What theSearch Partyactress has learned from her tabloid year.
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All my friends were like Whats going on?
and sending me photos, she says.
I just felt overwhelmed.
Its that feeling of being naked in school, like,Oh my God, everyones looking at me.
To get it out of the way: Were not dating.
Were just friends, says Shawkat.
I am deeply sorry and I take full responsibility, she wrote.
A few days after the video resurfaced, Shawkat and I FaceTimed again.
I didnt remember saying it, she says.
I was like, Thats impossible.
What the fuck are they talking about?
The last 48 hours have been me trying to reground myself spiritually.
And being like, What is this about?
Who are you to yourself, to your people and your community?
Its third season centers on a particularly timely subject for Shawkat: the bewitching, filthier side of fame.
Shes just getting farther and farther away from [herself], dissociating, says Shawkat.
When I point out the obvious parallels to her own current tabloid situation, Shawkat laughs.
The thing is, Dory likes it a lot more.
Despite her decades-long career, most of the outlets posting photos of Shawkat and Pitt emphasized her outsiderness.
Its a little ironic, considering she met Pitt through old Hollywood ties.
To them its like, We dont get it!
This girl is weird!
Why are they hanging out?
she says about the tabloids, laughing.
Its not a designation shes unfamiliar with.
Im just a harder, specific [person] to cast, she says.
Theyre like, Well, if we cast you weve got to explain why, she says.
And then [Id] be like, IknowIm attractive.
Im not gonna keep that narrative going, she says.
People have an idea of, when they hang out with you, what they get.
They expect a certain energy, she says.
That purposeful detachment bled into the kind of sex she was having.
Im going in and Im going to talk about the dynamics of men and women!
I remember leaving [the party] thinking,That was great!
That was a fun night, she says.
Now that Im in my 30s, Im realizing that I was dissociating.
I wasnt fully present in those moments.
I was like,Was it really consensual?
Was I fully present in that?
That was fucked up.
In my mind, I wasnt like,What the fuck did I just say?
That was more upsetting, in a way, than saying the word.
Shes spent the last few weeks trying to understand why.
Was I using this because the idea of Black culture seems cool?
And I was just like, Well, thats just part of it!
Its not intellectually understanding that the words you use are really powerful.
I think thats a lot of what this reckoning is for all of us who are not Black.
Shes since spent some time wrestling with her own racial identity.
Shawkat was raised in Palm Springs by an Iraqi father and white mother who ran a local strip club.
I think Ive learned more about it in these last two weeks than I have in my whole life.
She stands by what she wrote, but the shame, she says, has been useful.
Im learning how to accept my shame from it and be better because of it, she says.
It would be terrible if this one thing stopped me from actually doing anything to help.
Shes trying to grow from the experience.
I realize there was a part of me that was like, Im cool!
And Im like, No, no, people dont like me right now!
People dont like me!
But now Im like, Thats okay.
I dont need to be liked by everybody.
She took the opportunity to, as she puts it, clean up shop.
I was seen as a creative person who wasnt just, like, an add-on, she says.
I was really being seen as a professional, and I was like, Okay.
She stopped drinking and partying as frequently.
She got rid of a series of what she calls toxic friends.
She started going to therapy.
Shes been doing pitch meetings over Zoom during lockdown and shares that Natasha Lyonne is involved in some capacity.
Im making it sound like I got Spielberg involved.
But its going on to the next steps of becoming a reality.
Its the deepest psychological dig of any project Ive ever done.
she yells, laughing, into her empty house.
