Page 3 of Script
“Listen to yourself, Finn! It was your stuntman who did all the rappelling. All you did was the six-inch hop from a box into that weird superhero landing where you flexed your freaking muscles and made that joke to the camera about rope burn.”
Hmmm. He had a point.
“But Ididlearn how to rappel, and that’s the main point.”
This time his frustration was so real I sat back in my chair.
“Jesus Christ, Finn, you didn’t. You hadonelesson with Jeff the buff and built mountain climber—your description not mine—and then spent the rest of the week with him at your place in the Bahamas, and you know how much it cost you to stop him going to the press on that.”
Ahhh, yes, Jeff. Him of the ass, and the huge cock, and the sexy walk.
He’dcertainlyshown me the ropes in more ways than one. What a week, and well worth the two million I’d had to pay to keep him quiet.
I chose not to rise to his comments about Jeff, and instead, focused on the simple answer to the issue.
“Then we’ll get a stuntman to do the skating. Simple.”
“Did you take your meds today?”
I attempted to act affronted, but he was only asking because… well, because I probably wasn’t making logical sense right now with the amount of things I wanted to say.
“Of course, I did.”
He stared at me—looking for the lie. But there was one thing I never skipped, and that was my Adderall. All of this unfocused-me was just a result of the overwhelming excitement at the chance of making a movie that mattered. That was my explanation, and I was sticking to it.
Atlas sighed dramatically. “Did you even read the spec?”
“Yep,” I lied. All I saw was Grierson’s name on a script when I read the first page. Picture my character, sweating, exhausted, staring at a countdown to the end of a quarter, or a period, or whatever, as his uninspired team headed for a loss. I could imagine the expression I would use, exhausted, broken, resentful even, but maybe hopeful even as the clock ticked down. That one page was close to the limit of my acting ability, but shit, I wanted to emote the broken hockey player more than do anything with freakingRapid4.
“Stay with me, Finn… Finn.” This time, Atlas was right up in my face.
I reared back. Curse my squirrel brain, but Iwasstaying with him. I was undeniably in the goddamn room right now, but I did pinch my knee to make sure. I peered back at the posters and the one forRapid Recallwhich was movie three in the franchise, and noticed someone had missed airbrushing the freckle under my left eye.
Not good art-guys, not good.
I should get on to that.
No wait—I have an agent—Atlas can sort that out.
“They left a freckle on my poster,” I informed him. “They either leave all of my freckles or not—we can’t have anything in between.”
“Stop changing the subject.”
“I wasn’t. But a freckle is a freckle and—”
“Stay on task Finn.”
“Sorry.”
“Look, you understand Grierson demands full commitment, immersive—he’ll want you to understand the pain of pushing yourself to the limit. He’ll want you to freaking live the part and act your heart out.”
I waved at the huge images ofRapid1, 2, and 3, plus the much smaller poster for the indie film,Where the Ladybugs Live, which made up the full movie resume of Finn Kerrigan, former soap star turned Hollywood star. “I can act.”
I can.
Atlas leaned over me and placed his hands on my shoulders, my chest tightening because I really didn’t like being hemmed in or trapped. “When I took you on, son, I promised you one thing. Do you remember that?” How was it that he managed to sound sixty, when he was only ten years older than my twenty-seven?
“Um. That you’d only take twenty percent of my money?”
