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Tuesday, May 4th, 1999 — Somewhere on the A1 Motorway
"We need to hurry," I urged Mum on.
"You see that sign? It informs one of the speed limit. I'll go by the speed limit, thank you. That's the start and end of it," Mum said.
I melted down into my seat in what I hoped passed for dramatic disdain — arms crossed, jaw clenched. I wanted to build a reputation for being a punctual professional but Mum probably had a point about safety. Getting there late was still better than not getting there at all.
To be fair to her, we were only a few miles out. In my current state, though, I could barely register the road — my attention was fixed on the analogue clock in the console of the rental car. Thirty minutes past noon, exactly. It might as well have been laughing at me, for it served as a neat reminder that I was woefully late to base camp.
I'd planned this whole thing badly from the get-go.
Even if nothing had gone wrong, I would probably have been late to set on Monday. Nain had worked her magic and secured me an extra day of furlough, and I'd promptly squandered it on Los Angeles — six hours there, five back. Not that I could bring myself to regret it. Part of me was still on the Sony lot in Culver City, among the immaculate sets, the fresh, authentic costumes, and faces that were already starting to feel familiar.
Thinking of Zooey made my cheeks burn. I wanted to write songs about love; those pale blue eyes made the hair on my arms stand up. My heart beat faster when I recalled her face staring at me from so close. I knew perfectly well it was just a crush, doomed from the start, but knowing that did nothing to quiet it.
Infuriating, how easily my body and emotions betrayed me.
Cameron had taken us to Los Angeles early that morning, and we'd landed just after noon despite the six-hour flight. Time zones felt like a kind of magic trick — we managed an absurd amount in a single day. Before that, the London–New York flight had already turned the clock back five hours. LA shaved off another three. Living on borrowed time, I was learning, always came with repayment.
The fastest flight back to London — short of boarding a Concorde — was eleven hours, thanks to another bit of magic called the transatlantic jet stream. Shorter than the journey out, but the universe still demanded its due. Eleven hours of flight became nineteen. Interest included. Almost a full day vanished, and by the time we touched down it was already past ten in the morning.
Mum hired a car rather than booking a flight to East Midlands — driving would take about the same amount of time, without the waiting, boarding, taxiing, and all the rest of it that normal people had to endure. Unlike Cameron, we didn't have Sony quietly slotting us onto private jets. Not yet, anyway.
What it all came down to was this — I'd been a naïve boy who thought he could outrun time. The only truth in the world was that time and tide awaited no man.
"Take the next right," I said, recognising our surroundings.
"You've got it!" Mum said, in a poor American accent.
I ignored her jokes.
"Julian's going to kill me," feet tapping like a woodpecker.
"We've already talked to him. He says it's a write." In an even worse American accent.
"Yeah, but he didn't sound fine. I'm also behind on my tutoring sessions now, this could mess up everything. My next audition too…"
"It's not a big deal," Mum said, abandoning her mockery and swatting my hands away. "Don't nibble on your nails, bach. It's a bad habit, that," Mum warned.
I flopped back into the seat as I tried to recall my Nain reading off the updated call sheet for me. I wasn't in the shooting docket for today, but I'd missed my tutoring session entirely and would be late to stunt rehearsals by almost a full hour.
Nearly ten years old and I was already shooting a fight scene. Imagining myself as an action hero helped keep the stress away. But stress had a way of coming back when you tried to keep it away. Worries racked through my mind — I was a tiny kid and one needed a very active imagination to think of me as an action star. I suppose I could start off as a comedy action star, like Jackie Chan.
"We're here!" Mum announced.
"Oh, thank God," I said, abandoning all the crazy thoughts.
"No, don't! Wait until we come to a full stop," Mum demanded.
I waited and made sure to show that I was particularly unhappy about waiting the two seconds it took for her to park.
Mum laughed in my frustrated face and mussed my hair.
"Mum! Stop," I said, batting away her hand.
"What, does it bother you, bach? Do you need your hair styled for your fight scene?" Mum teased.
"Ugh, fine. I'm sorry for being an arse," I said, grabbing my rucksack.
Base camp was quite empty at this time in the day. I supposed that everyone was somewhere in the massive mansion, filming. A familiar face holding a clipboard ran over, waving as if we were too blind to notice the only person in the camp.
"There you are!" Chris Fry, our third AD, said, waving us in.
"Where's the stunt rehearsal?" I asked, already moving past him.
"Follow me," Chris said sarcastically and sped up to lead us on. "You've got balls, kid. We thought you were going to drop out and shoot that American film of yours."
"What? No!" I said, stopping short at the accusation.
Chris laughed, loud and easy. "I'm only takin' the piss. You've missed some great shoots, though. Estella's been watching the whole thing — we've even shot the final scene of the film."
I didn't reply. I was slightly annoyed at missing the ending of the movie but I was more worried about what people must be thinking of me. Nain had already warned me about professionalism, and I'd managed to mess it up days after being told off. My reputation was in shambles already, but I suppose joking about it meant that no one really hated me for missing a day.
The real worry would be when people stopped making jokes about my punctuality.
We walked through the base camp — the unglamorous front side of the hotel that would never make it into the film. The ironic thing about that was that this side looked much better than the back we were shooting in. The Satis House needed to look like it was in ruins though, and two sides of the building couldn't look more different than the other. Trailers were lined up in neat, industrial rows. After seeing a real big-budget production, the scale of what we had here suddenly felt tiny. John Toll's cinematography unit alone had more people than our AD and camera departments combined. Hair and makeup was a dozen strong, and that was just the ones that showed up for a costume test. How odd that a couple of days can shift my perspective so that yesterday's wonders seemed today's backwater town.
Chris brought me and Mum right to a big patch of green. The only indication that this was a stunt rehearsal space were the crash mats set around in random places. A man sat in the middle of it all, getting some sun tan underneath the nonexistent Midlands English sky.
"The Great Gordon Seed," Chris introduced.
"Come off it, mate," the man said.
He was in his late twenties and had a buzz cut that had grown in. Gordon Seed looked like someone you'd pass on any British high street — ordinary, solid, utterly forgettable.
"It's his first role as a stuntman — I suppose a first stunt coordinator role too," Chris explained.
"My contract says stunts. Nothing about coordinating. On film, sure. Theatre's another story," Gordon replied, his Scouse accent easy and unforced.
"He's a gymnast too," Chris added, nodding at me. "Bit like you, eh?"
"I just do a bit of acrobatics. Sorry I'm late, Mr Seed — nice to meet you," I said, bowing in apology.
"Alright, lad. Don't worry about it. Your scene partner's not even here yet."
"How's that?"
"He was doin' his schoolin' an' that."
"Should I go find him?" I asked, unsure.
"Nah. Chris, be a good lad an' nab him, yeah?"
"Keep up the tone and you'll find your toys mysteriously relocated," Chris said with a glance towards Gordon's gear, though his words held no real bite.
"Fair enough, that," Gordon said as Chris walked off. He turned back to me.
"Right. Stunt work. Ever thrown a punch?"
I shook my head.
"Sound. Means you've got no bad habits." He grinned. "Get over here. Feet planted — knees bent. Leave a shoulder's width between us. Square up. Now throw a punch."
Eyeing the distance between us, I gave Gordon an unimpressed look.
"You're miles away."
"That's the trick, la. Camera's never straight on — it's over the shoulder, bit to the side. Seen them action films, yeah?"
"Sure."
"Lens flattens the image you see. Loses the depth our eyes've got. There's a foot between us, your eyes recognise it. But on the screen it looks like we're right on top of each other. Go on — one nice clean punch for me."
I swung awkwardly. Gordon snapped his head back and staggered like he'd been clipped.
"Alright, maybe you're a touch too short. We'll wait for your partner. But that's the job, la."
"So we just trade punches?"
"Ah, hold on. I'm no good at this thing." He reached into his bag. "Here — that's the rundown. No storyboard, just the beats. Read 'em and weep."
That line didn't even make sense, unless my scene was particularly hard. Maybe that was Gordon's intention, because I read it front to back twice over without saying anything. The sequence boiled down to a leg takedown on young Herbert, followed by a flurry of punches until his nose bled. I was going to win my fight, but it was much too simple, much too short.
"That's it?"
"Aye. Works alongside your script, it does. Have ya got it?"
"It's all up here," I said, tapping my head.
"Sound, la." Gordon nodded, but his attention was drawn by something in the distance. "There's your fella."
Chris walked towards us with Young Herbert in tow. He had blond hair, centre-parted, and was at least three years older than me and at least a head taller.
"Who's going to believe I can take him?" I said, my voice unbelieving and a few pitches higher than my usual voice.
The boy ran over the last few steps, eager to start his work. I had to look up. Most people I had to look up to, but none of them was I going to pretend at beating in a fistfight.
"Storytelling," Gordon said simply. "Laurence — meet Pip… This is where you introduce yourself, lad."
Clearing my throat, I offered a hand. "Wilfred Price."
"Laurence Dobiesz. Nice to meet you," he said, smiling kindly.
Ever met a person who just gave you the image that they were a really nice person? That was the feeling I received from Laurence. This feeling was so natural, and I was as sure of the fact as I believed the sun was hot.
"Laurence is trained in boxing, is that right, lid?"
That was Liverpudlian for kid and lad at the same time. Having grown up in Chester, I'd met a fair share of Scousers and been called it just as much.
"That's right," Laurence confirmed.
"Sadly, you won't be makin' much use of it today," Gordon said with a chuckle. "Right — you've both read the scripts?"
Laurence and I locked eyes, then nodded in unison.
"Sound. Young Herbert knows nowt about boxing, never hit anyone in his life. He's bookish — bit girly, real honourable sort. Fearless too, like a pup that's never seen a predator. Forget Laurence, become Herbert," Gordon said seriously.
The older man circled us once, twice, then stopped behind Laurence. He placed his hands on Laurence's shoulders, nudging them into place, checking it for balance and strength.
"Firm shoulders. Chin up, lid. Bit higher. Look down your nose — ay, like that."
Laurence had his hands up in the way that boxers did. Gordon stepped beside Laurence and dropped into a loose stance himself, looking like an English bloke tooting up for a fight. That was apparently a common sight after a few pints at the pub. News told of it often enough. Gordon didn't have the ruddy cheeks, but I could have sworn I'd seen his kind on Channel Four under the breaking news section.
"You don't know any boxin', so forget the proper stance. Hands down — you're not protectin' yer face. You know nothin', remember. Keep 'em low, round your chest, like this. Serious face. Lips tight — like me wife when she's fumin'. That's it. Idea is that you think you know how to fight, but you're only Herbert, aren't ya lad?"
I glanced at Laurence. His expression had hardened, the polite look gone. His jaw was set, making him look older than his age. Problem was that he was already much older than me — this expression made us look more mismatched than ever. If we fought for real, he'd beat my arse without a doubt, and I wasn't even factoring in his boxing training. The problem was that it wasn't believable for Pip to beat him. He was too old, or I was too young — it would be a hard sell.
"Right, now rock your fists back an' forth. Forward, back — like you reckon you know what you're doin'." Gordon nodded at the boy's attempt. "Sound. We can work with that. You never know with trained lads." He pointed at Laurence. "Keep your muscle memory down, ey? Can't get this pretty face smashed in. Actors and all."
I shrugged away Gordon's hand from my cheeks. Gordon's hand shifted to my shoulder, taking a firm hold.
"No touching the pretty face," I joked, though it came out a bit too cold.
Gordon smiled knowingly. "You'll be actin', la. How good are you at that?"
I straightened instinctively. A year back, I would have been unsure, but now I was confident in my acting. My method was developing nicely.
"This one's prideful — that'll do nicely," Gordon said with a wheeze. "What d'you feel if Larry here slaps you?"
"Anger?" I said, unsure.
"No, lid — shock. Anger comes after. The script says Estella mocks you with the singin', yeah?"
"Right," I said, nodding.
"That's when you'll start fumin'. Okay. Shot list from the director — we'll start with a master shot. Laurence, that's a wide from a distance. Ah — hang on, I'm explainin' this dead wrong," Gordon said, with a loud slap to his own face.
He paused, shut his eyes, exhaled, then perked up again.
"I'm new at this whole teaching thing — you know that. Best we start at the beginning, that only seems right. Stunts are any dangerous physical feat that requires training to perform safely. That means fight scenes come under that umbrella — there's always a danger of getting injured. Most important thing is safety, half our work is removing or minimising risks. Distance is everything. Camera does the rest."
Some of Gordon's accent had disappeared as he gave that speech — he seemed to be channelling some teacher he knew.
He dragged over a camcorder attached to a tripod and set it down. "There."
"First lesson — always know where the camera is. Face each other, lads. Stance up. You too, Wilfred."
I squared up opposite Laurence, knees bent, feet planted, a shoulder's width between us. Just as I'd seen Laurence do before. My fists hovered loosely, making a close approximation to a boxer's stance.
Gordon circled us with the camcorder pointed at us, watching through the viewfinder as he moved.
"I'll film so you can see how it all works. Feel where the camera is — an' no, never look at it. That's the second rule," he snapped at Laurence.
Laurence shook his head and smiled vaguely but kept his eyes forward from then on.
"Right. Step back — both of you. That's it. Two feet of distance. I'm behind Laurence now, camera's right over his shoulder. That's called an over-the-shoulder shot. Mime a punch at Wilfred, Laurence. Right across his nose."
Laurence threw a careful hook.
"Good. Now the necessary bit of actin'. We call it stackin'. Wilfred — sell the punch. It comes from your left, exits right. Time it, act like it's done you in. You're in pain! Action."
Laurence swung again. I reacted on time and committed, snapping my head away as if struck with a powerful blow.
"Good. That's stackin'. You're sellin' it so the audience buys the fight." Gordon tapped the camera. "Now the secret sauce. Have youse ever fired a gun?"
I shook my head. Laurence raised his hand. Gordon asked him for details, which he was all too happy to provide.
"Birdshot, eh? Nah — no punch to that." Gordon waved it off. "Big guns recoil, don't they?" he asked.
There was only one answer. We nodded.
"When you're hit, you recoil too. Then you snap back — it's a human reaction to look what got you, ey? You've got to get ready, so you'll turn right back. That last one got you, but you're dodgin' the next one. So you look right back. Don't let it send you spinnin' either. That recoil sells it. Again. Action."
I sort of understood what Gordon was describing on a subconscious level. Laurence threw another hook. I timed it better this time, but my subconscious mind did the rest — face twisted in pain, head snapping away, then whipping back around to face Laurence.
"Right — good lad. Other way now. Action."
With Gordon behind me, I mimed a punch — meant to be an uppercut, but too whipped and fast that it came out more like a blurry slap. Laurence jerked up as my fist crossed the space around his chin, but he'd reacted a bit too late.
"Too late, la," Gordon said. "Wilfred — slow it down. Half speed, ey?"
One attempt became two. Two became four. Once we nailed it, Gordon repositioned us — changing angles, camera height, footwork.
I tried to stay focused, but it all began to feel fake, but mostly too repetitive. Even Laurence — Larry, as he asked to be called — started to flag. Gordon noticed our boredom.
"Come 'ere, lads. See the fruits of your labour," Gordon called us over.
He beckoned us closer to the camcorder. It was a battered old thing — far more than mine — scuffed and worn from use, evidence of how often it'd been dragged into situations such as we were in.
The tiny screen showed me and Larry squared up against each other as Gordon circled us with the camcorder. The footage was shaky and poor. The two of us looked like boys playing at being action heroes while their mum filmed it. It would be put on a decade later at a family outing to embarrass us for being foolish. Truly, we looked like some knobheads — at least we did right up until the camera settled over Larry's shoulder and Gordon made some micro-adjustments on his angle. Suddenly, it looked like we were right on top of each other.
Movie magic.
The action was called and Larry threw the hook. If there was anything I was good at, it was timing. I stacked the punch right in time to sell the shot. Stacking was just a few letters off acting, wasn't it? Moments earlier, we'd looked like kids with no inkling of fighting. After all, we were a foot away from each other and throwing punches at the empty air. But that scene made it appear as if I'd really been hit. Lens cared not for the depth or the distance. Larry's size and height even helped mask the distance between us.
Such a simple solution and such a marked improvement.
We must've been making impressed faces because Gordon was made up.
"That's the face I was expecting!" Gordon said, laughing. "Now watch how the secret sauce works."
On the screen, Larry threw another hook, to which I stacked the punch and recoiled back, getting ready to throw my own.
"That's the stackin', and there's more where that comes from. Recoil is the first level, but the two of you are a bit too stiff. There's no life to it. I always say — don't be a starfish. You've got to act with your whole body."
Gordon mimed a punch, a slow haymaker, then jerked backwards, stepping like a drunken fool. I suppose he was acting out a man that's just been punched in the nose. Gordon's face was a mask of pain, his eyes barely kept open as he held his nose, swaying back and forth as he got ready to fight again. His eyes kept trying to open and see, but his pained expression matched my face when eating sour sweets. Most impressive part was the context he provided — Gordon's character had been hit and he was immediately defensive and confident, but got more fearful as his eyes simply didn't work.
Storytelling was at work through simple body language. Emotions worked to tell more than what the body movements conveyed.
"We stack more and more layers, ay? Recoil, facial expression, body language, eyes, actin'. I've a mate who can get red in the face after being hit — no idea how he does it, but stackin' goes as deep or as high as you can keep stackin' it. Layers and layers make up a whole tower, and that tower lets us sell the scene true."
I imagined myself trying to make my face go red by will alone. I couldn't tell if Gordon was trying to sell me a pup or if this was a real move that was possible to do. After all, I'd learned how to cry on command — tear ducts were possible to control with the human mind alone. Who could say that the same couldn't be done with blood vessels or whatever that made our cheeks look flushed. The mechanics of it took over my mind and gave me grand ambition for the future, another potential tool in my toolbox.
"Bet your mate's fat as me Nan's cat. Any exertion will get him red in the face. That's your mystery solved," Larry challenged with an easy smile.
"Can't believe you've met 'im. Small world," Gordon said with none of the surprise the words entailed. "Now we're moving onto other angles — focus."
Of course, Gordon was selling pig in a poke. The fact that it was a lie made me actually sad — I was looking forward to learning how to make my cheeks flush on command.
From there on, Gordon turned a lot more serious than usual and tried to teach us everything he'd learned of the craft in the couple of years he'd been working on it. Knowing where the camera was was even more important than it was when acting. Usually the cinematographer and the director had a very specific idea for filming a scene, and in those scenes you were usually the static piece on a specific mark set down by the assistant directors. In action scenes it was a bit different — my moves were completely decided by the camera movement, and the camera moved according to how I moved.
Meaning that action sequences were a dance between the actor and the camera. Two moving parts, and each movement demanded a particular reaction. To do it well, we needed to build a bond.
If we were doing a low-angle shot, for example, I may have to punch way below Larry's head from my perspective to make it appear as if I'd actually targeted Larry. It was like those photos of tourists at the Leaning Tower of Pisa where they pretended to hold up the tower. They would do many attempts to make it look like they were leaning against it. It wasn't so easy to make quick geometry calculations so punches looked perfectly lined up on camera. Often it seemed to require more guessing than any mathematics.
Even though I was learning a lot, my mind seemed to wander. I was going back to Florence soon, and Pisa was only a short train ride away from Firenze. I wanted Mum and Dad to see every beautiful sight in Italy while saying "bellissimo" over and over again.
"Focus, lid," Gordon warned.
"Sorry," I said with a shake.
"Now we'll do takedowns. Director's notes for the action scene was a simple leg takedown into a few punches. We'll employ a new trick here that I can't quite show you on camcorder. It's called cuts," Gordon said, with a twinkle in his eyes.
That's when our rehearsal turned from slightly boring but light activity into a completely mind-numbing torture. Actors rarely performed their stunts, but when they did, they had to be extremely safe. Injured actors could cost production a lot of money. So, with that in mind, every single scene of Larry and me actually making physical contact was done at half speed and stopped at various points. Gordon would move in between those and film from a new angle, while we did our best at making it look as continuous as possible.
My character was supposed to get angry when Estella starts to sing the blacksmith song, so Pip runs over and performs a leg takedown. Mounting himself above Herbert, Pip would throw punches over and over again. That scene basically had four describable actions, but filming it required a dozen different angles and we had to stop at many points. My run over to Larry had to look fast and real to sell that I was angry. In the real action scene, I would slow down on the last step. Before I made contact, I had to twist my body around, let go of his leg, spin to lose momentum and come to a smooth stop. I couldn't really injure Larry nor myself if I did that.
The next scene would involve Gordon taking over the shoulder shot with the two of us boys in a static position, doing our best to mimic exactly how the last scene ended. These were called various names — match cuts, pickup shots or even the connection. Its whole purpose was to make a smooth scene that the audience believed to be real.
The first wide establishing shot was done on the grass, but the second match cut was performed at a different angle that just so happened to not capture what Larry fell down on. The connecting shot had Larry fall down on a crash mat from an inch above it. Safety was paramount, as Gordon reminded us over and over again. There was also an art in hiding the crash mat — using angles, my and Larry's bodies as visual blockers, and even tilts, pans and other tricks.
Finally, there was another shot in which Gordon filmed us from a wide angle to catch Larry actually hitting the ground, the grass visible. This time, he started on the ground and only flopped to sell that he even was falling.
"Semantics, I'll tell you more about it," Gordon would say mysteriously.
It was annoying to pause and roll back a moment, then shoot again and again. But according to Gordon, that was precisely the trick to filming a good action scene. It was all the snap cuts that would finally come together as a coherent scene in the editing room. Our job was to provide as much material for the editors to make use of. These cuts, when interposed together, would show a powerful punch connecting painfully. Action scenes were complicated, but it all worked to tell a story in a convincing manner.
The problem was that it was impossible to show how the post-production's final product would look when we only had the various recordings.
Gordon demonstrated it by placing the camera on the tripod, asking one of us to shove him away. He stacked the shove so much that he flew far away and out of the camera frame, flying a few feet and finally landing on a thick mattress. Then he let us shoot the next scene where he was already on the ground, lifting himself up inches before faking a fall. Stacking, overlaying, cutting — the idea was that by doing all these things with us behind the camera, we would understand how it would all come together in the end.
We didn't, but it was fun to be behind the camera for once.
Larry and I worked hard on our scenes until it became boring — so boring that Gordon couldn't really rouse us again. It's extremely hard to keep continuity for an action scene. The only thing that kept me at it was the challenge of keeping the continuity between scenes. I took it as a challenge and exercise to my acting, sort of the thing I was developing lately, where I took a snapshot of a character in a specific time and brought it on command. Knowing and remembering the exact pose of my body was hard to remember but almost impossible to replicate perfectly.
As time passed, our little grassy area for rehearsal turned into an impromptu gathering area. It was only Mum at first, but then my chaperone — who was also Larry's chaperone — joined in quietly, followed by Larry's mother, who'd been informed that he was done with his tutoring session and had started his rehearsals. My mum spent some time making calls, and a few minutes later Nain arrived with Dorothea and her mother in tow. The gaggle of women of three different generations discussed important stuff, joked around and laughed endlessly. Dorothea, who I had to call Estella as long as we were on the set of Great Expectations, would be pointing at me whenever they laughed and I turned to the noise. The moment I noticed it, she would act sheepish and try to act as if she'd not been pointing at me. I was fairly sure that she was messing with me, but it didn't mean that her tactic was ineffective.
"Pay attention, Wilf!" Gordon demanded for the millionth time.
I found myself circling with the technicalities of the wager I'd made with Dorothea — reflecting on what it actually required of me. Whether I needed to think of her as Estella even in my own head, or whether Dorothea still counted in there. Either way, it was a productive exercise for my mind. Such were the small, aimless thoughts that drifted through my mind as we rehearsed the action scenes together. The work itself was dull — not a proper action sequence, just two kids playing at being men — and made worse by the endless repetition of the same scene.
"Larry, Wilf. Keep your acting on a tip-top condition or you won't be able to pull this off. You need to make sure you remain in the same expression and emotion. Fight scenes are all about emotion, it's got nothing to do with the physical movements," Gordon reminded.
The longer we spent in our makeshift grass gladiator pit, the more people seemed to pause and watch us before going off to do their duties. As an actor, it was something that I'd become quite used to on sets, but it unnerved Larry to no end. If you've ever been on a large set, you'll have all the departments waiting on the director and cast. Usually though, people were more serious and quiet. But today there were endless catcalls, whoops and cheers.
"A pint and a fight, make a great British night."
By the tenth time someone made that same joke, I started to lose hope in British humour. But it was better than the other one that people kept saying:
"Scrappin' over Estella 'ave you lads?" and its many variations depending on accents and where people came from.
It bothered me even more that Estella was eating up these comments as if she was really the cause behind our fighting. As if she was such a beauty that made boys act the fools. Thankfully, a chaperone came around to take Larry for his mandated lunch and everyone else decided to join.
"This is Estella," I said in introduction.
"We've already met," Larry said with a faint smile.
"Tutoring session, remember?" Estella teased. "Though, you were too busy making American films to join us."
"I was not. It was only an audition and I'll start it when I'm done with this film —"
"Mini-series," Larry corrected.
"It's the same thing," I continued smoothly. "They're only cutting it in half so it's easier to digest. BBC standard procedure. Anyway, I'll fly out as soon as we're done, filming starts on the 24th, but I need to be there earlier for rehearsals if possible."
"You've already booked your next role? Is it with Julian too?" Larry asked, suddenly perked up.
"Erm, no, it's in the US. Hence the talk about American films," Estella chided in the posh way that she always did.
Larry's face was unreadable and I wondered how much dislike he'd develop for Estella. Now that I wasn't the only kid her age, maybe she wouldn't be as insufferable. As if she'd been privy to my inner thoughts, Estella looked me down her nose.
"Busy as a bee. Trying to catch up with me, are you?" Estella mocked.
"You could say that… Though I'm more selective with my roles, I don't accept small roles. There won't be Roger and the Rottentrolls in my filmography. You can bet on that," I said with a wide smile.
Estella's cheeks actually flushed pink, if not red, in response to my comment. This was something I'd learned very recently — a throwaway information from my mother, which became priceless at the moment that Estella showed shame.
"Oh my god! You're Roger's sister!" Larry exclaimed, suddenly recognising Dorothea.
"How'd you find that out?" she demanded at once.
"Mum swore that she's seen you on ITV. Didn't take much searching after that," I said, flashing a wolfish grin.
"My mum really likes that show, says it teaches educational things like elections and politics to children while being properly funny," Larry said.
Estella eyed Larry for a few moments, a task which was difficult while we were walking towards the food truck. She did it easily though — her balance was as perfect as it had been at our dance duel.
"You asked a question about Julian casting in another film. Have you been cast for it?" Estella changed the topic.
Larry smiled sheepishly. "Yes, Gail cast me recently and told me that Emma was in it too. I'm playing the son of a sergeant, one of the main characters in the film. Dame Maggie Smith is in it too, playing the Queen!"
Odd how many Gails I'd run into when going to auditions on either side of the Atlantic. However, I wasn't surprised that Maggie had already secured her next project. She was a working actor, and most films probably only secured their budget when someone like her was attached to it. Emma definitely deserved another call-up though — she was playing the older version of Biddy and was my fellow Cestrian. Rare sight in the entertainment industry.
"She's busy as a bee, isn't she? I suppose you're the only one who's not worked with Maggie Smith in time," I commented, trying to tease Estella further.
"I've worked with her," Estella said in a regal manner.
"You have?" Larry asked. "What's she like?"
"Very nice," was all Estella said on the matter.
I teased her about lying because she was weirdly insistent on not talking about other films. She always wished not to speak about anything personal, which seemed to extend to her filmography. Honestly, I was getting quite fed up with this quality of hers.
"Two of you are so annoying," Estella declared in a defeated tone. "It was a drama called Washington Square and I was a teeny tiny little girl — is that fine with you?" Estella shot out.
"You're still tiny," I said, smiling, because I was half an inch taller than her.
"Both of you're tiny," Larry said.
No one refuted him on that comment. He was fourteen years old, as I'd found out.
Lunch was fabulous, with most of my family around. Larry's mother was a nice lady who was very proud of her son in a way that reminded me of my own parents and grandparents back when I first started acting. It was, after all, the very first credit of Larry's new career. He'd also managed to get this role because he was cast in another film of Julian's called All the King's Men. Convenience of where Larry lived worked to get him the role of young Herbert, his second booking being filmed earlier than his first. Three child actors on the set of Great Expectations all shared the screen with Maggie Smith at one time or another. I wondered if the girl who played Young Biddy also worked with her.
As I broke bread with my family and new friends, I kept thinking about how many British actors or crew members that Maggie Smith would have ended up working with at one time or another. There was a movie with Will Smith that came out years back that featured the concept that seemed relevant. The movie introduced a theory that boldly declared that any person was always six degrees of separation from any other person.
How many degrees separated any British actor from Dame Maggie Smith or Dame Judi Dench? How many separated Michael Caine from me? Was it only one because Maggie must've worked with Michael Caine? Questions, questions — it gave me a fresh new idea.
"I propose a game," I declared. "Rules are as follows. Think of any actor you know and we must connect them with Dame Maggie Smith. I'll start — Sir Ian McKellen!"
No one was eager to play it, so I had to work at convincing them to play. I had to explain the concept of six degrees of separation. Most were even more confused by my explanation, but they ended up cracking.
"Sir Ian McKellen was in Richard the Third with Dame Maggie Smith," my Grandad pointed out.
"One point to Clive Price. First to twenty-one wins. Direct connections are worth only one. The more degrees of separation there are that you point out, you get more points. I also get a point for coming up with the prompt."
"How about Hugh Grant? He's a handsome fella, isn't he?" Larry's mum said with a shy smile.
Larry had his hands hiding his face. Our big table turned quiet as our minds whirred, trying to come up with a valid answer.
"You remember that girl? I forget her name," Nain said, her eyes closed in deep thought. "It's right at the edge of me mind."
I tried and tried, but as much as I imagined myself as a movie buff, I hardly had seen that many films — not the ones that were out yet anyway. My revelation also had a massive gap for British films. What I knew from my own experience growing up in England was just not enough.
"Remember Into the Woods? That play we saw, Wilf, help me here, we can share the points," Nain offered.
"We watched it before Christmas and we all gave it five stars, one of the rare perfectly reviewed musicals," I recalled.
"There's a blonde woman playing the Baker's wife. You remember her?"
"Sophie Thompson!" I declared. She was hard for me to forget, for I had a revelation when I'd seen her. Sophie would play a minor role in Harry Potter. Hopefully we'd work together on that film.
"I remembered her face as one of the girls on Missionary, where Maggie Smith plays a lady. She was in Four Weddings and a Funeral as one of the brides with Hugh Grant!" Nain rattled out.
I'd not watched the first film, but the other was another raunchy comedy film that Hugh Grant was making a habit of appearing in.
"How do we know you're not inventing this Sophie Thompson?" "I don't remember this girl." The table was reluctant to take Nain's comment as a fact.
"I've got it in two, I do get two points, don't I?" Nain asked.
I gave her points and took half for myself. If I could use my revelations for it, it would be a lot easier, but too many of the things I knew were from future projects they would be in. Too many things were just not out yet. Our table didn't like us sharing points, but especially the fact that we got the points with such an obscure actress that no one else knew about. Their indignation helped to inject energy into the game. Soon, we were working in teams and cast out Maggie Smith in favour of calling out names of actors at the same time. First to answer from any of the two teams got the point. We even settled on a liar rule, where we could steal the points if the team wasn't able to call out the movies they'd been in.
Smiling faces, arguing adults and a new friend made. It was great to be back home on these shores.
Larry and I burned our calories by rehearsing our scene until even Gordon was bored and allowed us to act out famous action scenes we'd seen in films. Gordon did his best at shooting them. Turns out, Bruce Lee's action scenes were not easy at all to perform or even make look not ugly.
I was called in for a very late tutoring session. Estella was in there for some reason. When I asked her, she gave the excuse that she was just filling her hours for the week earlier than usual. Larry didn't join us — he was scheduled for less than a week, two days at most, and he'd already done his session earlier today. I caught glimpses and glances from the other side of the room. Thankfully, there was no heat or coldness in Estella's eyes, but it still made me feel uncomfortable.
When the tutor called it, the sun was long gone. My Grandad drove over to fetch me back home to our lodge. Estella stood around until my Grandad offered to drive her too. She was all smiles as she accepted, much too quickly. My eyes were already narrowed, but now my brows also furrowed. What could she be planning?
"Your grandmother said you play the piano," Estella said to fill the space.
"I do."
"You also sing, obviously," she pointed out.
"And?"
She didn't quite blush, but she acted it out. With the rehearsals for the action scene quite fresh on my mind, I couldn't help but realise that shame could easily be the way to make my whole face go red. Embarrassment and anger were closely connected. It made me do a double take on Estella's face. She seemed embarrassed, but her cheeks sported the normal fair complexion it always had. Her eyes kept breaking contact with mine much too often, too many glances downwards, too little confidence for the girl I was working with.
"I was wondering if you would teach me the singing part?" Estella asked, looking for all the world as if she was too shy to make me a request.
My nose scrunched up as I leaned back to take in Estella's whole appearance and body language. Her legs were stable, her pose as prim and proper as ever. But her head was on a swivel and her facial expressions were dialled up to the elevens. But for all that, she was missing something. She didn't have reluctance in asking her request.
"You're acting right now, aren't you?" I accused.
"What, you think I'd actually ask you with these fluttering lashes?" Estella said, laughing as she made her eyes go weird.
"You're not even putting much effort into it. That's just rude — not even your A game when asking for my time," I scoffed.
"Will you help, or not?" Estella said, her patience spent.
"You don't sing? I thought you did theatre work."
"I have. And I can sing, thank you. Your grandmother said you transcribe music from memory and even write your own songs. Aural genius, she says," Estella said dismissively.
Then her eyes went suddenly more passionate. "I want to make the song more creepy. You read the script. I will be above the grounds in the arrow slit. I want to make people shiver when they see me."
"You're already creeping me out."
She shook her head. "So, can you do it?"
"Of course I can do it. But there's so many ways to do it, I'm not sure how."
"I've already got a version, do you want to hear it?"
I nodded and stayed quiet with my Granddad as she sang the song. She took it up a notch by singing it high while she made a smiling, mocking face. I could easily see it provoking Pip.
"How was it?" she asked.
"Very good, love," Granddad commented idly.
"Not very inspiring," I replied.
Her chin lifted. "What would you do?"
"I don't know — slow it down, maybe. Drop it lower. Make it breathy, half-asleep. Turn it into a lullaby instead of a chant that it is. Any of it would work. It just depends what the scene wants of us."
She paused, considering. Then, quietly, "In the novel, Pip sings it often. Miss Havisham sings it low. Dickens describes it as sleepy."
I looked at her. At this point, she wasn't performing at being a shy girl. Instead, I saw someone trying to really capture the character. I could respect that.
"It's an action scene though. It'll be a scrap between me and Larry. If we go too slow, it might clash with the emotion of the scene."
"I ask again, what would you do?"
Ignoring her question, I brought up the shot list that Gordon received from Julian. It was a document that described every type of shot that was required of a scene. Action scenes were a lot more complicated than normal dialogue, owing to many cuts needed.
Pointing at the moment where Estella appears, I pointed at the shot before it.
"Handheld, circling shot, close-up," Estella read.
"Pip looks up and your scene follows. Shock is on Pip's face, and right after your singing, we fight."
"Slow is too jarring then?"
"No, I think you can start slow but increase the tempo — like this."
I demonstrated it by singing it, only two lines of a song, identical too, so the only way to make it more complicated. I sang it quicker on the second line but then shut my trap quickly.
"No, actually this is better."
Then I sang it in the true creepy fashion that would fit Dorothea's voice. Time signature changes, quickening tempo, vocal tics, suddenly increasing high pitch.
"If I sing it like that, it might be thought as just me being a bad singer rather than actually being creepy," Estella commented.
"Maybe just do it with a slower tempo with the high pitch. It'll be similar to your version and still highlight your singing."
Estella and I went back and forth to really hone down the lines. It was a short and quick task, but we made it back to the army camp we were staying at before we even finished.
"I suppose it'll do," Estella said in an unimpressed tone.
"You know, people usually say thanks when someone does them a favour."
"Hmm, I'll remember that for the next time," Estella harrumphed and strode away quickly.
"Rude," I muttered as she left.
"How about a thanks for driving you here, eh?" Granddad teased.
"Har-har. Very funny," I said.
We walked towards our wooden lodge. I was eager and dragging my grandfather, and he was hobbling on account of his bad knees. When we arrived on the landing, I gave him a side hug. He was my rock — a stable giant that sat quietly in support and always there when I needed him.
"Thanks."