by Stacy Travis
I tried to imagine what a teenager—I was certain he was under twenty—could be doing in his nonwork hours other than heading down to a pub with his friends, but it didn’t matter. His time was his own, and I respected that.
“Works for me,” I’d told him. I liked that he had boundaries. I knew a lot of actors who would have taken advantage of a set PA and tried to turn a guy like Nigel into their own personal assistant, running him all over hell’s half acre to do errands and other stupid shit they had no business asking him to do. And in his position, he would have had no alternative but to toe the line and do what was asked of him or risk getting a bad reputation and being overlooked for future jobs. That was the lot of assistants. They had no power, and they had to work harder than everyone else for less pay and no complaining in order to earn their way to a better position.
I’d never really ascribed to the punitive nature of the assistant track. Executives and actors generally got away with bad behavior because they had power. The idea of exploiting that made me sick. So I told Nigel we would get along just fine if he did his job. And he did. He never behaved as if it was beneath him or as though someone owed him something because he was assigned the most menial tasks. And I never made him fetch me fast food after hours or yelled at him if my coffee wasn’t hot enough.
Since that first day, we’d had a great rapport. Even though he always had an edge of attitude and unnecessary swagger, he struck me more and more like a bear cub with his wisp of facial hair, skinny black jeans, and plaid flannel shirt that he never tucked in.
I opened the door to my trailer and told him I was coming. I started to close the door. I needed a couple more minutes to think about my character and get my brain organized.
“You know I’m meant to stand out here until you’re ready.”
I did know, but he also knew I was good at my word when I said I would come to set. We’d been doing the same thing for three weeks. “Fine. You stand there. I need a minute.”
“Take your time. I’ve got nowhere to be.”
“Actually, can you get a new set of sides for me?” I asked, referring to the scenes I’d be running that day, which were photocopied and stapled in a small packet, separated from the rest of the script. “Mine are soaking wet, and I can see one page through the next.”
“Sure, as long as this isn’t a ruse to get me to leave watch and let you lollygag for another half hour.”
“I’m not stalling. But I need a dry set.”
“Sure. How’d they get wet?”
“They were dropped off outside my trailer earlier, and it rained buckets before I got back from set.”
“That’s fucked up,” Nigel said.
“That it rains in Ireland all year long? I agree.”
He waved his hand. “Nah. Who left them outside your trailer?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, and I don’t care.” I needed a dry set, and the longer he wanted to talk about it, the longer it would take me to look them over and get myself to set. “Look, Nigel, I’ll leave you alone after we wrap for the night, but right now, I just need the sides. And I kind of need them an hour ago.”
“On it,” he said, going off at a jog.
The truth was, I did know who left them outside my trailer. It was my costar, Triss. I couldn’t get mad at her, because she was going through a divorce and had been alternating between attitude and tears for at least a week.
I felt terrible for her, even though she’d made my waking life miserable since we’d started filming. She’d been moody, demanding, and self-involved. She’d been short with the crew and late to almost every call time.
Still, I had a feeling she was a nice person, in spite of the vituperative scorn of her ex. No one does well with breakups, and even though she hadn’t talked about the details, I had a feeling he’d dumped her without much warning.
Nigel came trotting back to my trailer with a dry set of sides, and I felt ready enough to head to set with him. I looked over the scenes one more time on the walk, feeling more prepared purely because I held dry pages in my hands. I only had to mentally prep for the first two scenes. The next two would be after lunch, and I could spend another hour in my trailer, looking them over and getting my character right.
“Is Triss already there?” I asked.
“Hell if I know. I can’t get far enough away from her. I don’t know how you work with that bitch.”
“Nigel, she’s going through a rough time.”
“So? Does that mean the rest of us have to go through a rough time too? Every fucking day? Fuck that. She has to put on her knickers like a big girl and do her job.”
He had a point. I didn’t know Triss that well, so I couldn’t do that much to defend her. “Let’s hope that’s what we get today. All we can do is hope, right?”
“Wow, sounds like you’re in love with her or some goddamned thing.”
That made me laugh. “You got me. It’s true love.”
The truth was, I didn’t even know Triss. We’d met a couple days earlier during prep and rehearsals for the scenes we had together. She’d been pleasant at first, but as the day went on, I could see her frustration building. Every time the director gave her a note, she took it personally, and instead of rolling with it and trying the scene a different way, she folded into herself and gave a worse performance than the first time.
For the first two weeks of shooting, we didn’t have a scene together, so I had no idea if she would eventually lighten up. But for the sake of the movie and my personal sanity, I really hoped so.
I’d seen how films could go from well-run productions to outright disaster based on the behavior of a lead actor or a director who clashed with everyone else. I’d only worked on one film that had to be shut down while a new actor was cast, but it had been a nightmare.
As it was, I’d already been overseas for weeks, and I really wanted to get back to California. Any delays caused by Triss and her drama only spelled trouble for me. I hoped that if she was going to bring the whole production down with her antics, it would happen sooner rather than later.
Triss had a reputation that preceded whatever was happening in her marriage. Rumor had it that she was a difficult diva who only respected actors who were more famous than her, and only because of what they could do for her career. That type of person screamed nightmare to me, and ordinarily, I would have steered clear, but we were in every scene together for the next week. So far, she’d been nice to me, so I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt.
“How’s your girlfriend feel about you two-timing her with a diva bitch?” Nigel asked, lighting a cigarette on the walk between the trailers and the set. The set was strictly nonsmoking, so if Nigel needed to get in a few puffs, that was his opportunity.
I couldn’t help coming down on him like a dad. “Nigel, you should cut that shit out.”
“Sorry, mate. Which part, calling her a diva bitch or asking about your girlfriend?”
“The smoking. It’s terrible for you.”
He waved a hand in between us, as if he could dispel the conversation by waving away the smoke. “Nah, it’s my birthright. Like telling me not to drink a pint or six with my mates.”
“Your parents know you smoke?”
“I lie and tell them I don’t. Then I steal ’em from my dad—who also, by the way, swears he doesn’t smoke. So what’s he gonna do?”
“They live close by, your family?”
“’Bout thirty minutes.”
“You should invite them to the set sometime. I’d love to meet them.”
He shook his head. “You absolutely would feel many emotions, but none of them love…”
I wanted to hear more, but we were at the set, which was the depleted backyard garden of a farmhouse that had been occupied by Nazis and ravaged by neglect during wartime. The homes in the neighborhood all looked well kept, and I imagined that this farmhouse would have looked similar, if not for the work of the set designer and her crew.
Th
e back pasture had been swept of almost anything blooming and green and replaced with wilted and dying plants, broken farm equipment, and scraps of ratty clothing hanging on a laundry line. It was supposed to be the childhood home of Triss’s character, and in the scene we were shooting, she’d just come back and seen the desolation for the first time.
Mark, the director, made a beeline for me as soon as he saw us. And behind him, I saw the scowling face of my costar. She was angry, but I had no idea why. When I walked over to where she sat, glowering in her chair, she practically shouted at me, “Well, it’s about fucking time. I’m sitting here under these blazing hot lights, and now I’ve got to have my makeup touched up for the third time.”
“Good morning,” I said, not willing to argue but not willing to let her attitude control the tempo of the day. We had work to do, and whatever bullshit she brought with her wasn’t helpful, especially if it prevented us from staying on schedule. I looked at my watch and saw I was only about five minutes late. That didn’t merit her attitude, so I met her glare with an icy stare but said nothing else.
Her eyes shot daggers at me, as if I’d murdered her goldfish, and I started to feel an inordinate amount of empathy for her ex-husband. Maybe he’d gotten out within an inch of his life.
I nodded at Mark, letting him know I was ready to rehearse the scenes. He waved Triss and me over to a quiet patch of dead grass outside the area where we would be shooting. He talked through what he hoped to accomplish in the scene. “This is the first you’ve laid eyes on this place. Your reaction is all emotion,” he told Triss.
She nodded. He’d given us the same instructions at the table read of our scenes a few days earlier, and I waited for her annoyed reaction, but she said nothing. She was studying her lines and occasionally looking up at me, as though considering how I would respond in the scene.
“And you… it’s just about the love story for you. You’re responding to what she’s laying at your feet. You relent on whatever agenda you might have had, and you give her your last-ditch attempt to win her heart,” he said.
I nodded. “Got it.”
We rehearsed once, but the scene still felt almost devoid of emotion. Triss was so locked up and stiff, I worried she would never be able to convey what Mark asked. But all I could do was play my role.
Once we stepped on set, it was his show to run. He blocked the action with us and rehearsed a couple more times until he seemed to feel like the emotion of the scene was getting there. Then we took a break while the lighting crew finished up, and the hair and makeup team put final touches on us.
After another nearly sleepless night, thinking about my character and what I wanted to convey in the scenes, we took our marks, settled, and heard the words that would never get old for as long as I worked as an actor.
The set fell into silence, and Mark settled behind the monitor. “And, action.”
The day went pretty well, all told. I’d been the most stressed about the scenes we had to crank out because they were the emotional crux of the whole film. I had to sell an audience on the fact that I was heartbroken because my love interest had chosen to stay in Germany, and my character had had the chance to escape the horrors of the Nazi camps. Triss’s character had to explain why she wouldn’t leave. She had a calling and a mission. She would stay until the end, even if it meant death.
Scenes were always filmed out of order, so we didn’t have the luxury of playing our previous scenes together to ramp up our connection to each other or our chemistry. We just had to hit the emotional resonance at the outset. Later, we would film the rest on a different set in a different location.
In the film, the trip back to her family home was the one chance my character had to draw her away from the war and back to me, to tempt her to live without the risk she faced if she went back to the frontlines.
Unfortunately, some of my fears about Triss’s ability to focus on her part bore themselves out. She just couldn’t get her head into the scenes. At first, I’d wondered if her histrionics off set were all for show. Some people thrived on drama. I could deal with it if she found her character once the set went silent and we were left to work through the scene together. But after seven takes on the same scene, I saw she couldn’t do it. Mark told us to take a break.
“Fuck this,” Triss said, walking toward her trailer. “I don’t need to keep running the same scene only to be told I’m doing it wrong.”
I jogged to catch up to her. She was a fast walker, and her anger had her throwing her arms into pushing her stride along.
“Hey. Triss. Wait up,” I called, slowing to a walk because she halted at the sound of my voice. She didn’t turn around, but when I reached her, I saw her arms folded across her chest and tears in her eyes. I put my hand on her shoulder in sympathy.
“I can’t fucking do it. I can’t internalize this character. She’s not speaking to me at all.” She spat the words out like the taste offended her. “Not to mention my divorce papers arrived this morning.”
It was no wonder she couldn’t access what she needed. Triss’s vision was clouded by whatever baggage her busted marriage had left here to carry.
“Let’s not call time of death on it yet. We’ve got an hour break. Should we try to work through it?”
Her gaze was sharp when she met my eyes. “You keep saying “we.” I’m the one with the problem.” She was wrong about that. If she didn’t find her mojo, we were in for a painful week of filming.
“We both have a problem if you’re struggling with this. Let me try to help.”
She snorted her disdain. “I don’t need a quick fuck.”
“I wasn’t offering.”
Her expression softened, as though that fact really was news to her. “Oh. Well, still. It’s not just a question of relaxing or focusing. I don’t understand this character. At all. I don’t know what motivates her. I’m not prepared. You think you can help with that?”
It took every fiber of my being to remain calm and not take her bait. “Maybe I can.”
“I don’t know why you’d want to.” She shook her head, her eyes still stony, her expression unyielding. “I’m so fucked.”
I had a choice. I could let her spiral into self-loathing, or I could try to pull her back from the abyss. “Can we work on it? Will you try to let me help you?”
Her sigh sounded like the last fizzle of air leaving a balloon. “Sure. What the hell. It can’t hurt.”
We walked back to the set, but I waved at Mark to make sure the crew kept away so we could have some space to work without an audience. The set designer had positioned a fallen log in the yard, and I motioned for Triss to sit on it with me. “How about if I tell you how I see your character in this scene? Maybe that will open up something for you.”
She shrugged, already defeated. “Sure. Shoot.”
“The way I look at it, your character is in a struggle of heart over mind. You want to defend your beliefs, and that means staying in Berlin and being part of the resistance, wherever that fight leads you, even death.”
“Sure. I know that. I’m choosing to take part in a war effort instead of coming back to the man I love. I don’t get that. Who would choose war and a good chance of dying over being with her great love?”
“Because sacrificing that great love for the work makes you feel like the work matters. Your love makes the sacrifice mean something. The pain when you leave is what makes you believe you’re doing something important.”
It wasn’t lost on me that I could have been speaking about myself and how I felt toward Nikki. Each time I left her was more painful than the last, but the pain made me love her more, because committing to my job amplified the need to be with her. I rationalized that being away was good for our relationship.
Spoken like a workaholic.
Triss nodded. “I see what you’re saying. I mean, it’s completely misguided. A person who manufactures relevance by leaving the person she loves in order to make her work more important is only ki
dding herself,” she said, looking pointedly at me. “If you love a person, you make the sacrifice, plain and simple. But I love that she’s flawed like that. I hadn’t looked at the character that way.”
She popped up from the log, a lost sparkle returning to her eyes. She extended her hand to me. “I think I’m good now. I’ve found something I can run with. Thank you.”
“Anytime,” I said, still digesting her dismissal of my reasoning. If she felt ready to tackle the scene, I had to keep my focus on my character, but her words hung in the back of my mind as unfinished business.
We signaled to Mark that we were ready to resume, and he went about calling back the crew and setting up the shot.
We got it right in one take.
I felt her emotional connection to the material and to me while we were in character as war-torn lovers.
I could tell our on-screen chemistry was there, even though I suddenly felt wobbly with my own performance.
I’d spent so much time thinking about the scene, about what it meant to love a person but not be willing to sacrifice for that person. I’d convinced myself that being in love made the sacrifice bigger, but I’d only been thinking about love being the actual sacrifice, love taking a backseat to the importance of war. Or the importance of work.
What if I had it backwards? What if the better version was sacrificing the work for the sake of enduring love?
I’d never sacrificed work for anything. And I knew Nikki would never ask me to do it. I’d told her about my devotion to my career, and she’d understood. She’d let me continue in my same pattern. But what if… for the first time in my life… I wanted to make the sacrifice?
