4 December 2011
Lindsay Lohan
LLRocks, Inc.
1749 Old Mill Rd
Merrick, NY 11566
USA
From: Curtis Saretske
Re: Half-hour comedy series "Loathing Lindsay Lohan"
Dear Ms. Lohan,
I would love to create a half-hour episodic tragic-comedy series loosely based on your life in Hollywood, your perceived lifestyle, romance and tragedy. I think, that without a doubt you are one of the most underrated comedy actresses, certainly one of the most talented.
You may also be the unluckiest person alive.
You're hounded by the tabloids. People seem to relish in your failure, ignore your successes ("Machete") and take an unnatural interest in your seemingly very public and sad fall from grace.
My proposal is this: A tragic-comedy satire, "Loathing Lindsay Lohan," a ten-episode half-hour series aimed at Showcase or HBO, about you, trying to improve your career, fall in love and live your life, all the while creating disaster after disaster for yourself. Tonally "Curb Your Enthusiasm", "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, "The Larry Sanders Show," and your "Funny or Die" eHarmony short would be the best models.
The goal ultimately would be to create a brilliant series, where frankly, you can take the piss out yourself, step back and comment on the Hollywood machine by creating a hyper-stylized version of yourself, a little Norma Desmond, a lot Lindsay.
The series would be: Lindsay tries to improve her fortunes after being released from jail for inadvertently violating the terms of her parole (she was caught handing out copies of her Playboy issue to minors.) Lindsay's longtime agent leaves her, and any film project she is committed to is recast or cancelled. She is running out of options in Hollywood. Despite her best efforts her opportunities dry up, and the productions become lower and lower budget, from "A" to "D-list" actors, from the best film directors, to the hacks of Reality-TV.
She is looking for love, and each season would have a new love interest. As times are tough, she has to downsize her living quarters, and is seemingly always viewing apartments, bargaining with real estate brokers, and looking for a new place to live. With each new season, her home would be markedly different, and slightly smaller and less well off, in less fortunate neighbourhoods, further away from LA.
Ideally, in the last season just as she's about to throw in the towel and leave Hollywood, she gets the recognition she rightfully deserves and is thrust right back into stardom, before fucking it up and having to start over again, but a little more hopeful.
The end of each season is a colossal train wreck. She destroys everything and everyone in epic proportions with severe consequences. Lucky though, the next season she is starting over at rock bottom, a little more mature, a little closer to happiness, but no less wiser.
As a character, Lindsay is opportunistic, shallow, fickle, temperamental, demanding, and fragile. Lindsay is always optimistic that the next great thing is around the corner, even while she is putting out back-to-back straight-to-Netflix-releases and insipid VOD. She is in endless fights with up-and-coming actresses, and will sleep with anyone, man or woman, if it looks like it could lead to the "perfect role,” or perceived happiness. "The perfect role" could be a theme running through each season. A suggestion would be tying to get the "Kirsten Dunst role" in Sofia Coppola's new movie, only to have her forceable removed from set after a "misunderstanding.”
She is obsessive, driven and will not take "no" for an answer. She is a more than a little crazy, as anyone would be trying to keep their head above water in the shark infested waters of Hollywood. Nothing can stop her when she has an idea in her head, until, of course she is stopped by the many obstacles in her way.
Her life is Kafkaesque: she always seems to be on parole, or an insurance risk, and her deepest friends and family seem to have become people who are trying to "look out for her best interests," while forcing her to participate in counselling, rehab, their own schemes, or at worst, suing her, or sentencing her to jail.
Lindsay doesn't seem to learn, and when confronted with a situation where she has tried the same thing and failed, she will always try the same thing again. Every once and while though she surprises us, we think she can win, reach her goal, and we are saddened by her ultimate defeat. We know though that Lindsay always seems to pull through, find the best in life, and will ultimately survive, hopefully finding her own happiness in the end.
Enclosed is a pilot episode.*
Sincerest regards,
Curtis Saretske