4P.M. – 6P.M.
17
OLLIE
‘Okay, Ollie, we’re just about good to go. Are you ready?’ Pippa Cartwright, the journalist forScooped!, the biggest online celebrity and entertainment website in the country, was sitting opposite him in the Academy’s press room – formerly the part of the old church that was used for small, private funerals. The irony didn’t escape him.
On one side of him, Calvin was already in position, and his mum was on the other side, all of them ready to participate in the interview, which was also being filmed by the Fankled documentary team that had set up in the corner, gathering more footage in the hope that Netflix would commission a second season.
‘Just give me two secs,’ Georgie answered before him, as she worked on his hair. ‘If he goes on camera like this, my reputation will be ruined. Did you go through a wind tunnel on the way here?’
There were too many cameras in the room for Ollie to admit that the state of his coiffure was probably down to the fact that he’d unconsciously run his fingers through his hair a hundred times in the last hour out of sheer exasperation.
He just didn’t understand it. This morning, everything with Stevie seemed fine, and yet now she’d somehow pivoted from ‘I love you, but I want to stay in the background of your life’ to ‘Sorry, it’s all too much and you’re chucked’. How had this happened?
He’d phoned her back several times in the last hour, but the calls were just going straight to voicemail, and he hadn’t heard from Ginny since she’d dispatched herself off to find out what was going on. In the meantime, he had commitments for the rest of the day that his inherent professionalism wouldn’t let him bail on, because people were counting on him. They needed as much press as possible for tonight’s live screening because good numbers were the only way to influence the Netflix decision. He had to get his heart rate down. He had to concentrate. And he had to make sure he delivered the kind of flawless, charming interview that would keep his fans happy and perhaps even generate a couple of viral clips that would help spread the word even further – even though all he wanted to do was cancel everything for the rest of the day and go find the love of his life.
Georgie must have sensed something was off, because she was in front of him now and he caught her quizzical expression, before she leaned in as far as her bump would allow, getting close to his ear so that the interviewer wouldn’t pick up on her words. ‘Ollie, are you okay? I can feign my waters breaking if you want rid of this lot.’
He gave a slight shake of the head. ‘No, it’s okay.’ It definitely wasn’t okay. ‘I’ve got this.’ He definitely didn’t have it.
‘Right, I think we should be good on lights,’ Blair, the electrician, gave them the thumbs up as he backed away from the two large photography lightboxes that were set up to illuminate the shot.
Ollie nodded. ‘Thanks, pal.’ His mum had already reported back that the electrics in the sound studio had been repaired, but Blair had agreed to stick around in case his services were needed again.
‘And we’re ready back here too.’ That was Sandy, the cameraman on the Fankled team, who’d been following their every move for six months. Today was either going to be the last ever day of shooting, or the first footage for the next series, so they were keen to capture everything that was going on.
Georgie, satisfied with her work, went off to join Blair at the back of the room, while Pippa gave her own hair a final flick, applied another lick of lip gloss to her over-filled pout and then used a remote control to press record on the two-iPhone camera system she’d set up on tripods, one facing her and one facing her interviewees.
‘Ready and three, two, one…’
Instant smile into her camera.
‘Welcome toScooped! Live, and gang, you’re going to love this because today we have the one, the only, the utterly irresistible, Ollie Chiles in the hot seat, to give us the inside scoop on his brand new show – airing on Netflix tonight –The Academy of Dreams.’
Ollie gave his standard grin and greeting. ‘Thanks, Pippa. It’s always great to talk to you.’
‘And a huge welcome too to Ollie’s mum, the spectacular vocal talent, Moira Chiles, and to the co-founder of the Academy, former agent and manager to the stars, Calvin Fraser.’
Ollie listened as they both returned the greeting, before Pippa turned back to him.
‘Ollie, we’ve seen the previews and we’re so excited. Can you tell us – what should we expect?’
He gave himself a mental pep talk. Time to switch off ‘Ollie – normal bloke having an emotional crisis’ and switch on ‘Ollie Chiles – A-list actor with not a care in the world’. It was going to have to be the kind of performance that could win him an Oscar. Let’s go.
‘That’s a tricky one to answer, Pippa, because the reality is, this is going to be just as much of a surprise to all of us watching here as it will be to the viewers, because we haven’t seen the final cut yet. What I can say is that this building is packed with incredible talent and the young people in our Academy have astonished us with their skills and their passion. And the coaches deserve their moment in the spotlight too, because they are truly some of the most accomplished and special people I’ve ever worked with.’
‘He has to say that, or he doesn’t get a Christmas present,’ his mum piped up beside him, and yep, there would be the first viral moment that would be clipped and doing a frenzied round on social media before the day was out. He gave his mum a grateful nudge on the shoulder. This was the kind of energy that would sell the show. The juxtaposition between his global fame and polished TV star image and his mother’s broad Glaswegian, down-to-earth humour had been one of the selling points for the show in the first place and this was the kind of cheeky exchange that the network, and hopefully the viewers, would love.
Pippa moved swiftly on to the next question.
‘Many celebrities endorse programs that support young people looking for their big break, but you are one of the few who actually puts his own money behind it – tell me why now and why here?’
‘Well, my mum brought me up just a few streets away from here – in fact, I went to South Side High School just round the corner and that’s where I started acting. I had the happiest childhood, but there was no denying that we struggled for money and…’ He went on with the background history that he’d given many times before, mapping out the very reason that he did this. He’d been lucky. Against all the odds, he’d got the breaks, and his life now was very far from the one he’d had growing up here. Now, he, and his mum and Calvin, wanted to give others the same chance.
The rest of the interview passed in a bit of a blur, with Moira and Calvin fielding their fair share of questions too. It went as well as he could have hoped. Polished. With no hint of an issue. Until Pippa hit him with the round-up question.
‘Finally, Ollie, several media publications and websites have received tip-offs to a story that’s gone viral, claiming that you’ve been in a relationship with a so-far unnamed person for many years, including when you were married to Sienna Montgomery. Can you tell us if there is any truth to this?’
