Prince Philip was trotting on his horse back to the place where he had seen the beautiful girl, just as he arrived Maleficent appeared, scaring the horse.
"I'm looking for a girl," he said aggressively.
"CUT, Xavier, you keep forgetting, british accent."
This day was not going at all like I thought it would, this was supposed to be a very simple scene that would take no more than three or four takes yet here we were, going for our 9th. 7 of them were my fault too. Three of them were straight up just me forgetting my lines, two of them were me squeezing my horse too tightly and hence making it move out of frame and two of them were me forgetting to do a british accent or not doing it well enough. The other two were mistakes Angelina made, but I'm pretty sure it was mostly for me to not get too embarrassed, which was nice of her but with me becoming more and more useless, I could already see that most of the crew members were starting to look at me differently compared to the beginning of the shoot.
"Everyone take a break, we'll be back in five." said Robert Stromberg, sighing.
I sighed, looking down embarrassed by my performance. I had done well in the audition. Heck, I had done well an hour ago with Elle, but now I was failing because of my nervousness. It wasn't just sad, it was pathetic on my part too.
"Come on, I'll help you get down," said the horse guy awkwardly and not looking at me.
"Thanks" I whispered, still looking down.
Once down I went and looked around and I found my father in the back of the set. He gave me a hug and asked
"Are you okay ?"
"I don't know" I replied," I was doing really well this whole while but now that I'm on camera... It's weird. You know ever since I could remember this is all I've ever wanted and yet now that I'm here doing it it's like my brain just freezes."
"You're nervous Xavi, that's normal, what's not normal however is that nervousness overtaking you the way it does, do you think there's something else that could be happening?" he continued, looking straight at me.
My father always had this gift to see through all the bullshit I spouted and spot the truth as it was, just like now.
I hesitated for a second, before telling him, "I've spent the last nine years auditioning for every role I could possibly find, and for the better part of that I've been rejected and rejected and rejected and sometimes I just feel like maybe..."
"Like you're not worthy of this?" he completed, his face softening. "Xavier, you're fifteen, you still have so much time to figure out what you want, most people change their minds on their future a million times before reaching that age, you've been consistent since you were 5 about the fact that you wanted to become an actor. Are you saying you've changed you're mind?" he asked gently
"No I haven't. It's just that I've failed so many times that I don't know if I can actually succeed in this." I replied, trying not to tear up.
"Baby you have to believe in yourself more" He said, giving me another hug. "You said you failed for nine years, but the way I see it, you've persevered for nine years despite the obstacles you had to face, once you get more experience in front of the camera this'll all be easy for you."
"Thanks Dad, I needed that" I said smiling at his words.
He held me in a hug for a little longer before finally the five minutes were up and I had to go back.
"Xavier, the break is up" said Angelina, approaching us.
"Alright, I'll be there," I said, walking in her direction.
We walked for a few steps before she said to me
"I talked to Robert to let us rehearse a few times without filming, to help you relax a little before doing another take."
I widened my eyes at that, this would take up even more time then we already had.
"Are you sure that's okay?" I said." I don't want to make the production even more late than it already is."
"He said that if it made you more comfortable before we started filming then he was okay with it." she said, pausing."Plus we were actually in advance on our schedule and still are, which is probably the only reason him and Joe Roth haven't decided to replace you" she continued
I stopped walking at that, it hadn't occurred to me that they could do that.
"Would they actually do that?" I asked, not sure if I wanted to know the answer.
"If you make the production late then sure, but you haven't yet so you're good...for now" she said, entering the set and taking her place. " Now don't forget, we'll rehearse once or twice and then we'll start filming okay?"
"Okay" I said, nodding.
Behind the camera, however, you could see Robert and Joe looking silently at all their department heads and after receiving their okay, they started filming this so-called rehearsal.
(Break)
Five minutes earlier
Robert Stromber was slowly going crazy, the very simple scene that was supposed to take thirty minutes at most was now taking an hour and possibly more.
"If that fucking kid doesn't get his shit together in the next three takes were moving on" he said to Joe Roth and his AD, who both nodded in acceptance.
"Who knew that the kid would be like this when it came time to film" sighed Joe. "He had such a good audition, the chemistry he had with Elle was adorable"
"Yeah well we obviously underestimated how nervous a rookie can get" grumbled Robert, this movie as his directorial debut, could not have any mishaps happen, he wouldn't allow it. "Let's just hope he gets his shit together quickly and this doesn't happen for the next two weeks."
Joe frowned at that, as a producer, he had to make sure that everything would go smoothly and this dragging on for the next eighteen days would not be smooth, so he asked, "Should I try to see if the other guys in the audition are available? Just in case? Or maybe go to the West End and see if there's someone that could be available?"
Just as Robert was about to respond, a female voice cut in.
"I don't think we need to go that far" asked who he recognized as Angelina Jolie, she was also an executive producer on the movie and although it was more in name, she was still someone that he had to hear out as he was only a rookie director and she was Angelina Jolie.
"We've all seen the audition and he's good, not only that, I saw him rehearsing his scenes with Elle right before coming to set and he was great there too. " she continued.
"I know that but it doesn't mean anything if he can't deliver a good performance when the camera is rolling" replied Robert, not understanding her point.
"Well yes but you don't have to tell him that you're filming do you ?" she countered.
"What do you mean?" asked Robert, still confused.
"Xavier is always good in rehearsals, no, in fact he's great, so instead of recasting him, which will completely fuck up our schedule, we could just tell him that we're going to rehearse on set the first few times to get him to relax and so he can get use to the environment and people looking at him and he'll probably act better." she said, almost rolling her eyes at this director who obviously wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed.
"So we'd pretend to rehearse for him but secretly start filming without telling him so he'd feel more comfortable and deliver a new, better performance. That's a great idea Angelina" said Joe, grinning.
"We also wouldn't have to recast if this works" said Robert, now understanding as well.
So that was exactly what they did, first, they went to all of the crew members and told them the plan and as soon as the break was over, everyone got in their positions and then acted like it was a rehearsal.
Funnily enough, Robert saw the difference immediately, it was like night & day, this stiff, stuttering performance he had to deal with was all of a sudden more confident, the reaction when maleficent appeared was perfect, the kid perfectly sold the brave but slightly scared prince that was still ready to defend himself with a sword if he had too and the way he fell was also so realistic that even the horse reacted, prompting Angelina to calm it before finishing the scene.
Robert was ecstatic and judging by Joe and the crew's reaction so were they, the plan had worked perfectly. They let Xavier rehearse another time before finally they told him they were filming and for the first time, he was able to go through the full scene, although it wasn't as perfect as the two takes before so they made him do it another two times before finally moving one to another scene.
"He was better even when he knew we were filming" stated Robert
"It's probably because of the change in atmosphere" answered Joe."Just look at the crew."
Robert looked around and he had to admit, the annoyed look most of the crew had before was now gone, it had been replaced by admiration and more importantly acknowledgment. This feeling had spread across the whole set and this acknowledgment of the crew had visibly lifted a little weight off of Xavier's back.
"I guess this was just a minor setback in the end." thought Robert, smiling
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