the podium, I was on my knees on the stage handwriting new words onto his pages. And then I actually read the changes to him since my handwriting wasn’t exactly legible to anyone but me.

Fortunately, Vince laughed at my changes and walked away with the new script in his hand while I assured him that I would supervise the alterations to the TelePrompter for that evening’s show.

This is what I wrote for Vince Gilligan:

VINCE GILLIGAN:
The category of “Continuing Series and Serial Programs” is a fancy way of saying “television drama”. Drama that grips you, week in and week out, with a continuing cast of characters that are more than just small screen stars; they’re a part of your TV family. From tales of forbidden love – to murderous mind games – both normal and paranormal – here are this year’s nominees.

Then clips from the Continuing Series & Serial Programs nominees played to the audience in the auditorium.

So the previous script was fine. The changes I had to make showed up in the next script announcing the actual award. So this is the new script I wrote for Vince during his rehearsal:

VINCE GILLIGAN:
Congratulations to all those nominees… but… it turns out, surprisingly, that none of those nominees have been selected!

The audience gasped.

VINCE GILLIGAN:
The independent final jury – who it seems is VERY VERY independent – has decided to award this Rockie to a completely different show altogether!

There was another gasp.

VINCE GILLIGAN:
And unfortunately, we don’t even have a clip to show you. So, I’m sorry, but you are just going to have to trust me on this one.

Now the audience began to chuckle.

VINCE GILLIGAN:
And now… the surprise winner is….

Vince then opened the envelope and read the name of the winner. It made for a very awkward festival moment.  It shocked the winner was shocked. It annoyed the rightful nominees. It embarrassed the festival organizers. And the jury remained smug.

But Vince Gilligan was a pro. And I’ll never forget meeting him. It certainly was a much better experience than that time I met crystal meth…
 
For more posts from the Banff World Media Festival, check out:

https://www.johnmeyerbooks.com/banff-festival-1/

https://www.johnmeyerbooks.com/banff-festival-2/