Page 74 of The Actor: Harrison

“You mean like writing a screenplay?”

The grin on his face is worth a thousand words, and I don’t need an answer. Maybe this is where I have to start, where I need to pick up to fix my life. This is where I made my first mistake with Sienna, maybe this is the sign I need to fix that mistake.

“You can go home, you know, right? I’ll call you when I finish,” Nolan tells me for the tenth time this morning.

We finished the reshooting a week ago. I was here with Ellen and Christopher last week to rewatch it to make sure that it’s actually as great as I think. Now we have to put it all together and Nolan can’t wait to get rid of me. And it annoys me to a level I didn’t know I could reach.

“I’m sure you can, but I’d prefer to stay here. There’s just one last scene you have to edit and I don’t want to go back and forth in Los Angeles traffic.” I try to keep a calm tone, but it’s difficult considering I’m getting angrier by the minute trapped in this tight space with him.

I understand he’d rather work alone, but I need the movie to be done. He takes his sweet time when he’s working in here alone, and I’m honestly tired of giving him extra space just because he’s a weird genius who hates people. I’m asking to stay here for one last scene, not the entire movie.

He huffs but says nothing. He stares at his computer for a long time then starts to work on the scene. It took him four hours for a six-and-a-half minute sequence and I want to rip my eyes out. I know he did it to spite me because I stayed here with him. I’ve done his job countless times when I had projects on a tight budget, so I know exactly what needs doing and most of what he did wasn’t necessary.

Nolan is a very good film editor, but he’s also very difficult to work with. I’m sure he’s better than me at his job, I’ll give him that, but he’s also a petty person who makes your life a living hell if you don’t do what he wants. What he doesn’t know is that I’ve met countless men that didn’t want to have a woman as their boss and I’m thick-skinned. I can stay here all day long and make him regret messing with me.

“Okay. It’s ready,” he grits through his teeth.

“Go back four scenes and let it play six scenes after this one,” I order.

He turns to look at me like I just asked him to delete the entire movie and redo everything, but I stare him down until he looks away. If he thinks he can intimidate me, he’s dead wrong.

He does what I asked, and when the movie comes alive on the screen all my frustration disappears. This is the part where the whole movie makes an abrupt U-turn and we question everything we thought was going to happen. Harrison is perfect. He’s so flawless I get sucked into the movie and forget to watch for something that doesn’t work.

When Nolan stops the scene where I asked him, I’m not even breathing. “Can you please start it again?” I ask when I realize I haven’t paid attention to the editing.

He plays the scenes again, and for the second time my attention is drawn to Harrison and not the entire movie. Since when did I became one of those teenagers that go crazy for the movie star? I know sleeping with him clouded my judgement a bit toward the movie, but this is ridiculous.

“Can you start it again, please?”

He throws a questioning glance at me but does what I say. I watch the scenes again and I’m barely aware that I have to tell Nolan if it’s good or not. I struggle to focus on my task, but apparently the third time is a charm because I can finally assess the editing and find it good.

“It’s good. We have the final edit.” I smile but he doesn’t reciprocate.

This man makes me uncomfortable.

“Good. I’ll send the file to Kevin.” He goes back to his computer without looking at me.

Is he for real right now? “I’m waiting here for my copy too. I have a hard drive you can put it on.”

As soon as the words leave my lips, he looks back at me, horrified. “I’m not putting the movie on your hard drive. What if you lose it or someone steals it? It will be out there and it will be my fault.”

I take a deep breath to keep from punching him in the face. “First, I’m an adult, I don’t go around dropping hard drives like a toddler. Second, you’re putting this movie on a server somewhere you don’t even know the whereabouts of and that’s safer than giving it to me? Offline? Third, I’m the director of this movie. You give it tome, thenIeventually give it to Kevin. You don’t go straight to him without my approval. I’m the one who found this script, found Kevin to produce it, and I’m responsible for it. The first person who should watch it and decide if there’s anything else to fix is me, not Kevin,” I hiss.

I’m honestly tired of his sexist behavior. He can be a genius, but if he thinks he can walk over me, he’s delusional.

“I’ve always dealt with him when there was a problem,” he spits back.

I’ve long suspected Kevin knew more than I wanted him to because he has his ass-kisser in this production, but hearing him say it out loud hurts.

“That was you first mistake.Iam the director. You come to me, not him. Like it or not, I don’t care.” I stand up and give him the hard drive.

He stares at my hand for a long time and I’m worried he’ll throw it against the wall, but he grabs it and reluctantly connects it to his computer. Then he downloads the movie on my hardware and hands it to me.

“You don’t need to put it on the shared server. I’ll do it when I’m sure it’s good enough.”

He turns around and looks at me furiously. I point toward the door. He reluctantly stands up and I lower down to shut the computer off. When I turn toward him, I see his anger brewing.

“Your keys,” I say, reaching out my hand.

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