Lauren Modery is the woman behind the original Threads post about Jeff Goldblum. Born in Central New York, her childhood obsession with film led her to Los Angeles at the age of 20, where she eventually landed a job as an assistant in Hollywood. Her podcast "Love Will Tear Us Apart," takes a deep dive into the intriguing relationships of the rich and famous. We reached out to her to find out more about life in Tinseltown, what celebs are really like, and what inspired her to praise Goldblum recently.
"I talk about Jeff Goldblum all the time," Modery tells Bored Panda. "But what prompted me to write about him on Threads was an Instagram Reel of Leonardo DiCaprio on the Jumbotron hiding his face vs. Jeff Goldblum on the Jumbotron smiling, standing up and dancing, and giving the Taylor Swift heart gesture. It reminded me of my wonderful experience working with him and I decided to share the story on Threads."
The former assistant has been a Goldblum fan for years and wasn't too surprised by the positive response to her Thread. "It's apparent that Jeff Goldblum, for decades, has done an excellent job warming the hearts of fans with his smile, quirky and kind demeanor, and acting choices," said Modery. "His fans now span generations, from the folks who remember when The Fly came out, to the kids who were obsessed with Jurassic Park (hi, that's me), to now the young'uns who enjoyed Thor and Wicked."
She added she loved how those who'd previously met Goldblum also had great things to say about him. "Most people who met him shared a similar experience to me," Modery told Bored Panda. "Many people said that Goldblum made them feel like they were the most special person in the room. I wish I had that ability!"
Modery met many superstars during her time in Hollywood. "I met a lot of celebrities. More than I can count. Not all of those experiences were good. In fact, most celebrities look like deer caught in headlights on the regular," she revealed. "Working in Hollywood made me realize that being a celebrity is like being a prisoner of sorts. Depending on who you are, you can never really go out in public and be anonymous again, and strangers will say and do weird things to you. You become an object for society's consumption."
"I know someone might read this and think, 'Oh boo-hoo', but seriously, being a celebrity isn't always that glamorous or fulfilling," adds Modery. "In fact, imagine you have all the money in the world and everyone loves you and you're still not happy. That must be a tough pill to swallow."
The former assistant says the best celebs that she's met, apart from Goldblum, are Paul Reubens, Robin Williams, Snoop Dogg, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and David Lynch. "I can tell you who isn't that nice," said Modery. "But I don't like spilling the tea."
Despite getting to meet, and work with, some of the biggest names in the industry, Modery soon realized not all that glitters is gold. As per her website Hypstercrite.com, she spent five years in denial, drowning her sorrows with drinks. "Having lost all her creativity and tired of living the plotline to 'Swimming with Sharks,' she jumped in her car one day in 2008 and drove to Austin, Texas, where she knew no one, had no job lined up and only $500 to her name," reads the site.
During our interview, we asked Modery to delve a bit deeper into why she threw in the towel on Tinseltown. "I left Hollywood because I wasn't happy being a personal assistant, and my trajectory would have been development or producing - two roles in which I had no interest," she revealed. "I'm more of a creative dreamer, and working behind the scenes in Hollywood means your creativity goes out the window."
Modery tells Bored Panda that things got to a point where she realized she could no longer stay in Los Angeles. "I knew I needed to get out before I woke up one day, years down the road, a miserable alcoholic," she said. "So I packed what I could in my car and moved to a city I had never been to - Austin, Texas - and worked 3 service industry jobs 7 days a week while I wrote on my blog."
Leaving Hollywood and starting her blog turned out to be one of the best decisions she's made... "That blog got some eyes on it and over time I turned that blog writing into a full-time copywriting career," Modery tells us.
She's married to a filmmaker, and recently had a baby. She works as a copywriter by day and a scriptwriter by night. "I've never looked back, though I do write screenplays. I'm also writing a creative fiction novel about my time in Hollywood... with vampires."
According to Modery's blog, "her work has appeared in The Guardian, xoJane, AOL Travel, Austin Monthly, Austin Insider Mag, Spinner and Scoutmob." And it doesn't stop there. "Her blog was selected by Blogger as 'Blog of Note' in 2009 and she was named Austin's Blogger of the Year at the Austin Blogger Awards in 2010," reads Hipstercrite.com. Modery has also won awards for a film she wrote and co-produced.
Modery has previously written about the harassment she endured in Hollywood. "I was offered the job of personal assistant at 20 years old. I felt lucky for the opportunity. A small-town nerd and lover of the Marx Brothers and David Lynch somehow made it to Hollywood," penned the former assistant.
"Male chauvinism was a foreign concept to me, having been raised by a strong-willed single mother and ambitious grandmother. Maybe this upbringing was damaging, for I wasn’t prepared for Hollywood’s gender divide and rampant sexism."
Modery goes on to detail some of the incidents she encountered, allegedly at the hands of some of the men she worked with in Hollywood. "Supervisor often talking to me about the size of my breasts," writes Modery. "He’d regularly ask another female employee to lift up her shirt and give him a show." She then goes on to say that "none of these occurrences fazed me at the time. It was Hollywood after all. That’s just the way it is..."
Bored Panda asked Modery if she had any advice for Hollywood celebs when meeting ordinary people. "Gosh - I'm just a humble nobody, so I'm not sure they'd take my advice," Modery says. "But if I had to give one piece - be more like Jeff Goldblum."
