2 Take Two
Let me elaborate on that. As a child/step-child of famous figures, you have to be very careful. You are always watched in the public eye, making you even more vulnerable. Paparazzi, like a flock of crazy sheep, watch and stalk your every move, as celebrity kids are rarely seen because of our vulnerability and age. If in public Mom or my stepdad, Harley, usually have security trailing behind them, but Mom claims that she doesn't like to be followed and shepherded too much by bodyguards on where to go, she says she's learned "jiu jitsu" from an action film where she was this martial arts queen on something. (To this day, she can slap and kick you really hard).
The only time when the paparazzi have been lucky enough to snap a photo of me were on two occasions when I was three years old. Mom, Dad, Lavinia and I were leaving an Italian restaurant on the Sunset Strip, and all I remember is two things:
1: The Linguini Marinara Mom and I shared was absolutely amazing (Mom and I used to share food all the time when I was little, as I was a fussy eater).
2: When the paparazzi cornered us, it was pouring with rain outside, and we were running to the car, Mom squeezing both Lavinia's and my hands. Dad jogged way ahead to open the car door for us. Then we saw a sudden flash come from behind us, so loud and so quick it startled us and we looked up. At first, I remember telling Mom, "Is it thund-ning, Mommy?" (My combination for thunder and lightning, which I still use if I can't tell a thunderstorm).
Then voices boomed from behind the cameras, "MISS MULETTE! MISS VALERIA! ARE THESE YOUR KIDS? HOW WAS YOUR DINE-IN?" and this man with a deep voice rasped, "SMILE, YOUNG LADIES!"
I think Mom told them to buzz off and yelled some other curse words in response as she pulled our raincoat hoodies over us and urged, "Girls, quickly! Duck for cover and run to the car! Look down! Sneaky shots are here!" I remember hearing Dad calling from the pouring rain, "C'mon, Vini! Zellbra! To the car!" (Dad invented my nickname "Zellbra" back when he lived with us, as I had an animal obsession with zebras after he voiced a zebra in a Pixar animation. Mom and Saffron still occasionally call me Zellbra, which I love because it reminds me of him).
Even though I was only three, I seemed to understand Mom's term "Sneaky shots" for the cameras, that it wasn't a good thing. Because of Mom's warning, she quickly pulled our raincoat hoodies over us, covering a little bit of our faces. I Googled the picture recently and you can see a little bit of Lavinia's and my faces, but luckily because of the rain the quality of the camera shot isn't that good. I wonder where an umbrella was at the time of the lucky incident. The other unlucky occasion when I was secretly snapped by photographers was when my maternal father was giving me a piggyback ride while walking Alphina, who was just a puppy at the time down Diamond Drive, where we live towards the local park. (Please don't stalk us). I didn't think much of the photographers as I was very young. I heard the female photographer say "Aren't you a beauty, Miss Zelda?" and "SMILE!"
Lucky for her, I was in a bubbly mood out in the California sunshine and gave a wide pie-eating grin as I fiddled with my dad's hair, him and Alphina completely oblivious to the photo being taken. Unbeknownst to three-year-old me, I had no idea what the aftermath of that one camera shutter would be. The press lapped it up like chocolate fondue. The photo of me appeared on every news headline, exploding every newspaper article, every tabloid magazine, basically anything social you could think of. The media were thrilled by the fact that they had photographic evidence of me, as Mom had rarely let Lavinia into the spotlight when she was in her early years. I recently Googled Lavinia as a child and hardly anything popped up, except the dozens of recent selfies that Lavinia posts on her Instagram feed. (Did I mention that Lavinia is a selfie-obsessed Instagram influencer?). As for me, surely enough, my baby face popped up on the screen. They had cropped Dad and Alphina out of the photo. (I think this is hypocritical since they wanted to take a picture of me, why not keep Dad and my dog in the frame!), I would have liked to see what my real dad and baby Alphina looked like back in the day!) Social media was still a relatively new thing, and so Mom didn't Tweet, Instagram or Facebook post any photos of us, so the press were always guessing what celebrity kids like Lavinia and I looked like. It made sense that they jumped for joy when they finally had a snap of me staring right at them with my few toddler teeth sticking out of my mouth. I should give you a bit of background information about my parents first. Firstly, my mom's name is Valeria Mulette, and she has been acting since she was four years old in the child TV series, Infants of Infinity. I am told many times that I resemble not so much my mom but my dad, which is why I want to see what he looks like! Mom has told me I have inherited his thick eyebrows and mousey-brown hair with thick curls, while Lavinia's facial features are more similar to my mom's, with mom's chocolate brown ringlets with a slight chestnut coloured streak (which is 100 percent natural), in the middle. Lavinia seems to have Mom's slight French-Italian heritage of dark eyes and tanned skin, while I have hazel eyes and lighter skin with freckles. That's why most of the media outlets are really surprised when they find out I am the real daughter of my mother. Yep. Sorry to disappoint you guys.
Since then, my mom has landed roles in blockbusters, motion pictures, Broadway performances, sci-fi thrillers and crime shows such as the X-Files and Twin Peaks (back in the good old nineties), sitcoms/rom-coms such as Brooklyn Nine-Nine, (she played a killer cop), How I Met Your Mother (she played a frisky love interest) and period dramas among others. The list would go on forever! Not to brag, but I bet she's accomplished so much in her career than other actors in her generation. She has one five Academy awards, three Golden Globes and one Critics' Choice Award so far which are stored in the attic upstairs. I have barely even watched half of the movies and TV shows she was awarded for, there are so many! I probably won't even be able to finish watching all of them by the time I die (not that anyone's counting).
Harley Grimgridge, my stepdad, is also a successful actor, although, I admit I haven't kept track of how many awards he has. He is known for his handsome looks, but to me he resembles a young Kurt Cobain from Nirvana, (which is not a bad thing, just an observation). he has longish surfer blonde hair with a bit of stubble above his chin and nose. To be honest, I'm not really interested in his career as much as the films he's been in aren't really my sort of binge-watchy favorites like Mom's films are, except for classics like Mr. Bean, (he played a postman) the British Office, (not to be confused with the U.S version), Downton Abbey, (a posh wealthy Scotsman) or more recently, Game of Thrones as a viking fellow. He does resemble a viking with his long hair, or a villain of some kind, which is probably why he is growing his hair long.
He even has his own signature fragrance called Grim Ace. I don't know whether he means that the fragrance smells so bad that it makes you grimace, or he named it that because of his compound surname of "Grim" and "Gridge", instead separating it with a "Ace" instead. I was yet to ask him why, but once I remembered I would.
Harley has Scottish and American ancestry; his American mother was a Grim, while his Scot father was a Gridge. His combined accent of two distinctive accents makes him sound very strange, like sometimes he sounds like a blunt-up Scot but then he adds an American twang at the bottom of his words. Mom is a French-Canadian, with her father being French. She moved to America from Canada when she was three, as her parents were famous actors in Canada and wanted her to get a jump-start in Hollywood to see how that would go. And obviously that changed her career for the better, in so many ways!
