The Stand-In

by Deborah Moggach

  Outside it was quiet. There was a sharp, golden light; the sound-stage buildings looked as huge and faceless as cliffs and their shadows lay solid across the road. They looked like factories; people could be making carburettors in there. An electric buggy, loaded with documents, passed with a sigh.

  I walked across to the back lot. I walked down the main street of a Wild West town: wooden façades on both sides of me. They were propped up at the rear. Through their sightless windows was the empty sky. Nothing was secure any more; nothing could be trusted. Touch it and it would all collapse. Lila re-staged my most intimate secrets in front of a horny film crew and, eventually, a horny audience of millions. With the willing help of Trev she had appropriated my past and taken it for herself. How could he just stand by and watch?

  I walked into another part of the lot and found myself in small-town America. There were white picket fences and white clapboard houses, their porches shaded by trees. How innocent it all looked! At any moment James Stewart would saunter towards me, strolling out of It’s a Wonderful Life. He’d be loose-limbed and engaging; maybe he’d be whistling. Doris Day would pop her head out of one of those windows, its chequered curtains blowing in the breeze; she would call her invisible children in for milk and cookies.

  Our lives seemed so sunny and secure, but it was all as flimsy as a stage-set. Poke it and it keeled over. I pushed open a gate, walked up to a house and peered through the window. There was no mother inside, baking me cookies. There was nothing. Not even walls. It was as echoing as a warehouse. Just emptiness and some Coke cans, swept into the corner. Nobody was waiting for me, their arms open. I had no lines to speak.

  The only way I could sabotage Lila was through her work. That was where her weakness lay. The only power left to me lay in my superior ability as an actress.

  First of all, however, I needed Hutt Sanbourn on my side. He was the director and he held us in his hands. Up until now he had scarcely noticed me. I was simply a piece of furniture to be shunted around; he would then stroll on, like the owner of a house, and size me up to see whether the removal men had put me in the correct position. I think he had realised, from my various observations, that I was a great deal more intelligent than most stand-ins. Most actresses, in fact. But I needed to get to work on him.

  My first thought was to try and seduce him, but I was too low-spirited for that. My confidence had taken a battering. Besides, I was outclassed. He had recently married his third wife, a gorgeous Finnish starlet. I had to try other means.

  I had an opportunity to talk to him the next day, during lunchbreak. For once Hutt was alone. Nobody hassled or importuned him; nobody rushed up with urgent messages, proffering him the phone. He was leaning against a wall, leafing through the script and eating a BLT in an abstracted manner; a wisp of lettuce had got caught in his beard. He was a big man, running to fat. He wore red espadrilles, loose grey trousers and a grey checked shirt; he looked casual and approachable.

  I told him how much I had admired one of his earlier films, a psychological thriller set in the Bronx. ‘It reminded me of Chabrol in his heyday,’ I said. ‘Subtle and playful and unnerving.’

  He was pleased, I could see that. The film had bombed at the box office. I flattered him, just as I had flattered the director of Bump. We talked about the European cinema and agreed that Truffaut’s Day for Night was the best film ever shot about movie-making.

  ‘I’d love to work in Europe,’ he said, wiping some mayonnaise off his lip. ‘In the present climate it’s almost impossible to get a high-quality product made in Hollywood. There’s no stability or continuity.’

  I commiserated with him. ‘It must be so frustrating.’ I meant: working with people like Lila.

  He said that very few actresses were trained on the stage, like me. ‘It must be kind of frustrating for you, too,’ he said.

  I shrugged. ‘It’s a learning experience.’

  ‘See, they don’t have the reserves to draw on. They don’t have the background or the depth. They come in, raw, from the boonies. From modelling.’

  We watched Lila. She was standing with her business manager, inspecting the salads.

  ‘From Miss New Jersey Dairy Products,’ I said.

  ‘That where she started?’

  I nodded. I popped a grape into my mouth and told him how I had worked for the RSC, up at Stratford.

  He looked at me respectfully. ‘No shit?’

  ‘In Trev’s Golden Period.’

  ‘Trev?’

  ‘Trevor Nunn.’

  ‘What roles did you play?’ he asked.

  ‘Imogen. Hedda Gabler. A wonderful role for a woman. That was at The Other Place. An absolutely electrifying chamber production.’

  Just as I was getting into my stride, he was called away. Maybe it was a good thing. He might have started to cross-question me.

  But directors don’t. All directors have tunnel-vision; they have to, in order to get their jobs done. I watched him talking to the line producer. I had achieved my goal. I had charmed and flattered him; I had impressed him with my deep theatrical roots.

  And for the first time he had noticed me as a person. I would work on that.

  Eight

  I STARTED UNDERMINING Lila’s performance. This wasn’t a difficult task. She hadn’t understood the character of Jane Eyre at all, she hadn’t inhabited her. During the fortnight of location shooting this had been apparent, I was sure, to Hutt, who had frequently looked somewhat underwhelmed by her interpretation. But those had been breezy exteriors, with few close-ups and little dialogue. Now we were sealed into the intimacy of the sound-stage, knuckling down for the bulk of the shooting, with long and complex emotional scenes ahead of us.

  Lila simply couldn’t act a woman who feels plain and neglected. Her only ploy was to take her glasses off and put them on again. She had no experience to draw upon, and she lacked the talent and imagination to think herself into the role. When had she been overlooked? When had she felt invisible?

  The day after I had spoken to Hutt, the director, we were scheduled to start shooting the party scene. It was a typical Californian get-together. The men – Colonel Dent, Mr Eshton, Sir George Lynn and various other tanned freeloaders – play pool and talk real-estate values. The women – Blanche, Mrs Eshton, Louisa, Mary and Amy – drink Napa Valley Chardonnay and discuss their exercise routines. Jane Eyre, a mere lodger, feels uncomfortable. She is both an outsider and a career professional. Unlike the other women there, she is not making her living out of alimony. She is also deeply jealous of Blanche.

  The party was held in Mr Rochester’s den – a mahogany-panelled set, with a pool table and deep leather chairs. Jane Eyre, looking awkward, is offering a plate of taco shells to the guests. In rehearsal Lila played Jane like a gracious hostess. Her only sign of insecurity was a worried look at herself in the mirror, a quick tidy of her hair and a glance at Blanche.

  I watched her with contempt. Newly-risen from Trev’s bed, she positively glowed with triumph and gratification. Didn’t she understand how Jane would behave? I knew, of course. I’d show them! I had plenty of experience upon which to draw. If a person feels excluded, they console themselves with food. If nobody is talking to them, they occupy themselves with displacement activities – sifting through the host’s record collection, inspecting his books, anything.

  Lila was taking ages in make-up, so Hutt called, ‘Let’s run it through. Jules – try the moves.’

  So I began. I stepped in front of the camera. I performed my own interpretation and added my own bits of business. I went over to Mr Rochester’s CD collection, picked up a couple and turned them over in my hand with exaggerated interest before I put them down. I paused, and gazed aggressively at the guests – for when we are vulnerable we become hostile. Standing around the pool table, the extras watched me with surprise. I leafed through a copy of Newsweek, pretending to read it, just as I had pretended to read magazines when I was a teenager and nobody had asked me to dance. I dred
ged up the most painful memories; they took me over. I stuffed taco shells into my mouth, I sat down and started pulling bits of thread out of my sweater. I fiddled with the gold chain around my neck. I breathed fast; that old, forgotten adrenalin fired up in my veins, like a boiler bursting into life after the dormant months of summer.

  When I had finished there was a moment’s silence. Then Hutt stepped forward. Frowning at me, he tugged at this beard.

  ‘Jules, can we talk?’

  Heart pounding, I followed him like an errant schoolgirl following the headmaster. We stepped through into Jane’s bedroom.

  He said, ‘Know who I saw just then?’

  ‘Who?’ I whispered.

  ‘I saw Jane. For the first time, it was Jane Eyre out there. I don’t know why you did it, Jules, but it was a turning point for me. I just want to share that with you.’

  He gave me a quick hug, just as he had hugged Lila. I smelt his musk-oil aftershave. And then he left me, abruptly.

  They changed the marks and altered the camera angles. When Lila returned, Hutt took her aside. ‘This way, it just looks right,’ he said.

  I strained to hear. ‘You didn’t like what I did?’ Lila demanded.

  ‘It was great. But let’s try it this way, hon.’

  And she did. When they shot the scene, she incorporated my bits of business. It improved the scene out of all recognition; it lifted it and gave it psychological truth. She didn’t act as well as I did – that was apparent to everyone. Also apparent was my own contribution to her performance. Delighted with her, Hutt moved in closer and shot tight on her face.

  Over the next few days I avoided Lila. I went behind the set and sought sanctuary with the noddies and extras – or background artistes, as they prefer to be called. For fifty dollars a day they had mouthed party noises. Now they sat around, leafing through magazine articles about aromatherapy. Some of them had brought their plastic recliners with them and they lay there with their feet up, reading Sidney Sheldon novels. I have always identified with extras – I was hardly better than one myself. They are simply camera-fodder. Nobody knows their names; they appear on the set for a day, maybe two. Strangers to the sealed-off family of the cast and crew, with its running gags, its emotional undercurrents and its growing cohesion, they are ignored until needed. Meanwhile, they stuff themselves with the unit catering, slipping melon slices into doggie bags; they steal bits of birthday cake, because it’s always somebody’s birthday on a film unit. They whinge about wardrobe and how they have to bring along their own shoes; they all seem to have a relative in hospital, with shingles. They hardly know the name of the film.

  Just at that moment, such detachment was a relief. I had more plans, you see, and I needed to think about them. I sat on a props settee and leafed through Variety. There was an ad for a company that supplied synthetic blood for the movies; it supplied sixteen kinds, ranging from bright-red Accident, through Congealed to Brown Scab.

  I nibbled a slice of pizza and talked to one of the pool players. I didn’t catch his name. He told me that his daughter was getting a divorce. Then he told me how much it cost to add an earthquake clause to his house insurance cover.

  ‘You listen to me, honey,’ he said, wagging his finger. ‘One day this whole goddam city’s going to be swallowed down its own ass.’

  I swallowed my pizza and imagined Lila and Trev stark naked and struggling, being hurled down a fissure like a Bosch painting. Tongues of flame licked out of the San Andreas Fault. Whose Fault was that? I heard their screams. I watched their bare, thrashing limbs.

  I knew I was heading in a dangerous direction, but I couldn’t stop myself. Some demon inside me pushed me on. ‘O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts/ And men have lost their reason.’ Emboldened by my earlier success, I upstaged Lila’s rehearsals, and several more times Hutt suggested that she incorporate my reaction when they came to shoot the scene.

  I knew, partly, why I did it. I wanted to trip Lila up; to disconcert her and threaten her performance. I wanted to show her up. But I also wanted her to notice me. Pathetic, wasn’t it? I felt like a child, showing off in the playground.

  That Thursday, I hardly saw her. She was having lunch somewhere with her agent, Roly; he had flown over for a few days and had spent the morning on the set. When she reappeared, she seemed perfectly normal. That woman was so bloody smug and myopic. Happy, I guess. She was obviously too dense to notice how Hutt was starting to rely on me, using my moves and suggestions. Or maybe she was more secure in her acting ability than I had thought.

  We worked hard all that afternoon, shooting some lines of dialogue between Jane and Mr Mason. I felt strangely powerful, standing there in the lights. I felt that something momentous was about to happen. The crew seemed quick-fingered and alert, darting here and there; the extras seemed as restless as horses before a storm. There was something going on, something brewing.

  When we wrapped for the day I collected my things and went out to the parking lot. Dusk had fallen but the air still felt stuffy. I walked past the numbered bays which were reserved for the studio executives. Beyond them I saw Roly, climbing into a Lincoln Continental.

  ‘Hi,’ I said, walking up to him. ‘Remember me?’

  ‘Sure I remember you. It’s Jules, that right?’

  I nodded. ‘You like the picture?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said. How could an agent say anything else? ‘Great story.’

  Roly real name was Lester Rollins. He had the hottest client list in New York. Squat and balding, with a plug-ugly face, he glistened in the gloaming. His skin had a waxy, unhealthy pallor, as if he had been hidden for too long under a stone. In fact he was one of the most repulsive men I had ever met. That’s what I thought, when I first saw him. But he did fascinate me, even then. There was something soft and female about him, as if in a former life he had lived in a harem. He wore a grey suit, and a white shirt that stretched tight over his belly.

  Maybe I wasn’t so fascinated, yet. But I was curious. He had discovered Lila when she was unknown; he had guided her through twenty pictures and two marriages; he was involved in a part of her life about which I knew nothing. He was her confidant.

  ‘You’ve been trained on the stage?’ he asked.

  I nodded. ‘I went to RADA.’

  ‘I could tell, by the way you were working today.’

  ‘Did it show?’

  ‘You shouldn’t stay too long in that job,’ he said, gesturing back at the factory building.

  ‘I don’t intend to,’ I replied.

  He climbed into the car, and the driver started up the engine.

  I started questioning Trev’s re-writes, too. That was my other plan of action. Maybe I could even get him thrown off the project. After all, why should the shitty little opportunist get away with it? Why should shagging Lila turn him overnight into Britain’s answer to David Mamet? Once, long ago, I had been so supportive. I had helped and encouraged him, chatting up my contacts in the theatre on his behalf. Loving him, I had persuaded myself that his work was terrific. Now I could see it clearly. He had brought a certain raw energy to the screenplay, but like Lila he hadn’t a clue about Jane’s motivation and character. This was one of the tasks he’d been brought in to point up, and in my opinion he had failed dismally.

  I said as much to Hutt. Not in those words, of course; I wasn’t a complete fool. Hutt and I had become pals, chiefly because he was besotted with the theatre and I was the only person with whom he could discuss his long-held dream of mounting an off off-Broadway production of Huis-Clos. It’s a truth, universally acknowledged, that all the people directing off off-Broadway want to go to Hollywood and become famous film directors, whilst famous film directors in Hollywood all want to go off off-Broadway and have lots of integrity.

  Anyway, I told him I was reading a biography of Sartre. I wasn’t, but I went out and bought one. He asked if he could borrow it; I said I would drop it off one evening.

  He was staying at the Château M
armont Hotel, an eccentric-looking pile in West Hollywood. As its name implied, it was a phoney French lookalike, complete with turrets. I had been there before, because I had heard that European film crews booked in there and one evening, when I was feeling particularly desperate, I had driven there in the hope of repeating my Warwick experience and picking up somebody for a night of obliterating sex. However, I’d discovered that the hotel didn’t have a bar, so I had gone home again.

  I drove there on Monday evening, passing along the luridly-lit Strip with its loitering male hookers. The air was heavy and thundery. I arrived at the Marmont, crossed its wood-panelled lobby, all antlers and sconces, and took the elevator up to Hutt’s suite. His secretary, a blonde woman called Mercedes, showed me in. Hutt was on the phone. Everybody in LA is always on the phone. He was talking about somebody called John, whose marriage was just breaking up.

  I looked around the room. Film people’s hotel rooms are always the same. In marked contrast to arctic rehearsal rooms, they are always swelteringly hot. There are always masses of files and papers on the floor and a sheaf of numbers by the phone. There is always a lavish but half-eaten meal from room service. Hutt’s Finnish wife, who was hugely pregnant, wandered in from the bedroom and nibbled a celery stick.

  ‘Hutt,’ I began hesitantly, ‘something’s bothering me about tomorrow’s scene. The fortune-telling scene between Jane and Mr Rochester. In the scene Mr Rochester disguises himself as an old hippie. Jane believes every word he says.’ I suggested gently that this wasn’t true to Jane’s character. Trev had rewritten this scene for Lila rather than Jane. Lila was an instinctive, credulous woman, a slave to her emotions. She put her trust in Tarot cards and fortune tellers. ‘But Jane’s not like that,’ I said. ‘She’s a cool, intelligent shrink. She has a crystal-clear knowledge of her own psyche. She believes that truth isn’t found in your horoscope, it’s found in yourself.’ I sat back, breathlessly. My nerves had made me pedantic.

  Hutt tugged at his beard. Avoiding his eye, I gazed at the hunting print on the wall; hounds and horses streamed over a mythical English landscape.