Waiting for Callback Page 4

  ‘Do you want to see my headshot?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes!’

  I pulled it up on my phone. ‘What do you think?’

  She gave it the sort of close, critical examination it deserved. ‘Wow . . . It’s like you but not like you. It’s like a better you. Sort of a glossy version of you.’

  ‘Thank you, I think.’

  ‘You should totally make it your new Facebook profile pic.’

  ‘No way. It’s too . . . perfect.’ I meant the photograph, not me obviously.

  ‘Flissy has her profile pic taken professionally.’

  Of course she did. Flissy had her hair blow-dried and wore a smoky eye to school. ‘I’m not going to start competing with Flissy.’ There was only so much narcissism that someone outside her crew would get away with.

  ‘What was the photographer like?’

  ‘Old, quiet, quite sweet. It was still scary though. I felt really self-conscious.’ And weirdly aware of my teeth. In the end, I’d had to act being a super-confident actor (with no teeth hang-ups) getting her headshots done.

  ‘Well, it was only one photo. It can’t have been that scary.’

  ‘You have no idea – it took forever to get that shot.’ Literally hours – respect to models; at least I could eat biscuits while he was fiddling with the lighting. ‘I’m like an expert now.’ I took back my phone. ‘Come on, I’m going to take your headshot now. Give me your best pose . . . Chin down . . . Neck back and up, sweetie . . .’

  ‘He called you “sweetie”?’

  ‘Yes, but in a nice not weird way. Concentrate. Eyes to me . . . Time for a few with your hair up . . . No, not like that . . . Leave it down . . .’

  ‘It’s my ears, right? They always look weird in photos.’

  She did have very big ears. ‘They’re only ears; nobody’s ears are a huge selling point. Stop pouting.’

  ‘I wasn’t pouting.’

  ‘You so were. That was a Flissy-level pout. Come on, I want to get the perfect shot, face slightly to the left . . . NOT YOU, DIGBY.’ He was photobombing. ‘Now to the right, Moss . . . Relax your face.’

  ‘What does that even mean?’

  ‘I don’t know, but the photographer said it to me a lot. Try blowing out through your mouth like a pony – that was another of his top tips.’ It was a direction too far. Moss lost it. I wasn’t going to get the perfect shot. I had some quite funny ones though.

  ‘Are you scared about auditions and – I don’t know – doing stuff in front of people?’ Moss asked when we’d got ourselves together.

  I thought about it. ‘Nah. I mean, I probably will be, but it’s not real yet so not much point getting worried about it.’

  ‘I couldn’t do it.’

  Moss had had a seriously traumatic experience as a gryphon in our Year Seven production of Alice in Wonderland and I doubted if she’d ever get on a stage again.

  ‘There must be some stuff you wouldn’t want to do.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Don’t know. Getting naked? Advertising tampons?’

  I hadn’t really thought about things like that. ‘Aaaargh, I’m not sure. Maybe not being naked.’

  ‘Imagine being stark naked on a ten-metre-high screen. In high definition. With people you know in the audience. Are you chill with that?’

  ‘Not exactly “chill”.’ Not even a little bit chill.

  ‘What about horror movies?’

  ‘I think I’d be OK with horror.’

  ‘Seriously, Elektra? You can’t even watch Doctor Who without holding on to me or Digby.’

  That was true. Now I came to think about it there was quite a lot of stuff I wouldn’t want to do. This was making me anxious, and when I was anxious I made lists. My room might be messy, but I liked my mind to be tidy. I scrabbled for something to write on (back of a letter from school about signing up for sports teams that I’d ‘forgotten’ to hand in) and a pen (actually an eyeliner, but I was rubbish at using eyeliner so it was a reasonable redeployment). ‘I need something to lean on.’

  ‘Use Digby,’ suggested Moss, hefting him from her side of the bed to mine.

  ‘No, he won’t stay still while there are crumbs in the bed to be hoovered up. I’ll use a pillow.’

  Out of the Question

  1. Any role that involves total or partial nudity. (This rule had more to do with Moss’s comments about high definition than morality. Also I might review it if I get boobs.)

  2. Any role that involves anything more than kissing. (This rule had nothing to do with morality either and I was going to keep it under regular review.)

  3. Any role where the love interest is a man who is old enough to be my father. (It is a poor reflection on the people that make films that I might have to review that one at some (much later) point too.)

  4. Any role in a commercial advertising a ‘female sanitary’ product (especially if it has a sporty theme); incontinence products; head-lice treatments; wart treatments; zit cream; or anything medical to do with bottoms.

  5. Any role in a horror movie.

  6. Any role that involves real spiders, large or small, household or Amazonian, venomous or herbivorous.

  7. Any role that involves bugs. (Including beetles – except ladybirds – any grubs or larvae and maggots and basically anything that wriggles.)

  8. Any role that involves snakes, garden or venomous, etc. (Snakes are basically evil. On my hierarchy of bad things, they are close to the top. I’m not hot on amphibians either, but the list was getting long and I was aiming to be professional.)

  9. Any role that involves heights, by which I obviously mean any height in excess of my own.

  10 Any role that involves singing or dancing. (More of a can’t than a won’t – which might also be true of Rule 2).

  ‘Digby!’ Dad was shouting from the foot of the stairs.

  Digby pricked up his ears, but proximity to the biscuits won out and he stayed where he was.

  ‘Come on, boy. Come down and watch the match with me.’ Dad sounded a bit needy.

  Digby looked unenthusiastic. I prodded him with my foot. ‘Go on, Diggers, you don’t want to miss kick-off.’ One of Digby’s duties as the favoured sibling was to watch every Chelsea match with my dad (from the sofa obviously). Dad insisted that it was meaningful bonding for them both. Which was an unusual way to look at watching football with an elderly dog.

  Moss (who’d spent enough time in our house to be unsurprised by any of this) got out of bed and bribed Digby from the room. ‘You’ll need a list of off-screen things you wouldn’t ever do as well,’ she said, climbing back in and making a serious duvet grab.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Well, like pretty much anything Lindsay Lohan does. Also don’t store any photos in the Cloud.’

  ‘I don’t think anyone’s going to be interested in my photos.’

  ‘Not now maybe but one day.’

  ‘What, one day someone’s going to hack my account and share what? That photo of us in Christmas jumpers in front of Starbucks?’

  Actually, that would be quite humiliating.

  From: Stella at the Haden Agency

  Date: 19 November 15:24

  To: Julia James

  Cc: Charlotte at the Haden Agency

  Subject: RE: Elektra

  Attachments: Spotlight entry info.doc

  Dear Julia,

  Thank you for sending Elektra’s 8 x 10 headshots. They’re perfect. And yes, it’s absolutely fine to have photoshopped out the spot!! We’re putting Elektra’s entry up on Spotlight now – her PIN is attached if she wants to look herself up!

  I’m sorry that I missed your call. We will start putting Elektra up for jobs straight away, but I should warn you both that things slow down in the run up to Christmas (don’t forget to keep us informed of all and any holiday plans!) and it may be a while until you hear from us. I know that it’s difficult after all the excitement of signing, but the best advice for Elektra (and you) is just to get
on with life as normal in the meantime.

  Once again, we’d just like to say we’re delighted to have Elektra on board!

  Kind regards,

  Stella

  ‘There has to be certain chemistry between the two characters and we had that straight away, I think.’

  Hailee Steinfeld (on screen-testing with Douglas Booth)

  Chocolate Buttons?

  I didn’t recognize the number so I scanned the room to see who was enjoying retro chocolate instead of concentrating on miming ‘going to the supermarket in the style of an animal you relate to on a spiritual level’ (one of the more dignified of the ACT exercises).

  Archie Mortimer. Hell, yes.

  Obviously, an offer of chocolate is good from just about anyone, but coming from Archie it was especially welcome. Maybe there was something there I could work with (also I was hungry for chocolate).

  Yeeeesssss. This was intended to convey enthusiasm and not desperation.

  Catch . . .

  I was up for that except that I wasn’t the sort of girl who could catch Buttons in her mouth and look good doing it. Correction, I wasn’t the sort of girl who could catch full stop. I was also struggling to think of a witty answer that conveyed this problem without making me look lame.

  Can’t

  Maybe he’d think the single word answer was enigmatic.

  You’ll need to come over here then

  Promising.

  Can’t

  Witty banter was still escaping me.

  I’ll pass them along

  I looked at Archie, ready to flash my sexy and enigmatic half-smile (I’d been practising in the mirror for just such a moment), but he wasn’t looking at me; he wasn’t even looking at his phone. Actually, he looked pretty absorbed by Jay’s attempt to convey the agonies of the self-checkout as experienced by a rhino.

  I scanned the room.

  Daisy was also eating Buttons.

  There were two possibilities: a) Archie had also supplied Daisy with Buttons or b) the Buttons were Daisy’s and I’d just been engaging in flirty banter (or trying to) with Daisy.

  As Daisy was checking her phone and I’d remembered that Archie didn’t have my number, b) was looking the most likely, but even option a) was not ideal. It could be chocolate evidence that Archie fancied Daisy and/or that Daisy fancied Archie.

  It figured. Archie was Archie and I’m guessing all the girls and at least two of the guys fancied him and we all had some sort of crush on Daisy. So sharing chocolate with Daisy was OK; it was just a case of disappointed expectations.

  Now I was pretty sure where the Chocolate Buttons were coming from I could trace their progress along the line: Lizzy (dull, good at accents), Issam (nice, funny), Maria (no idea, never talked), Christian (mouthy, shouty show-off with serious acne) and ‘Big’ Brian.

  I really did not like ‘Big’ Brian. I disliked him even more than I disliked Christian (which was a lot). Brian was sixteen, but looked eight because he was so short. He was seriously aggressive, annoyingly talented and up himself, and was destined for success playing (very short) thugs and the sort of boy who tears the wings off butterflies with his teeth. Being short wouldn’t stop Brian: he’d just slot right in to a long-standing Hollywood tradition – Tom Cruise who says he’s 5’7” (sure), Mark Wahlberg claims 5’8” (really?), Daniel Radcliffe 5’5” (tops). Good news for short actresses, good news for Daisy, bad news for me.

  ‘Oi.’ Brian prodded me. ‘Got something for you, yeah?’ He held up the little purple bag. ‘Jump for it.’ He waggled the bag above my head, which would have been impossible except for the fact that he was standing on a bench. It was quite humiliating, but a girl has to make an effort for chocolate.

  ‘Oops, missed again. And again.’

  He was tormenting me in much the same way I used to torment Digby with treats – before I grew out of teasing dumb animals.

  ‘Too slow. Sorry.’ Brian emptied the bag into his mouth. I wasn’t surprised: yet more disappointed expectations.

  ‘Elektra, Brian – I don’t know what’s going on, but I’d prefer it if whatever it was went on after class.’ Now we’d annoyed Lens and it was really hard to do that.

  Archie raised his eyebrows and smirked at me. Great, now he thought I was voluntarily communicating with Big Brian. Status points lost right there.

  ‘Elektra, you’re up next,’ said Lens. ‘What animal do you feel a spiritual connection with?’

  I should have been giving this some thought. But then I’d been distracted. ‘Er . . . a bushbaby.’ Well, I liked bushbabies. Also I suspected that I was looking a little startled.

  ‘Awesome. Let’s see your bushbaby in the supermarket then.’

  I regretted my choice before I was even on my feet. I didn’t really know what bushbabies looked like apart from the fact that they had big eyes. I didn’t know what their bodies were like, how they moved. I didn’t know what mannerisms they had. I should have gone for meerkat. I was an expert on meerkats (well, at least the ones that are in the insurance business). Everyone was looking at me. The pressure.

  ‘Motivation,’ prompted Lens.

  I projected my hunger for chocolate on to my formless, wordless bushbaby.

  ‘Have you started?’ asked Lens a couple of minutes later.

  I had, but obviously not in a way that was going to bring Spielberg to his knees. I wasn’t feeling it. What had my bushbaby experienced? She could be a deeply traumatized bushbaby. For all I knew, her parents and two small sisters could have died in a tragic road accident. Or not. How was I supposed to become the bushbaby without this vital information?

  ‘Elektra, come on. Think movement, think instinct, think curiosity, think fear, think not looking like you’re thinking.’ Lens was on his feet. I think that what I was looking at was his ‘bushbaby in a supermarket’, but it was hard to be sure.

  Lens got paid for this.

  I could never admit to anyone how much fun it was.

  Daisy caught up with me as I was collecting my coat and looking for my phone at the end of class and gave me a big hug. ‘We’re agency sisters! Stella told me. I’m so pleased for you.’

  ‘Aaaaw, thanks.’ I looked round to check no one was within earshot. Archie and Issam were near, but they were laughing so hard about something that they couldn’t have been listening.

  ‘Are you not telling anyone?’ asked Daisy.

  ‘Well, I told Lens and I’m really glad you know, but no, I don’t want a big announcement. I probably won’t get anything.’ It had been a couple of weeks since we’d sent back the contract and since then nothing. Radio silence. ‘Or if I do ever get anything everyone will work it out.’

  She nodded like she understood. ‘But you will get stuff. Stella’s great. She’s really nice too.’

  ‘A bit scary.’

  ‘Yep, but she’s nice. Charlie too. Look, anything you want to know just ask me. I’ve got to run, my gran’s picking me up.’

  I thanked her (also for the Buttons which had in fact been celebratory Buttons – which was another reason they should not have ended up being snaffled by Brian). Where was my phone? Practically everyone had left. Lens was doing that thing with the keys that made it really obvious that although he loved us all dearly he wanted to go home.

  ‘See you later, Elektra,’ said Archie on his way out of the door and I gave an awkward little wave because . . . well, because that’s how smooth I am.

  I could hear familiar barking coming from under a pile of props. A pile of props I hadn’t been anywhere near.

  My phone defied the laws of physics.

  ‘I was bullied by my teachers . . . Can you believe that? This math teacher gave me an F because she said I smiled too much. And I’m great at math! I think they just found it weird that I wanted to act, you know?’

  Chloë Moretz

  ‘And when he said “see you later” he might have meant that he wanted to see you later.’ Moss and I were hanging by the school gates after a
particularly trying Wednesday and she was analysing my recent dazzling ‘exchange’ with Archie. ‘He might have meant that it would be nice if you guys were to meet up . . . later.’

  I just looked at her with the sort of despair that that suggestion deserved.

  ‘Well, why would you be in his cover pic if he wasn’t into you?’

  Maybe I’d been a bit overexcited about that. ‘We’re all in his cover pic, the whole class.’

  I got my phone out to show her. I was just a tiny pixel at the back of a wide group shot. Daisy was much more in focus than I was. Even Brian was.

  ‘. . . Your legs look nice?’ It was the best Moss could offer. It was so cold that everything we said came out of our mouths with its own little puff of steam.

  ‘You can only see one of them.’

  ‘No, two . . .’ She looked closer. ‘Oh, sorry, I don’t think that other one is yours.’

  ‘No, it’s Issam’s.’ It wasn’t a flattering mistake, but in fairness I was really hard to make out and there were a lot of limbs in that photo.

  ‘You’re going to kill me.’

  ‘What have you done, Moss?’ But I had a sinking feeling I knew exactly what she’d done because she still had my phone. ‘Oh, God, you liked it, didn’t you?’

  ‘To be precise, you liked it. It was an accident.’

  It was not an accident. ‘He’ll think I’m a weird stalker.’ I was freaking out.

  ‘Well, you are.’

  Brutal.

  ‘He won’t even notice.’

  ‘He will notice. Everyone will notice.’

  ‘Just unlike it then,’ she said.

  ‘I have, but it’s probably too late.’ And now I felt paranoid that not only would he think I’d ‘liked’ his photo, he would also think I’d ‘unliked’ it. So I would look weird, desperate and indecisive.

  ‘But you need to let him know you’re interested. He’s not going to just realize, it’s not like you give out “come and talk to me” vibes.’

  ‘I do!’

  ‘I love you, Elektra, but you are seriously a long way along the sarcastic spectrum which doesn’t always make you the most approachable person.’