There’s a YouTube link, and because I’m apparently a masochist, I click it. The commercial opens with an overly serious voiceover, and ridiculous shots in the background of the poor girl, Clover, looking absolutely distraught and hiding in a darkened room.
She looks like she’s hiding from a captor, for fuck’s sake. Delicately, she lifts her shirt sleeve to reveal a painful-looking rash on her arm before dissolving into a fit of tears. I’ll admit it; it’s her job to sell the cream, and she’s doing a good job of it. I feel bad for her, even though I know that’s all the work of a makeup team, and her arm underneath it is fine.
It transitions to a medical office where she’s making the heartbreaking confession to her physician about this skin condition. The doctor gives her a reassuring smile and places a comforting hand on her back, and I know it’s totally benign, but something about it all grosses me out. He looks like a creep. Guy’s probably played a sex offender on some criminal re-enactment show. Certainly looks the type.
Then the commercial cuts to Clover after presumably a few weeks or months. She’s now taking a walk in the sun with some friends and wearing a short-sleeved shirt that reveals her rash has long disappeared. A montage of her doing various outdoor activities, from lounging on the beach to gardening, is shown while tons of fine print flies across the bottom of the screen as the narrator does their best job to sound chipper despite warning you about potential side effects that range from mild discomfort to thoughts of death.Doesn’t that sound lovely?
Finally, Clover faces the camera and gives a beaming smile. It makes my heart stutter for a second. By this point I’dnormally be looking down at my phone, or I’d have fucked off to grab a beer or something. This is my first time seeing the very last bit of the commercial. She’s so sincere, so happy, that I find myself drawn in, and wanting to hear what she has to say despite myself.
“Talk to your doctor about Amidoxin, today,” she says melodically before the video ends.
“Oh, fuck off,” I growl before navigating to her IMDb page. Surely there’s got to be something else on here. She has to have done more than this asinine commercial. Ineedher to have done more than that.
Unfortunately, she has very few titles attached to her name. I scroll and search, but all I’m seeing are two credits. They’re both indie movies that I haven’t even heard of. She was a supporting actor in one, and in the other, at least it looks like she was the lead. I groan and run my hand through my hair.
Vivian bringing some public interest and potential audience members to the project? I can work with that. Clover bringing absolutely nothing to the table except that stupidly annoying commercial? That’s useless to me.
I don’t want to carry the entire project. I also don’t want people to look at the poster and go, “Hey, is that the eczema cream girl?” Fuck. Pair that with her overall lack of experience? She’ll probably be following me around like a lost little puppy dog.
I scroll back up to see her headshot, where a set of piercing sea-green eyes meets mine. Her plush lips are twisted into a slight smile that’s both infuriating and inviting. It’s like she’s smirking at the fact that I find her undeniably beautiful even though I already irrationally dislike the woman. Her long red hair hangs in loose waves around the creamy skin of her bare shoulders. Is her hair even half as soft as it looks?
With a clatter, I drop my phone a few inches onto thekitchen island. Fuck that. I will not be thinking about her in that way. Because while she may be beautiful, I refuse to acknowledge the possibility that she’ll be my co-star in this movie. There’s no way – it’ll have to be Vivian Treadway. She and I will have chemistry together, I know it.
Chapter Four
ROMAN
Vivian Treadway and I do not have chemistry together. It’s the day of our reads, and I have more chemistry with a damp towel than with her.
I look to my left, desperate to see our director Arnold’s reaction to what’s happening right now. His face is a mask of complete and utter professionalism, he should really be the actor here. I’m having to work overtime to keep the scowl off my face. If I weren’t so frustrated with how this was going, maybe I’d laugh.
The light in the room beams down on Vivian and me, and despite it being warm, there’s absolutely no heat between us.
We’re doing two scenes from the movie today to test out our chemistry, or apparent lack thereof. The first, we have a heated exchange and her character slaps mine. It’s not a love scene, but it requires chemistry nonetheless. The tension and hate between our characters needs to be palpable; it needs to feel real.
The next scene we’re doing is one right before our characters kiss for thefirst time. It’s a 180 from the first, so between doing these two it’ll give us a good indicator of who sparks fly with most.
Arnold will be calling “cut” before we kiss, and I’m really fucking grateful for that right about now.
“Great, Vivian. Thanks!” Arnold calls out, and God bless him for giving any compliment to what he just witnessed. “I think we’ve got everything we need for that scene. Let’s reset and try the next one.”Translation – we got absolutely nothing, and I don’t want to waste time anymore, so let’s move on.
Vivian flashes a bright smile around her deep red lipstick and blinks rapidly. Her fake eyelashes nearly brush against her eyebrows with each movement. Clearly, she and I have different understandings of what her character would dress like. While there’s no official dress code for a chemistry test, it’s widely understood that you should wear something your character would. Something that helps the casting team envision you as the character. This isn’t cutting it.
I shrug my shoulders and roll up the long sleeves of my black shirt, exposing some tattoos that wind around my right forearm. Part of an intricate sleeve that goes all the way up onto my shoulder and pec.
Gripping the script in my hand with slightly more force than necessary, I will the paper to transfer some sense of calm into me. This has been an absolute waste of everyone else’s time so far.
While Vivian’s doing a great job of delivering the lines, she’s working completely on her own and not with me in the scene. She barely makes eye contact, and she refuses to scan my face or read any of my body’s cues as I perform my lines. Part of being a talented actor is working with your scene partner, reading their body language and interpreting that into your own performance. It’s a give and take. And right now Vivian is giving and refusing to take anything from me.
“Alright, Roman, when you’re ready, start us off with the second scene,” Arnold instructs. The others at the casting table are taking notes, and the camera that’s honed in on us continues to capture the shit-show that is this read. Thank God it’s digital. This would be a pure and utter waste of camera film.
Flipping a few pages in the script to get to our next scene today, I take a deep centering breath. I try to make eye contact with Vivian to see if she’s ready to go. I should be able to read her body language and know exactly when to start, but she looks like a complete and utter blank slate.
“Vivian, are you good?” I ask, annoyed that she isn’t giving me any nonverbal cues to begin.
“Yes,” she replies quickly, giving her body a big dramatic shake as if to shed the persona of Vivian and step into the character of Moonbeam. I give a quick nod and decide to rip the rest of this thing like a Band-Aid.
“I thought I told you not to come after me,” I deliver in character, scanning her face and reading her performance to help shape my own. My words are laced with longing, and although I’m saying one thing, my eyes show that I’m both relieved and terrified that her character is with mine.
