Page 31 of Cosplay & Consequences

“If my trainer finds out, I’m going to have to do forty sets of burpees to make up for this,” he lamented.

“I won’t tell,” I promised again.

“Yeah, I’ll probably confess,” he admitted as the next course came to our table. This time, Daniel got a plate of his own. The plate of steamed chicken and broccoli which looked plain and sad next to my entrée. My plate had delicate flowers cut from vegetables and what appeared to be a salmon filet in a shallow bowl of broth. This time I had no sense of hesitation or concern for the food placed in front of me. I dove in. While I savored my food, poor Daniel poked at his food with a fork as if he expected it to crawl off the plate and bite him.

“Would you like some of mine?” I offered.

“I’m good,” he promised me. “I’ll pretend it’s something else.”

“Are you that good of an actor?” I teased.

“No one is that good of an actor.” He took a few bites of broccoli, then pointed his chopsticks at me. “So, I’m curious. If you could have anyone in the world cast for the show, who would your choices be? Other than Tyrst’an.”

I snickered. He had no idea the can of worms he’d opened. “Oh, you want to go down that rabbit hole? I’ve got lists upon lists for all of them.”

He smirked at me as he poked at his chicken. “The main characters then.”

“Well, I have no complaints for Fiona and Oderan. Isla and Miles are perfect casting,” I said, doing my best to resist devouring the salmon in one bite.

“Agreed,” he nodded. “I got to do a table read with them. They are amazing. What about Roderick?”

I sighed and shook my head. “You’ll think I’m nuts.”

“Try me.”

I put down my chopsticks and leaned on the table. This was an important topic for me, and I needed my hands to emphasize everything. “All right. So back in the late 90’s there was this urban fantasy movie that came out and bombed called The Scotsman. It was about an immortal Scottish warrior–”

Daniel burst into laughter, and a scowl formed on my face. “Don’t make fun of me,” I warned him.

“No, no, no.” Daniel shook his head. “I love that movie! I have a poster of it in my dressing room!”

I eyed him warily. No one ever admitted they liked The Scotsman. Even Bray and Bennet couldn’t stand that movie. “You are lying.”

“No, wait! I’ll prove it.” He pulled out his phone and scrolled through it a bit before he handed it over to me. It was a picture of Paige glaring at the camera and giving Daniel the middle finger. Sure enough, over her shoulder was the original theatrical poster, framed and hanging on his wall.

“I can’t believe someone else loves this movie!” I laughed.

Daniel’s face went serious and then in a perfect Scottish accent uttered Angus MacDougall’s catchphrase: “There can be no others. Only the last one standing.”

“Yes!” My hands shot up into the air, and we both laughed long and hard. When I caught my breath, I continued. “Anyway, there’s a character in the movie named Salazar, played by Sebastian Glass-”

I stopped because Daniel’s face lit up in enthusiasm. “What?”

“I know him! He’s amazing!” he exclaimed. “He and I are good friends.”

I laughed. “Shut up. You’re lying to me. He’s one of my favorite character actors.”

He pulled out his phone and scrolled through it once more. “Whenever I get a break from the show, Stella books me special engagements for various off-Broadway productions. I’ve done two shows with him. He was Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls, and I was Sky Masterson. Then a few years later, we did Long Day’s Journey Into Night with him as James and me as Edmund. Ah! Here we go!”

I took the phone again, and this time it was a picture of Daniel and Sebastian Glass dressed in pinstripe suits and snappy hats. I gawked at the photo. A thought popped into my head of what Daniel’s singing voice would be like. “Are you serious? You worked with him?”

“Everyone has worked with Sebastian,” Daniel said, taking back his phone and smiling at the picture before he put it away. “He’s guest starred on hundreds of shows, has been in tons of movies and countless plays. He’s never gotten the big roles or the recognition he deserves, but everyone loves him. So, he’s your choice for Roderick?”

“Yes!” I shouted. “He’d be perfect for the role.”

He leaned on the table, speaking to me as if he held a secret. “Did you know he was nominated for a Tony for his portrayal of Falstaff?”

I gasped, realizing that my gut instinct about Sebastian for the role had been right. “I didn’t! Oh, that cinches it. He would have been perfect as Roderick.”