?? Bogus is a perfectly valid word dating back to the 1800’s meaning couterfeit or false. He’s using it correctly.
I was wondering about that. She’s 20, fer chrissakes, and they’re cc’ing her mom?
What’s out of line about anything he said? She’s costing them money and hurting the production. Why the hell should he talk to her in person. On any real job she’d have been fired already.
I think her mom may also be her manager.
… assuming of course that the allegations in the letter are all true.
There could be a lot of reasons why they are not (a paper trail set-up to break an unprofitable or disadvantageous contract springs to mind).
No, I know, I just don’t usually see it used in what is supposed to be a formal letter like that. Or “all night heavy partying” either.
I can’t find the pictures, but just the other day this was all over the news. Apparently, she was happy as can be, shopping, eating, drinking, hanging out with friends— not at work— then BOOM! She is hospitalized for “exhaustion” (IE: too much booze and blow). Then later that night she was out partying again.
Ah, from Oh No They Didn’t: before and after the hospital
Yeah.
DIOGENES –
He essentially calls her a liar, not once but several times – by putting “not feeling well” and “so-called heat exhaustion” in quotes; by calling her excuses “bogus;” and stating that he knows the “real” reason for her behavior. He tells her she’s acting like “a spoiled child” who is “discourteous, irresponsible, and unprofessional.” For the last three, I think the letter is the pot calling the kettle black, since when it comes to discourteous and unprofessional, apparently Mr. Robinson could give lessons. This is not the sort of language that is calculated to make a valued employee straighten up and meet her commitments, not to mention that these sort of “your job’s on the line” come-to-Jesus conversations always should be done in person, not by letter. No normal person would get handed this and think, “My God, he’s right; I’ve been unfair to my colleagues and employer. I had better straighten up!” A more likely reaction would be to be seriously pissed off.
Undoubtedly. But the issue then becomes what you, as the employer, want the outcome to be. Assume Ms. Lohan is a key employee in this case – a fair assumption since this is a movie and she is a movie star. What is your desired outcome? (1) That she, who has demonstrated that she is both young and, in your own world, irresponsible, becomes either (a) hugely hurt and upset or (b) hugely angry and has to be talked out of the trees, if she doesn’t just walk altogether; or (2) That she understand that she is impeding production, not meeting her commitments, and causing concern for her personally and for her health, hopefully leading to her realizing that, yeah, she has be irresponsible and she needs to shape up. You don’t accomplish (2), or any variety of (2), by sending flame mail.
Because nasty-grams tend to seriously piss people off. If you manage to threaten someone into compliance, the job performance you get will likely be the very minimal, shittiest performance the person can offer. Because they hate you.
She doesn’t have a real job. She’s a movie star. She’s not easily replaced, as would someone be who had a “real job.”
I’m not saying he’s wrong to have concerns about her behavior, and I’m not saying he’s wrong to let her know about them. But this letter strikes me as being damaging, not constructive. It seems highly unlikely to accomplish what I assume is his goal – for her to responsibly and without resentment fulfill the rest of her commitments.
She IS a liar. Her excuses ARE bogus. She IS irresponsible and unprofessional. She needed a wake up call. I don’t see why should should be coddled because she’s a “movie star.” Her 15 minutes are almost over anyway and it’s not like she has any kind of irreplacable talent.
Some spoiled little druggie is costing a production hundreds of thousands of dollars? I have no sympathy.
As for the tone of the letter. She’s a grown up. There’s no reason to coddle her.
From the tone of the letter, I don’t think that is his goal at all. Sure sounds like he wants to get rid of her but make sure he can legally do so.
A letter is much more stern in my book and much more of a wake-up call. A hard party girl who is constantly hung over doesn’t seem like the type to listen to a talking-to. Plus, I wouldn’t want to talk to her. Then again, I am not in any position to need to.
God?
Probably so, but you don’t actually know this, unless your status as a Hollywood producer has somehow escaped me.
Lots of people need a wake up call. The salient point – which you seemed to have missed – is what you, as the alarm clock, want the result of the wake-up call to be. Sometimes a heapin’ helpin’ of the unvarnished truth leads the person you served it to to tell you to fuck off, not to thank you for it.
Well, if you can’t see it, I really can’t help you there. She’s a movie star. This is a movie. She has marquee value; she is one of the key assets of yoru production. Again, the question is what you, as a producer, want the outcome to be. If your desired outcome is that you have slapped her silly by mail because, by God, you believe she deserves it, then – well done. BUT if your desired outcome is that she return to production and focus her attention and best efforts on your film – then it seems pretty clear to me it could have been handled better.
Well, they’re apparently not up yet. And I imagine replacing a marquee-name young actress in the middle of production is a hell of a lot tougher than your post implies.
I don’t have any sympathy for her, either. But I stand by my opinion that this sort of letter does not seem calculated to get her to change her behavior in any constructive, non-resentful manner. I’d be pissed as hell to get that letter, regardless of whether I actually deserved it. Wouldn’t you?
The reason to deal with her face-to-face and civilly – not “coddle her” – is that she has something you need (a performance) and she cannot, at this stage of the game, be easily replaced. For all we know the movie’s more than half-shot, and replacing her would mean re-shooting it entirely. It’s simply economics. You don’t flame out an employee – much less in writing – when you can’t really afford to have that employee quit.
A Lohan performance could be replaced by a potted plant.
Well, for the remake of Parent Trap you’d need two potted plants.
Isn’t that assuming what is not in evidence?
I’d guess that Robinson has already done that calculation. Either the letter is an inducement to quit or an attempted wake-up call.
Suppose the former. Her quitting and scrapping the entire picture might be more economical than paying all of her damages and finishing a crappy product marred by her unprofessionalism. Then the letter is calculated to humiliate her enough to break her contract.
Suppose the latter. It is supposed to be a wake-up call. Either it succeeds and she returns sober or it fails and she walks. My prior beliefs say that the likelihood of the latter is greater
Either way, Robinson gets a desirable outcome: either he cuts his losses and gets some remuneration from Lohan or he gets a decent (perhaps) finished product. Not bad for a page of sanctimony.
Comes across as quite condescending and rather demeaning, to me. The letter reads like something an over-formal parent would write to their sullen teenager, or a warning note written by a 10th grade English teacher to an unruly student before finals. Not a letter to an adult woman who one is in a professional relationship with.
That may well be the case. But, unless you have access to all of Ms. Lohan’s correspondence with Mr. Robinson, you can’t know whether this was the first hint of reprimand, or was really her last chance. It’s plenty likely that she’s been repeatedly warned verbally, and possibly in writing before, and that this is a final, forceful attempt to get it through her skull that she can’t continue in the way she has. We just don’t know.
Maybe we should go ask a Hollywood producer. I hear that one named “Robinson” has some thoughts on the matter.
But, for all we know, it isn’t. Mr. Robinson presumably knows a little about the movie business, and what losses they are willing to take. Your argument appears to boil down to: “Based on all kinds of unfounded assumptions, this letter was a bad idea.” Given that the letter writer is both experienced and successful, and actually has the facts, wouldn’t it make more sense to assume that he’s not an idiot?
NEVER assume someone’s not an idiot.
Enjoy,
Steven
I think it’s brilliant.
This letter wasn’t leaked by accident. Obviously Robinson wants the world to know that he and the studio are wise to LL’s shenanigans. If this film tanks and LL’s performance is highlighted as a reason why - his ass, and Morgan Creek’s, is covered. “See? We tried to get her to stop acting the diva, but she had to continue partying.”
Public opinion on LL seems to be pretty much moving towards her being a spoiled, train-wreck, cokehead. This letter should pretty much concretize that image, unless she pulls her shit together and starts acting like an adult.
In response to Jodi: no, I wouldn’t like to receive a letter like this, but if there was any truth to the allegations, I’d be terribly ashamed. I received a professional tongue lashing in my first professional job out of college - it was certainly OTT but the basic facts were true - a fight broke out in my classroom because I was not present. Sure, I spent a good hour or so cataloguing all of the horrible things my principal had done, but ultimately, I was left with the truth. And I fixed that pretty damn quickly.
Seriously, if your ego is so overinflated that you can’t hear the riot act from your employer when he/she is not satisfied with your performance, it’s time to establish your own island with your own rules and live life that way. (LL of course, not you Jodi.) If not, welcome to the real world, where getting your ass handed to you is part of the package… and why you might want to take your work seriously.