Saturday, August 19, 2023
"That's unbelievable!" Sarah Ashford exclaimed from the living room of her parents' house, sitting on the couch.
Owen had arrived only a few minutes earlier, after finishing filming San Junipero.
Elizabeth had been waiting for him with tea and cookies. Sarah, who had the day off and was at home, came down from her room when she heard that her brother had arrived.
Partly because she wanted to see him, and partly because there was always the possibility that Owen would bring some amusing story from the set, some strange Hollywood comment, or gossip interesting enough to justify interrupting her afternoon.
What she hadn't expected was for Owen's "gossip," or rather the domestic problem he had brought with him, to be that Jenna was close to signing on for a movie in which she would star alongside The Weeknd.
"Sarah... it's not that big a deal," Elizabeth said, sitting with her back straight and a cup of tea in her left hand.
"Yes, it is, Mom. Jenna wants to work with The Weeknd!" Sarah shot back, still unable to believe it.
She didn't say it as though it were something positive.
To many people, working with one of the most famous and widely listened-to musicians in the world would have sounded incredible. But in the context of film, and after The Idol, the phrase wasn't entirely positive.
Sarah didn't let Elizabeth add anything before continuing, "I mean, I love him as a musician. I've listened to a lot of his albums. But as an actor... he sucks."
Owen pointed at her immediately, as though someone had finally said exactly what he needed to hear, "Thank you, little sister. It seems someone does remember what we saw at Cannes and all the controversy surrounding The Idol."
Then he held out his hand to her, in a gesture of respect for sharing the same opinion.
Sarah looked at him for a second and accepted, shaking his hand with a smile, "Does that mean you'll let me go to the Lights Out premiere without wearing a completely pink dress?"
"No," Owen answered immediately, "A bet is a bet."
"Tsch."
Sarah clicked her tongue, released Owen's hand, and crossed her arms as she dropped back against the couch.
At least she had tried.
Owen had already reminded her that she would have to honor the bet they had made in Cannes.
However, Sarah's frown slowly began to fade. As she imagined herself in a pink dress, something changed, 'I'll look really good...' she thought.
A faint smile appeared on her face.
The dress could be cute, and not only would she look good, she would also attract a lot of attention. At a horror premiere, showing up dressed in pink as though she were Barbie would be impossible to ignore.
How many likes could a photo like that get?
Besides, no one could criticize her too much for wearing something that didn't fit the tone of the premiere. It was a bet. It had been recorded. There was context. In fact, it was almost the perfect excuse.
When else was she going to have the opportunity to wear a dress like that on a red carpet?
Thinking about it that way, Sarah wasn't so bothered anymore. In fact, it was starting to seem like a pretty good idea.
'Why is she smiling?' Owen thought, narrowing his eyes as he noticed that Sarah seemed lost in her own world and no longer appeared annoyed about the dress, which had been the whole point. She was supposed to be annoyed.
"I think your mother is right," another voice said.
It was Emily, the wife of James, Owen and Sarah's older brother.
She was sitting beside Elizabeth, with a cup of tea nearby and a cookie in her hand. After speaking, she calmly took another bite.
Owen looked at his sister-in-law more cautiously.
Emily had always been refined and kind, but she also had a rather firm personality. And since becoming pregnant, that firmness had come with less patience than usual.
Arguing with her too forcefully did not seem like an intelligent decision.
"About what?" Owen asked.
Emily swallowed before answering, "About it not being such a big deal. Jenna gave you her reasons for why she thinks it could be a good project. Are there risks? Yes. But there always are. You should know that better than anyone."
Owen didn't respond immediately.
Emily wasn't talking nonsense. The project had a director with prestige in the indie circuit. Barry Keoghan was already involved. Jenna would have an important role and an executive producer credit. It wasn't as though she had been offered a part in some improvised project without any appealing elements.
Even so, Owen still saw too many warning signs.
Elizabeth, noticing a small opportunity, added, "And you shouldn't be so hard on this boy, Abel, either. If he wants to act and has the resources to try, why shouldn't he?"
Owen, who had been looking at Emily, turned his head and looked at his mother. In this case, perhaps there was some truth to that.
Abel was financing the movie with his own money. It wasn't exactly the same as The Idol, where HBO and A24 had ended up carrying an extremely expensive production, stupid reshoots, and a financial loss that could have been avoided.
If he wanted to spend fifteen million dollars out of his own pocket to try to make a movie and act in it, he had the right to do so.
That didn't mean it was a good idea.
'He's probably financing it himself because no one else wants to anymore,' Owen thought.
After The Idol, it couldn't be that easy to approach a network, a studio, or a serious production company with a new idea written by Abel Tesfaye and ask for funding. Not after the reports about the changes in direction, the discarded material, and a public reception that turned entire scenes into memes.
His name was still enormous in music. That hadn't changed. But in film and television, his name now came with a warning attached.
Perhaps that was why Abel had decided to pay for it himself. He probably hadn't had many interested investors, leaving him with no choice but to put up the money himself.
Even so, that didn't make it a good sign.
In fact, to Owen, it was almost the opposite.
Your show has just been canceled. A show many people considered one of the worst of the last decade, and only a few months later, you decide to make a movie.
Not as a musician contributing an idea or as someone who wanted to learn from a smaller position.
No.
A movie written by you, financed by you, and starring you.
If he had disappeared for a year to prepare, take classes, or whatever, perhaps the situation would be different. But not enough time had passed.
"Besides," Elizabeth continued with a gentle smile, "my situation is similar. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be in a movie."
Owen appreciated that side of his mother, the one that tried to look at things with empathy before judgment, but he still shook his head, "They're two completely different situations."
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow slightly.
Owen set his cup down on the table, "You did theater when you were young. Not just a few times. You did it throughout much of your teenage years and early adulthood. It's true that you gave it up for many years, but when you came back for Lights Out, you practiced a lot. You learned your lines. You listened to Matt. You didn't try to change the script or turn your character into something else just because you were the boss's mother."
Sarah nodded immediately in support, "Exactly."
Owen continued, "You worked hard to recover skills that had grown rusty and to improve where it was necessary. You didn't show up thinking that your relationship with me gave you the right to do whatever you wanted."
Elizabeth said nothing, although her expression softened slightly.
Sarah leaned forward, "You deserve it, Mom. Abel is really bad at acting, I feel sorry for him. You didn't have the chance, or the misfortune, to watch the show at Cannes, but it's like this..."
Elizabeth had been at Cannes, but she hadn't gone with them to watch those episodes. It wasn't a genre that appealed to her very much, and the morbid curiosity surrounding the show didn't interest her either.
Sarah pulled out her phone, typed for a few seconds, and then held the screen out toward her, "Look."
Elizabeth lowered her gaze.
A YouTube video was playing on the screen.
The scene showed Abel's face as he played Tedros, staring directly at the camera with almost no expression. His voice came out in a whisper that was trying to sound provocative, but the result was so uncomfortable that it was hard to tell whether the scene was supposed to be sensual or simply disturbing.
[Oh, yeah. Choke on, Yeah, choke on it. Fuckin stretch that tiny, little pussy,] Tedros said.
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. What the hell were those lines?
The clip ended.
Sarah didn't wait long before playing the next one.
The title read: Oscar worthy acting by The Weeknd, and it had almost two hundred thousand views.
This time, Abel's character was in a clothing store with Jocelyn. An employee brought them a few dresses and, for some reason, Tedros interpreted it as the man staring at her too much.
Then he leaned close to his ear.
[Let me catch you looking at her again,] he said, trying to sound threatening.
He failed.
Between the delivery, the stiff expression, the strange hairstyle, the beard, and the glasses, the threat came closer to an accidental parody than a tense scene.
Then he repeated it.
And again...
Each attempt sounded angrier, but also worse.
Elizabeth remained silent even after the video ended.
"The entire show is like that, I promise you," Sarah said, "I watched the whole thing."
Owen looked at her, "You really do have a lot of free time."
"I watched two episodes at Cannes. I only had a little over half of it left to finish," Sarah justified herself.
They had already been forced to watch two episodes, more or less, so it wasn't that strange that Sarah had decided to finish it afterward. Sometimes, once someone started a show, even a bad one, they needed to reach the end.
Owen looked back at his mother, "Do you think someone who acts like that will be ready to star in a movie in a couple of months?" he asked rhetorically.
Elizabeth didn't answer immediately.
"I understand your point better now," she finally admitted.
Even Emily nodded slightly.
Owen stood up and began listing all the warning signs surrounding the project and the possible responses to the arguments in favor of accepting it.
In his opinion, there were only two genuinely solid points in its favor.
The director and Barry Keoghan.
Both had prestige and proven talent. They gave the project a far more serious appearance than it should have had.
But that wasn't enough.
"The Idol also had talented people," Owen said, "It had experienced actors, top-level crew members, HBO, A24, and a massive budget. Even so, it ended up being a disaster."
If a series financed by HBO and A24 had ended like that, what could be expected from a movie financed entirely by Abel?
Here, he was the screenwriter, sole financier, and lead actor. Trey Shults could be sitting in the director's chair. Jenna and Barry could have executive producer credits. But if he wanted to change something or do whatever he wanted, they wouldn't be able to stop him.
Then there was the lack of experience.
It hadn't even been a year since The Idol. The possibility that he had improved significantly in such a short amount of time seemed extremely low to Owen.
The same applied to the script.
Abel hadn't only acted badly in The Idol. He had also been behind the story. And one of the most repeated criticisms of the series had been precisely that: a bad plot and weak dialogue.
Besides, Owen had already heard enough about the script not to feel comfortable.
It wasn't good and, even worse, it wasn't even finished.
The document was around sixty-five or seventy pages long. It was easily missing thirty pages, perhaps more, to reach the normal length of a feature-film script. If they were already talking about filming in one or two months, that meant something fairly obvious: they were going to fill in a lot of it as they went along.
Sometimes that could work, but most of the time it didn't.
Then, the only thing Owen found genuinely appealing was the paycheck.
More than one million dollars for twenty-five or thirty days of filming.
That did make sense.
But as a project, he didn't see it having much chance of becoming a prestigious movie or being well received by critics. He didn't see a clear acting challenge for Jenna either, at least not from what he had heard about the script and the character.
If it went badly, it could be a commercial and critical failure and, even worse, become another meme like The Idol.
And in the best-case scenario, Owen imagined something fairly lukewarm. A movie that, thanks to the names involved and a relatively low budget, might recover its investment. It would receive an average response, divided reviews, and an indifferent audience.
"Every project can fail. That possibility always exists," Owen said, looking at Emily, "But this one already has too many reasons to fail written into it before it even starts."
The three women listening to him nodded with varying degrees of conviction.
Sarah was the first to speak, "With all those arguments, I don't understand how you ended up arguing with Jenna and she's still considering accepting it," she said, crossing her legs.
In the hypothetical event that Sarah were offered a role like that, the answer seemed fairly obvious to her. Getting paid more than one million dollars was tempting, of course.
But Sarah also had a somewhat particular relationship with money. She had grown up in a financially comfortable family, with stability for as long as she could remember, and that made her look at projects from a different perspective. She cared more about the script and the image she could build as an actress.
And if her own brother, a Cannes winner, successful screenwriter, and respected actor, laid out that many reasons not to trust the project, there was no chance she would accept it.
She didn't want to end up in a movie that became a meme.
That was why she was surprised that Jenna, whom she cared about and with whom she had already developed a fairly close relationship, was still considering it.
"Yes, looking at it that way, it doesn't seem like a good idea," Emily admitted.
Elizabeth nodded again, "All right. But I think what Jenna didn't like was the way you communicated it to her."
"And your tone," Emily added, taking a sip of her tea.
Owen frowned slightly, "What tone? I was just saying—"
"That tone," Sarah interrupted him, pointing a finger at him, "The one that says: I know how this works and everyone else is too slow to see it."
Owen opened his hands slightly, as though the answer were obvious. If everyone else was too blind to see something so clear, then someone had to open their eyes.
Sarah rolled her eyes at her brother's ego. Although, in part, she couldn't completely deny it either. Owen had a list of successes far too long for that confidence to have come from nowhere.
"You can be right and still sound annoying," Emily commented.
"The problem is how you told her all of that," Elizabeth said, "She asked for your opinion, and you attacked the project as though it were stupid for her to still be unsure."
Owen fell silent.
Elizabeth wasn't saying it harshly, but the point was clear. Jenna had read him the script because she wanted his opinion. The right thing would have been to start there. Then he could have talked about The Idol and everything else.
But not as though Jenna had been obligated to see it before he pointed it out.
Owen nodded. Perhaps part of that was true. He had spent several days biting his tongue, waiting for Jenna to reach the same conclusion on her own. He had hoped the meetings would make her doubt the project. But when she read him the script and asked for his opinion, he hadn't responded only to the material.
He had let everything out at once, and it had probably sounded more like an attack than an opinion.
"I'll apologize for the way I handled it, and then I'll give her my opinion of the script and the project, just like she asked me to," Owen said.
Elizabeth, Sarah, and Emily nodded.
That was the right thing to do. Besides, it was obvious that if Jenna had asked for his opinion, it was because she wanted and valued it.
"I need to present it better," Owen said.
That night, he had lost the composure he usually had when explaining his arguments about any subject. Normally, he was good at organizing his thoughts, giving reasons, and letting logic do the rest. But he hadn't been nearly as clean about it.
Normally, he was good at organizing his thoughts, giving reasons, and letting logic do the rest. But with Jenna, he hadn't been nearly as clean about it.
He had allowed his concern, irritation, and contempt to mix together far too much.
Then he added with a faint smile, "I don't want to be the guy who accompanies his girlfriend to the premiere of a meme movie. Can you imagine all the memes?"
Owen said it as a joke, although there was some truth beneath it.
Going to the premiere of a movie starring a musician trying to act was already difficult for him to imagine. Acting was his vocation, his passion, the thing he had worked toward his entire life. He didn't particularly like the idea of someone who didn't take it seriously.
If the movie ended up becoming another disaster, it wouldn't take long for the internet to wonder why Owen Ashford, who was already seen as a successful actor and screenwriter, hadn't tried to warn Jenna at all.
Elizabeth, Sarah, and Emily remained silent, staring at him. All three of them wore very similar expressions.
"What? It's a joke, people. A joke!" Owen said under their judgmental stares.
"Don't make that kind of joke around Jenna..." Emily warned.
"I won't..." Owen muttered.
Sarah, taking advantage of the change in subject, asked curiously, "When will you have a distributor for Black Mirror?"
With filming on the final episode finished, only postproduction remained. After that, the series would be ready. With all the buzz beginning to build around the project, Sarah was certain that more than one streaming platform would want to secure her brother's first series.
It still seemed incredible to her.
Owen didn't just have a movie that had earned more than three hundred million dollars, major awards, and increasingly strong rumors of Oscar nominations. He was also about to release a series written, produced, and acted in by him.
Considering what she already knew about each episode, they were very good, in addition to the previous stories Owen had written, so it wasn't difficult to imagine that Black Mirror could also enter television awards conversations.
Why not the Emmys?
"I won't wait until postproduction on the final two episodes is finished. I have to start earlier if I want to release it by the end of the year," Owen replied.
Almost without realizing it, he began explaining everything in his more organized manner, as though he were in the middle of a negotiation.
Together with Larry and his CAA agent, they were already preparing a process similar to a private auction. They wanted a controlled sale, with limited access and selected platforms.
In September, they would begin shopping the series around more seriously. They already had White Bear completed, the final scripts for the other two episodes, footage from filming, the cast list, directors, budget, schedule, and everything necessary to present the project as something very solid.
First, they would send nondisclosure agreements to the platforms that had already shown interest.
Then, when Shut Up and Dance and San Junipero were closer to finishing postproduction, they could send advanced cuts or nearly completed versions. That would allow the first formal offers to begin arriving by mid-to-late October.
The ideal schedule was to close the deal between November 1 and November 15.
That way, the chosen platform, whether it was Netflix, Apple, or another one, would have enough time to prepare marketing, dubbing, subtitles, a release strategy, press, and a campaign strong enough to premiere it before the end of the year.
After explaining it, Owen couldn't resist pulling out his phone. He opened Instagram to check the latest post he had uploaded.
Since filming had ended, he had decided to post a series of ten photos from the three Black Mirror episodes. They were images he had accumulated over the course of several months, and he had already planned to use them as soon as filming wrapped.
His account had gone a considerable amount of time without a major post. With nearly twenty-one million followers, he couldn't leave it inactive for too long.
"Pff," Owen exhaled quietly.
Sarah noticed, "What?"
Owen didn't answer. He simply extended his arm and turned the phone so she could see the screen.
Sarah recognized the post immediately. She had seen it when Owen uploaded it around two hours earlier, because she followed him and had already liked it.
But now the number was far too high.
2.3 million likes.
Sarah's eyes widened, "That's a lot..." she said in disbelief.
The first photo showed Owen and Sadie in eighties costumes. Swiping to the next revealed Owen with Joe, the lead actor in Shut Up and Dance. Then there was a photo with Chelsea, the protagonist of White Bear.
Another was a group photo from the final day of filming, taken that same afternoon. Another showed a carefully lit eighties location, one of the sets Owen had spent the most money on.
There was also a candid photo of the crew, another of Owen looking over a monitor beside Kogonada while the director pointed something out on the screen, and one more with Jenna from when they had both worked as producers.
The final image was a clapperboard from the last shot.
The caption Owen had written was simple:
"That's a wrap on Black Mirror. 3 episodes, 3 worlds, and 3 incredible crews. Can't wait for you all to see what we built. 🎬 Now it's time to edit 🔥"
Although Owen had an account with more than twenty million followers, reaching that number of likes in only two hours was still a major sign of engagement.
On Instagram, many celebrities with more than twenty million followers had old accounts built over several years. Their followers had accumulated over time, but not all of them remained active.
That was why many enormous accounts could have fairly low engagement rates.
Owen's case was different.
His followers were recent. They had arrived milestone after milestone in less than two years.
Besides, the post had several points of attraction. A photo with Sadie, who already had her own fandom. Another with Jenna as well. Images of the other Black Mirror leads and, above all, the growing interest in the first series written and produced by Owen.
With all of that, the number made sense.
They continued talking for a while longer, until Owen checked the time and stood up.
It was already time to head to the restaurant for dinner with Kogonada, Sadie, and the rest of the crew.
He said goodbye to Sarah and Emily. Elizabeth, however, walked him to the door.
"Talk to Jenna about it as soon as possible..." she said, worried, "Just give her your opinion. Nothing more. Let her make the decision with the information you give her, understood?"
"I've got it, Mom. Don't worry," Owen replied with a faint smile when he noticed her concern.
Elizabeth kissed him on the cheek, and Owen walked out the door.
After watching him leave, Elizabeth closed the door, walked back to the living room, and sat down in her place again.
"Still worried?" Emily asked, noticing her expression.
"A little..." Elizabeth replied.
"It's Owen, after all," Sarah said.
Elizabeth and Emily understood what she meant.
Owen had never exactly been stable in his romantic relationships. He wasn't a womanizer in the most obvious sense of the word. He didn't jump from one person to another just for fun, nor did he treat his relationships as something temporary from the beginning.
In fact, he usually did the opposite.
He tried to take them seriously. He started them, made them official, and for a while, he seemed genuinely committed.
Then, all of a sudden, something would change, and he would end them.
After what had happened the previous year, when they found him throwing a party in this very house with drugs involved, and Edward decided to cut him off financially, there had been a clear change in Owen.
Too clear. At times, even unsettling, if you stopped to think about it carefully.
It hadn't been a gradual maturity. It wasn't as though Owen had corrected a few habits, become slightly more responsible, and moved on. It had been more drastic than that.
Her son became much calmer, more focused, disciplined, and calculating.
He also began displaying an extremely high level of talent in writing, which, although Elizabeth knew he had always written his own things, had never been at the level of creating one commercially and critically successful project after another.
And of course, his talent as an actor improved greatly as well, or perhaps he had simply started making use of the talent he already possessed by working more seriously.
He became obsessive about the craft and everything related to film and the industry.
That was why, when he introduced Sophie after all those changes and his first major successes, Elizabeth thought that perhaps he had changed in that area as well.
But no.
In that regard, her son was still the same.
The relationship ended from one moment to the next.
Elizabeth hadn't seen it coming. From the outside, everything seemed to be going well, until it wasn't. Owen, as always, made a radical decision before everyone else had even finished understanding what had happened.
That was why she was worried about Jenna now.
Not to the point of thinking that the argument alone could end the relationship, but they had touched on something delicate. Both of their professional judgment.
To Owen, this wasn't merely a questionable project. It was almost a matter of principle. He took his filmography far too seriously. He would never agree to co-star in a movie with a musician playing at being an actor, even if they offered him ten million dollars.
Elizabeth feared that, if Jenna ended up accepting the movie, it would create more friction. Owen would try to support her, yes, because he cared about her. But it would be difficult for him. His dislike of the project could slip into small comments and passive-aggressive jokes like the one he had made a few minutes earlier.
Over time, that could wear down a relationship more than a single major argument.
Owen, unaware of his mother's concerns, was driving toward the restaurant.
The dinner was quite fun.
Kogonada kept his word and paid for everything. The gathering didn't end as soon as they finished eating. It was Saturday, filming had wrapped, and many of them took the opportunity to order something to drink.
Owen did as well. Although in his case, he limited himself to a few beers. Not enough to get drunk, but enough to relax a little after weeks of filming.
He returned home late. By the time he arrived, Jenna was already asleep.
Owen entered carefully, trying not to make too much noise. He changed, set his things aside, and got into bed without waking her.
On Sunday, he woke up early.
They had breakfast together in a domestic calm that didn't feel tense, but wasn't one hundred percent normal either.
They didn't talk about the argument. They discussed other things.
Everything was fine, and since it was a Sunday breakfast, Owen didn't think it was the most appropriate moment to bring up the subject.
So he postponed it.
At around eleven in the morning, the next item on his schedule arrived.
Curry Barker.
The director would arrive at his house at any moment to seriously discuss Curve, the new short film from Second Take Films.
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