The acting was the only thing I wasn't conflicted about. I loved it, because God I was tired of being me. It felt good to slip into some other shoes.
But the rest was a jumbled mess that consisted of changed scripts, new lines, and repetitive reshoots.
Every scene felt like it had to be redone a dozen times. At least.
I thought that all of this traced back to one thing: the director. He was hard to please and harder to impress.
Stuart Whently was known for making A-list, character driven films that made the film academy swoon, and for being an eccentric, sometimes tyrannical, perfectionist.
When I thought of it that way, things weren't actually going so badly.
Still, it felt like I was somehow failing, and I had begun to miss my friends, who were gone four days or more a week, and hell, even my crappy old airline job, where at least I hadn't felt l was incompetent.
I had quit with relish over a month ago, never dreaming that I'd long to go back to it for even a second.
I'd never admit any of it aloud though, and even if I was doing a horrible job, I'd keep trying my best until I either got it right or got canned. It wasn't even a question.
"Is he always like this?" I asked one of the production assistants after Stuart had called an abrupt break and stormed off set. Again.
"Hmm?" she asked.
"What I mean is, is this how a movie production is supposed to go, or is this one just a colossal failure?" I hoped that wasn't the case, but I needed to know if it was.
I always, always preferred the truth.
That had her finally looking at me, pushing her glasses up high on her nose to study my face. "This project is as smooth as they get, to be honest. Usually filming with him is a nightmare."
I was shocked, relieved, and somehow annoyed. But at least it wasn't me.
Stuart was back within the hour, which was usually the pattern, and we set up again.
Two takes later, and good ol' Stu was back to ranting.
"It's a journey back from feeling alienated from the world," he said passionately, speaking directly to me.
Well, that I could relate to. The second part of it, at least.
"It is about personal growth, not an explosion of it, but a gradual unfolding, petal by petal, bit by bit. This scene is supposed to make you blossom. He's doing something for you that no one ever has before, showing you kindness, changing your perspective, on people, on men. You two are supposed to like each other!"
And that was the whole problem. I couldn't stand the lead actor. He was a Hollywood asshole of the first order.
I'd been excited when I heard who was chosen for the role.
David Watts had seemed the perfect pick. He was successful, a household name, great-looking, and because he was a hunk and he liked to post shirtless pictures of himself holding kittens on Instagram on a fairly regular basis, he brought his own rabid fan-base to every movie he made.
But how he sounded on paper was far from how he was to work with.
Stuart got right up in my personal space, as he was wont to do, distracting me from my train of annoyed thought, spectacled eyes studying me closely. "But you're not the problem, are you? You are her. You are this character. She is you. You are this movie. That is clear to me. So it's you we must begin to work around. What we need for this is chemistry. I'll ask you plain, can you think of any man you have chemistry with that's fit to play this role?"
I was floored, but pretty thrilled. He'd really fire David Watts? Is that what he meant?
I opened my mouth to respond, because hell, I'd find someone, but David interrupted with a grownup hissy fit.
Apparently he wanted this job, too.
David probably wasn't a terrible person. He was just out of touch with reality. And normalcy. Something I figured a lot of famous people suffered from. I'd have bet money from what I'd seen on set that he surrounded himself with people who only told him how awesome he was, that he was the most special snowflake of all of the special snowflakes.
People that never let him know when he was acting like an entitled douchebag.
He wasn't even a bad actor. He had a limited range, as most too good-looking men do, but what he played, he played well. He'd just decided to be a dick to me since the first day we'd met, and he couldn't hide it even when the cameras were rolling.
I was still a little bummed about it. I'd been excited to meet him, more excited when he wanted me to come over to his house to rehearse together.
About two hours and a few drinks later into that first meeting he'd asked me (way too bluntly and without an ounce of charm) if I wanted to fuck, and I'd politely turned him down.
Okay, polite maybe wasn't the word. I'd tried to be polite, but I'm sure my version of a polite no had come across more than a touch sarcastic. And likely mocking.
He hadn't taken the rejection well. I honestly didn't think he knew how to deal with it. So he turned it on me. Told everyone I was difficult to work with while taking exception to every word that came out of my mouth.
I ignored it and tried my best not to let it show that I couldn't stand him when the cameras were rolling. I thought I succeeded.
David didn't even try. I don't know if he thought he could bully me into wanting to sleep with him, or if he was just that unprofessional.