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“In the Shadows?”
“I didn’t realize there was already buzz about it.”
“Are you kidding? Anything with Darcy. Even after the scandal, his fans are true fanatics. They think he’s a nice guy.” He gave her a knowing look. “Just wait until word gets out that filming has started. Teenage girls will cluster around the studio gates just hoping to get a glimpse of him driving in or out.”
Elizabeth couldn’t imagine being that attached to someone she didn’t know personally. “Where do people find the time to be obsessive fans? I mean, don’t they have jobs and families? Seriously, I’d need to squeeze in my obsessing between 7:00 and 7:15 a.m.”
George’s hearty laugh was very gratifying. He wasn’t a Hollywood actor expecting special treatment. She would take a genuine person over a movie fake any day.
He glanced out the window as the ambulance slowed down. “We’re pulling into the hospital.”
Elizabeth wriggled around until she could reach the cell phone in her back pocket. “Why don’t you give me your number? I can’t promise anything, but if the casting director is looking for an actor and you fit the part, I’ll put in a good word for you.”
George’s eyes lit up. “You would do that for me? That’s…wow, I’m so…touched.”
It was a little thing, but Elizabeth got a warm feeling when she was able to help someone out. “It’s the least I can do. You’re taking pretty good care of me.”
“I do that. Especially with the pretty ones.” George winked at her just as the ambulance rumbled to a stop.
***
Since Darcy was so late to the reading, there was only one seat available at the conference table—and it was beside Caroline Bingley. She wouldn’t be Darcy’s first choice, but at least she wouldn’t fangirl over him.
Subconsciously he mapped out a route to the seat that would avoid the maximum number of people, but he wasn't surprised when it proved to be ineffective. First, the costume designer stopped him to set up a time for a fitting. Then an actor wanted to give him a screenplay he’d written—with a part just perfect for Darcy. This happened not infrequently, and Darcy never knew what to do with the screenplays; he didn’t even have time to read the ones his agent sent him.
Just when he thought his way was clear, Lydia Bennet—apparently still riding the high of meeting him at the scene of a car accident—drifted into his path. “Oh my God! Can I tell you that I am so excited to work on a film with you? I mean, I’ve met Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio, and I once saw Colin Firth talking on his phone in an airport. But this, this is on a whole different level! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched Ramon and Julia! The costume party scene! The first kiss! I just die every time I watch it! I’d love to talk to you and hear the behind-the-scenes stuff. My friends would be so jealous! My sisters will just turn green—I mean envy green, not nausea green. Even my mom… My mom is like your biggest fan—after me, of course—”
When she finally took a breath, a bit like a soldier pausing to reload a gun, Darcy took ruthless advantage. “I’m happy you liked the movie. Thank you. But I believe the director wants to get started.”
Lydia batted her eyelashes at him. “Okay. But we’ll have to sit down for a long chat really soon, okay?”
Not if I can help it. “Of course. We’ll be working together for weeks; there’s no rush.”
“So true!” Her voice was awed as if he had uttered a pearl of great wisdom.
Darcy hurried to his seat before anyone else told him how much they loved Ramon and Julia. The truth was, he hated talking about that movie. It had catapulted him from a B-list to a mega A-list star who could command millions for each movie. (Surely he would be able to do so again once the scandal had passed.) But he hadn’t wanted to make the movie, didn’t like it, and never wanted to watch it again.
Darcy had become an actor because he wanted the challenge of meaty dramatic roles. The jazzed-up, kitschy Romeo and Juliet knockoff had taken Shakespeare’s plot but none of the bard’s brilliant language or in-depth characterization. The movie had been set in Manhattan, where the feuding families owned competing corporations and the star-crossed lovers went to rival private schools.
Josh, Darcy’s agent, had convinced him to do it because he believed—correctly—that it would raise his profile. But Darcy had barely been able to utter some of the cliched, over-the-top dialogue without laughing or choking. It hadn’t helped that the costar playing Julia had been jealous of Darcy’s success. When they weren’t on screen, she had treated him like a three-day-old baloney sandwich she’d found under the seat of her car. Naturally, the internet had been awash in rumors of an on-set romance, and Darcy had endured endless questions about their “relationship” during the press tour.
For years afterward, most of the screenplays Josh received had been romances—all of which Darcy rejected. He didn’t want to get pigeonholed, pandering to teen girl fantasies. Fortunately, he was a little too old now to play a teenager, so at least they had stopped sending him screenplays set in high schools, but sugary romances still poured in.
He was grateful to Ramon and Julia for juicing his career, but it had created an impression he’d been trying to overcome for years. As Lydia’s reaction demonstrated, it wasn’t easy.
There were about twenty-five people around the conference table, mostly actors with speaking parts. Tom and another producer sat at the head of the table, and some of the production crew occupied chairs against the walls. The director, Roberta Perez, sat beside Tom. Darcy had shaken her hand upon arrival. Although she hadn’t made a lot of big-budget movies, Darcy had admired her films for years and was thrilled to be working with her; she was notoriously picky about her actors.
Darcy would be playing Dr. Eric Thorne, a straight-laced ER doc and recovering alcoholic who encounters Jordan, a transsexual teenage girl who arrives at the hospital badly beaten. As Thorne helps her with her recovery, he overcomes his pre
judices and fights to get Jordan the treatment she needs during her transition. At the end of the movie, he’s able to convince Jordan to testify against the guys who beat her and helps establish her in a new life.
The screenplay was filled with complex drama that Darcy could sink his teeth into, and Perez’s involvement had provided added incentive. The writing was crisp, and the pacing kept the movie bumping along. But he still had reservations about the script. Personally, he often found the story…tiresome, full of noble people trying hard to do the right thing and talking earnestly about their emotions.
Yeah, audiences ate that stuff up with a spoon, but it was all so…fake. Nobody in the real world cared so much or talked that way. Hell, you were lucky if anyone in your family gave a shit. Just look at the way Elizabeth Bennet’s family had treated her. But movies weren’t supposed to be real, were they?
Darcy had originally planned to turn the movie down. The script was too treacly, the subject matter too controversial. And it was an indie production that would only pay him industry scale. The French Resistance movie had been big-budget and prestigious—with Oscar written all over it. Darcy had received Best Actor nominations twice; he wanted to win.
Then Palm Springs had happened. The part in the spy movie had gone to Bradley Cooper, who was all wrong for it. Other offers had dried up. Josh said he should be grateful that In the Shadows, the little indie picture, still wanted him.
