July 28th, 2012, Los Angeles, California
Today was the day of the table read, I woke up early that day and went on a run to calm my nerves, just like last time for Maleficent, it felt like a new school year was starting. I ran 2 miles before I came back to the house where I decided to train in my room instead of going to the gym, doing push-ups, squats, planks, leg-ups, stretches, etc, I had been getting into calisthenics lately, It felt like it was a nice way to get in shape and get that nice definition but still stay lean.
I honestly like training like this, it gives me a routine and makes my body look quite good as well. What can I say, I like having defined abs and my genetics seemed to be working for me since my mom and dad, though they were in their late forties, were still in great shape and trained regularly, making them look like they were in their late thirties, heck my dad also still had abs.
Next, I took my shower and had a nice breakfast consisting of eggs with avocado toast along with a glass of chocolate milk.
"You ready kid ? I have to drop you off at Blumhouse and then I'm going to the airport. Your mom and brother are coming back today, in just about…" He stopped, looked at his watch and said, "Three hours."
"Alright I'm ready" I replied, making sure I had my script, phone and everything else before we got into the car. Soon enough, we arrived at Blumhouse, where the table read would take place. At the entrance of the building I saw Alex and Ethan there, waiting for me, Alex with his agent.
"What's up guys ?" I said, dapping them up.
"Nothing much, we were just waiting for you before going inside." replied Alex, putting his hand around my shoulders and turning to my dad, said hi to him as well, "Hey Mr Wilson, how's it going?"
"Very well Alex, you guys better get going before being late." said my dad. "See you later kid, text me if you hang out with your friends later." he continued, addressing me.
"Don't worry Mr Wilson, we'll take care of your son very we-argh" I had put my hand on his mouth before he could use it to embarrass me further.
"Yes dad, don't worry, take care." I answered my dad.
He chuckled at the scene before replying, "Alright, bye kid"
"Bye dad." I said.
At that moment, Alex licked my hand, I took it off his mouth and stated, "You're disgusting bro, d'you know that ?", before dragging that same hand he had spat on all over his face. Just as he was about to say something, his agent, George, intervened.
"Alright kids, that's enough, Jesus, sometimes you guys act like you haven't gone through puberty yet." he said, with a judging stare.
"He started it." me and Alex exclaimed at the same moment, we looked at each other for a second before busting out laughing.
"Let's just go inside," said Ethan, smiling.
"Do we have to wait for James?" I asked him, not knowing where he was.
"No, he came and said he had to go and speak to someone inside." said Ethan shrugging.
"Alright then, let's go" I replied.
And with that we walked inside the building.
(Break)
We entered the room where the table read would take place, there Director DeMonaco saw us come in and said, "Hey guys, seats are over there. Now that you're here, we'll start in a minute."
I turned to Alex and asked, "Are we late?"
"No, you guys are perfectly on time" replied a voice I didn't recognize.
I turned around, where Ethan Hawke was walking towards us three. I went up to him and introduced myself, " Hello mister Hawke, it's a pleasure to meet you, I love Dead's Poets Society and White Fang."
He laughed at that, "It's nice to see my Disney days are still being watched by the younger generation."
"It's a classic sir, though I have to say…White Fang kind of steals all of your thunder." I replied cheekily.
He smiled at that, "That's true and please, just call me Ethan."
He then turned towards Alex and Ethan before saying, "Hi I'm Ethan, you guys are ?"
Alex was the first to speak, "Hi I'm Alex, nice to meet you sir."
"And I'm Ethan as well." continued Ethan, "It's a pleasure to meet you sir."
"Please again just call me Ethan, you guys are making me feel old."
We continued talking for a while before finally we all went to our seats, the table read was about to begin. Alex was seated next to Ethan Hawke while me and Ethan were seated next to Lena Headey, who was playing my mother. I had only seen her in the movie 300 because my parents refused to let me see Game of Thrones until I'm an adult, but I heard she was amazing in it. She was standing there with a short girl who I guess was playing, my twin.
"Hi, I'm Lena, I'm guessing you'll be playing Charlie." she said, looking at me.
"Hi, yeah I'll be playing Charlie." I said, giving her a handshake, then turned to the girl next to her.
"Hi I'm Adelaide, I'll be playing your twin." she said in an Australian accent, before I could introduce myself.
"I'm Xavier. It's nice to meet you. Both of you" I said, giving her a handshake,
They both turned to Ethan, who introduced himself as well, "Hi I'm Ethan, I'll be playing the boyfriend."
"How old are you guys if you don't mind me asking ?" said Adelaide, curiously
"I'm 15, turning 16 in November" I replied.
"I turned 18 in April." replied Ethan.
Adelaide sighed,"You're both so young, but I guess it makes sense, I'm actually 22."
Me and Ethan both looked at each other in surprise. In truth, it made sense for them to cast an older actress, but it was still funny for her to be 7 years older.
We continued talking a little while taking our seats, after all, even though the shooting schedule was going to be pretty short, it would be better for everyone if we had a good relationship.
(Break)
"Charlie Sandin stands at the entrance of her house, far away, in the background police sirens are heard, his mother and daughter, Mary and Zoey, walk up and stand next to him, the camera slowly fades away… the end."
We applauded the narration by Director DeMonaco, who had done a fantastic job both with the writing of the movie.
"As you guys already know the official beginning of the shoot is going to be on the 1st, we expect you all to be there at 8:00PM, to start the day. Thank you." said Gerard Dinardi, the first AD and Line Producer of the movie.
Everyone soon got up to leave, I turned towards Ethan, "Do you want to hang out? We have the rest of the day if you want."
As he was about to talk James DeMonaco and Gerard Dinardi came up to us.
"Yeah about that, we were wondering if you guys could hang out together a little bit with Adelaide, just get to know each other better. To help with chemistry and all that so there's no awkwardness once on set."
"Both of us?" I asked.
"Well yeah but mostly you since you have a lot of scenes together and you're supposed to be playing twins, but you too Ethan since you're playing her boyfriend."
We both turned towards Adelaide, who looked at me and Ethan, her gaze lingering on him a little more before shrugging and saying, "Yeah I'm down actually."
"Alright, then I'm good too." said Ethan, a little too eagerly.
They both turned towards me, "I'm down" I said, shrugging though I had a feeling I was about to become a big fat third wheel in this little get together.
(Break)
We spent the last three hours hanging out all four of us at Santa Monica, yes all four of us because Alex decided to tag along which gave me a little relief since I wasn't about to third wheel alone. I say that because Adelaide and Ethan very clearly liked each other in some kind of way. Ironically though Adelaide was a very nice woman and we clicked quite well.
"Alright guys, me and Xavier got to go but it was nice meeting you Ms Kane." said Alex.
We were currently at a restaurant near the Santa Monica Pier and it was 1PM on a Saturday. I know damn well we had nothing to do right now.
Before I could ask him what we had to do he hit his leg against mine, I looked at him then at Ethan, who had his arm around Adelaide and with one look I understood everything
"Oh yeah, that's right we do, sorry guys we have to go or we'll be late." I said, putting on the best acting performance I had done yet.
"Really ? Well it was nice meeting you both, I'll see you guys on set i guess." said Adelaide, putting her head on his shoulder.
"Yeah Goodbye" said Alex, grabbing my arm and dragging me out.
"Did you have to take my arm like that?" I asked, as he released me.
"Well we had to get out, give Ethan some chance to play ball you know." he replied, "and your oblivious ass would've probably stayed there another hour before getting the fact that they wanted some alone time."
"I'm not oblivious, I saw the look Ethan gave me and understood exactly what he wanted." I defended myself.
Alex looked at me deeply then sighed, "Oh young one, that was after he spent at least the last 45 minutes giving us looks to get out."
I widened my eyes at that, "shit really ?"
"Yeah really, now let's get out and give them some time to each other." he said.
We then both turned to look at them from outside the restaurant, where we saw that they were already making out.
"Damn ! Didn't know he had that kind of game." muttered Alex, sighing.
"Me neither." I sighed.
"I don't know about you bro but I'm going to the gym." he continued, turning to address me.
"Yeah good idea" I replied, sighing.
With that all said and done, we walked away and left Santa Monica.
(Break)
A few days later…
James Riley was going outside the building, he had a few meetings to attend to, but not the usual boring meetings he usually had to go through as an agent. No he had one meeting in particular, an old friend that went to UCLA with him and recently started working for TMZ.
In truth, some of what he was about to do was definitely illegal, he would have to bribe this old classmate quite heavily to get the information he wanted.
He drove an hour outside of LA, went to the designated meeting place and waited, wanting to see what information he could get and prepare his clients accordingly.
He waited about 15 minutes in the diner. Not a lot of people were in there, there was a middle aged man near him, he had his hair in a buzz cut, he had a nice smile on and seemed like the type of guy you want to be friends with, a woman, on the other side that had blonde hair and nice legs, though he couldn't see her face and lastly the server behind the counter, an old lady who made the food in the diner.
"You come here often?" asked the man.
"Not really, just coming back from work," said James.
"Ah you work on Saturdays ? Must be harsh." said the man sympathetically.
"Yeah well I work as a talent agent, so I work when the talent needs me to work." replied James
"Oh, talent agent ? Anyone I'd know that you're representing." said the man smiling in interest.
"Not right now but I used to be an assistant for the Agents of Harrison Ford and Johnny Depp, now I have my own clients, though I haven't exactly been that successful."
"Harrison Ford and Johnny Depp, I love these two," said the man, his enthusiasm contagious. "You got any gossip about the two of them?" he continued.
Harrison Ford not really, though John-" James stopped himself, he realized he had said too much. Something about the way the man spoke was simply disarming.
"Wait, who are you?" asked James, calmly.
"Me ? I'm just an old man waiting to retire." replied the middle aged man so innocently you'd almost believe him.
James however wasn't convinced, something was a little too fishy about this old man and this whole situation.
"Don't fucking play with me who are you?" growled James, more and more convinced this man was working for TMZ.
"Where did this hostility come from I'm ju-"
"For the last fucking time, who the fuck are you." said James enunciating everything clearly.
The man looked at him for a second before his whole demeanor changed. If he was a friendly neighbor before, now he was a shark, a shark in search of some blood.
"I'm nobody important, but I know who you are: James Riley, 28 years old. Has been working at UTA straight out of college and graduated from being an assistant two years ago. You've lived in LA all your life and wanted to become a producer but couldn't get into any Studios so you've been working as an agent instead, you know have 12 clients, all under the age of 30, but only one has gotten a speaking role for now: Ansel Elgort, handsome chap. You take your coffee straight except on mondays where you put in four cubes of sugar, a little boost before starting the week I suppose. Oh and you have a five inch dick soft, seven inches hard, pretty nice equipment I suppose.." he said, smirking smugly at him.
"Your TMZ huh ? Not who I called though. And I still want to know, who the fuck are you ?" said James, unfazed.
"That's my boss," said a female voice from the side.
James hadn't seen him come in but his old classmate, Samuel, was standing there right next to him.
"It's a pleasure seeing you again James, though I must admit I was surprised when you called me, last time we met you said we should stop sleeping together." said Samuel, sitting next to her boss.
" I see you dyed your hair blonde, it doesn't look good on you. You also came here with your baby sitter ? Didn't expect that." replied James snarkily.
Samuel shrugged, "I'm being evaluated on my negotiation tactics, but that doesn't really matter."
"I guess not," said James.
"Alright so you know how this works right, you want information, we want information, so we either exchange that or we've deemed that the information we're giving you is worth 20k dollars, your choice."
"Kristen Stewart is cheating on Robert Pattinson with the director of her new movie, don't know his name ."
Samuel and her boss's expression changed at that, these two were basically a golden couple, the last Twilight was also coming out in November, exposing this would be sensational news.
"Are you sure." said Samuel, intrigued.
James didn't say anything. Instead he took out something from his bag, in there was a USB and a laptop, he plugged the usb in and showed them a minute long video, it was quite straight forward, Kristen was seen making out with a man who was not Robert Pattinson openly.
"Alright we can take this, including the video, but you only get half of the info we're about to give you." replied Sam.
"Seriously?" said James, not amused.
"Yup cough out something better if you want me to give you the rest." stated Sam, calmly.
James sighed, took back the laptop and USB, put them in his bag and got up, "seems like I wasted my time." he said, walking away.
"Don't worry, he's bluffing," said Samuel's Boss, still relaxed.
However James didn't stop walking, his step didn't hesitate for even a second, just as he was about to be outside, Sam stopped him, saying," Alright, jeez, come back let's negotiate."
James came back to the table smirking. "You know you guys negotiate in pretty bad faith. First your boss tries to get me to talk and now you're trying to lowball me. If you guys try that shit again I'm out." he stated harshly. "Also you guys might collect information for a living but I negotiate for a living, you won't get one past me."
"You talent agents have always been so shameless." muttered Sam's Boss.
"Look who's talking." mocked James, not backing down.
"Alright we'll give you two thirds of the info we were going to give you," said Sam's boss.
"Okay" said James, surprising the two of them, his next words made them flinch however. "But my next stop will be E! News headquarters, or maybe Entertainment Weekly" he continued, turning to Sam smiling, he said."Miley works there now, who knows, maybe she'll like the info."
"Alright, Three Quarter" said Sam.
"This is the best news you can get right now, you know it." he retorted, unfazed.
Sam's Boss looked at him, James looked straight back at him.
"This information we got you is prime info right now, not only that, we went to great lengths to gather all of this so we need more than that." said Sam's Boss, hesitating.
James sighed, "Alright, I don't have proof of this but Andrew Garfiel and Emma Stone are dating."
"We already know this, try again," said Sam.
"Lindsay Lohan was charged with multiple offenses."
"We have that too." replied Sam.
"Justin Bieber hit a Paparazzi"
"Yeah it was ours, we're suing him for it." she countered.
"Katie Holmes filed for divorce from Tom Cruise."
"Been living under a rock ? It's already out." said Sam.
"Nicki Minaj and Mariah Carey can't stand each other on American Idol, you could probably get a video of the two arguing if you sneak someone on set."
Sam smiled at that, "Now this is something we can use, but we need more."
Just as James was about to say something, Sam's boss took out a file and gave it to James. He opened it, read the first few pages then said, " …And you're absolutely certain of this."
"100%" replied Sam.
James looked up from it and said, "You should follow prince Harry, from what I know he's been going to Vegas quite a lot…naked in his suite.
"Nice ! That should just about cover it." said Sam, her boss agreeing on the side.
"We'll be going, feel free to call me if you have more juicy gossip…or if you're interested in rekindling our old relationship~" she said seductively while touching his arm.
James felt himself get hard, however he had to prioritize this document. "I'm good thanks, goodbye now."
As soon as they left James started looking closer to the Document, inside it, showing movies that had just been greenlit with young leads or supporting roles.
"The Fault in our Star…it was a good book." muttered James. He then turned to the next page, "The Maze Runner ? I think Xavier talked about it once, he'd be good for it." He once again turned the page. "Planet of the Apes? What the fuck is that doing here?" thought James frowning. " "Interstellar ? Some new IP ? Oh it's a Nolan movie…and it has two kid parts...interesting""
James continued looking, crossing some movies out and circling others. Once he was done with the document, he went outside, took out the pages about movies he didn't find relevant and burned them, keeping only the movies he selected.
____________________________________
This one's a little longer but I knid of wanted to write about that last part to give you hints about where this might be going. I already have my mind made up though so you'll just have to wait and see💀👀