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“The past two months with you in Georgia have been tough.” He’d halted before going on. “Hey, I’m proud of you for pursuing your dreams.” She heard his words of affirmation but sensed something foreign about how he communicated. His voice had a glitch as if he had just offered her a platitude of reassurance. It was like he was sort of, kind of behind her. There was no way not to register the “but” behind his words. “Listen, you get to bed. I know relocating back to L.A. after months of living out of a suitcase has been a lot. Thanks for making time for Melissa every time you passed through Austin.”
“Of course,” she’d said, thinking she hadn’t done so because of Jake. She genuinely felt connected to Melissa and the rest of his family.
“I’ll be in a better mood Friday when I can get my hands on you,” he’d said, and again, she felt that he was masking something.
The next day, Rakell met with Tanya, the intimacy coordinator. Tanya handed her a cup of coffee andthen shared details on the scenes for the following week, including which angles the crew would be shooting from. She reiterated, “Rakell, please remember that even though you’ve signed a nudity rider, you have the right to say no to any scene, even if you’re in the middle of filming. Sometimes that happens. Let me know. I think these will go smoothly since you’ve been shooting the non-intimate scenes with the actors for several weeks already.”
“Yes, working with the guys on location in Georgia has eased some of my concerns. Joseph has been checking in with me,” Rakell reiterated.
The location scenes they’d shot in various places around Atlanta had limited interpersonal contact with the male actors, allowing her time to get to know them before being in front of a camera for the intimate scenes. Still, the in-studio videotaping would require elevated onscreen intimacy, necessitating varying amounts of nudity. The parts in the movie that had her on edge contained fairly explicit “sexual reenactments” (as the intimacy coordinator referred to the sex scenes), mainly with Joseph, her co-star and executive producer, and a couple of scenes with two other male actors, Lucas and Moss. She knew Joseph was forty-six, Lucas was probably in his late twenties, and Moss was in his mid-thirties. Her character seduces them, meticulously baiting each man until they are wrenched by their obsession with her.
Rakell had spent countless hours in front of a mirror nude, moving in various ways, examining how her body looked when turning to the side, bending, or twisting. She’d even laid a mirror down on her bed and straddled it, gyrating up and down so she could pick apart how her breasts looked; if she arched back slightly, would they look perkier on camera? Did her neck look wrinkled when she looked down? If she tightened her jaw, did that make her neck appear longer? She set up a tripod and videotaped herself in every position imaginable, a trick she’d discovered in a famous actress's blog.
“I want to show you how to use the adhesive cover-up for the shoot we’ll be doing toward the end of the week,” Tanya explained, holding up a roll of pale-flesh-toned tape. “Tomorrow will be the scene where your character slowly undresses for Joseph's character. Since she’s stripping for him on FaceTime, she sets the phone up on her dresser and performs for him, who’s on the other end. He won’t be on camera, but he’ll be part of the crew, directing it and recording when he should do his lines according to what you do. I know you have been practicing, so I thought we could do a dry run-through. The costume team designed three different outfits. It will come down to what looks best on film and which can be taken off effortlessly so as not to interfere with the seductive mood you are creating. We want you to concentrate on how you move your body while keeping eye contact with the phone. The audience needs to see that you're simulating arousal, fooling Joseph into believing that he’s turning you on by watching you. The second the call ends, you flop onto your sofa to finish a half-eaten turkey sandwich and a beer while still completely naked.” She raised an eyebrow over one eye and added, “Then you pick up your phone and Facetime Joeseph’s wife.”
“That’s so fucked up,” Rakell mused, shaking her head.
“Sick and delicious,” she replied with a gruff chuckle, waggling her eyebrows.
“Let’s hope moviegoers don’t think it’s too evil,” Rakell retorted.
“Never! It’s demonic in only the way humans can be,” she hissed, her lips curling into a sneer.
Chuckling, Rakell said, “Mmm…I am learning that humans are more devious than any other species.”
Tanya bobbed her head in agreement as if Rakell had just said the truest thing in the world before launching into the schedule for the next couple of days. “We may not shoot the scene that follows tomorrow, but that take will be fast and furious. The camera will be mostly on you again, but it will also pan to your phone, again set up to record the image of a woman masturbating, obviously the wife. The audience won’t see the face, but you’ll look at the phone while you’re on top of Lucas and smile because you know who’s masturbating while watching you with your boyfriend. That’s where this film gets even more twisted.” Tanya exhaled, chuckled, and took a small sip of her coffee.
Rakell shook her head. “I’m not a psychologist, but I think the whole thing is a mind-fuck.” She shot Tanya a knowing grin. She had been spending a lot of time with Tanya and was grateful to have her to run scenes by. She was involved in every intimate scene, and there were many in this film. Even when it came to hand holding, kissing, back rubs, or the light touch of a shoulder, Joseph and Astrid consulted Tanya. “Is it normal for actors not to know the final scene in a movie, so we don’t know how it ends? Is that typical for thrillers?” Rakell asked.
“No, but this is a unique film. I am not sure if this analogy has already been used, but I explain it as a sexual thriller in the vein of Memento, and Joseph is a master at building suspense, both sexually and psychologically. He hired Astrid, and she has freaky directing talent. Just like you said, after you watched some of her Swedish films, you felt like you needed to see them several times to tweeze everything out.”
“She is brilliant. I feel so lucky to be a part of this. I was nervous, especially since all the parts I’ve had previously were peripheral characters at best, sort of cookie-cutter roles, no depth.”
Tanya stood, moving toward a wardrobe rack. “Well, there’s a bit of typecasting. You are the face of Leather and Lace, and we all had to admit when we watched the advertising videos you’ve done for that lingerie company that you owned the screen. I mean, it’s one thing to photograph well, but the video takes it to a different level, and even if you didn’t speak on camera in those commercials, you were able to say a lot with your body and face. We weren’t sure how you’d do with the Southern thing, a Georgia accent, but you have nailed it.”
“That’s what Jake said to me before I got this.”
Tanya took a dress off a hanger. “Jake Skyler, the NFL star, that’s the only part that seems incongruent. You—with a Texas guy—much less a football player. He must be fairly open if he’s comfortable with this film.”
“He is, but truthfully, he doesn’t know all the scenes in detail. Of course, I didn’t let him read the screenplay, but he’s aware that there are some sex scenes. I didn’t go into anything too descriptive.” Rakell cleared her throat, feeling the force behind her next statement. “He knows I have career goals…and the truth is, so does he.” Catching a bewildered shift in Tanya’s eyes, she stood, diverting her gaze to the strappy denim Bardot-style sundress Tanya was holding up. She cocked her head, then nodded in approval, knowing that Tanya was trying to find a dress that seemed sweet but could be easily lifted up from behind for the scene in the restaurant bathroom.
“Let’s have you try this on. I may need someone from wardrobe to shorten the skirt for this to work in the scene,” Tanya said, moving the fabric between her thumb and fingers. “Try this one first, then this one next,” she instructed, gesturing toward the other dress. “When you get them on, see if the straps can effortlessly be pulled down from your shoulders. We want it to be easy to inch the bust section down so your breasts spill out. I think you know the look they want in the mirror. The camera will be positioned over Moss and your right shoulder to the side, so it isn’t picked up in the reflection. The other camera will be off to your left, showing more hip before panning back up.”
Rakell sucked in a breath. Her instinct told her she could trust Tanya. “So, in this scene, will the camera film him taking off my panties, or will it be hidden by the material of the skirt on the dress?” Tanya had already told her that every question matters and that she should clarify anything she wasn’t sure of. She’d learned a lot about Tanya during the weeks they had filmed in Georgia. Their rooms were next to each other; they had hung out a few nights after the especially long, grueling days of filming.
“We can walk through the details of the scene after you change. Do you want to change in there…” Tanya tilted her head toward the bathroom.
Rakell shrugged. “I think you know what’s under here…” She slipped off her robe and laid it on the chair she’d been sitting on.
Tanya helped her shimmy into the denim sundress, instructing Rakell to turn toward the counter. Tanya zipped it up, sliding her hand around Rakell’s waist. “In this scene, Moss will be behind you as you both stare at each other in the mirror. He’ll have one hand here and use the other to bend you over.” She pushed gently on Rakell’s lower back. “Plant your palms on the counter in the bathroom we have on set to brace yourself. Glare in the mirror first, almost as if you’re telling yourself something as we, the audience, see an imperceptible flicker at the corner of your mouth because you know what you’re going to do to him. Then the camera will focus on you, blurring the twisted expression on Moss’s face behind you. In this scene, he’s seething with jealousy.”
“I read the script but wasn’t sure how he would get this dress to stay up?” Rakell asked.
“Let’s go in the bathroom and act it out,” Tanya suggested, walking toward the bathroom in the studio office.
“Okay, let me think about this for a minute. I’m shorter than you. Actually, Moss is only an inch taller than you, so we may need to think about shoes. We could have you barefoot for this scene. Once he gets you in the bathroom, we can have him standing on a small step. I can still move you through the physical parts of it, so give me your hand,” she said, extending her hand and then grabbing Rakell’s wrist forcefully. “Put your hands on the counter like you’re bracing yourself after being jerked into the bathroom. You’re panting slightly—that’s it. Lean forward.”
Rakell studied herself in the mirror, her lips outlined and coated with a pink gloss. Tanya walked her through everything she was doing, advising her on what Rakell’s expressions should be.
