Emme scene from Nip/Tuck, practice script

CHRISTIAN

Miss Lowell, tell me what you don’t like about yourself.

EMME

You’re sweet. No one’s ever pretended not to notice before. But call me Emme.

CHRISTIAN

Emme. If there’s one thing I’ve learned as a doctor in this business, it’s never to assume.(Then) So you’d like your nose done?

EMME

When I first saw your pictures on-line, I don’t think you’d be so funny. I like it. Makes the plane trip out here even more worth while.

CHRISTIAN

Let me guess -- South Carolina?

EMME

Please, I’m a Jersey girl. Born and raised.

EMME (CONT’D)

Guess we both have the same sense of humor, huh? Actually I’m from Cleveland. Georgia. It’s a tiny little town in the Smoky Mountains up north. This is my first time

EMME (CONT’D) (cont’d)

traveling away from home if you can believe it. (Leans in, whispers) I think I’m afraid of flying, too.

CHRISTIAN

Yet you chose to get on a plane for the first time to come all the way to our office for a consult? Why?

EMME

You. You’re the doctor who set up the Hedda Grubman fund, right? I don’t have a lot of money. When I went on Google and typed in "free plastic surgery," your name came up and it said you do cases like mine for no pay. You know, where birth defects are involved.

CHRISTIAN

Technically what you have on your face is a naevus flammus. And it’s fairly common. About one in three thousand newborns has one.

EMME

Not like this they don’t.

CHRISTIAN

I understand you made the trip, but I have a very long waiting list right now -

EMME

A waiting list? I’ve waited twenty-four years. I spent all I had just to get out here. Then the cab ride from the airport was almost as much as the plane. And they lost my luggage...

EMME (CONT’D)

You ever read the Scarlet Letter, Doctor Troy?

CHRISTIAN

In college, sure.

EMME

That’s what my mom used to call this - her scarlet letter. Said it was the shame she had to bear for having me with some one night stand. But it’s not just her. I’ve never been accepted by anyone my whole life because of this face. That’s the real reason I never left home until now. And now that I’m here, I can’t go back looking like this. I won’t.