“It’s always sostressful.” Tom’s face was getting red. “I don’t have anything new to say about the comic, and there’s nothing Iwantto say about the movie.”
“Have you seen it?” Cherry asked.
“Parts of it.”
“Is it that bad?”
Tom shrugged. He looked miserable. “I don’t know. I can’t tell. When I’m watching it, all I can think about is how hellish the process was... How many times I had to rewrite a scene... How many meetings I had to sit through—when the number of meetings Iwantedto sit through waszero. Zero meetings. Zero Zooms. Zero calls with the producers while they were going through security at the Salt Lake City airport.”
“That’s very specific,” Cherry said.
Tom scoffed again. He stuck his fork in his rice, and the tines hit the plate. “The conversations I’ve had...” He shook his head. “Maybe they’ll be funny someday.”
“Like what?”
He looked up at her. “They wanted to give The Guy a name because they said it would confuse audiences.”
“Audiences already know The Guy. He’s the main character of an insanely popular series of books.”
“I guess even an insanely popular book is nothing compared to a movie audience. Nobody reads.”
“So, did you give him a name?”
Tom jerked his head back. “Fuck no. Oh—also, they wanted to take out the cursing.”
“There’s so much cursing.”
“I know. Jake That Shitbird was going to be Jake That Jerk.”
Cherry laughed.
“And they wanted to add all these characters...”
“There are already a lot of characters.”
“Apparently none of them are likable.”
“Peoplelovethe books.”
“See previous note,” Tom said. “And, oh god—Baby was the worst.”
Cherry’s smile froze. “Baby?”
Tom made another miserable face. “I’m sorry, Cherry. I know...”
Cherry didn’t want to hear whatever he was about to say. “I heard,” she said in a light voice, “that they fired the first actress for losing weight on semaglutide.”
“Themeetings...” Tom said. “Thetorturedconversations...”
He tilted his head and adjusted a pair of imaginary glasses.“?‘Does she still read as...buxom? You know, in the American imagination?’
“?‘Could we accomplish it with camera angles, like inLord of the Rings?’
“?‘Are her...assets... central to our understanding of the character? I mean, are theyreally?’”
Cherry was laughing again.
Tom dropped the impression. “One producer said we couldn’t cast a white actress, because the character’s butt was appropriation.”
