Page 12 of Persuading Penny
THREE
After spending theday with Keely looking over the budget for Jane Austen’sPersuasion, I wrote up a cost forecast to help guide us along as we worked on the movie.
The budget was tight, but Keely had an ingenious way of saving on costs. The main savings was the location for the shoot. Friends had apparently lent her their property, not only the home, but the grounds and gardens surrounding the home.
While that was a good thing, the largest expense by far had to be the cast’s salary. Though many of the lesser actors were working for scale, it added up.
And then there were the stars of the movie...the big names. A few of them had contracts for several million, but several actors had opted to take a minimal salary plus a percentage of the box office, and that left more money for us to work with in the here and now.
“Are you still counting your nickels and dimes?”Keely said, breaking into my constant recalculation of the costs.
Sitting in the passenger seat of Keely’s sturdy SUV, I looked at her and smiled as she drove us to Tillsbury Estate where the cast and crew ofPersuasionwere staying. It was apparently close to the home where the movie would be filmed in, making it easy for cast and crew to go back and forth between the two.
Keely looked at me with that teasing smile. “Or are you looking forward to meeting a particular actor?”
“Oh. Oh, no,” I said, shocked by the very thought. I had never been one to idolize a movie actor or hold a celebrity in adoration.
“I hear that Toby Thomas, the young actor to play Charles Musgrove, is quite the charmer and even better looking in person.”
I shrugged. I’d heard of him and was not in the least impressed. But I said nothing.
“Maybe the older and more mature Anthony Higgins, the very talented actor to play Sir Walter Elliot, is more to your liking.”
I laughed. “I hardly think so.”
We reached the open gate of the estate and drove on to the main house. Dozens of cars and several vans were parked along the wide circular drive that looped around to the main door.
“How many people will be staying here?”I said.
“I’ve lost count,” she said with a laugh. “I think we’re closing in on a hundred. Of course, we have a few more staying in Bath.”
She pulled up to a reserved spot near the door and we got out. While I’d visited the estate a few days earlier with Keely, I was still awed by its enormity. I was accustomed to living in a large house, but nothing like this. I couldn’t even imagine living in a home that was so excessively huge.
Once inside, we followed the loud sounds of dozens speaking all at once.
In a large drawing room, we found them; the stars and starlets that were to take on the roles Jane Austen so brilliantly created hundreds of years ago.
“Oh,” Keely let out as she grabbed my arm. “Come. I’ll introduce you to Bridget Johnson. She’s going to be my Anne Elliot.”
I’d heard the name often. The young actress had made some questionable choices in her career, and it seemed to be what people remembered of her. Her movies consistently received negative reviews with many citing gratuitous nudity, overly vulgar language and a complete lack of any semblance of a plot. Despite this, her movies still managed to do decently well at the box office.
All this contributed to her quickly rising star, much to many a critic’s surprise.
“Bridget,” Keely said. “I’m so happy you made it. They told me that your last movie just wrapped up in the States, but that you might not make it in time for tonight.”
The beautiful actress rolled her eyes. “Can you believe the director wanted me to stay another week so that we could reshoot scenes that we shot three months ago? No. I told him I needed to go back home to London. I told him I had a new project to get started on and there was no way I was going to be late for it. This role is just too important.”
“Good. I would have hated to learn that you’d decided to stay there any longer.” Keely turned to me. “This is my production accountant, Penny Copperfield.”
“Ooh,” Bridget cooed. “So you’re the one I need to get a hold of when my pay doesn’t come in.”
“There will be no need to find me,” I said rather matter-of-factly. “You will receive every payment that you are due on the day that it is due. I can assure you of that.”
Bridget cocked a brow. “She’s a serious one, isn’t she.”
“She is rather passionate about numbers and keeping them straight.”
The actress swatted an invisible fly. “Numbers. Me and numbers don’t get along much. I mean, I see the amount that I have in my bank account, and I know I have enough to go shopping. Beyond that, ah...mypassionis reserved for more interesting stuff.”
