Page 5 of Hollywood, Ending

“You want to get dinner?” he asked me.

“I gotta read some stuff my agent sent over. And I’ve got a call with my publicist at eight. I’d love to—just busy.”

“I get it,” he said. “I got a couple self-tapes to make.”

“You want me to read with you?” I asked. “I should be free by nine.”

“Sure, as long as I can return the favor someday.”

_____

I ordered out a salad bowl from some Pittsburgh knockoff Sweetgreen and wrote in my notebook for twenty minutes (a daily ritual) before downloading the scripts onto my iPad.

The Star Wars thing was about a Twi’lek (I had to google it) diplomat working for the Empire in the Imperial Defense Department. At the end of the pilot, the viewer learns that our mid-level diplomat is in fact a spy for the Rebel Alliance who meets up with her handler in a dive bar. We can see what the diplomat can’t—that she’s been trailed to the bar by a suspicious colleague.

The writing was crisp but to my tastes anyway a little joyless. I read through the first half of the second episode before switching over to the Brian Arawas movie, Gods of Andromeda.

Before Gods of Andromeda was a script, it had been a book, apparently a massive bestseller, even though I’d never heard of it. Both the screenplay and the book were written by a woman named Valentina Leavitt, who looked in the photos I found online very much like an author of fantasy novels—long salt-and-pepper hair, oversized glasses, and watery gray eyes.

In the Realm, a young noblewoman has just become Queen after the sudden and suspicious death of her mother. I liked the matriarchal society stuff, and the world-building was good. The dialogue struck me as a bit awkward—lots of “my lords” and “my ladys” and whatnot—but I could see the movie. Occasionally when I read a script, I can see myself as the character I’m reading for; I can feel my body as her body, and my voice as her voice. Even though Agrippah’s lines were a bit stilted and formal, I could imagine myself saying them.

Most of all, I liked the way Agrippah interacted with her husband by an arranged marriage, Gavinth, the second lead of the movie. He was ambitious and somewhat conniving but in a charming way, and she recognized his machinations for what they were but still loved him. Or maybe she didn’t quite love him but saw his usefulness. There was a fascinating tension in their marriage. Do these two people care for each other, or need each other, or both? When love is politically expedient, is it love?

I called Jamie at seven forty-five, as soon as I’d finished the script. I could hear some hubbub in the background. “Is this a bad time?” I asked.

“Never,” she said. “Just at a kid’s birthday party.”

“Whose kid?”

“Mine. D’you get a chance to read?”

“Yeah, I like Gods of Andromeda. I like that character. It’s a bit cheesy, but…”

“So is the American moviegoing public,” Jamie said, finishing my thought. “I like it for you. And the studio is really behind it. Look, it’s a long shot, but we love a long shot. They’d probably fly you out for an audition. Otherwise you can self-tape.”

“I need to read the book first,” I said.

“Yeah, sure. I’ll send it to you.”

“Already ordered it,” I said.

“Of course you did. Good idea to read it. The author wants to be Very Involved. Insisted on writing the script. One of those. But it’s Arawas’s movie and that guy knows how to put butts in theater seats. Okay, I’ll call the studio now and artfully lead them on.”

“Perfect. I liked the Star Wars thing less.”

“It’s great if you want a TV show, but you don’t want a TV show. You’re a movie actor. You can do TV when—ALICE STOP HITTING YOUR BROTHER FOR GOD’S SAKE—you’re a thirty-eight-year-old mother looking for some life stability. Like your long-suffering agent.”

“I gotta go. I have a call with Katie.”

“Tell her hi.”

_____

Katie and I went over the press outlets coming to visit set over the course of the shoot. All the press would be there for Matthew, of course, but Katie was trying to get me one-on-ones with the women’s magazines as well as some online stuff, because online outlets trended younger. When I got off the phone with Katie, I had a few minutes, so I read a little of The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again), which I’d been using to prep. Warhol doesn’t reveal much about his actual self in Philosophy; he’s trying to be quick-witted and wise while remaining radically superficial. He doesn’t talk about his childhood or his art-making or his lovers or even really his interests, but skimming through it that evening, I found one moment that struck me as deeply revealing:

Sometimes people let the same problem make them miserable for years when they could just say, “So what.” That’s one of my favorite things to say. “So what.”

“My mother didn’t love me.” So what.