"Go away" said Maleficent,"Go away!"
Not listening, toddler Aurora smiles at Maleficent and hugs her leg.
"Up! Up!" she said.
Reluctantly, Maleficent takes her into her arms. Aurora, still smiling sweetly, tries taking Maleficent's horns into her hands but fails.
"CUT! Alright Angelina that was great, we can move on to the next scene" said Robert.
"Is it normal for it to take that many takes?" said Lucas, sounding half horrified and half intrigued, one of his brows raised in confusion.
"For kids, especially toddlers it's normal, it's very hard to make them listen to instructions as you just saw." I stated.
"You know, you took that many takes on the first day." said Elle, grinning, teasing me.
"Oh shit really ? I got to hear this story." said Lucas, sensing new blackmail potential
"I was nervous, Elle, and I took like ten takes, she just took 15." I replied, groaning in annoyance at the memory of my embarrassment.
"It's normal to freeze, I remember that the first time I did a movie, I took 13 takes before landing it." said Brad Pitt inserting himself in the conversation. Nonetheless his words reassured me and quelled some of my embarrassment.
"See, it's normal! You're just different." I argued to Elle.
She stuck her tongue at me, I swear she could be so childish at times, still that's what made us become friends.
I was about to reply when I saw that James had arrived on the set.
"I'll be back," I said, walking up to him.
"So?" he asked.
"We'll be going back for the audition, my dad will be coming with me." I replied.
"Great, that's fantastic, I'm telling you this is a good role, it has more line than this one as well. Also, I just received confirmation that Ethan Hawke was cast in the main role of The Purge, that's a good sign isn't it ?" reassured James.
It was a great sign, Ethan Hawke was a recognizable star with hits like Dead Poets Society, Training Day and Sinister that also came out just this year and was also horror. It also showed that the plot was interesting enough for some pretty big celebrities too, which would help the movie financially.
We continued talking for a while before I went back to where Lucas, Brad Pitt, his five million different kids and Elle were all still talking.
(Break)
The day passed and with that so did all of the scenes filmed outside, actually not all the scenes where the characters were outside have been filmed however we would shoot them all inside since most of those were CGI heavy and filming on a soundstage would make things easier to control.
Today though and the next three weeks or so, would be scenes inside Stefan's castle, with the big battle being shot on the last few days of my stay and the days that follow, I wasn't really in that scene so they only actually needed me for two days.
Today though, I was kind of nervous, why you ask? Well today we were filming the kiss scene between me and Elle and the truth is I had never kissed a girl on camera before. I had gone on dates before of course, even though I was a theater kid at school. What can I say? Girls were still interested in me and I even already have had my first kiss, but kissing someone on screen just feels different.
Elle would be right there, her eyes closed and Maleficent would just throw me out in the castles hallway where the three fairies played by Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple and Lesley Manville, I hadn't had the chance to talk to them too much but they were all very sweet in the few interactions we had.
"So Prince Charming, are you ready to give Elle a true love kiss and wake her up from her eternal sleep." asked Imelda teasingly.
"Mrs Staunton please don't." I said, feeling my ears turning red.
"How many times do I have to tell you already, just call me Imelda, you're making me sound old." she insisted.
The first time we met was when I was filming the scene from the audition, the fairies had a scene next and we had started talking and she had quickly become one of my favorite persons on set, she had shared plenty of insights with me including from when she played Professor Umbridge after I told her Order of the Phoenix was my favorite Harry Potter movie.
"Right, sorry, force of habit." I said, "To be honest I'm quite nervous, I've never kissed someone on screen before."
She softened at that, "Don't worry too much, it's not that different from what you do normally, plus it's more of a peck in this case too."
"Yeah I guess you're right." I said.
We both went to get our hair and makeup done as well as costumes, before finally going on set.
Imelda, Lesley and Juno all wore their fairy costumes but also had a camera mounted in front of them to capture their facial expressions, they would also be attached to rigs so that they could simulate flying throughout the scene. The first time I had seen it, I had disrupted the scene with my laugh. I couldn't help it, it just looked so goofy, but luckily since I had already seen it at play multiple times, it'll be easier for me to stay focused…probably.
I arrived on set where a hallway was created as well as the room where Aurora would be sleeping. Both of them had been richly decorated with shades of gold and yellow, making the place look truly beautiful and noble.
"Xavier you're here already, good, you're going to be hooked up to a rig this time too you know that right?" asked Robert, coming towards me.
"Yeah I heard" I said.
He explained to me that I would be hooked to the rigs and that I was going to pretend to be unconscious, then I was going to be dropped by and wake up, where the three fairies would then find me and drag me into the room and convince me Prince Philip to kiss Aurora, the kiss then wouldn't work and I would be thrown out of the room.
"The hallway's floor where your going to fall is going to be soft so it won't even hurt, you don't have to worry, after the scene we're also going to do the other scenes where you're going to be rigged up okay?" he continued
"Alright" I replied
As we finished talking everybody I saw Angelina coming to set as well as Sam Riley who plays Diaval who was further behind, he was a pretty introverted guy and usually just minded his business, he lived in London and usually only came to set when he had too, did his job and went back home, couldn't fault the guy really.
"So how are we feeling today Xavier." said Angelina
"A little nervous to be honest but not too much, it should be fine." I replied.
"Well don't worry we're going to rehearse as usual before filming the scene to let you get into it,"said Angelina teasingly.
"There's no need for that" I said, embarrassed, the rehearsals I had done before we filmed had been in scenes where only Elle or Angelina was present, but now we had six different actors and I didn't want to waste all of their time with some stupid practice.
"Honestly I think I can do it without rehearsals" I said to Angelina.
She looked at me and raised a brow, "Really?" she asked
"Yeah, really." I said, looking straight back at her confidently.
Over the past two weeks, I had gotten quite confident when it came to acting in front of the camera and I felt like I didn't need to prepare before and could just do it. I also would inevitably not be able to do the same thing on every other movie set I would end up on and for that, I would have to start by not doing the stupid rehearsals.
"Well alright then, I'll go tell Robert and Joe." she said, smiling reassuringly at me, walking away.
"The two of them of course weren't opposed to it and soon enough we would start filming. A while later, I saw Elle finally arriving, she had the easiest role out of everyone, she would pretend to be sleeping and let herself be kissed by me.
"Hey, ready for today?" I said and soon regretted it, knowing I had just addressed the elephant in the room.
Elle blushed slightly at that, glaring at me slightly before throwing something at me and saying,
"Here eat this before the scene."
I looked at the hand which had caught the thing she had thrown, it was a box of Tic Tacs
"Do I have bad breath?" I muttered, a bit embarrassed.
Elle laughed at that, "No you don't, however I did just see you eat some fish and chips before coming here so you know…"
"Right," I replied, still feeling a little embarrassed."Well, thanks I guess?"
"Does my breath really stink ?" I thought as I put a bunch of them in my mouth before walking to the other side of the studio, where I was hooked on to the rig and lifted into the air, then they went and hooked up my arms and legs as well since my whole body's supposed to be floating.
Angelina and Sam soon came up next to me, ready to start.
"Are you ready?" she said, smiling.
"I'm ready"
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Hey y'all I wanted to write during the weekend but I got a writers block and then I got really busy 😃. Anyways is the rythm of the story good enough ? Or should I go a little faster, maybe a little slower. Again please leave some reviews to help me make the story more interesting for you guys. 😁 Thanks for reading