Immaculate Spirit c1-242

by Newbiel

  She then starts to respond to the phone with a few 'yes' and 'I understand'. Nathaniel lifted an eyebrow when she said before hanging up 'We will be at the studio in two hours to talk about it' had him really confused.

  "Who was that?" Nathaniel asks, curious.

  "It was the studio, you got the role." She looked like she did not believe it when saying it.

  "What!?" Nathaniel asks, astonished.

  "Yeah, the cast fought for you, I've been told. We need to be there in one hour to discuss it. I can't believe it." She said smiling, looking happy.

  Nathaniel needed a few seconds to come back from his surprise.

  "Glad to see that you are indeed always right." He said. The smile plastered on Maggie's face suddenly fell.

  Chapter 41: :

  At two PM they were meeting with three people in a conference room. The one on the lead presented himself as a producer for the movie as the other two were just assistants. Seeing him, Maggie smiles brightly.

  "Hello Mike, long time no see."

  "Maggie, pleasure to meet you again." He responded with a twisted expression.

  "I'm sure it is." She commented with a smug smile.

  She knew exactly how much he was not glad to see her. They had worked in the same industry for ten years and fought hard for the same amount of time. The less he was paying an actor, the much he would get and for her, the more her actor was paid, the more she would get. No need to be precise that their job puts them at odds with each other. The negotiation would then turn rather ugly and nobody was better to fight nails and teeth than Maggie. Hence why he was really not happy to see her.

  "And you are Nathaniel Lyndon, I presume." He said, extending a hand.

  "You presume correctly, glad to meet you Mike." Nathaniel said good naturally, shaking his hand.

  Hearing that, the producer appears to want to say something but decide against it. The fact that his name was in fact Michael and he hated it when people were calling him 'Mike'. That was why Maggie always called him like that but seeing the innocent way Nathaniel was doing it, he appears to not know that so he let it slide.

  He asks his people to look into that Nathaniel Lyndon and to dig out everything about him. He liked to know who is dealing with beforehand. He had to admit that what they found surprised him a little bit. Sixteen years old who came out of a four years coma 6 month ago. Only grandson of the tycoon of the music industry Robert Lyndon. He started music young and did his first music with the pop star Taylor Swift. He even appeared on the Ellen show two days ago. Mika watches it to know that young man better.

  He starts to understand why important people like Jillian, Maggie and even Ellen start paying attention to that kid. He had a magnetism around him that made you feel like he is someone worth knowing and had a unique charisma.

  "I heard what happened to your family two days ago, I hope everyone home is all well." He asked pleasantly.

  "Yes, my family is alright, thanks for asking. I see that you did your homework or you task someone to do it for you." Nathaniel said in the same tone, his flickering to the two people behind him before going back to him.

  Nathaniel wasn't a fool for even a second, he knew that the man in front of him was not someone good as he could see the color of his soul. He was faking care for his family in hope to have an emotional attachment with him and so lower the amount of money he would have to pay to get him on board.

  The producer's expression flickers for a moment before getting back to pleasant. Maggie on the other hand did not try to hide her laughter and the smirk present on her face. Seeing that the producer wanted to talk business right away and wanted to use his family's leverage, Nathaniel did not bother being nice anymore.

  "Well, seeing you all three here, it seems that you are ready to talk business. Alas, I'm still quite young so I'm not familiar with that but I will let you in the capable hands of my agent. Maggie, I trust that you will handle it without my presence needed?"

  Looking at the three men in front of her with an almost predatory grin, they shudder visibly under that stare.

  "Yes, I will handle it easily, you can go at peace. Gentlemen, please sit."

  Nathaniel, smiling, left the room. He knew he was not needed here. As Maggie got a cut on each deal that she broke, the more she got for him, the more she would get and she needed to send her daughter to college in a few years. They were nothing more terrifying than a woman seeing each deal that she made as her child's future. He was leaving the room when he heard Mike asking a question.

  "What did I do wrong?"

  "You try to use his parents as leverage to get a better deal and he saw you come ten miles away."

  "I thought he was a dumb good looking kid, I had to try."

  "Well, you made two graves mistakes in that case. Let's sit gentlemen, we have work in front of us." She finished in an ominous voice.

  Hearing their conversation, Nathaniel chuckle before leaving. The producer had made his bed and now he would need to sleep in it. Nathaniel didn't need to walk far when he was ambushed by five people who seemed to wait for him. He recognized them easily as he knew they were here for some time already.

  "Hi guys, fancy meeting you here." Nathaniel joked making them smile.

  "Surprised that you left them to talk about your future contract and pay without you there" Jesse remarked.

  "Well the producer thought I was a dumb kid and try to use my family in order to pay me less. I decided he was not worth it so I let him alone go against Maggie. Thinking about it, I was maybe too harsh. I should go check out if he's still alive in ten minutes." Nathaniel adds with dark humor.

  "Well it's Hollywood, they do that with all the new actors so don't take it personally. You should be lucky, Mike is far from the worst I have seen." Woody added.

  "Well, i'm glad that you are here. I know that you fight for me even if you had no reason to do so. I wanted to say thanks for what you did for me, I would never forget it." He said with a smile.

  "Not for no reason. We all think that you can contribute greatly to the movie, this is why we wanted you on it." Mark says.

  "That will not come free. Your acting skills are almost nonexistent. The movie is going to start next week, that leaves us 8 days to turn you into a somewhat decent actor. We are going to take turns and teach you as much knowledge as you can absorb." Morgan said sternly.

  "If you think you can't handle it, I urge you to leave now and never return. If in that period we judge that you do not give your all, we will sack you. What are you saying?" Ass Jesse.

  Making eye contact with all five of them, he realized they were serious. If they could not make him an actor in five days with their teaching they would judge he had no talent and would be thrown out. At that point, it would not matter who he met and who is his agent, he could not be an actor here. Nathaniel starts smiling brightly, he sure loves a challenge.

  "Bring it on."

  Chapter 42: :

  Hollywood, 05/07/2012. 10:00.

  Two weeks later, Nathaniel was starting to get used to the actor's life. After the initial week of training with his co-stars, he learned a lot about acting. He realized it was all about body and expression control and so just the way your face muscles. Not everyone had the requisite control to become a good actor but Nathaniel seems bless in that regard had his body control was through the roof. He knew why of course but still fake surprise upon being told that by his teachers. If he would be honest, that would have created more questions that he would prefer not being asked.

  Of course it was not all about body control, you need to have the proper mindset to incarnate a role and become your personnage. He had a little bit of problem with that for now but it was expected. Morgan told him that he was doing amazing and he just needed experience as of now to progress. Luckily, his character was not overly difficult to play. Being told he was doing all right by someone as experienced and picky as Morgan gave him a huge boost in confidence that helped him in his new work.
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  On and on, he was starting to like his new job and he got along well with the other actors. There was also a women french actor who played a huge role as well. She was not really known in America but was a huge movie star in France. She was around the same age as his mother and was really nice to talk with. He could even talk in french with her which he loves, from the diverse language that he could talk, french was his favorite one. That tongue has a beauty and

  sophistication that the other did not have.

  They talked a lot about her country and he really wanted to go there and visit it. The movie had a few scene films there but they were already filmed so that was rather unlucky. Initially, his character was in there but they were turned by the old actor and were going to be cut in montage and the one who was not going to be cut would be turned here on green screen with him. That was a little sad but that would not stop him from going to the country in the future.

  The life of an actor was not easy either. Sometimes, they needed to turn the same scene for two hours before the director was satisfied and it could be rather exhausting. At first, it was his fault that the director asked to redo a scene. The actors would have taken that against him but since his co-stars were his teacher, they got lenient with him and helped instead of berating him. Under their tutelage, he approved by leap and bound over the days. At one point, he even stopped being the only cause of a scene being delayed.

  Maggie was quite happy lately since the meeting with the producer and his associate. She managed to raise the initial price they wanted by one hundred fifty thousand dollars, making him in total 550 000 Dollars for one month and a half of filming. If the movie was taking more time, they would have to pay fifty thousand more per week. It was basically unheard of for a young actor on his first movie to be paid that much, that's why the studio asked for NDA in the contract so the other actors did not know about it. He knew that his co-stars were paid a lot lot more but it was expected as he did not have the same notoriety and experience as them. On and on, Nathaniel was really happy that he got 495 thousand dollars for his first movie once subtracting the cut of Maggie.

  There was also a lot of downtime in the life of an actor. Someday, they could wait between one and six hours the time that a scene got built to start filming. In that period of time, the actors were forbidden to leave the studio as they needed to be ready to start filming the moment the scene was ready. And then there was the time needed to wear the outfit and the worst of Nathaniel had to do, wearing makeup. Maggie was often there when he was being painted on and laughed to no end seeing his face.

  As a young actor and the last cast, he did not have a trailer to his name to pass time like the other and truthfully he didn't want one. At the start, he had no choice to be in them as he was tutored when there was any downtime but lately he could have his own time in that period. Nathaniel was not someone who liked to be in closed space for two long as he was always full of energy so staying in a trailer to pass time was not really to his liking.

  He even chose to stay in a rather expensive hotel in a nice neighbourhood to have his morning run. He has his routine to run for an hour each morning followed by parkour for an half hour and then push up for another half hour. At that time, it was the hour to get back to the hotel for a much needed shower, followed by his favorite moment of the day, waking up Maggie with a very loud and cheerful voice.

  Not to say that Nathaniel's life was without issue. There were a significant number of assholes and dicks working in Hollywood and he had to work with some of them. They were a few actors who did incarnate small roles who were very arrogant and did not believe in respect with people they thought was inferior to them. Nathaniel with no experience whatsoever in the movie was an ideal target for them as they did not understand why he got cast as a principal role and not them. Luckily, especially for them, they did not get physical with him and prefer talking shit about him which he ignores. In both of his lives, he never had patience with fool and tuned them out quickly which seems to have made them madder. He was not that worried and if they continued he would deal with them accordingly. After all, you could not be friends with everybody.

  The other issue that he had was not something he expected to happen. Since last week, a decent number of women working on the set have started to pay a lot of attention to him. Some of them were just nice and wanted an autograph and selfie, that was cute and harmless so he accepted joyfully. He didn't think he deserved that but since they asked, he didn't see a reason to refuse. The problem was the womens who wanted to have sex with him and they were very straightforward about it. The first time that happened, Nathaniel just politely declined as he was not into casual sex. Marc would not have hesitated even for a second as the girl was really pretty but Nathaniel did. He thought that would be the end of it but it kept happening at a point that Nathaniel had to ask Maggie and the director to get the word around that he was sixteen.

  Luckily it worked and the proposition stopped. Even if he had to admit, it was a huge ego boost to have gorgeous women making propositions like that, he was not ready to have them. He needed to deal first with the memories of Marc who even if he was not married and never had a stable relationship with someone he had a lot of physical relation. Try having the memories of thirty years of porno in your head and you would realize it's not ideal, especially when you have the hormones of a teenager.

  Without interruption now, he could use he's alone time to work on his music. Thanks to Maggie's influence and Louis' help, he managed to get his hand on a good piano from the equipment division of Hollywood. He put in a room far enough from the set to not disturb the filming of his movie or the others. At first he was locking the door to not be a bother but a number of people asked to keep the door open as they were loving the sound of him playing.

  He was working on his album and had already three songs good enough to be on it, not counting his single with Taylor. He was currently working on a new song that was about the movie. As it was his first movie, he wanted to make a song to remember it. Since it was a movie about magic and mystery, he learned to go into the Epic theme. He was almost done and just needed to keep singing it to refine the lyric. Nathaniel then started playing on his piano, the melody calm, peaceful at the beginning but you could almost feel the current tension underneath it. A tension that continued to build until he finally exploded and the music came alive under the fingers of Nathaniel who seemed to fly on the piano.

  "Dream of doing…

  Start it...

  Boldness has genius, power and magic…

  And magic ….."

  The voice of Nathaniel takes the lyrics an octave higher in the chorus, vibrant and powerful. In that moment, the people who were working outside start stopping what they were doing and come to the entrance of the room. They were curious to know what they were hearing as they did not know that song. Even if they didn't know it, they could discern it was a very good song. Some of them even took their phone and started filming the young man completely focused on his instrument. Among the people here, there were some familiar faces. Louis Leterrier was here as well as Jesse, Isla and Michael Cain.

  Michael Cain was a british actor and thus was not there when the audition took place so he heard about what happened later. The fact was that he was really not bothered by it, the only thing that was important to him was that Nathaniel did not shut down the movie and did not delay it. He never really talked to Nathaniel outside of the scene they had together but he seemed like a nice enough kid with a decent talent in acting. Not the best he ever seen but correct nonetheless.

  But looking at the kid now, in front of his instrument and completely immersed in his music, he could not help but to feel awed. He knew that this young man was a singer before being an actor by the chatter he heard from people working on the movie but he never had the curiosity to check his music. He barely listens to music as it is as he prefers reading but hearing his voice now, Michael was subjugated. He had an amazing voice and the more time
passed, the more it became powerful to a degree he hadn't heard since the eighty's. The song was coming to an end and the tone got even higher at a point he got goosebumps and looked around him, he was not the only one until the voice suddenly died down, the last note sounding in the room, the song finished but the people who heard it were still in his melody.

  Chapter 43: :

  While all the people who had listened to the music could still hear it resonate inside their mind, Nathaniel hastily got his notebook and scribble on it. He seemed unconcerned by the song and was not happy with it. There was a problem with the melody and the chorus where he quickly crossed the work genius from it as it was not going well with the rest. He then took his musical score and modified a few notes on it.

  He was not satisfied with it just yet but it was coming along quite nicely. He still has a lot of work to do. He wanted to have other instruments in the song too and needed to write the musical score for them too. He could of course ask his studio to do it for him but he was not someone who got shy from the perspective of hard work. He knew that he would do a better job than anyone else. It was not arrogance but just common sense as it was the music he created so he was the best to develop it.

  "Ok guys, go back to work now." The director demanded after coming out of his daze.

  The people grumbled but still heard his order and got back to work. The only people who stayed were the director himself, Michael, Isla and Jesse who entered the room and took place in front of the piano, looking intensely at Nathaniel who was acting as if he didn't know they were people there.

  Of course, even when he is immersed in his music, his awareness was always on his surroundings. Thirty years of war was not something that could be forgotten like that and he had always his instinct running to protect him. Even if nobody had a grudge against him, he was still someone with money and people could get stupid idea, like kidnapping him to exhort him some. Without taking into account he was becoming someone known and being killed by a crazy fan was very much a risk worth remembering.