Not Like in the Movies: An Original Documentary

By Kanako Okiron

"You may be thinking my life is so splendid and glamorous like a movie. Maybe it's everything you've ever dreamt of. It might be the life you want to live when you're older.
What can I say? I'm sorry to burst your bubble of aspirations, but that is unfortunately not the case.
My name's Zelda Mulette and I am seventeen years old. From my past experiences which are about to be revealed, my life is not like in the movies."
-Zelda Mulette
Not Like in the Movies? A quote that is open to interpretation!
From the hit tell-all documentary starring seventeen-year-old Zelda Mulette, daughter of award-winning Hollywood leading lady Valeria Mulette!
Now produced as a written edition, you can easily read and learn never-before-seen content, unedited deleted scenes, and enticing stories that will have you itching to hear more!
In association with CNN (Celebrity News Network) and the Mulette family, you will be able to read Zelda's entertaining dialogue as she candidly navigates through her adolescence growing up in the public eye.

Praise for Not Like in the Movies:
"This is more than just a documentary. It is my Zelda's open letter to the universe: her desire to let go, her ultimate meaning of fame and fortune, and what she truly believes in. I am forever inspired and grateful for her perseverance and honesty." -Valeria Mulette

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tablo Publishing
• Release date: Aug 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781649699466

Book preview

Take Two

Hmm, so where do you think I should begin? 

On the day of my birth, you say? Okaaaay. 

So, according to this document (in which I have no clue how you were able to get your hands on), I was born prematurely at 33 weeks on the 14th of August at a private hospital hidden in Beverly Hills. Like my planned sister Lavinia’s birth, Mom and Dad had originally planned to think about my name closer to my predicted birth date. (They named my sister after the last TV role Mom was cast in before her pregnancy, portraying Lavinia, the daughter of King Latinus, from an Ancient Roman film. And as they were going to have a baby girl, it was a perfect coincidence!)

So, like other stunned early parents, they let the relatives take charge. Saffron, our housekeeper, is the one who decided on my name.     

Zelda, means in Yiddish-German, happiness or joy, a nod to her Swiss-German heritage and what she would have named her child if she would ever give birth. (Saffron’s been proudly single all her life). 

But the main reason why she named me is because of a TV show character that she had admired when she was growing up (Zelda Gilroy from the 1950s sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis). Growing up as a child of famous figures, Lavinia and I were both warned since we could speak, to be very  careful, and to look out around us whenever we were in public, in case we were being watched and followed. (Which by the way, was one hundred percent of the time, we were just too young to notice). As you may know, I am referring to the paparazzi.

Paparazzi, like a hungry pack of wolves, watch and stalk your every move. Celebrity kids are rarely seen because of our vulnerability and age, so any photographs of us are incredible. 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.

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 after a celebrity dinner at Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard, and all I remember are two things:

1: The large plate of Linguini Marinara  Mom and I shared was absolutely amazing (Mom and I used to share food all the time when I was little, as the exclusive restaurants we usually dined at were too fancy to offer kids menus).

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, so loud and so quick it startled us and we looked up.  At first, I remember telling Mom, "Is it thund-ning,  Mommy?"

Then, voices boomed from behind the cameras: MISS MULETTE! MISS VALERIA! ARE THESE YOUR KIDS? HOW WAS YOUR DINE-IN? A 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. She urged, Girls, quickly! Duck for cover and run to the car! Look down! Sneaky shots are here! Dad called from the pouring rain, C'mon, Lavi! 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 one 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 understood what was unfolding and immediately ducked for cover. Although Mom had covered us with our raincoat hoodies, obviously a little bit of our faces did show. (I’m assuming that you will cut to the snap of us here). 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.

The other unlucky occasion when I was secretly snapped by photographers was when my father was giving me a piggyback ride while walking my dog Alphina down Diamond Drive. I didn't think much of the photographers as I was very young. The female photographer said something like, Aren't you a beauty, Miss Zelda? Then, she said, SMILE! Lucky for her, I was in a warm mood, out in the California sunshine, and gave a wide pie-eating grin as I fiddled with my dad's hair. He and Alphina were 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, every newspaper article, every tabloid magazine, 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’d Googled myself as a child a few times, only for the search engine to fill up with Instagram selfies and YouTube videos of Lavinia. Zelda Mulette was mistaken for my sister, the search engine automatically correcting me with a Do you mean Lavinia Mulette. (Clearly shows our stark differences in fame and popularity). I was a little shocked at how famous Lavinia already was. Twenty million subscribers? Eighteen million Instagram followers? And yet she shrugged it off like it was nothing?

It wasn’t until I kept on scrolling through the motherload of Lavinia content that finally a paparazzi snap of me came up on the screen from when I was about two or three years old. The tabloid magazine 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!) but for some reason they were of no interest. I zoomed in on the headline and laughed when I saw: ALL SMILES FROM MULETTE BABY! LAVINIA, 3, SPOTTED ON DADDY DAY OUT!

At the time, in the public eye Zelda Mulette did not exist, which I was honestly delighted with (until now). I was fine for my older sister to have all the fame and attention and be the one family member that chose to be more private.

Enough said about me, don’t you think? I’m not THAT important. 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 have been 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 inherited his thick eyebrows and mousey-brown hair with thick curls, while Lavinia's facial features are more like my mom's. She has Mom's chocolate brown ringlets and dark eyes and tanned skin, while I have hazel eyes and lighter skin with freckles. That is 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.

My mom has landed roles in blockbusters, motion pictures, Broadway performances, sci-fi thrillers and crime shows such as the X-Files (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 flirty love interest)  and  period dramas. The list would go on forever! Not to brag, but I bet she's accomplished so much more in her career than other actors in her generation. She has won 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 too many to count!

To make an already long story short, yes, she has a star with her name engraved on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. If that really means anything.

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, resembling a young Kurt Cobain,  according to some celebrity columns, which I guess could be true. He has longish surfer blonde hair with a bit of stubble above his chin and nose. To be honest, I wasn't really interested in his career, as the films he's been in weren't really my sort of binge-watch favorites, like Mom's films are.

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 actually grimace, or he named it that because of his compound surname of Grim and Gridge, instead separating it with an Ace instead. I was yet to ask him why, but I summoned up the courage to ask him in the end. It’s quite a funny story, actually.

So Harley got a deal after appearing on Saturday Night Live to promote a fake fragrance called you guessed it, Grim Ace, and brands like Giorgio Armani, Boss and Jimmy Choo, taking it into reality, reached out to him and asked him for a partnership. Harley laughed it off and decided he couldn’t choose any of them. Thus, he formed his own fragrance company in SNL’s honor, and the rest is history.

Harley has Scottish and American ancestry; his American mother was a Grim, while his Scot father was a Gridge, making his surname. Mom and Harley first laid eyes on each other when they were both auditioning for co-roles in an Old Western film, Losing Ranch* , a few years back, a role Mom unfortunately didn’t get, much to her disappointment. (I wonder why. Admittedly, they surely had good chemistry, since Mom was supposed to be Harley, a cowboy’s love interest!) After finding out, Mom cheekily posted a snippet of their audition video reciting their lines together on Social Media, and fans immediately noticed the connection between them.

 When you jump to the conclusion that a pair of single Hollywood actors come together to work on a film, what do you do on Instagram and Twitter? You ship them. 

And so a hashtag trend began, with fan accounts and tabloids reposting the clip titling (#Harleria or #Harlerious, due to how smitten they were in the video). During their relationship, Mom and Harley frequently mentioned after their wedding whether Lavinia and I were willing to change our surname from Mulette to Grimgridge’s, or at best add a hyphen between our names. I guess they wanted to feel more like a family with Achilles (my half-brother), in the picture. Lavinia was all for it, but I admit I was not as keen.

Not that there’s anything wrong with Grimgridge… But I always just didn’t feel like the surname suited me. Maybe a hyphen would be okay… I decided that I would give myself time with getting used to Harley as my stepdad before I made my final decision. I mean, I never got to use my father’s surname, so I thought it would be disrespectful to him if I moved on without his surname.

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 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 life and my life, (for the better or for the worse, I still don’t know), in so many ways!

* - Refer to Take Four for more details.

Take Three

I yawned and checked my phone on my bedside table. 8:30am on a Sunday. I rolled out of bed and walked downstairs to the lounge room, Alphina following me for her breakfast. Alphina doesn’t give a stuff about doggie food, so she usually just eats our leftovers.

What would you like to eat today, ‘Phina? I asked. 

Alphina gave me a look that said, Oatmeal. 

I poured 2 sachets of oatmeal into two bowls and added milk and honey. Saffron, our housekeeper, entered the room cradling Achilles in her arms. Guete morge! she said, cheerfully. Born in Bern, Switzerland, Saffron moved to L.A when she was twenty-eight for a new career path in the Hollywood industry, where she worked for thirty years as a professional makeup artist for actors on set. Saffron has told fascinating stories of working behind the scenes on Marvel superhero movies with the late Stan Lee, the original Superman Christopher Reeve, and The Golden Girls, one of her all-time favourite sitcoms. Although she’s retired from her previous career, Saffron still helps Mom with her makeup and styling for awards shows and movie premieres. Achilles made a happy gasp to signal his good morning. Achilles is my half-brother. Celebrities are notorious for naming their children weird names, but what isn’t  weird these days? 

Mom decided on the name Achilles after the doctors told her, shortly after his birth, that he was born with Down Syndrome. I think it’s a great name, to be honest. Achilles was one of the greatest warriors in Greek mythology, and Mom and Harley believed that he would grow up to be a fighter no matter what curveballs would be thrown at him because of his disability, which doesn’t ever define who he is in any way. He is as normal as the rest of us, and I love him very much.

Guete morge, Saffron! Good morning, Achilles! I said, walking over to Achilles and poking his cheek. Just like a tickle – he loved and hated it when I did that. He let out the cutest of giggles and squeals.  

Saffron was like a grandmother to me, as I hardly got to see my grandma that often. I’d known Saffron since I was born. She had cared for me and Lavinia while Mom and Harley were busy with their acting schedules. When Mom and Harley are away on set, we Skype each other, but it just isn’tthe same. I missed Mom a lot, but Saffron is always there for me when I need her. I can talk to her about anything like I do with my Mom.

Saffron walked over to the kitchen and took out two ripe bananas from the fruit bowl on the kitchen counter. 

NA-NA! NA-NA! Achilles squealed, clapping his hands as he pointed his little index finger at the bananas on the fruit bowl.

Yes, that is indeed a 'nana! I said, Just don't forget the B-A first! Ba-nana!

Achilles tried to grab the bowl off Saffron as she mashed the banana, but I stopped him quickly with a nudge of my elbow. He was this close to knocking the bowl and spilling mashed banana onto the floor. 

Merci Vilmal, Saffron said, gratefully, as she lifted him off the kitchen counter and on to his high-chair, and I helped strap him in his seat.

How long will Mom and Harl be shooting Losing Ranch in Texas for? I wondered aloud. I've texted Mom for aaaaaaaaaaaages and there's been no response.

Her role isn’t as big as Harley’s, yes, but you know how long even a short shot takes in Hollywood films, Saffron reminded me with a chuckle as she fed Achilles spoonfuls of mashed banana. One minute translates to fifteen hours each day of shooting. Plus they have to go through the re-runs again and again. 

Is there anyone else as famous as Harley that's co-starring in this film? I had always wondered who the co-star in the film was after Mom didn’t get the part. As my Mom and stepdad were one of the well-known actors in Hollywood, you’d think that I would be the first to name every single one of them off the top of my head like a math whiz. But no.

"From memory what your mother told me, a woman called Gloria Gamba, Saffron replied. Probably a reason why your mother did not get the role, she didn’t fit the bill. Haven’t you heard of her? She’s a Broadway star!Of course! I’m so dumb, Gloria Gamba! I cried, like the name rang a bell, as I purposely slapped my hand over my forehead. I totally remember Mom mentioning her. Damn, I must have forgotten. How could I? She’s SO famous." Why was I acting so kooky back then? Of course, I obviously knew like the SUPER-FAMOUS ones, ones that we ALL know, like Diane Keaton. Saffron is a HUGE Diane Keaton fan, so when Mom asked THE Diane Keaton to send a surprise video message for Saffron on her birthday, Saffron started to hyperventilate so hard Mom, Lavinia and I had to calm her down. But if I had a video message from my idol (I have many favourites), I would die too. I mean, I've met some actresses and actors that are Mom's friends and dates (sometimes), this includes Harley, who is now her partner. You wanna know what I think about famous people? What kind of question is that? They are nice and chill, why wouldn’t they be? I mean, I used to have the casual once-in-a-while thought of like, Oh my god I'm actually talking to her/him how did I get born with famous parents this is like a dream.  But as the years go by and you grow up, you get used to it if you have famous parents in show business. They are just people (important to note) at dinner parties and when you bump into them in the neighborhood. I took my life for granted like other thirteen-year-olds, and I still do today as a seventeen-year-old.

As Saffron wiped Achilles' bowl and Alphina and I crunched our oatmeal, Lavinia stomped down the stairs.

Hoping to ease the tension (which usually happened every morning), I greeted her with a smile. Morning, Lavi! I said, cheerfully

Guete morge, Lavinia, Saffron said. How was your sleep?

Morning, Lavinia grunted, clear that she had not had a particularly good sleep.

 (Lavinia, as a fame-obsessed social media influencer, spends her nights on her screen, TikToking, vlogging to her YouTube subscribers and scrolling on social media). 

After breakfast, I took Alphina for a walk down Diamond Drive. The streets are all hilly and sloping, which makes for a great time for a dog, but not so much for an owner trying to catch up as their pet runs loose. There's a real mish-mash of famous people in Beverly Hills – From celebrities to musicians to billionaires to entrepreneurs, and I have a rough idea of who lives where, but I have never been in their houses, apart from Mom's best friend Heidi Martinez's house, who is also an actress. Heidi Martinez and Mom have been friends since they were three years old, when they debuted their acting careers as children in Infants of Infinity.  Heidi has two kids called Dante and Chamomile, who are actors. Dante is Lavinia's age while Chamomile is my age.

Lavinia has a huge crush on Dante, so she spends her time blabbing to him on the phone, while I talk to Chamomile (AKA Cammy). She's nice,