STS Ch-64

“Okay, where do you want to go?” I asked, my hands resting on the wheels of the Porsche 928 as I drove at a relatively slow speed for practical reasons.

“I don’t know, Josh. I haven’t given it a lot of thought,” Daryl said from the passenger seat before turning around at the sound of a honk.

“Oh, shit! Here he comes,” she whispered exasperatedly.

“Here who comes?” asked Ron from behind me, turning to look out the back window.

“My manager,” Daryl replied casually, as if it wasn’t a big deal at all. Then she leaned out of the open window, looking back at the manager’s car, and shouted, “Hey, Guido! Big man, Guido! What are you gonna do, kill us all with your gun?”

Ron and I exchanged worried glances in the rear-view mirror as Daryl settled back into her seat.

“So,” I began cautiously, “this Guido guy. He’s a manager, or a pimp?”

The look of hurt and betrayal that Daryl gave me told me exactly how she felt in that moment, without her needing to say a single word.

“Now that’s quick, Josh. Were you always this quick, or is this something new?”

Ron shook his head worriedly, not understanding the subtlety of the moment between us.

“I have a trig midterm tomorrow, and I’m being chased by Guido the Killer Pimp!”

I couldn’t help but laugh at the joke. Ron’s delivery was just bang on.

“Cut!”

The moment I heard the voice through the megaphone, I slowed the car to a halt and waited for further instructions. I knew I shouldn’t have laughed, but I couldn’t help myself. Besides, I knew the scene had to be cut at that point, so my laugh wouldn’t matter much.

“It’s good!” came Paul’s voice a moment later. “Let’s move on.”

“Great!” I said happily, rubbing my hands excitedly. “And now it’s time to shoot my favorite scene!”

Daryl, who had sat beside me patiently all this time, quickly opened the door and got out.

“Glad I could get out of this madness,” she said in a bland tone. “Action scenes are just not for me.”

“You’re so lucky,” Ron complained. “I’m stuck with this adrenaline junkie for the next few hours.”

“You were stuck with me for a full year at Harvard,” I shot back. “You didn’t have a problem then.”

“We can’t choose our roommates now, can we?” Ron retorted. “If I die because of your reckless driving and you don’t, I’ll haunt you for the rest of your life.”

“Boys,” Paul’s voice interrupted our banter, “let’s focus on the scene, shall we?”

“We shall,” Ron agreed, just as a body double for Daryl Hannah took the seat beside me.

It was such a coincidence that, besides the female lead, only one more role had not been finalized yet, and that was the role of my character’s best friend, Miles, who delivers one of the most iconic lines of [Risky Business]: Every now and then, say, “What the fuck.”

As a director, I absolutely loved working with Ron because he was a natural performer. So I recommended him. Ron came in, gave an amazing audition, and quickly secured the role.

The scene we were about to shoot was a different version from the original film. In this one, a special camera attachment had been created and fixed to the car, which would shoot a live reaction from my side of the window as I drove at high speeds. I still remember that conversation clear as day.

(Flashback)

“No,” Samuel said bluntly. “No insurer would ever allow you, the star of the movie, to perform the stunt yourself. We’ll have to involve a body double.”

“But then it won’t look authentic!” I argued. “I’m a good driver. And when I say I’m good, I mean I’m actually great. I can pull it off. In fact, I’m more than ready to perform this stunt outside the shoot first so you can be assured that I’m competent enough at driving.”

There was just this small detail where I had died in a road accident in my first life, but there was no way in hell I was telling that to Samuel. Besides, that was my old, purely human life. This time around, because of my godly heritage, my perception, dexterity, and hand-eye coordination had been dialed up by eleven, giving me far better driving and navigation skills. Turns and twists that were earlier possible only for expert stunt drivers or video game characters were now possible for me as well. Similarly, while I hadn’t been involved in a fistfight here, I knew I could win against anyone who wasn’t a professional fighter or martial artist.

The best part was knowing that even if something did go wrong, my body would recover eventually.

“Listen, Noah,” Samuel said with a stern expression. “You asked me to get this camera made for this shot. I agreed, even though it was going over budget and I’ll have to shift money from some other department. I did it because I want a good film too. But I don’t want you to risk your life for a scene.”

I shook my head. “I won’t be risking my life because I do stunts like these all the time. I could easily injure myself one of these days, and you’d still have the same dilemma. So why not make the scene more authentic and let me do the stunt myself?”

That was a lie. While I can do stunts like these and have tried them a few times, I don’t do them often. Just because I can do something doesn’t mean I’ll do it all the time. Still, I enjoy those adrenaline-filled moments, and if someone was paying me to do the stunt, all the better.

“I think we should let him do it,” Paul said suddenly. “I trust Noah with this.”

I gave him a surprised look for a few seconds until it dawned on me. He was hoping I’d injure myself so he could recast someone else in the lead role. That was a fucked-up thing to hope for, yet it somehow worked in favor of what I wanted. So I didn’t comment on it and just gave him a small nod.

Samuel rubbed his temples for a few seconds before adding, “Alright. I’ll pay the additional insurance fees, but on the condition that if you’re injured and we’re forced to recast you, you’ll relinquish all your income from this movie, including the advance you’ve already received.”

“Okay,” I agreed easily. “But it won’t include minor injuries that can heal within a week.”

“Okay,” he agreed as well, and we shook hands to seal the deal.

(Flashback End)

That brought me to the present moment, where I was about to perform the scene that could cost me a lot if I got injured somehow and Poseidon’s claim about my body’s rejuvenation powers turned out to be false.

“Action!”

Hearing Paul’s voice, I pushed down hard on the gas pedal and zoomed past the fixed camera, while another one had been mounted on the hood of the car I was driving. A third camera had been fixed on a rig that had been attached to the base of the car in such a way that it stayed a few feet away from me, capturing both me driving and the movement of the car. The camera crew had already cleared the road of civilians, so there was no risk to anyone else while I went crazy with my driving.

Another car, this time driven by the stunt double of Guido the Killer Pimp, followed behind me carefully.

As the road came to an end, I swerved the car smoothly, making the rear end slide into a perfect curve and sending Ron sweating bullets in the backseat.

“Motherfucker!”

“Your mom’s too old for me,” I shot back. “Maybe you can introduce me to your sister later?”

Ron was too stunned by my response to reply properly, or maybe it was the motion of the car. Whatever the case, I was enjoying every moment of the shoot as I drove through the empty night streets at full speed before finally stopping the car when I thought I was done.

For a moment, nothing happened. It felt almost anticlimactic. Until it didn’t.

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Ron said.

Moments later, he stuck his head out of the window and puked his guts out for real.

I decided to stay in character and said, “Porsche. There is no substitute.”

“Fuck you!” Ron groaned after relieving himself of whatever he had eaten that day, making me and Ruby, Daryl’s body double, burst into hysterics.

I wasn’t supposed to say any line until Daryl replaced Ruby, but I couldn’t help myself. And seeing Ron’s reaction to the line gave me a better idea for the scene.

Before we could have more fun, Daryl arrived in another car. Ruby got out, and Daryl took her place.

Paul also walked up to my window and said, “That was some… good driving.”

“Thank you,” I said professionally. “I can do it again if that’s what you want.”

“NO!” Ron shouted hysterically. “Please don’t make me do that again!”

This time, Paul and I both laughed at his misfortune, while Daryl gave a fake chuckle just to fit in. I knew her well enough by now to tell when her laugh was real and when it wasn’t. Most of the time, it wasn’t. At least not when other people were around.

“We won’t,” Paul assured Ron. “We got most of the driving shots we wanted. For a few more shots, which are strictly exterior ones, we can get the second unit to shoot them, so don’t worry about it.”

The second unit is a separate crew in a movie’s production that films establishing shots, filler, or nonessential scenes, like an alarm clock going off, vehicles in traffic, the exterior of a building, and so on. Lead actors rarely work with the second unit, so I wasn’t surprised that Paul relied on them to shoot those parts of the movie.

I personally didn’t like that approach. If I’m making a movie, I’ll shoot 100% of it. Every director has a different visual style when it comes to filming, and I fully intend to maintain visual consistency in my movies.

“That’s a relief,” Ron groaned before turning to me. “You’re an asshole.”

“That I am,” I agreed with a grin. “But I’m the nicest asshole in the world. You’ve gotta give me that.”

Then I turned to Paul. “If you check the last bit of footage, there was a little improv where Ron puked out the window, and I said the substitute line, and he shouted ‘fuck you’ at me, which made Mia and me break into laughter. Let’s shoot it again exactly the same way. It’s way funnier than what we had planned earlier.”

Paul didn’t seem sure about it, and I was almost certain he’d resist me on this. But at the last moment, he gave a small nod.

“Alright, let’s do it the way you suggested.”

“Seriously?” Ron asked incredulously. “You’re gonna add me getting sick to the script for real?”

I shrugged. “It’s funny. Look at it objectively.”

He closed his eyes reluctantly before nodding. “Fine.”

As we got into position to redo the scene, I couldn’t help but feel that Paul was finally opening up to me. I still didn’t like him, and the feeling seemed to be mutual, but at least he didn’t dismiss my suggestions so easily anymore and actually considered them for the good of the movie.

Maybe there was some hope for him yet.

(Break)

“This scene is the most important scene in the movie,” Michelle lectured as we sat across from each other in my trailer. “A good climax makes or breaks a film, and that’s the last thing about you and your performance the audience will remember when they walk out of the theater. And this time, the job is even harder because we’re shooting two versions of the same scene. One happy and hopeful, and one sad and realistic.”

That was another one of Paul’s changes, making the ending a little darker and drearier by reminding the audience that even if everything seemed to work out for Josh, one thing didn’t, and that was Mia, the prostitute. They could never be together because of the class difference between them. A girl like Mia would never be in a serious relationship with a guy like Josh. The complete opposite of [Pretty Woman], which was more or less a fairy tale.

The original version of the story, the one I had copied, had a more optimistic ending where Josh and Mia take a walk through a park, joking with each other as Josh tells the audience through a voice-over how much money he made in one night selling prostitutes to his friends.

From a critic’s point of view, it was obvious which ending was better. But the audience is different. People don’t go to the movies for a bittersweet ending. They want something happy and satisfying. Even before the scenes were shot, I already knew which version people were going to like. But I couldn’t exactly say that to Paul or the studio, so I kept quiet.

“Alright,” Michelle nodded confidently with a smile. “I think that’s all. You’re ready for this scene.”

I hesitated before asking my next question.

“Can you tell me something honestly, Michelle?”

She raised an eyebrow inquisitively. “Sure.”

“Am I really as bad an actor as people say?” I asked, genuinely curious and a little worried. “This has been on my mind ever since the first reviews for [The Blue Lagoon] came out, and I just can’t shake the thought. Should I give up acting?”

She studied me silently for a few seconds before asking, “Do you want to give up acting?”

“No,” I said immediately.

“Then don’t,” she replied, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. “You don’t have to prove anything to anyone, Noah. As long as you’re doing what makes you happy, keep doing it, even if you’re not the best at it. As for your first question, the reason your performance in your first film was so badly reviewed is that you were miscast in the role.”

I blinked in confusion. “Miscast?”

“Yep,” she nodded firmly. “Either that, or your director was terrible. It’s definitely one of those things. Your character was supposed to be a kid who grew up mostly alone. But the director focused exclusively on your body, which is undoubtedly your biggest selling point. The result made your character look cartoonish, like you were trying to make people laugh even during a serious scene.”

Realization dawned on me. “That was what I was told to do, actually. Randal wanted the film to look funny and make people laugh. At least when they weren’t busy rubbing one out because of all the skin show.”

Michelle laughed at that before inclining her head. “That’s it then. The reason you got bad reviews. I’ve seen you act in this film, and I can say with confidence that after [Risky Business], no one will call you a bad actor. Sure, you won’t be winning Oscars anytime soon, but reaching that level takes years of dedication and honing your craft.”

She paused for a moment before continuing. “I think there’s another major reason holding you back from reaching your full potential when it comes to acting.”

“And what’s that?”

Hearing her next words made me regret asking the question. Some things you just don’t want to hear, no matter how true they might be.