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“I believe that, too.” But he looks unsure. He returns to the food in the pan, looking deep in thought. Eventually, he says, “Dax and Fish do more of that stuff than I do, to be honest. I’m happy to give, when asked. But I’m not leading the charge on that stuff.”
“No?”
Colin shifts his weight. “You know what? I’m gonna take this conversation as a sign I should be doing more. I’ll call my manager after breakfast and tell him to send me a list of some good charities I should consider helping, if I can.”
“Oh. I wasn’t trying to guilt you into—”
“I know you weren’t.”
“It sounds like you do a lot.”
“Not really, considering what’s sitting in my bank account. I’ve been feeling like I’m not doing enough with my money and platform for a while now. This conversation is only confirming something I was already feeling, deep down.” He flashes me a crooked smile that reminds me of the ones he used to flash me when we were neighbors. “Thanks for speaking your mind. I want you to keep doing that with me, okay? No matter what.”
I feel myself blush. “Okay. I’d ask the same of you.”
“You got it.”
We share a shy smile, before Colin returns to the stove and stirs the contents of his pan again.
He asks, “Would you do me a favor and run lines with me, as I finish making breakfast?” He motions to the nearby kitchen table and sure enough, there’s a script sitting on it, its pages tagged with a host of colorful sticky notes.
“You got it, boss.” I sit down at the table, put down my coffee mug, and grab the script. “Oh, wow. You’ve got six scenes! I didn’t realize that.”
“Only three where I speak, though.”
“This is so exciting!” I flip to one of the sticky notes and peruse the page. It’s riddled with highlights and scrawled notes in the margins, all of which I find fascinating. “So, you’re Private Sherman?”
“Yeah. I’m the ‘dumb jock’ who gets blown to bits in an accident during basic training.”
“Oh, no. Poor Private Sherman.”
“His memory lives on.”
“Which scene do you want to work on first?”
“Let’s do the poker party. My easiest one. Green sticky note.”
I open to the designated page and skim the dialog. As Colin said, the scene depicts a poker party among Colin’s character and the other soldiers in his unit. It’s a light-hearted scene, it seems to me. One that’s meant to establish each character’s essential personality, with Colin’s character coming off as a bit of a cocky fuck.
“Just so you know, I’m not gonna act right now,” Colin warns. “I’m gonna speak my lines in a neutral way, so I don’t get locked into specific inflections and speech patterns before we shoot the scene for real in front of cameras.”
“Okay.”
“That’s what my acting coach told me to do, so I retain spontaneity for the real thing.”“Awesome.”
“I don’t want you thinking I’m the world’s shittiest actor.”
I chuckle. He’s so cute. “No judgment. I know you’ll smash it when the time comes.”
Colin turns around and leans his hard ass against the kitchen counter next to the stovetop. “The thing is . . . everyone else in the cast has lots of acting experience. Gary—the director—said I’ll bring ‘fresh energy’ to the cast, but I don’t know. It’s pretty intimidating being the new kid on the block and working with all these seasoned actors.”
“Well, they might have more movie acting experience than you. But they don’t have more performance experience. They’ve never performed in front of thousands of screaming fans, all over the world. And it’s not like you’ve never been in front of cameras before. You’ve modeled and done countless interviews and music videos. Plus, you did that stint on Sing Your Heart Out! You were great on that show, by the way. So funny and charming.”
Colin’s face is unreadable to me. Without replying to my pep talk, he turns off the stove, grabs plates from a cupboard, and begins plating our breakfast.
“What are you thinking?” I ask, when he still hasn’t said a word. “You promised we’d speak our minds this week, remember?”
Colin sets my food before me and sits next to me at his round kitchen table. “I’m thinking you’re sweet. Also, that’s all the same stuff Gary said when he initially offered me the role. What I fear, though, regardless of what Gary said, is that he actually hired me as nothing more than a publicity stunt—because me being in the movie, even in a small role, will bring my band’s fans into theaters and reach a whole new demographic that normally doesn’t give a shit about Seth Rockford movies.”
“Okay, but do the two things have to be mutually exclusive?” I ask. “I’m sure it’s true, if you weren’t Colin from 22 Goats, the director wouldn’t have known you exist, unless on this alternate timeline you’d decided to become an actor in LA. However, just because you’ve got fans to contribute to the marketing effort doesn’t mean you didn’t also earn your spot in the cast. I heard the audition story you told at the rehearsal dinner. Nobody cast you without first confirming you’d be perfect for this role. I have to believe someone as brilliant as Gary Flynn wouldn’t cast anyone in any movie, if he didn’t honestly believe in them. That man is a living legend. Why would he risk screwing up this movie—and his legacy—for a PR stunt? No way, Colin.”
