He and a school friend are returning from a school concert when a nearby building collapses. The friend, unable to get connectivity on his phone, runs to get help while Amir dashes into the building to rescue any survivors.
Unknown to these two, the building contained a Tellurian Gate through which Roheen and his team of researchers have just entered our world. The villainous Steene have destroyed the building and wrecked the gate, and only Roheen survives.
Amir encounters the stranger as Roheen is digging himself out of the wreckage. That is how I find myself in the tunnel, supposedly a part of the collapsed building, with the property master raining kibble on my head.
My struggles in the tunnel are not entirely feigned. It’s close and hot in there, and I’m in my bulky Dr. Zaius jacket. I’ve been made up with fake blood on my face, as well as stripes of dirt. The dust makes it hard to breathe. And Joey calls for take after take as he works out the best angle to reveal my desperation and to conceal the fact that the way the rubble often bounces shows it’s made of foam blocks that wouldn’t harm a hamster.
As the scene was first shot, Amir crawls into the shattered building, calling out to any survivors in Hindi-Urdu. At first he sees only my arm and the top of my head and runs to help, and then Roheen looks up, with his inhumanly broad forehead and strange proportions and glittering eyes, and Amir takes fright and hides while Roheen frees himself.
Carter-Ann wants to give them a little more interaction—she wants Amir to reach out toward Roheen, take fright, then overcome his fear and reach out again, snatching his hand back at the last second. It’s a nice little character moment for Samendra, but Joey hates it because it’s not his idea, and the argument goes on and on.
“Look,” I shout finally. “Either reshoot the fucker or get me the hell out of here!”
That stops Joey’s complaints for a moment.
“Why don’t we just give it a try?” Carter-Ann says in her cheerful warble.
So we do. Once Joey commits to the new approach, he behaves with complete professionalism. Jean-Marc maneuvers the Steadicam through the rubble with fluid grace. For the most part I’m a bystander, because the new shots are all about Amir.
As we rehearse, Joey reminds me how well he works with children. First he explains to Samendra what he wants his character to do—how to move, how to gesture, what expression Amir should have on his face. Then he explains the why behind it, what Amir is seeing, what he’s feeling. Samendra is quick to understand. The rehearsals go well.
“Final checks!” calls the first assistant director, a new guy named Clarke I’ve met only at the first day’s shooting. He has a big voice, glasses, and receding hair, and that’s all I know about him.
People dash in to check my makeup, and Jean-Marc rearranges the dust and rubble on the set.
“Picture is up!” calls Clarke. “Quiet, please!” The set falls silent. I conjure up my character, let Roheen look out through my eyes.
“Turnover,” Clarke calls, to start cameras and sound. Then, “Smack it!” The clapper-loader runs onto the set with his slate, bangs the clapper, and runs out of the frame.
“Set,” says the camera operator.
“Action!” Joey calls, and Roheen takes over.
It’s another hour before I’m allowed to finally crawl out of my tunnel. Jean-Marc has the camera down low, shooting from Amir’s point of view, as I heave myself out of the rubble and unfold my body, rearing up and up like a giant, angry cobra. There’s an electrician there with an eye light to beam a menacing red glitter into my eyes. I take a step toward the camera/Amir, hands coming up as if to crush the life out of him…and then I recognize that he’s only a frightened child. Roheen hesitates, and for the first time the audience sees his humanity.
At this moment of revelation, I remember to turn my instep out, even though the camera is on my face and the audience won’t see it.
The reveal is crucial, so we shoot it over and over until Joey and Jean-Marc and I all agree that I’ve got it right. Carter-Ann must like it too, because she doesn’t say anything.
There are more shots that follow, Amir and Roheen together in the shattered building, building a tentative sense of trust. Roheen digs for his comrades until he finds a woman—an extra all bloodied up for the occasion—and then the camera moves in close as Roheen realizes that she and the rest of his team are dead. I try to let shock and tragedy radiate from my face, my posture. I figure Roheen and the woman had something special between them, though that’s not explicit in the script. Joey tells me I’m not doing it big enough, and after the next take he says it’s too big. Eventually he tells me it’s good, and then we’re on to the next bit, where Roheen hears emergency vehicles coming, and runs off with Amir following, and then—because it’s nearing the point in the day when all the union crew are going to start billing vast amounts for overtime—Joey calls a wrap for the day. I make a point of telling Samendra that he did a great job—and then I tell the same thing to his mother, a petite Indian lady in a sky-blue suit who has been sitting quietly out of everyone’s way the whole day long.
“Who is this Dr. Dixon?” she demands. “She is a terrible person!”
“I don’t know myself.” I shrug, and head for Makeup to get my face clean.
Dirty and tired as I am, I am deeply thrilled by the fact that this film isn’t being shot on location. After Family Tree was canceled, I made two movies in foreign countries, one in Puerto Vallarta and the other on the island of Rhodes. They were quick exploitation films, intended to capitalize on the popularity of Family Tree. The idea behind each of these films was to take my sitcom character and drop him into a romantic comedy taking place in an exotic location that the sitcom couldn’t afford, so that viewers would feel the story open out into the exotic background and think they were getting their money’s worth. I played characters who were more or less identical to Brent Schuyler, but with different names.
I hated being on location. I hated the dust and the bugs and the hot sun. I hated all the foreigners around me talking in foreign languages and causing inexplicable foreign delays and complications, and I knew that I could get better Mexican and Greek food in California than I could in Mexico or Greece.
I don’t see the point of travel at all, not when I live in Southern California, which already has everything anyone would want. And on top of that, the movies had terrible scripts and mediocre directors, and nobody wanted to pay box-office prices to see Brent Schuyler when they could get him on television for free. The movies cratered, and took my career with them.
But at least I got to stay in California, the only place to live in the whole world.
I trudge toward my trailer. The dust and blood and grime on my skin are fake, but the fake stuff is no more fun than real dust, blood, and grime, so I’m relieved to get the makeup off. Then I trudge over to Jaydee’s domain to return my costume.
Dressers help me off with the costume and would probably help me into my regular clothes, except that I shoo them out of the fitting room. They like me because I don’t make them walk back and forth to my trailer to carry the costume away.
The costume department has blossomed with cutters and fitters and assistants and with hundreds of costumes on racks. Even a modest production requires a ridiculous number of costumes, and this production is far from modest.
Once I’m in my civvies again, Jaydee invites me into her office. The walls are pinned with costume designs and with samples of fabric, and one wall is taken up by a huge chart showing which costumes need to be ready by which dates. Below the chart is a fifty-gallon cooler, and Jaydee pops the top and fishes a Double Swan Porter out of the ice. I take a moment to wonder what a Double Swan is, and then I drop into a chair and take a drink.
Jaydee opens a bottle for herself. “How’re things?” she asks.
I consider my answer. On the one hand, the atmosphere on the set is poisonous, with the continual vicious arguments between Joey and Carter-Ann. On the other, I’m working
! I’m working, I’m doing what I was born to do, and I know I’m doing it well.
Even at the end of the day, I’m more exhilarated than not. I’m thinking about my scenes all the time, ways to make them better, ways to reveal Roheen to the viewers.
I’m having the best time I’ve had in years.
“It’s great,” I say.
Jaydee lifts a thickly painted eyebrow. “Even with the fighting on the set?”
I wave a hand. “I’m not the one doing the fighting.” I decide to shrug. “And we seem to be getting a better movie out of it.”
“And Dr. Dixon?”
I sigh. “She comes off as a cross between Kristin Chenoweth, Mister Rogers, and a Nazi grammar-school nun, but she does actually seem to know her job.”
“Everyone hates her.”
“I hate her.” I take a swallow of Double Swan. “But what can I do?”
Jaydee gives a wicked grin. “You’d better pray that Joey doesn’t knock her block off.”
“In the Battle of the Dwarfs,” I say, “my money’s on Carter-Ann.”
“I’m not so sure.” Jaydee looks thoughtful for a moment. “Joey’s not the same man he was.”
I look a question at her. Jaydee gives a little grimace, pulling her lips back from her teeth. “Joey’s changed, that’s all. Timmi’s death, the pictures that flopped…he’s a lot angrier than he used to be.”
And desperate, I think. I know how that feels.
“This is his way back,” I say. “He won’t want to screw it up.”
“He never had much impulse control.” Jaydee sighs and takes a long drink from her bottle, then looks at me. “You know he was seeing Anna Tupolev.”
“Yeah. They broke up.”
“That’s because he hit her. He beat the shit out of her.”
I’m stunned. I don’t know what to say.
“He was drunk,” Jaydee continues, “and he bought her a Bugatti by way of apology, but that was the end of the relationship.”
My mouth is dry. “I imagine so,” I say, and take a gulp of Double Swan.
Jaydee shakes her head. “Lord knows I love the man, but still…”
Silence hangs in the air for a while. I finish my beer, and stand to get another.
A grin tugs at Jaydee’s lips. “Joey showed me Nataliya’s proposal.”
“A good read, wasn’t it?” I get a beer from the cooler and open it.
“Did you really talk her into writing it?”
“I hardly had to talk her into anything.”
Nataliya’s proposal arrived by messenger a little over twenty-four hours after I’d made the suggestion, in time for the first day of production. It was a professionally produced work, twelve pages long, profusely illustrated, and heavy on the bullet points. She must have had a whole team of her minions working on it.
The contents were hilarious. The first set of bullet points ran as follows:
Nataliya Hogan is a name recognized across the world.
She is an accomplished actress.
Eleven of her songs have charted on the Billboard Hot 100.
Nataliya is familiar with the world of spycraft.
Nataliya Hogan is therefore ideal as the protagonist of a film based on espionage and intrigue, preferably with musical interludes.
“I think it was her familiarity with the world of spycraft that got me,” Jaydee says. “That’s when I started laughing. And after that, I couldn’t stop.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Spies are so very well known for bursting into song at moments of crisis.”
I talk with Jaydee for a couple more beers, then say goodbye and amble over to my trailer. I don’t have to worry about driving while drunk, because Dagmar has got me a car and driver. I can cruise from Burbank to the studio in peace and quiet, while studying the script, learning my lines, and drinking a very nice latte the driver has bought for me ahead of time.
And, if someone in an SUV tries to crash into me, I’ll have a professional driver and a very large car to help protect me.
My day isn’t over. I’ve still got an hour of training with Master Pak before I can go home, have dinner, and learn my lines for tomorrow. Celebrity Pitfighter just won’t go away. And I’m not the only one working late—as I walk to my trailer, Joey is still working, along with Allison, who’s edited all his films since the beginning.
Because it’s done electronically instead of the old-fashioned way, by splicing film together, film editing can now be done very quickly and efficiently. I know that Joey doesn’t leave for home until every bit of the day’s work that can be edited has been edited, after which it can be sent to Jane Haskill for scoring.
I’m glad I don’t have Joey’s job. My hours are bad enough.
I leave the costume department only to run into Dagmar and the line producer, a man named Sawicki. He tries to maintain a kind of dapper John Waters thing, complete with the thin little mustache, but his eyes have blue-black pouches under them and he has a wide lipless frog mouth that droops in an expression of perpetual anxiety.
“Hi there,” I say.
Dagmar looks at me and I felt a sudden unease as I realize that I am probably surrounded by a cloud of beer fumes.
“I understand you’re responsible for Nataliya’s little essay,” Dagmar says.
“It was my idea,” I say, “but she was the one who wrote it. Or hired the writers. Whatever.”
“It was funny as hell,” she says. “But don’t do it again. I don’t want to have to deal with her if she ever realizes she was played.”
“Roger-dodger,” I warble cheerfully, and then mentally kick myself in the shins. The alcohol has thrown me just enough off-balance that, as Nataliya Hogan might put it,
I’m acting like a goof, but
I’m still sober enough to know that I’m acting like a goof, therefore
I’m in danger of overreacting to my own goofiness and acting in a bizarre or inappropriate way, which
might be taken for drunkenness,
which would piss off my employer, and what’s worse is that
I probably reek of beer anyway, and therefore
Oh Christ, I’m fucked.
“We wanted to talk to you about the problems on the set,” Sawicki says.
“Okay,” I say. I figure I’m probably safe as long as I keep saying “Okay.”
“How bad is the situation between Joey and Carter-Ann?” Dagmar asks.
“Bad,” I say. “But it’s producing results.”
Sawicki blinks up at me anxiously. “You aren’t feeling threatened or anything?”
I consider explaining that even with my modest martial training I have little to fear from either of the Tiny Titans, but I decide against expressing this complex an idea in my current state, and stick to simple English sentences.
“Nobody’s going to hit me,” I say.
Dagmar looks at me intently. “Has anyone on the set threatened to hit anyone?”
“Not while I’ve been there.”
“I can hear Joey screaming when he’s in his office,” Sawicki says.
“That’s Joey’s creative process,” I tell him. “It’s normal.”
“Maybe you should sit in on the set,” Dagmar tells Sawicki. “See if you can calm everything down.”
Sawicki looks horrified. “I’m the line producer,” he says. “I can’t tell the talent what to do!”
Dagmar rolls her eyes. “Right,” she says. “I’ll come on the set myself.”
Wonderful, I think. Because what we need on this set is another boss.
They start walking toward my car, and I find myself falling into step with them. I turn to Dagmar, who is walking along thoughtfully, one hand resting lightly on her pregnant stomach.
“Can I ask a question?”
“Sure,” she says.
“How many people were up for the part besides me?”
She frowns at me. “Maybe half a dozen names came up.”
“How many did you test?”
<
br /> “Just you.”
I blink. “Why only me?” I ask.
“You were the one Joey wanted,” Dagmar says, and then smiles. “Plus,” she adds, “you gave a damn good test.”
“Oh,” I say. “Thanks.”
She says nothing, just gives a half-wave as she leaves me at my car. As I get in the Lincoln, I realize that this is the first time Dagmar has ever complimented me on anything.
Maybe, I think, she’s actually beginning to like me. Maybe I’m growing on her.
I think pleased thoughts about this all the way home. I’m in a sunny mood till next afternoon, which is when I hear that Jaydee has been murdered.
ACT 2
CHAPTER EIGHT
Our Reality Network
Live Feed
LadyDayFan says:
Hey folks. I’ve just seen a notice in the Movie and TV Production Guide. As follows:
THE LIFE OF CHESTER A. ARTHUR (Docudrama, Great Big Idea), Los Angeles. Seventh Symphony Casting, 10203 W. Pico Blvd., Bldg. 310, L.A., CA 90064.
Could this be our Dagmar making a film about the 21st president? Or did someone else in L.A. have a Great Big Idea?
Hanseatic says:
Could this be a trailhead for Dagmar’s new game?
Corporal Carrot says:
This seems suspicious, if for no other reason that I doubt anyone’s actually making a movie about President Arthur. Maybe one of us should show up at the audition.
LadyDayFan says:
It doesn’t give a time.
Corporal Carrot says:
Call for an appointment?
Hippolyte says:
I’ll just go. That’s near where I work.
Corporal Carrot says:
I don’t know why they *wouldn’t* make a movie about Chester Arthur. I just looked him up, and he’s pretty interesting.
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