This is something else: We’re in a “contrast suite” at Remedy Place in New York City, a downtown respite for the biohacking-curious that bills itself as a “social wellness club.” For the next hour, we’ll alternate between a sauna and a 39-degree cold plunge.
“Who chose these things?” Snow asks no one in particular. “Someone who hates me? Someone who wants me to suffer?”
It’s just the two of us in the sleek gray room. I stand there with a wedgie, in my too-small bathing suit on loan from Remedy, nodding in agreement, terrified to admit the crazy person is me. Of course, I don’t even like this stuff. I just assumed all Los Angeles actors would.
Out of guilt, I volunteer to go first. I slither into the ice bath, summoning the courage to get my breasts below water. When I do, Snow locks eyes with me.
“What were your daughter’s first words?” she asks. She keeps the conversation going, and we discuss her now deceased dog Billie’s diabetes. After a few minutes, I no longer feel the sharp pain of the cold water. I feel numb, calm, safe. And then, somehow, I feel warm.
I climb out, and it’s Snow’s turn. She settles in, wincing. After a few moments of silence I realize that now I am the one who is meant to do the distracting. Instead I’m just standing there agape, watching an actor whose face I’ve seen on movie posters and television for most of my life struggling to grin and bear it. I learn the hard way that I am not one of those people instinctively aware of how to put others at ease, especially strangers. But Brittany Snow is.
She gets out of the tub. She proclaims that she fared better than she thought she would.
“I think the really bad thing about it was not being able to breathe at first,” she says, deadpan.
