Her agent called unexpectedly at 7:30 in the morning, disturbing a rare dreamless sleep. Rose blinked awake, heart thudding at the urgency she heard in his voice, her mind already scanning for a crisis. Instead, Richard's words tumbled over each other, propelled by that particular brand of giddy panic reserved for sudden, life-altering opportunities.
"Listen, you're not going to believe this, but there's a part—no, a project," he said, as if the magnitude of it required immediate escalation. "They need a young talented actress who would be able to handle the materail. The film's called natural born killer, but it's not what you think. It's Oliver Stone, Rose. Oliver wants you. Or, well, he wants someone young, beautiful, and with your kind of presence. They had someone, she's gone. Dropped out. Meltdown, irreconcilable differences, whatever. The shoot starts next week. You're at the top of the list. I mean, I know it's a lot, but you should say yes."
The words poured into her, thick and effervescent and so unlikely that she almost laughed. She had auditioned for Stone's casting director once, more as a favor to Richard than out of any real hope. She'd read a single scene, a monologue that made her stomach twist, and left convinced she'd been a test balloon, a body to fill a room while they waited for the real choices to show.
Now, apparently, she was the real choice.
Rose sat up in bed, pale daylight slanting through her curtains, and tried to parse the facts as they were. It was a starring role, not a supporting one. It was a movie about the American appetite for violence, directed by a man whose films electrified and unnerved critics in equal measure. It was likely to be controversial, possibly divisive, and guaranteed to spark outrage in places that would never actually see the film.
Her hands shook a little as she clutched the phone, recalling a line from the script: "I never wanted to be famous. I wanted to be infamous." She wondered if Stone had written that for himself, or for the audience, or for actors like her who were desperate to stand out in a sea of hopefuls.
Richard, sensing her hesitation, leaned into the silence. "I know it's fast. But it's a good script, Rose. It's smart. It says something. And you, you'd be brilliant in this."
She weighed her own uncertainty against the heat in his voice. She had always taken pride in seeing through the machinery of the business, in recognizing when excitement was just manufactured hype. But this didn't sound manufactured. This sounded like the kind of offer that split a life into before and after.
"Can I read the script again?" she asked, though she already knew she would say yes.
Richard's relief was palpable, a sharp exhale that spoke of a dozen phone calls already made, calculations already spun out in his head. "I'll messenger it over. I'll send you notes. Rose, this is the kind of film that changes things. For you. For all of us."
She believed him, if only for the way his voice trembled at the edges. She sat still for a long minute after they hung up, letting the possibility settle into her bones. There was always a risk, of course—she'd seen enough careers crater on the back of one poorly-received headline. But she'd also seen what happened when you said no: nothing. The world kept moving, indifferent to your caution.
So she said yes, and then yes again when Oliver Stone himself called her later that day, his voice low and direct, barely masking his impatience. She agreed to fly to the location that weekend, to read with the actor already attached, to immerse herself in the script until she could recite every line in her sleep.
It was only after she hung up the second time that the nerves set in—the knowledge that she was stepping into a story that would be as much about her as about the character.
Maybe it didn't matter. Maybe this was the only way forward: to jump, to risk everything, to trust that the world would catch her on the other side.
It was a strange request, she thought, as she lay back on her bed, rereading the single email Richard sent to follow up.
This required immediate action, which means by tomorrow I would start filming, and they have quite the fast turnaround and would require me to go into work mode very quickly.