Oh, great. My dad was singing quietly in the background with a silly smile on his face. Oblivious.
‘Nope.’ I ignored the whipped-puppy look Mum gave me. ‘I’m just going to go upstairs and start on my homework.’ Which meant: ‘I’m just going to go upstairs for a bit of privacy.’
I sat on my bed and looked at my phone as if, in the absence of a best friend, it would start to tell me what to do next. Digby scratched at the door and I let him in because he only made a dog-sized dent in my privacy. He jumped up on the bed and pawed at my favourite jumper until he had got it into the best shape to curl up on. Should I make Archie wait for a reply? I probably should, right? Digby wagged his tail, but as advice went it was a bit equivocal.
I’m not great at waiting.
Nothing. Revision. x
Stupid, I’d replied too fast. And with a text that was both boring and depressing. Also stupid because I should have asked a question; I’d killed the conversation. Basic texting error. But moments later another text popped on to my screen.
Got my last paper next week. Seriously cannot wait. Life will begin again. x
Archie talking about GCSEs made me scared for next year. Have they gone OK?
Who knows?
Thanks X
Capital letter kiss. Was that escalation or a typo? You still coming to ACT this week? x I admit that my failure to come up with witty text banter was beginning to look like a pattern, but this was a bit stressful.
Don’t think so. x
Lower case x. Disappointing. Also very disappointing that I wouldn’t see him at ACT. And then a second text a couple of minutes later.
Are you going to Steph’s next Friday? Xx
Xx was escalation, wasn’t it?
If you’d asked me ten minutes earlier if I’d wanted to go to Stephanie’s house party, I would have said no. Chances were it wouldn’t be any good because none of us (at least in my year) go to enough parties to behave anything like normal people at them. Everyone would be getting with everyone else and the girls wouldn’t have eaten carbs for a week and wouldn’t eat anything at all for the whole party day so they’d look skinny and then they’d hit the smuggled-in booze (unless Steph’s parents just served it – it happens). Somebody/many people would throw up. There would be at least one fight, although chances were nobody would get hurt because everyone (even the guys who played rugby) fought like girls. Also I wouldn’t be able to get ready with Moss or gossip about it after with Moss. In my very limited experience, those were the best bits.
It’s not like I’d expected Steph to invite me because I didn’t know her that well. Anyway, she’d invited Moss and she probably thought there’d be another fight if we were both there. (Maybe she should have invited me: we could have provided the entertainment.)
So, if you’d asked me ten minutes ago if I minded not having been invited, I’d have said no and I’d have meant it. Now I wasn’t so sure.
There wasn’t any point lying about it to Archie. Everyone knew everything.
Nope, not invited. x
You guys not friends?
We’re not exactly not friends, but it’s complicated. I didn’t put an x that time because he hadn’t, but then an x would have looked a bit odd after a question mark. Oh, God, maybe his kisses were just punctuation?
Minutes passed, long minutes, and he wasn’t replying. I’d killed the conversation by including an honest reference to the complexities of female friendship.
Stupid.
I might as well do my homework.
More long minutes passed. I was finding it hard to concentrate on the difference between ultraviolet and infrared radiation.
I doodled on my textbook (a little cartoon of Squirrelina dumping Colonel Kernel) and refreshed my phone again.
Nothing.
Did gamma radiation have the shortest wavelength or the longest? I was finding it very hard to care.
My phone barked. Soz, parents around. Too complicated to come as my plus one? xx
Back to double x’ing and a plus one invite to a party. No way was this Friendzone. Or maybe it was. Maybe we were so deep in the Friendzone that kisses escalation was irrelevant. Maybe Archie wasn’t carefully considering the nuance of every single character in every single text? I was so confused. There should be a manual.
Obviously, I needed to ask Moss, but obviously I couldn’t ask Moss.
I didn’t know what to do.
I typed Sorry, too complicated. xx, stared at it for a full ten minutes, deleted it and typed Why not? Sure. xx and pressed Send before I could change my mind.
The phone woofed immediately: xxx
Even I was getting the message.
‘Low expectations is what I’m after. Honestly.’
Cara Delevingne
My phone barked. Good luck for Straker callback. Long scroll of fingers-crossed smiley emoticons. Not from Moss.
Thanks, Daisy, I’m soooo scared
Nah, you’ll be great. Text me after.
I was seriously nervous. Excited, sure, but mostly nervous. I still hadn’t seen the whole script, just some more casting scenes. The callback was at the offices of the production company and they were quite cool offices, modern, with lots of glass and white walls peppered with posters from previous productions. We were all shepherded into a big room. I guess it was usually a conference room, but they’d pushed back all the chairs to turn it into a rehearsal space. There were six of us in the room who were up for parts and I recognized three of them.
The two other girls were shorter and girlier than me (no surprise there). The girl I recognized was called Amy and the reason I recognized her was because she was beamed into my sitting room every Thursday night as a regular cast member on Sunningtown. Sunningtown is this sort of rustic drama/soap series, not my sort of thing, but obviously people watched it because it had been running for at least a decade and Amy had been in it all the time, growing up in front of us (despite at least two near-death plotlines – it may have been a small town, but it was one that attracted an extraordinary amount of incident). She was glued to her iPhone and wasn’t making eye contact with anyone. Her mother was sitting beside her, reading a magazine with a picture of Amy on the front. Just weird. Everyone else had got rid of their parent at the door.
The other girl, the one I didn’t recognize, came over straight away. She had a nice smile.
‘Hey, I’m Lana. Were you at the Hetty Feather casting? I’m sure I recognize you. You had, like, a purple uniform on.’
This was the first time I’d ever been recognized from my acting stuff, and it was from a casting for a part I hadn’t got and because my school uniform was tragic. Score.
‘Yeah, I didn’t get the part.’
‘Me neither. So we’re up against Amy Underhill.’
We both looked over at Amy, who didn’t look back at us. Now she was doing some rather ostentatious vocal warm-ups.
‘She’ll get it,’ I said resignedly.
‘Yep,’ said Lana. ‘I’m definitely looking at today as a free masterclass and nothing more.’
I already liked Lana. She seemed sane and normal. Also it was true: money couldn’t have bought a masterclass with the director of this film. Looked at that way, today was going to be good. Oh, and we were missing school. I thought of Flissy in double physics and smiled. Win-win.
My phone barked. Good luck for today. xx Not Moss (bad). Archie (good) – two kisses (not as good as xxx but still good). I switched my phone to silent (it was a very demanding ringtone).
‘She’s wearing make-up,’ said Lana, looking over at Amy.
She was right. Amy had on at least foundation and mascara and probably liner and lippy as well. We’d been told quite firmly not to wear any, but maybe different rules applied to actual actors with jobs. Lana and I were both wearing black leggings and white T-shirts. Amy was in skinny jeans and a teeny tie-dyed T-shirt.
‘Maybe we’ll get her autograph,’ I suggested just a little sarcastically.
‘Well, that’ll make it all worthwhile,’ replied Lana in the same tone, offering me half a Mars bar. A girl who ate Mars bars for breakfast was a girl to swap phone numbers with.
The three guys had clustered together on the other side of the room. Pack-animal instinct?
I sort of knew two of them. Alex was Jenny from school’s older cousin and I’d met him a couple of times. I was a bit in awe of him because he was two years above and seriously hot in that English blond, blue-eyed way. He’d modelled for some T-shirt brand. I hadn’t known he acted, but I wasn’t surprised. He would have been perfect in war movies playing the heroic RAF fighter pilot who does eventually die, but not until the last scene and not until he has saved his best friend and not until he has seen his newborn son in the arms of his girl-next-door sweetheart wife (preferably played by me, but probably played by Amy).
The other guy that I recognized straight away was called Damian. I’d met him at castings before and he’d been on Casualty (he died in that one; there’s a strange, positive correlation between the gruesomeness of your screen death and the success of your future career – his was a nasty incident with a lawn mower if I remember rightly so he’d probably do well). I’d never really spoken to him. He wasn’t nearly as good-looking as Alex, but he was passable.
The third guy was the fittest. He was black so the three guys had – weirdly for a casting – completely different looks. It made me think that they probably hadn’t cast ‘Jan’s’ parents yet.
None of them were Archie, but none of them were ugly either, and although I was in the throes of a major crush I did still have eyes. Hypothetically, this attraction thing mattered because of Straker and Jan’s young love subplot (which was a distraction from the whole flesh-eating-survival stuff apparently dominating the rest of the script).
I didn’t think I was going to get this part, but I can’t pretend I wasn’t thinking about plotlines when I was checking out Alex, Damian and the mystery guy.
‘OK, guys, gather round.’ Janey, who we’d met at the first casting, did that sort of clapping thing that primary-school teachers do when they’re trying to get their class to come to order.
‘Right, you all know me and this is Sergei Havelski,’ she gestured, ‘and sitting either side of him are Selim and Rhona.’
So the short, middle-aged guy sitting quietly in the corner was the director, Mr Havelski. In his photos on the web, he’d looked more vivid, more powerful. In real life, he appeared fairly ordinary, a bit older, shorter and a lot more tired. I hadn’t recognized him. To be fair, he’d probably just flown in from LA or been up all night mentoring an Oscar winner or divorcing his fourth wife or something. He was clutching the most enormous mug of coffee so he’d probably perk up later. As far as I could work out, Selim and Rhona were his sidekicks – there to fill the coffee mug and take notes.
Janey went on. ‘We all know who each of you are, but I know some of you haven’t met before so can we just go round and each of you introduce yourselves? Just say a couple of sentences that really sum up who you are.’
I got really nervous and blotchy doing this sort of thing. It was meant to be casual, but we were already being tested and we all knew it. Who was going to be the wittiest/have the best voice/projection/delivery/eye contact, etc. etc.
Amy went first as befitted her star status. ‘Hi, everyone.’ She broke off to give us all a saccharine smile. ‘I’m Amy Underhill and I guess what’s important about me is that I live for acting. It’s my life. I’ve played Kelly in Sunningtown for years now and it has been an awesome experience. The cast are like family to me, but I really want to stretch myself as an actress and take on more demanding roles and I think that the role of Straker—’
‘Thanks, Amy,’ Janey cut in and motioned to Alex to take over (which was just as well as much more of Amy talking emphatically about what mattered to her and I would have thrown up).
‘I’m Alex, I’ve got four brothers and . . . I live in London and . . . this is my first shot at trying to do some acting. Er, if it doesn’t work out, I’m quite into football.’
He hadn’t bigged up the modelling; Alex was OK. I wondered what the brothers were like.
‘I’m Damian. I’m an only child. I’ve done a fair bit of acting at school and professionally and it’s definitely what I want to do when I grow up.’
‘When I grow up’ – seriously, who says that? The jury is still out on Damian.
‘Hi, I’m Lana and, um, I like acting too and singing and dancing and . . . er . . .’ Long pause. ‘I’m suddenly a bit nervous.’
‘Don’t be nervous, Lana, this isn’t some sort of test. We just want you all to relax and have fun today. You’ve all done really well getting this far.’ Now Janey was emphasizing every word, but how stupid did we look? By definition, this was some sort of test.
It was my turn and I had a bit of a brain freeze too. There was an even longer awkward pause. ‘Hey.’ I did a strange sort of little wave. ‘Sorry, I’m Elektra and I’m nervous too . . . obviously . . .’ My voice was a bit squeaky. I forced it low, maybe a bit too low. ‘I haven’t really done much acting, but I do enjoy it. Erm, there are quite a lot of things I enjoy.’ I really had not intended that to sound suggestive, but Alex was definitely smirking; focus, Elektra, focus. ‘I haven’t got any brothers or sisters.’ Not cool.
‘Thank you, Elektra,’ said Janey, nodding intensely as if I’d said something really clever and deeply insightful.
And finally, ‘I’m Carlo, I’m seventeen, I used to live in New York and I’ve done a bit of acting out there. Music’s my thing.’
Risky to say that something that wasn’t acting was his thing. Carlo was cool, maybe too cool. Time would tell.
‘Okaaay,’ said Janey, ‘that was GREAT.’ Every word she said now came with its very own exclamation mark she was trying so hard to make us all feel good. ‘Let’s do one more round and this time I want each of you to tell us one, just one,’ I swear she looked at Amy when she said that, ‘secret thing about yourself that nobody would guess. It’s important as actors that you can lay yourselves open to others. Alex, you go first.’
I think Janey fancied Alex, which was fair enough.
‘I like One Direction.’
That was brave. Carlo raised an eyebrow, but the rest of us just looked at him adoringly.
‘I can speak Polish. Powodzenia, everyone!’
That was Lana and that was impressive. I have no idea what it meant, but there was lots of what we actors call positive energy.
‘I won a beautiful baby competition.’
That was Damian and I was beginning to judge him.
‘My mum dropped me on my head when I was baby.’
Well, it didn’t damage your good looks, Carlo.
‘My left arm is one inch longer than my right,’ said Amy, giggling winningly as if that were her only flaw. Physically, it probably was. I can’t say that I was warming to Amy.
‘My left boob is at least one inch smaller than my right,’ I said because I had temporarily gone out of my mind.
I had certainly laid myself open to others. The guys laughed, Amy looked faux shocked and Lana cringed and whispered in my ear, ‘Me too.’
Havelski just stared into his coffee morosely.
‘Okaaaay,’ said Janey, ‘I think we all know each other a bit better now. Time to get you guys warmed up. Form a circle, everyone. Now who here does yoga?’
Amy and Damian’s hands went up like rockets. I’d say Amy pipped him to the post. Carlo raised his arm at a much slower pace (the movement equivalent of a drawl – sexy) and – almost apologetically – so did Lana.
‘Greaaat,’ said Janey, ‘so who wants to lead us all in some stretches?’
No prizes for guessing that Amy was up for that.
So we did Downward Dog, we did the Warrior, we did Boat, we did the Cobra, we did Child’s Pose. When I say ‘we did’, I mean that some of us did (rather beautifully – how the hell Amy managed it in skin
ny jeans, even stretchy ones, was beyond me, but she did) while others of us (basically, me and Alex) failed miserably and got the giggles. Weirdly, the more I humiliated myself, the less nervous I felt. Janey only stepped in when Amy tried to make us all follow her into the Crow; the Crow would have finished me off.
‘I expect I’ll have to talk a lot about The Kiss. We did it two weeks ago. Four takes one way, and two takes with the camera in the other direction. Six takes altogether.’
Emma Watson
We’d got all the yoga stuff out of the way and we’d played some pretty standard improv games and we’d run around a bit so that even Amy was hot and sweaty and had started to forget that her hair was meant to be perfect. Basically, they gave us three hours to muck around and chill out a bit.
The afternoon was for script work. We all had the same sides, two scenes, both short, between Straker and Jan. For once, we were all doing the scenes in front of each other, swapping partners around. That wasn’t as daunting as it sounds because once you’ve done Downward Dog in front of someone anything goes. There was a quarrel scene and a love scene.
The quarrel scene was short.
EXTERIOR. FOREST: DAY THREE
A clearing in the forest. Tall, black, dark trees, menacing shadows. Two figures facing each other. Stiff, exhausted and obviously angry: Straker and Jan. Straker is holding a spear.
STRAKER
(aggressively) Why the hell did you have to interfere? I had it under control.
JAN
(matching her aggression, moving closer to her) You. Had. Nothing. Under. Control.
STRAKER
(Backs away from him as if from a dangerous animal. Trying not to cry with frustration and anger.)
I don’t want your ‘help’. You’re not some action hero – well, except maybe in your pathetic imagination – and I’m not some helpless little girl. You know what? You make everything worse.
JAN
(shouts) No. You make everything worse.
Waiting for Callback Page 18