“They’re getting paid for it, don’t feel bad. I was a stand-in, once, years ago—it was my first job in Hollywood. It’s not a bad gig.”
“Oh yeah? Who for?”
“Ashton Kutcher. Orlando Bloom another time.”
I studied his liquid brown eyes, his even features and strong square jaw. “Yeah, I can totally see that.”
“Anyway, they get paid pretty good money and it’s better than a lot of jobs.”
“If Daniel were here, I’m sure he’d be doing it differently.”
“What’s it like working with the great Daniel Glass?” Cal asked. “I heard he was a bit of a tyrant.”
“He’s strict,” I admitted. “But more because he’s a perfectionist than anything else. He has a vision. Your turn. I just took you.”
I handed Cal the dice and our fingers touched, his lingering for a second too long. “God, you’re beautiful,” he said, staring into my eyes.
I laughed. “Do you say that to all your leading ladies?”
He laughed too, his wide, friendly smile making dimples in his cheeks. “Yes, I do. Breaks the ice.”
“You think I’m frosty?”
“No, I didn’t mean that. But you are a little nervous. Don’t be, you’re a great actress.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw you in Where The Wind Blows. I was in the first row. Saturday matinee.”
“Get outta here! Is that another of your pick-up lines?”
“Could be. What do you think?”
“I think you’re full of shit, Ashton. I don’t think you saw me perform at all!”
“Okay, you got me. But I did Google you, and I did check out that video clip of the play, all five minutes of it, so in effect, I saw you. And I thought you were great. Your move by the way.”
“Are you nervous about our sex scenes?” I asked him.
He templed his large hands against his lips and studied me. “If it were just you, me, and the director, fine, but that big hairy cameraman with that big-ass lens?”
“His name’s George.”
“Yeah, George . . . well, I’m not so sure that I want him doing a close up on my pecker, you know? I think that could really dampen the moment.”
“Dampen the moment?”
We both burst out laughing.
“You ever go nude on stage before? Or kiss, or anything?” he asked.
“I once had to take my panties off. But I was wearing a skirt so nobody saw a thing, and I had another pair underneath so it was cheating really. The audience gasped though—they were fooled. You?”
“A lot of kisses, simulated sex once, but sex wasn’t the whole theme of the movie like this is. It was a rom-com so it was a little less intimidating.”
“You? Intimidated?” I exclaimed. “You don’t give off that vibe at all.”
“I’m an actor. Fooling people is my job.” He winked at me again.
“I know. When people ask me what I do for a living sometimes I tell them, ‘I lie.’ Their reaction always makes me laugh.”
“So, apart from being a terrible liar, what else can you tell me about yourself, Janie?”
“Well, I graduated from Juilliard with honors and—”
“Not all the actor crap, but about you. Where were you raised?”
“In Vermont, born in England.”
“You get to have a British passport?”
“I do. Dual citizenship. One of my dreams is to work in the West End or join the Royal Shakespeare Company, so it’s an extra string to my bow.”
“Which side is British?”
“My mom’s.”
“Does she have a British accent?”
“She did. She died a few years ago.”
“So sorry.”
“Yeah, it sucks.” I looked away, desperate not to think about her, so changed the subject back to Cal. “How about you? Where are you from? I forgot to Google you.”
“Isn’t it the worst? That we can all go around stalking each other these days? No guessing, no romance left. No intrigue, no finding out about someone little by little. I admit I looked your work up, Janie, but I didn’t do the full stalk.” Was he being serious or kidding? His face was deadpan, then he added, “You dating?”
“No, you?”
“My girlfriend and I split up three months ago.”
“Oh, sorry about that.”
“Yeah, well, three’s a crowd.”
“Three?”
“She was cheating on me with my best friend.”
“Oh my God! How awful, that must hurt like hell.”
He nodded. “I forgave him, you know? He’s a guy who can’t keep it in his pants, so eventually I had to let go.”
“Eventually . . . it was only three months ago!”
“I found out three months ago. By that time they’d split up anyway. Charles and I go back a long, long way, since kindergarten. I missed hanging out with him too much—forgive and forget and all.”
“What if he does it again? With someone else?”
“He won’t. He learned his lesson.”
I wondered. Some friend. Cal seemed like such an easy-going person, too much so for his own good. “So? You never answered my question,” I said, “where are your folks from?”
“I was avoiding your question because my story is pretty boring, my upbringing very run of the mill.”
“Run of the mill is good. Means you’re normal.”
“So normal I’m dull.”
“Actors are rarely dull. Too complex to be dull.”
“Too egotistical you mean?”
“That too.”
We both chuckled.
“I’m from Iowa.”
“That’s a long way from Hollywood. What got you into acting?”
“College play. Modeling got me a manager, and it went from there.”
“I suspected you might have modeled.”
“Suspected, Miss Marple?”
I laughed. “Your features are so . . . even, so perfect, I can see how you modeled.”
“Yeah, well, I keep that side of things quiet, you know. Male models are kind of, I don’t know . . . uninspiring.”
“Oh, I think you’d inspire a lot of girls. And men.”
“Thanks a lot, that’s all I need. It was bad enough in college but now I get official fan mail from guys asking to date me.”
“Where did you go to college?”
“MIT.”
“No kidding? So you’re some kind of rocket scientist?”
Cal laughed. “I was originally studying Nuclear Science and Engineering but then I transferred to Theater Arts after one year.”
“You must be brainy to have been accepted at MIT in the first place.”
“So they tell me. Your brain is only effective if you use it to full capacity, and I just wasn’t a hundred percent committed to the program. They had an animal lab there for experiments. All I could think of was my dog back home and how it could be him, could have been Pepper in one of those cages. I switched courses.”
“Yeah, I can totally identify with that. I had no idea Massachusetts Institute of Technology did arts courses though.”
“Few people do. It was news to me as well. Anyway, I was a lot happier after I transferred. Dad wasn’t so thrilled but hey, it’s my life and it was what I wanted to do all along anyway. By the way, you hungry?”
“Actually, now that you mention it, Cal, I am. Felt so butterfly-ish earlier, I hardly ate lunch.”
“I’ll fix us something.”
“How? Where?”
“Here, in this trailer.”
“We have food?”
“Sure.” Cal got up and rummaged through the kitchen cupboards. He threw a bag of chips at me. I tore them open—I was really hungry.
“I grabbed some fruit salad from the caterer earlier,” he said. “Scored some yogurt—can make us some great smoothies.”
My mouth was practically watering. “Wow, I’m impressed. I’m so lazy about f
ood. I forget to eat and love readymade and takeout stuff, you know? Delicious, gourmet readymade; that’s why I like living in New York City, I never have to think about cooking.”
“I love to cook,” Cal said, putting a banana and berries into a blender, navigating his way about the kitchenette like he lived here. He was so casual in everything he did, so confident, but without being cocky. The kind of guy you felt safe with, the kind who’d put up a tent or change your light bulb. Reliable. At least, that was the impression he was giving me. Maybe it was an act—like he said, he was an actor. But for now, I felt very at ease in his company.
“Well, cook away,” I egged on, “I’ll be your guest anytime. Apparently, back in the day, they didn’t used to have catering on set like they do now. My mom told me that. Hard to imagine. Apparently they even brought their own sandwiches along in brown paper bags. When Liz Taylor was filming Cleopatra in Rome she got an urge for her favorite dish—chili from Chasen’s—and had it flown over by jet.”
Cal handed me my smoothie. “It would be fun to do stuff like that, wouldn’t it? Behave outrageously, just because you had the means.”
“Making some real money will be amazing, that’s for sure.” I gulped down the tasty smoothie. “My God, this is delicious!” I was reluctant to talk too much about money though, in case Cal asked me how much they were paying me. I didn’t want him to feel awkward if I was earning more than him, which I suspected I might be because of Cindy being such a Rottweiler.
“Is that what made you say yes to this movie, Janie? The money? Cause I’d have thought for a successful theater actress like you this kind of job was a little risqué.”
“Oh, you know, it just kind of happened. I said no, but then I ended up saying yes. Bills, a huge student loan to pay back, curiosity, and a chance I may never get again.”
“Do you wish Daniel Glass was still on board?” Cal’s gaze lingered on me as if he were searching into my soul.
I answered quickly—too quickly perhaps—to sound casual. “Yes. And no. Yes because, as a director, I trust him a hundred percent. He gets the best out of his actors, always, even though he’s tough, demanding and can seem like a real bastard sometimes, but he knows what he’s doing. He’s an actor’s director. He used to be an actor at the beginning of his career so he totally gets actors, you know? He treats a person with a walk-on part the same as a big star.”
“He was an actor? I didn’t know that.”
“Mostly theater. Apparently he was really talented, but he started writing and directing plays so stopped acting.”
“And the ‘no’ part?”
“Excuse me?”
“You said, ‘yes’ you were glad he was no longer involved in this film and ‘no.’ Why no?”
I thought about it for a second. Cal’s question was too direct to be comfortable. The truth was I had no satisfactory answer. “He’s so intense he . . . he gets under your skin.”
“You really into him or something?”
I laughed, probably too falsely. “No way! It’s just people want to please him too much. He has that effect on everyone who works with him. Actors become obsessed with . . . with, I don’t know, competing with one another to be Daniel’s protégée, to be the favorite.”
“Were you his favorite?”
“No, I never was. He was tougher on me than the rest of the cast.”
“But you got a Tony nomination.”
“Hey! You said you hadn’t done the full stalk on me.”
“If I’d done the full stalk I would have known you were from Vermont.”
There was a knock at the door. “Yeah?” Cal called out.
A face peered in. “Miss Cole, and Mr. Haplan, you’re needed on set.”
“You’re Maggie, aren’t you?” I asked. The girl was a little younger than me. Wide-eyed, and with a lot of excess nervous energy—she was drumming her fingers on the door. I remembered Star’s tip of getting to know everybody’s names and making friends. “By the way, please call me by my first name—call me Janie, ‘Miss’ sounds so weird.”
Cal got up. “Me too, call me Cal.”
“Cool,” she said. “Makeup is waiting on set for a touch-up. Better hurry.”
I glanced in the mirror. I was already caked in makeup and wondered how they could possibly slap on more. The makeup artist assured me I looked “natural”, but seeing my reflection reminded me of a dry, sun-bleached riverbed, with cracks in it. Powder, to stop any shine on camera, kept getting applied and reapplied as false alarms of going for a take made them rush at us with brushes and little sponges. The lipstick would be out in full force too, because of the smoothie wiping half of it off. Making a movie was so much less glamorous than I had imagined.
10
WE WERE IN THE MIDDLE of shooting a scene in Jonathon’s office. I was dressed in a tight gray pencil skirt and killer Louboutin heels. Movies are shot out of sequence and this was well after our characters had met, somewhere midway in the script. The director had me leaning against the desk, the edge of my butt perched there seductively. I had to smooth my hands along the front of my skirt while the camera came in close, as it panned down Jonathon’s fingers unbuttoning my blouse and hooking into my waistband, at which point Simon would yell “cut.” We did this several times.
Take five and it still wasn’t perfect. The makeup on my cheeks felt crusty and old and my face wasn’t even in shot. Just my torso. My hands were trembling. Ridiculous. Not acting was far harder than acting. I didn’t even have a line to say. Daniel had been right. All this (me) would be larger than life on screen. I felt aware of my bra peeking through my top. Cal had to brush his fingers slowly around my front, softly caressing my cleavage. Meanwhile, six people surrounded us with cameras, booms, bounce boards, and God knows what else. There was my makeup artist, a brush poised in one eager hand. More powder? You cannot be serious!
While they were fiddling about with the lights, my mind wandered winsomely back to my stage career. I felt homesick. Cal, sensing my unrest, touched my hand, but then it was whisked away by Sandra, my makeup artist. She inspected my manicured nails. Manicured in neat French polish by her, at dawn this morning.
“They’re okay,” she confirmed, “nails are looking good.”
“It gets better,” Cal assured me in a whisper.
“When?”
“When we get to the meaty scenes with more dialogue. You’ll see.”
Hours and hours, all day, for two minutes’ screen time. I yawned, quickly covering my boredom with my entire arm to try and hide my exhaustion. Exhaustion from doing nothing since six o’clock this morning.
“Quiet on set please, going for a take,” the director yelled. “You ready, Janie?” He pinned his glare on me.
“Never readier,” I said, giving him a honeyed grin.
“Camera rolling.”
“And . . . action!”
I smoothed my skirt. It had to be just so. Too far to the left or right and my hand would be out of shot. Cal started with his movements. His fingers brushed tenderly up my waist and, being ticklish in that particular spot, I started giggling. Uncontrollably. My body was shaking . . . trembling. I looked at Cal and a new rush of silent hysteria caused my body to quiver anew. His subtle smile didn’t give way to laughter like me—he remained calm, professional.
“And cut!” Simon shouted. “Janie, are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” And I burst out laughing again like some crazed hyena.
THE PRODUCERS WATCHED the dailies and decided that my trembling body looked great. Because we didn’t have any lines, it would be easy for them to dub over with music and sound effects. However, my unprofessionalism did not go unnoticed by the director. Tension was in the air, which only made me want to laugh even more. Like being at class in school. I managed to hold it in, but the director was watching me with a stern, sharp eye.
The next scene we had to shoot was our first kiss. I decided to really go for it. Cal was gorgeous and sexy and as sweet as c
ould be—I couldn’t have been luckier. The scene was taking place in the back of a limo. The limo—which had been adapted especially for the shot—was even bigger than a real life limo. I was topless, wearing little nipple covers called pasties. The shot would only show my shoulders and be cut just above my breasts. All very technical but it was in my no nudity clause. Cal had to pretend he was sucking my tits. There was to be a hard close up on his mouth as the camera followed his trail from my bellybutton up, a cut to a close-up of my rapturous face, then back to Cal’s tongue traveling up my shoulders and neck to our mouths.
I didn’t even know where we were in the script; half of it made no sense to me anyway. The storyline was all over the place. Jonathon was pretty psychotic; one minute loving, the next shunning me. My character was a wimp—I’d have told this Jonathon character to fuck right off a long time ago. But Simon didn’t want us straying from the script even by one word. A far cry from how Daniel had envisioned us ad-libbing and improvising.
I got into position, stretched out on the limo’s back seat. The lights were so glaring I couldn’t see a thing, just felt hot. Two cameras were pointed into the limo. Cal was on his knees, his body twisted at an angle. Very unnatural, but apparently it looked great through the lens.
“And . . . action!” Simon boomed.
“You. Are. So. Hot. Baby,” Cal panted, tracing his tongue around my navel and clinching my waist with his large hands, careful not to set off my ticklish spot.
I don’t know what came over me but I gritted between my teeth, “I’m not your baby, Jonathon.”
“Cut!” cried Simon. “Janie, what the hell! That’s not your line!”
“I don’t have any lines in this scene, Simon.”
“Exactly! So what are you doing?”
“Trying to bring some life force into my character. She’s so—”
“Submissive?”
“Yes.”
“She’s meant to be submissive, Janie. That’s the whole point!”
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