Right at the moment I was going to backtrack and say “but what do I know,” he got ahead of me.
“You know,” he mused, “I think you just peeled an important layer off the story. You're right, of course. No one here has said anything about that angle. Lisa is not playing it like that, either. I'll mention it to Hector. And maybe to Lisa.” He glanced toward the exit where she'd left.
“Or maybe not,” he added.
I didn't know what to say. But I was happy.
“Meanwhile, for the closeups, this is not the best place to watch from. See all those people over there?”
He pointed to a group of people standing around, looking intently at something.
“That's 'video village'. There's a monitor there with a direct feed from the main camera. You'll see what the director and the camera is seeing, which is what will be in the movie when it's done. It's the best place to be on the set, which is why everyone tries to get a good spot there. Most of those people have no business being there at all, they're just curious. Come on.”
He took the light chair with Archer Stratton on the back and carried it over to right in front of the monitor, saying “coming through!” very loudly, dispersing the crowd. They all drew away from the main star, getting out of his way, which I think is probably a good idea for anyone who wishes to work in the industry. Then he plonked the chair down in the best spot, again pretended to wipe a speck of dust of the seat, and pointed to it.
“Please sit here, sis.”
All eyes were on me. I was sure they knew I wasn't really Archer's sister. But they couldn't be sure, right? And it would solve some problems.
I sat down, smiling graciously at everyone, as if I really was his sister, just in from out of town to watch her dear brother work.
He was right - the view of the monitor was pretty good here. It was just an ordinary TV screen, as far as I could tell. It had no speakers, which made sense to me. Nothing would disturb the actors more than hearing their own voices with a second of delay.
Archer gave me a headset and plugged it into a socket.
“Now you can hear what's being said, too.” He looked at one of the people standing around the monitor. “Hey Brett, take good care of Blue, okay? We owe her that after she suffered grievous injuries because of us.”
“Sure, Mister Stratton, no problem,” the young man said, smiling nervously. He seemed happy to be spoken to by the star, who had even gone to the trouble of learning his name. I could see no name tags here. That made sense to me. Because this, the glamorous world of a major Hollywood production, was probably as far from LuckyStop as you could get.
Archer winked at me again.
“Stay here and enjoy the show. Tell Brett if there's anything you need. He's a good man. I have to get touched up again. Then I think we'll do the first closeup shots.”
He walked off again. This time I got a good look at him. He walked like the strong, muscular and confident man he was. But there was something more to his walk – the rolling, limber agility of a jungle predator, of a tiger. The king of the jungle, who is on top of everything and has no enemies that can hurt him, but still needs to be alert for any opportunities to pounce on unsuspecting prey. Even through the mom jeans of his costume I could see the outline of a narrow, muscular butt, round and strong.
Hmmm. What would it be like to touch that, I wondered. And then to let the hand travel forwards a little, around the hip...?
5
The people around me had been watching a playback of the latest take, and when it ended they all dispersed to whatever responsibilities they had. Brett was still hanging around, but he seemed very eager to get away.
“Yeah, so, I can't really hang around. I have a whole list of things to do now. Sorry. You need anything, tell me. I'll be somewhere around here.” He waved helplessly around the huge hall.
I understood completely. Archer had placed him in a difficult position. Of course he wanted to to what the star of the movie wished, but Archer was probably not his real boss here. And other people were depending on him to do his job, which did not include babysitting a movie star's “sister”. But before he left, I had to ask him something.
“So, um, where is the restroom?”
He pointed.
“It's over there. By the wall? They actually installed a decent one. Beats the mobile units they use on location.”
Then he was gone. I didn't need the facilities right away, but I was starting to feel that I might soon.
The activity around me was much less intense now. The people I could see were mainly trying to look busy, but it was clear that they were all ready for the closeup shots.
After a while Archer came back in, looking exactly the same as before. I guess the makeup people were very detail focused, because I sure couldn't see any change in his face. The red splotch was still there. Maybe a little angrier red now than before. Again he came over to me.
“Having fun?”
“Yeah... I knew making movies was a lot about waiting, but I didn't realize it was this much.”
“Don't worry. This is the closeup part, and after that, I'm done for the day. They try to not do too many takes at this point, because now we have to do some actual acting. I've saved some up. We'll see.”
Lisa came into the sound stage. She was in full costume, as before. In stage productions, Ophelia would always wear long dresses in virginal white, but this Ophelia was from present day, so she was in black yoga pants and a sweatshirt. Even in that, she looked very good.
Every head turned, of course, but she didn't look at anyone, just stared at the ground while she took her place on the set. Archer went over and took up his place. I saw him making a friendly comment to Lisa, but I couldn't hear what he said. She didn't react.
The director yelled “action!” and they were going. But still I was waiting for the acting to happen. Sure, Lisa seemed much more innocent now, and there was much more intensity in her performance. Watching her on the monitor, I could see that she was doing a decent job portraying a young woman confronted by difficult and complex issues. She was both confused and steadfast, wavering and compassionate. It was a fine, workable performance. But maybe, I thought to myself, a little bland, a little generic. Her Ophelia had little in the way of personality, nothing that resonated much. Hamlet's childish opinions, which he probably only told her to provoke some reaction, met little resistance or skepticism in her. That would be fine if she were eleven years old. But Ophelia is supposed to be an adult woman. Young, but not a child. She should have some fire in her, I thought, more passion. Something that would make the way she ended her life more credible.
All in all, I thought, Lisa was doing just fine with the material she had. Now that I had heard the script many times, I realized that it was not her fault. Her part was just badly written. And there was something more – there was no spark between her and Archer, no chemistry.
But Archer's performance could not be blamed on the script. He was trying, that was obvious. But either he was trying too hard, or not hard enough. Because there wasn't much life in his Hamlet, who was one of Shakespeare's more soulful and emotional characters. He was a young prince who had his father, the king, killed by his uncle, who then proceeds to usurp the throne and even marry the queen, Hamlet's own mother. He should be angrier and more seething than what we were seeing. Much more so.
In the play, I remembered, everyone thought that Hamlet had gone crazy. But Archer's Hamlet just seemed flat and disinterested. Robotic, even, in spite of the emotionally charged lines he had. And that wasn't all. His timing was off, and several times he had cut off Lisa's lines or delivered the wrong one himself.
I was not the only one who thought so. I looked around discreetly at the people around the monitor. Some had neutral faces, but most were starting to almost cringe at Archer's wooden delivery and bad timing.
After eleven takes, Lisa was visibly frustrated and annoyed.
The director yelled “Cut! And take five.
” He then proceeded to talk to the director of photography, probably to tactfully try to disguise the real reason why he wanted a timeout. Because the purpose was clear to everyone: He had to get Archer out of this ridiculously amateurish lull and start earning his probably astronomic paycheck.
And sure enough, he called Archer over, out of the set, and talked to him, very intensely and very quietly.
People around the monitor were muttering among themselves.
“Never seen him struggle like that...”
“Usually he just goes in and completely owns scenes like this one from the get-go. But now...”
“Just his kind of scene, too...”
“Painful to watch...”
I had to agree. It was almost embarrassing to witness a super famous actor not being able to handle a scene better than this. Especially since it was a pivotal scene in the story, where we learn exactly how distressed Hamlet really is, to the point where he considers suicide. On the other hand, it was an emotional scene that explained a lot about the character, and no one could blame anyone for not getting a perfect handle on it from the start. But this was more than not getting a handle – this was just bad and amateurish.
The crew got ready for the twelfth take. After two minutes, Archer had already bungled his lines. It was obvious to everyone that Archer was still struggling, and Hector just shook his head and irritatedly called “Cut! And lunch.”
The crowd around me dispersed, still muttering. I got to my feet as everyone in the room filed out to the catering vans. Archer was sitting alone by the set, studying the half-sized sheets he had. There was some dejectedness in his whole posture. I wondered if I should disturb him, then decided that he would tell me if he wanted me to leave him alone.
He didn't look up as I approached.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” he said, still looking at his sheets, seemingly absorbed. Did he want me gone? I didn't know what to do. Just as I was about to walk out and get some lunch myself, he looked up at me, smiling impishly, like a boy caught stealing cookies.
“Maybe not my best day on the job.”
I made a non-committal movement with my head. “It's a heavy scene, I guess.”
He scratched his chin.
“No. Not like this. Shouldn't be this hard. Never was before. What usually happens is that I stutter and stumble through my lines for one take, and then I let go and just let it flow by itself. That didn't work this time.”
“Lack of chemistry with Lisa, or something?”
He shrugged.
“I don't know. Maybe. I thought she and I did very well together in Hunter's Moon, and the first scenes we did together on this production were just fine. Damn good, in fact. But now... the magic is gone. ”
“Is it the script?”
“Could be. You threw a wrench in the works with your analysis of Ophelia. Now I can't seem to commit emotionally, because Lisa plays her wrong. No, I'm being unfair,” he corrected himself immediately. “I'm not going to blame anyone else for my own shortcomings. You are certainly not to blame. Or Lisa.”
“Is she always like this? On a set, I mean?”
“Lisa? So you noticed. Hard to miss, I guess. No, she's usually not like this. Normally, she's the life of the set. Funny and bubbly and sociable.”
“So what happened?”
He looked away.
“There may have been an incident. I don't want to get into it. It concerns other people, too. But something changed between me and Lisa. Okay,” he said, closing the topic, then standing up and stretching. “I promised you lunch at a place of your choice. I hope you will settle for dinner, because I don't want to leave here without knowing how to play this right. I'll have to use lunch hour to try to crack the material. I hope you don't mind.”
Spending more time rubbing shoulders with world famous movie people? I didn't mind at all.
“It's okay, I have time. You got me out of a day's work this morning. Do you want me to stay? I'll read Lisa's lines if you want, and you'll see what works.”
The movie atmosphere was making me daring, it seemed.
Archer looked at me, puzzled.
“You know, that's too much for me to ask. But you're right, I would need someone to read with. So if you're offering, I'll bite. Now that you know I will absolutely take you up on it, are you still sure you want to?”
I was.
“If it'll help you. I don't want to impose. If you really think it will help, then I'd be happy to.”
“That's really kind of you. Okay. Let's take our places on the set.”
And then, for the first time in my life, I was inside a movie set. This one was like being in someone's cheap, run-down and badly decorated living room, which was a familiar setting for me. The missing fourth wall was not quite as familiar.
The lights were still on, and it got pretty hot under them.
I had noticed that Lisa pretty much stayed in one place on the set while Archer would pace up and down a little. That made it easier for me. I knew her lines by heart now. They were not great lines, I thought. But of course I didn't know the whole script. Maybe there was a reason why her part seemed to be so badly written.
Archer just launched into it, and I followed as well as I could.
We ran through it a couple of times. I kept pace with him just fine, not least because my lines were so short and easy to remember. He tried different approaches, I noticed, with different levels of anger, sadness, distance and even sarcasm. I just read the lines to give him his cues.
We kept at it for a while, restarting the scene multiple times and only running it all the way through once. Archer got better, I felt. He was still not electrifying me, but maybe it would look better on camera.
Then he gave up.
“No,” he said and sighed. “I can't get a grip on it. Give me some more help. Try to play Ophelia the way you would have. Give her some feelings. Lisa's version is a little... stale. She gives me nothing to work against.”
I froze like a deer in headlights as the importance of this whole thing suddenly became clear to me. I could feel my face going pale. Reading lines was one thing. Actually trying to act was something quite different. In a scene with an Academy Award winner? On an actual movie set with floodlights and everything? I knew that millions and millions of dollars might be lost or made from how well Archer acted in this thing. And now I was part responsible. That's what it felt like, anyway.
“Are you okay?” he sounded concerned.
“I haven't really done any acting since the Christmas play in junior high,” I managed. “Going straight to Hamlet is a bit of a stretch.”
“I'm not asking you to win a Tony here,” he said assuringly. “Just do your best. I just need to not be the only one acting here. No one sees us.”
He pointed out of the set to the empty sound stage. Everyone was still at lunch and would remain there for at least another forty minutes.
“Just give me some feelings. Be yourself, and then exaggerate a little. It's not that hard.”
“Okay,” I said. “But don't expect anything.”
I took a minute to think about Ophelia. If it was like the play, she was an innocent girl caught in the middle of court intrigue, a deathly serious family drama and even international politics and power games. How would I react? I would not be okay with this spoiled little prince trying to get my sympathy for harebrained schemes.
“Ready,” I said, and he started his lines.
Hamlet: “The choice we have is so basic. We all have the choice. To be alive or to be dead.”
Ophelia, a little puzzled: “No. That's not a real choice.”
Hamlet: “Is it really better to take all the shit that life gives you and meekly accept it and ask for more, or do you just say “fuck you” and hand it right back, just ending it? Just making it impossible to receive any shit anyone wants to hand off to you? Because we all have that choice. Taking no more shit from anyone ever again.”
Ophelia: “The
n what? “
Hamlet: “What?”
Ophelia: “I know what you mean. You mean suicide. But then what? After you die. What happens then?”
I added the last two sentences. Because I felt they were needed. Ophelia should be a little more confrontational than the script allowed for. And some clarification was needed.
Archer didn't react adversely to my longer line, and stayed in character.
Hamlet: “Nothing happens.”
Ophelia: “How do you know that?”
There's a short pause as Hamlet thinks about this.
Hamlet: “Every idea of what happens after we die is made up by us, by humans. We just can't handle the idea of nothing. But nothing happens. It's just over. Not even blackness. Nothing. Did you ever see a cat play with a bird it has caught? Wings broken, feathers ruffled, bleeding, panicking... Nature is a brutal bitch, you know that. Why should death, the most natural phenomenon of all, be different? There's nothing after. No, it's just the fear, nothing else.”
And now he was adding lines of his own! The cat and bird thing was not in the script. And he was coming alive, too! This was not a spoiled teenager threatening to kill himself if he didn't get his way. No, this was a prince of the realm, with deadly purpose and a cold heart, lashing out in the only way he knew how.
Ophelia: “I don't believe that. You're wrong.”
Hamlet: “Do you remember anything from before you were born? No, you don't. You came from nothing and you will return to nothing. There's nothing to fear.”
All that was new. He was getting into it! That was not Archer I was talking to, that was Hamlet.
Ophelia: “That's a silly argument. You talk like a boy who just discovered that there is such a thing as death.”
Hamlet: “And you talk like an old maid, scared of her own shadow. People live out their lives because they're afraid of what comes after. Of course they do. People have to deal with all kinds of crap from other people. Their bosses, their family, basic injustice, bureaucrats, governmental incompetence, being friend-zoned, whatever. Thing is, you can put a stop to all that with just one gun and one shot. One short step into the road in front of a cement truck. One even shorter short step off a cliff. It's so easy! The only reason most people don't is that they're more afraid of what comes after death than the shit they go through here. Everyone has those thoughts at some point. But then they don't follow through. They're scared of what comes after.”
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