Stage 4 on the Burbank lot was currently a serious workplace hazard, and Daniel Miller wouldn't have it any other way.
The air inside the massive soundstage was thick, humid, and smelled heavily of dry ice and heated metal. In the center of the room, Dante Ferretti's art department had constructed a masterpiece. The Carbon Freezing Chamber was a massive, circular platform raised fifteen feet off the concrete floor, surrounded by heavy industrial piping, dangling hoses, and grated catwalks.
Bob Elswit, the lead cinematographer, was currently standing on the main platform, directing his lighting crew. Bob was a perfectionist. He had massive, heavy tungsten lights rigged beneath the orange floor grating, casting a harsh, under-lit, hellish glow upward, slicing through the thick steam pumping from hidden vents.
Daniel stood near the video village monitors, watching Bob work. He took a sip from a bottle of water, feeling the ambient heat of the stage.
"You know," a voice said from his left. "Half the crew is terrified of you today."
Daniel turned his head. Tom Wiley was standing there, holding his usual battered clipboard, a highly amused smirk plastered across his face.
"What are you talking about?" Daniel asked.
Tom gestured vaguely around the soundstage with his pen. "Look around, man. Look at the grips. Look at the extras standing by the catering table."
Daniel glanced over his shoulder. A group of extras dressed as Imperial stormtroopers and Ugnaught workers were huddled near the coffee urns. The second Daniel looked in their direction, three of them immediately looked down at their boots, suddenly very interested in the floor.
Over by the makeup trailer, Florence Pugh was getting her hair touched up. The makeup artist applying a layer of fake sweat to her forehead kept stealing quick, wide-eyed glances at Daniel in the mirror.
"It's the video," Tom said simply. "The Joker thing. It has seventy million views across all platforms now. The internet is losing its mind, but the people on this lot are actually having a crisis. You have to understand, these people watch you sit in a chair and quietly give instructions all day. Then they go home, open Twitter, and watch their boss turn into a complete, dead-eyed psychopath with green hair. They think you're going to slam a pencil into the craft services table if the coffee is cold."
Daniel rolled his eyes, turning back to the monitors. "It was just a one-minute video."
"It was a terrifying one-minute video," Tom corrected him. "I tried to tell everyone. I've been telling Florence for over a year about that time you acted out the Juror 3 monologue for Elias Thorne back in the day. I knew you had a monstrous acting talent hiding in there, but actually seeing it on screen with the makeup... man, it was a shock even for me. The actors are definitely looking at you differently now."
"They don't need to look at me differently. They just need to hit their marks," Daniel said. He pointed at the clipboard in Tom's hand. "How is the master schedule looking? Bob needs three hours to reset the lighting for the reverse angles."
Tom flipped a page on the clipboard, his smirk fading into a look of genuine, professional confusion.
"That's actually what I wanted to talk to you about," Tom said, tapping the paper. "I was running the math for the next month. By all accounts, considering the days we lost to the blizzard in Norway, we should be right up against the wire. We should be rushing."
"But we aren't," Daniel finished for him.
"No, we aren't," Tom agreed, shaking his head. "We are somehow two full weeks ahead of schedule. Which makes absolutely no sense until you look at the set builds we crossed off the list."
Daniel smiled slightly.
"The Emperor's Throne Room," Tom read off the list. "The Forest Moon of Endor inserts. The specific cockpit reaction shots for the third act of Jedi. We didn't build those sets for this shoot. We don't have them on the schedule to film. Because we already filmed them."
Tom lowered the clipboard and looked at Daniel, a mixture of disbelief and deep respect in his eyes.
Two years ago, during the principal photography for the first Star Wars movie, Legendary Pictures had given them the budget for one movie. But Daniel, operating with absolute, unshakeable confidence that the movie would be a hit, hadn't just shot A New Hope.
Whenever they had finished a scene early, whenever they had an hour of downtime, or whenever there was extra film loaded in the magazines, Daniel had pulled the actors aside. He had sworn the core cast and the essential crew to absolute secrecy, making them sign ironclad NDAs that his own lawyers had drafted.
Then, he had secretly shot bits and pieces of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
He had utilized every single cent of Legendary Pictures' initial budget to build small, modular sets that didn't belong in the first movie. He shot Luke's reactions to things that hadn't happened yet. He shot generic establishing shots of the Endor forest in a local state park on a Sunday. He had built a corner of the Emperor's throne room, shot the necessary close-ups, and tore it down before the studio executives ever visited the set.
"I still can't believe we got away with it," Tom muttered, looking around the stage to make sure no Legendary executives were currently visiting. "If Corie or the board had found out you were using their money to secretly shoot a sequel they hadn't even greenlit yet, they would have sued us into oblivion."
"It wasn't a waste of their money," Daniel reasoned calmly. "I knew we were going to make the sequels. Why would I build the Throne Room from the ground up three years later when I already had the actors in costume and the cameras rolling? It's just efficient."
"It's insane," Tom corrected him, though he was smiling. "But it bought us a two-week buffer. So I'm not complaining."
Up on the platform, Bob Elswit yelled down to them. "Daniel! Lighting is set! We're ready for the principals!"
"Let's go freeze a smuggler," Daniel said, handing his water bottle to Tom.
Daniel walked up the metal stairs to the Carbon Freezing platform. The heavy industrial vents were hissing loudly, pumping thick, warm fog across the orange grating.
Christian Bale and Florence Pugh were already standing on their marks.
Bale was wearing a dirty, sweat-stained white shirt and dark pants, his hands bound in heavy, metallic prop handcuffs. Florence was standing opposite him, wearing a pristine white and gray Bespin outfit, her hair braided perfectly.
Just as Tom had said, there was a subtle shift in the way the actors looked at him. Bale, a man who rarely showed much emotion when he was off screen, was watching Daniel with a sharp, focused intensity. Florence just looked incredibly proud, though she was doing her best to stay in character. They both knew that the guy giving them directions wasn't just a guy behind a monitor. He could step onto their marks and act circles around half of Hollywood. It demanded a different level of attention.
"Alright, gather around," Daniel said, stepping onto the grated floor between them. The orange light cast heavy shadows across their faces.
"This is the big one," Daniel told them, keeping his voice low so they could hear him over the hissing steam. "This is the anchor of the entire movie. We've got a giant dog standing over there, we've got a guy in a black plastic helmet waiting in the wings, and we are about to lower Christian into a smoking hole in the ground."
Bale chuckled dryly, shaking the heavy handcuffs.
"It is very easy to let this scene turn into a soap opera," Daniel continued, looking back and forth between Bale and Florence. "It's a space fantasy. The dialogue can feel large. But I don't want you to play it large. Don't play it like a space opera. Play it like two normal, stubborn people who just realized they are completely out of time."
Daniel looked at Florence. "Leia is a politician. She's a general. She never lets her guard down. But right here, right now, the walls are gone. You are terrified you are never going to see him again, and you need him to know how you feel before he goes into the pit."
Florence nodded, her expression shifting instantly, her eyes softening as she locked onto the emotion.
Daniel turned to Bale. "Han is terrified too. He knows he might die in that box. But he's Han Solo. He's not going to stand here and cry in front of his enemies. He's going to swallow the fear and give her the cocky, arrogant smile she expects, because he thinks it will make her feel better. So if she says the line, I don't want you to say 'I love you too.' It'll be too neat. Too clean."
Bale raised an eyebrow. The script in his trailer had exactly that line written on the page. "What do you want me to say?"
Daniel told him.
Bale paused, repeating the two words in his head. A slow, genuine grin spread across his face. "That is incredibly arrogant. It's perfect."
"Exactly," Daniel said. He stepped back off the hydraulic platform. "Let's make some history."
Daniel walked back down the stairs and took his seat behind the monitors. He put his heavy headphones on, blocking out the ambient noise of the crew.
"Roll sound," Daniel called out.
"Speeding."
"Roll cameras."
The heavy whir of the film magazines filled the soundstage.
"Action."
Up on the platform, the scene came alive. The hissing steam wrapped around their legs. A pair of Imperial stormtrooper extras shoved Bale forward toward the edge of the smoking pit.
Florence pushed forward, her face a mask of desperation. The camera pushed in on a tight two-shot of their faces.
"I love you," Florence said. Her voice wasn't loud. It broke slightly, carrying the heavy, agonizing weight of a goodbye she wasn't ready to give. It was raw and completely honest.
Bale stopped fighting the guards. He looked at her. He held the eye contact. For a split second, you could see the sheer, unadulterated fear in his eyes. He was a guy looking at the end of his life.
Then, exactly as Daniel had guided him, Bale swallowed it. He forced his shoulders to relax. He gave her a small, tight, incredibly arrogant half-smile. He wasn't going to let her see him break.
"I know," Bale said quietly.
The hydraulic lift engaged with a loud clank. Bale slowly lowered into the floor, his eyes locked on Florence until the thick, billowing fog completely obscured his face.
Daniel stared at the monitor for a full five seconds after Bale disappeared. The chemistry was flawless. The tension in the room was thick enough to cut with a knife.
"Cut," Daniel said, his voice quiet over the microphone.
The soundstage erupted into applause. The crew, who had seen hundreds of takes over the last few months, genuinely clapped. They knew what they had just filmed. Bob Elswit pulled away from his camera, grinning widely and shaking his head.
"Print that," Daniel said to the script supervisor. He took off his headphones and rubbed his eyes. That was the emotional climax of the movie. They had it in the can.
Three days later, the Burbank lot was baking under the warm California sun.
The Star Wars production was in the middle of a massive, forty-eight-hour set turnaround. Dante Ferretti's crew was working around the clock to tear down the Carbon Freezing Chamber on Stage 4 so they could begin building the interiors of the Rebel medical frigate for the final shots of the film.
Because of the massive construction taking place, the actors were given two days off, and Daniel had explicitly been told by Tom Wiley to stay out of the way.
So, Daniel was simply wandering.
He was wearing a comfortable gray hoodie and jeans, holding a styrofoam cup of aggressively mediocre coffee from the studio commissary. He walked slowly down the main avenue of the Burbank lot, just soaking in the energy of the place.
It was a busy day. Golf carts zipped past him, carrying stressed-out production assistants and stacks of wardrobe boxes. A group of extras dressed as 1950s businessmen walked out of a catering tent, laughing and smoking cigarettes. He could hear the faint, muffled sound of a power saw coming from the art department warehouse.
This lot was bursting at the seams. They were physically out of room, which was why they had spent eighty million dollars buying the massive acreage out in the San Fernando Valley. But right now, this cramped, chaotic city block was his empire.
He took a sip of the bitter coffee and turned down a narrow alleyway between Stage 1 and Stage 2.
He headed toward the North Lot. It was the furthest corner of the property, technically a massive asphalt parking lot that they had fenced off to use for exterior shooting.
Vince Gilligan had essentially claimed the entire space for his television show.
Daniel walked through an open chain-link gate. A large circle of grip trucks, lighting rigs, and craft service tables formed a perimeter. In the very center of the asphalt sat a massive, faded, tan-colored Fleetwood Bounder RV.
It was the primary set for the early episodes of Breaking Bad.
Daniel didn't announce himself. He just quietly slipped into the back of the production area, leaning against a stack of heavy wooden apple boxes near the video village monitors.
Vince Gilligan was standing a few feet away, holding a script and looking incredibly stressed. He was running his hand through his hair, staring at the monitor feed coming from inside the cramped RV.
Inside the vehicle, the two lead actors were getting ready for a take.
Bryan Cranston was playing Walter White. He was an actor who was mostly known for playing a goofy, well-meaning dad on a long-running family sitcom. Daniel had given Vince complete creative control. Cranston was currently wearing an oversized yellow hazmat suit, sweating heavily in the hot, cramped space.
Opposite him was Aaron Paul, playing Jesse Pinkman. Aaron was practically an unknown, a skinny kid in an oversized hoodie who looked genuinely intimidated just to be on a set this big.
"Alright, let's go again," Vince called out into his walkie-talkie, his voice echoing from a small speaker inside the RV. "Bryan, you really need to lay into him here. He messed up the cook. He's not listening to your instructions. You need to establish dominance. Action!"
Daniel watched the monitor.
Inside the RV, Cranston stepped forward, getting right into Aaron Paul's personal space.
"You don't deviate from the formula!" Cranston yelled, his voice loud and aggressive, his face turning red. "This is basic chemistry, Jesse! You follow the steps exactly as I wrote them down, or you don't touch the equipment! Do you understand me?"
Aaron Paul flinched, leaning back against the metal counter. "Yeah, man. Okay. Chill out."
"Cut!" Vince yelled, letting out a heavy, frustrated sigh.
Vince tossed the script onto the small table next to the monitors. He rubbed his eyes. The scene wasn't working. It felt entirely wrong.
Daniel took a sip of his coffee and took a few steps forward, stepping into Vince's line of sight.
"Hey, Vince," Daniel said quietly.
Vince jumped slightly, turning around. He blinked in surprise. "Daniel. Hey. I didn't know you were on set today."
"Just wandering," Daniel said, gesturing vaguely with his styrofoam cup. "Set turnaround on Stage 4. I was getting out of the way. Having trouble?"
Vince looked back at the monitor. "Yeah. It's this scene. Walt needs to be intimidating. He's taking control of the partnership. But every time Bryan yells, it just sounds like a generic mob boss threatening a subordinate. It doesn't fit the character. He's supposed to be a desperate, suburban high school teacher, not an Italian mob boss. I can't figure out how to make it scary without making it loud."
Daniel looked at the frozen frame of Bryan Cranston on the monitor.
He didn't pull rank. He didn't tell Vince how to direct his own show. He had hired Vince because he trusted his vision. But Daniel remembered the skill he had pulled from the System a few nights ago. The Tutor skill.
Daniel leaned against the table, looking out toward the RV.
"I had a chemistry teacher in high school," Daniel said casually, his voice completely conversational. "Mr. Harrison. The guy was terrifying."
Vince turned to look at him, listening closely.
"The thing was," Daniel continued, keeping his tone even and calm. "Mr. Harrison never raised his voice. Not once. He didn't have to. If a kid messed up an experiment or talked back in class, he didn't scream or throw things. He just stopped talking. He would walk over to the kid's desk, stand there, and look down at them."
Daniel took another sip of his coffee.
"He treated them like they were fundamentally, intellectually disappointing," Daniel murmured. "He spoke quietly, methodically, like he was explaining something very simple to a very slow child. That quiet, cold condescension... it completely stripped your ego away. It was way scarier than someone screaming at you, because it made you feel incredibly small."
Vince stared at Daniel.
The frustration on the showrunner's face completely vanished. His eyes went wide as the realization clicked into place. The missing puzzle piece had just been handed to him on a silver platter.
"Quiet condescension," Vince repeated, nodding slowly. "A teacher disappointed in a bad student."
Vince didn't even say goodbye. He just grabbed his walkie-talkie and sprinted across the hot asphalt, pulling open the heavy metal door of the RV and stepping inside.
Daniel stood by the monitors, watching the live feed. He couldn't hear what Vince was saying, but he saw the showrunner talking animatedly to Bryan Cranston, making low, calming gestures with his hands. Cranston listened, his eyebrows raising slightly. He nodded, shifting his posture.
Vince stepped back out of the RV and ran back over to the video village, a massive grin on his face.
"Alright, everyone reset!" Vince yelled, grabbing his headset. "Bryan, you know what to do. Take the air out of the room. Roll sound!"
"Speeding!"
"Roll camera!"
"Action."
On the monitor, the scene played out again. But this time, it was completely different.
Cranston didn't step aggressively into Aaron Paul's space. He didn't yell. He simply stopped cleaning a glass beaker and looked at the younger actor. The silence stretched out for three agonizing seconds.
Cranston let out a slow, heavy sigh through his nose. He walked over, picking up a ruined batch of chemicals.
"This is unacceptable," Cranston said. His voice was low, clipped, and incredibly precise. He didn't sound angry; he sounded profoundly disappointed. "Chemistry is a precise science, Jesse. It requires respect. You do not improvise. You do not guess. You follow the steps."
Aaron Paul shifted uncomfortably. Without the yelling to push back against, the younger actor naturally fell into the dynamic of a scolded student. He looked down at the floor. "I was just trying to speed it up."
"You don't speed it up," Cranston said quietly, stepping slightly closer. His eyes were cold, calculating, and entirely devoid of warmth. "You do it exactly as I say. Every single time. Or you can leave my lab. Is that clear?"
The tension in the RV skyrocketed. It was chillingly perfect. The dynamic was completely established. Walt wasn't a mob boss. He was a man who demanded absolute control over his environment, and he was using his intellect as a weapon.
"Cut!" Vince practically shouted, ripping his headset off. "That is a print! Bryan, that was beautiful! Keep that energy!"
Vince spun around to thank Daniel for the advice.
But the spot by the apple boxes was empty.
Daniel was already walking back across the parking lot toward the main avenue, his hands shoved in the pockets of his hoodie, sipping his perfectly average coffee. He had promised to let his bullpen run their own shows, and he meant it. He didn't need the credit.
He just liked watching the machine work.
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A/N: Read ahead on Patreon: patreon.com/AmaanS