“Will be fine,” Josh assures me. “You’re Kim Watterson.There will be other roles. Great ones.”
There will be other roles, but far fewer than there used to be. I may be Kim Watterson, former Family Network teen idol turned A-list film star, but I’m thirty-six years old now, in an industry built on the perky bodies of young twenty-somethings.The roles I’m being offered will be increasingly less “romantic lead” and more “dried-up mother of young ingenue.”
“If I turn it down, they’ll just replace me, won’t they?” I can’t keep the edge of bitterness from my tone. “With some twenty-year-old.”
Josh nods. “Probably, yeah. But that doesn’t mean—”
“But if Blake turned it down?” I raise my eyebrow at Josh. Challenging him to tell me the truth.
The nice thing about Josh is that he always does. He doesn’t bullshit about the inequities of the industry, and he clearly hates them himself—his wife is an actress, so he gets it. “The whole project would probably fall through.”Then he gives a little shrug and a half-smile. “Unless they could get Hugh Jackman.”
He obviously means that last part as a joke, but I could see it. No disrespect to Hugh, who I’m actually good friends with, but it’s pretty special to think that to keep me as a romantic lead I’d probably be paired with a guy in his fifties, while Blake—who’s the same age as me—would get some doe-eyed starlet barely out of high school.
The Hollywood double standard makes me furious. And besides that, I don’t want to see Hemlock played by someone else. Not yet, at least. She’s kind of ridiculous—a genius chemist who is also a vigilante assassin in her spare time, and she dresses like a dominatrix with a plant fetish—but I’ve grown attached to the character. She’s mine, and I want to keep her that way.
I can do this, even with Blake. I’m an actress, damn it, and a good one. I’m a professional. I can put my feelings aside.
I have to start being able to do that at some point.
“I’ll do it,” I say, sitting back down.
Josh blinks in surprise at my sudden turn-about, then sets a contract on the coffee table. “Here’s their initial offer. It’s a decent amount, but we can get more.”
I eye the number on top. It’s more than I was paid for the other Hemlock movies, by enough it’s clear they know there’s a good chance I’ll refuse to work with Blake. It’s not like I’m hurting financially, but the sanctuary isn’t exactly cheap to run.
“Good.” I think of that Hollywood inequity thing again and add, “I don’t want to make less than Blake.That’s important.”That’s not a Blake-specific demand—I’ve been refusing to do the same job as my male counterpart for less money for a while now. Usually I’m the more famous of the two, so it’s not an issue, but Blake is a different story.
“Absolutely.” Josh makes a note on the contract. “What else do you want?”
“This romantic plotline—how romantic are we talking?” I’ve done some pretty racy scenes with co-stars before, and it’s not a problem, but the thought of doing that again with Blake . . . I feel the heat creeping up my face, like I’m some sixteen-year-old with a crush on the quarterback, and it pisses me off.
I need to stop. It’s been six years.
“Well, it’ll be PG-13 like the others, so any sex scene would likely be cut-away. Probably a few kissing scenes.”
I try to control my spinning thoughts, keep the wall up around years’ worth of memories. “No sex scene.Try to get them down to one kissing scene.”
“Done.” Josh makes another note. “Anything else? You’ve got the power here, Kim.They really don’t want to replace you.”
I think through all the demands I could make, but I’ve generally tried to not be too much of a diva. I don’t need specialty cheeses imported daily from Southern France or my own personal Reiki masseuse. I shrug. “I mean, if Blake and I are both on set, we’ll have our kids with us, so we’ll need accommodations for them, as well as our nanny. But that’s pretty much—oh.”
I just remembered an email I got today, finalizing my most recent adoption, who will be arriving at the ranch at the end of next week.The rescue all but begged me to take him on. He’s a total sweetheart—we bonded instantly when I flew out to South Carolina to meet him—but definitely a high-needs case. Which had been fine when I wasn’t planning on shooting a movie for the next six months.
Josh is watching me expectantly, his pen poised above his notepad.
“I’m also going to need some accommodations for a blind boxer,” I say. “He’s got several health problems, but the main problem is that he has some pretty severe attachment issues. I’ll need to have him on set with me.”
Josh stares at me for a moment, blinks, then jots down some notes. “Okay. A blind boxer who will need on-set . . . assistance?”
“Yeah, someone to watch him when I’m filming. Keep him company. Clean up any messes he makes.”
Josh is looking increasingly alarmed, though he keeps making notes, and suddenly it hits me what his confusion is.
“It’s a dog, not a person,” I say. “Boxer is the breed. Not a profession.”
“Oh god, that’s good.” Josh lets out a laugh. “I was seriously trying to figure out how I was going to phrase this demand for an assistant for your mess-prone boxer friend.”
“And yet, you were going to do it anyway.” Another reason why Josh is pretty much the best agent around.
