8. Duncan
DUNCAN
The warehouse studio in Queens is nothing like I expected.
High ceilings with exposed steel beams, concrete floors that still show the scuff marks from whatever industrial operation used to occupy this space, and lighting rigs suspended on cables that look like they could drop at any second if someone sneezed wrong.
There are people everywhere, moving with the choreographed chaos of a film set, carrying equipment and shouting directions and checking clipboards while three different radios crackle with overlapping static.
Millie is in the center of it all, sitting in a director's chair with her name stenciled across the back in faded letters, and she looks completely at home.
I'm standing near the craft services table because Jeremiah told me to be visible but unobtrusive, which is harder than it sounds when you're six-three and wearing a Patagonia jacket.
A woman with a headset nearly walks into me while backing up to frame a shot, mutters an apology without looking, and keeps moving.
Millie's in costume, a navy jumpsuit with grease stains that look authentic, her hair pulled back in a tight bun that's already starting to fuzz at the edges from the humidity.
She's talking to the director, a woman in her fifties with silver hair and black-framed glasses who gestures emphatically while Millie listens with the focus of someone who actually cares about what's being said.
I've seen Millie in a dozen different contexts over the past month.
The gala where she performed elegance like it cost her nothing, the subway where she moved through crowds like water finding its path, the restaurant in Washington Heights where she ate rice and beans with her fingers and didn't apologize for it.
But this is different. This is her actual work, the thing she built her entire life around, and watching her prepare for it feels like I'm seeing something I wasn't supposed to.
The director steps back and Millie stands, rolling her shoulders twice before walking toward the set.
It's a mock-up of a mechanic's garage, complete with a half-disassembled car on a lift and tools scattered across a workbench that look like they've been used for actual repairs.
The DP adjusts the lighting, someone calls for quiet, and Millie steps into frame.
The transformation happens so fast I almost miss it.
One second she's Millie Harris, the woman who texted me this morning to confirm I'd be here and reminded me not to talk to anyone on set without clearing it with her first. The next second she's someone else entirely, her posture shifting lower, her face settling into an expression that reads as exhaustion mixed with determination.
She picks up a wrench from the workbench and turns it over in her hands, testing the weight, and when she speaks her voice has dropped half an octave.
"You think I don't know what I'm doing?" She's talking to an actor playing her boss, a man in his sixties who's standing just outside the frame.
"I've been turning wrenches since I was twelve years old.
My dad taught me before he—" She stops, and the pause stretches long enough that I feel it in my chest. Then she sets the wrench down with a control that suggests she's holding back something violent. "I know what I'm doing."
"Cut." The director walks onto the set, nodding. "That was good, Millie. Really good. Let's try one more where you hold the wrench through the whole speech. I want to see what happens if you don't put it down."
Millie nods, resets, and they run it again.
This time she keeps the wrench in her hand, gripping it tighter as she speaks until her knuckles are taut against the dark skin of her fingers.
The anger is sharper now, more focused, and when she finishes the line she throws the wrench into the toolbox with enough force that it clatters against the metal sides and makes everyone on set flinch.
"Cut. Perfect. Moving on."
They break for lighting adjustments and Millie steps out of frame, her shoulders dropping as she transitions back into herself. Someone hands her a bottle of water and she drinks half of it in one go, then sits back down in her chair and pulls out her phone.
I stay where I am because walking over feels like crossing a line I haven't been invited to cross yet.
But I can't stop watching her. The way she scrolls through her phone with one hand while the other taps a rhythm against her thigh, the way she glances up every few seconds to track what's happening on set even though she's technically on break.
She's monitoring everything, and I realize she probably knows more about what's happening in this room than half the crew.
A man in his twenties approaches her chair, script in hand, and they talk for a minute in low voices.
Millie gestures toward the set, makes a point about something with her hands, and the guy nods and writes it down.
She's not just acting in this film, she's shaping it, and nobody seems surprised by that.
The next setup takes forty minutes. They're rigging a dolly track for a moving shot that will follow Millie as she walks from the garage into an adjacent office space, and while they work she sits in her chair eating Doritos from a family-size bag and texting someone who's making her smile at her phone in a way I've never seen her smile in public.
I pull out my own phone and scroll through emails I've already read twice.
A portfolio company in Austin needs a second round of funding, another one in Boston just closed a deal that will triple their valuation, and my lawyer sent over documents for a real estate project in Brooklyn that I need to review before the end of the week.
I've been managing my company from my phone for a month now, cramming calls into the spaces between fake dates and public appearances, and it's starting to show in the response times.
When I look up again, Millie is watching me.
She doesn't look away when I meet her eyes, just raises an eyebrow in a silent question that I can't quite interpret. I shove my phone back in my pocket and she goes back to her Doritos.
They call her back to set and she hands the chip bag to a PA who looks thrilled to be trusted with it.
This time the scene is longer, a full two-page conversation between Millie and another actress playing her coworker.
They run it three times, adjusting blocking and timing, and each take Millie brings something slightly different.
The first one is guarded, the second one is softer, and the third one lands somewhere in between with an undercurrent of humor that wasn't in the script.
The director loves the third take. "That's the one. Print it."
Millie nods, steps out of frame, and this time when she sits down she looks tired in a way that feels real instead of performed. Someone offers her a protein bar and she waves them off, leaning back in the chair and closing her eyes.
I watch her breathe. In through her nose, out through her mouth, slow and controlled like she's resetting her entire nervous system between takes. Her hands rest loose in her lap and there's a small smudge of grease on her left forearm that must be from the wrench.
She opens her eyes and catches me staring again.
This time I don't look away.
She stands, walks over to where I'm standing near the craft services table, and grabs a bottle of water from the cooler without saying anything. Then she leans against the table next to me and drinks half the bottle in silence.
"You've been here for three hours," she says finally.
"I have."
"And you haven't complained once."
"Should I be complaining?"
"Most people would." She caps the water bottle and sets it down. "It's boring if you're not the one working. Lots of standing around, lots of waiting. Jeremiah didn't tell you it would be like this?"
"He did. I didn't believe him."
She almost smiles. "So what do you think?"
"I think you're incredible."
The words tumble out before I've thought them through, and I watch her face shift, the guard coming back up so fast I almost miss the flicker of surprise underneath.
"I'm just doing my job."
"You're doing more than that."
She studies me for a long moment. Then she picks up her water bottle and takes another sip.
"Most people don't notice that."
"I'm not most people."
"No," she breathes out. "I guess you're not."
They call her back for the next setup and she goes without another word, leaving me standing by the craft services table with the distinct feeling that I just passed some kind of test I didn't know I was taking.
The rest of the shoot runs another two hours.
I watch her work through five more scenes, each one requiring a different emotional register, and she nails every single one.
Between takes she's completely herself, scrolling her phone and eating chips and laughing at something one of the crew members says, and then the second they call action she becomes someone else entirely.
It's the most impressive thing I've ever seen.
When they finally wrap for the day, Millie thanks the director and the DP and at least four other people by name before heading back to her chair. Someone brings her a jacket and she shrugs into it, slinging her bag over her shoulder.
I'm still standing in the same spot, which probably makes me look pathetic, but I'm not sure where else to go. She walks over and stops in front of me.
"You're still here."
"You told me not to leave without clearing it with you first."
"I did, didn't I." She adjusts the strap of her bag. "Come on. I'll buy you a coffee."
We end up at a diner two blocks from the studio, a cute place with vinyl booths and laminated menus and a waitress who's been working here long enough to call everyone "hon" without irony.
Millie orders coffee and a slice of pie, apple with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, and I order the same because it feels easier than trying to make an independent decision right now.
She eats half the pie before she says anything.
"So. What did you actually think?"
"I told you. You were incredible."
"Yeah, but you said that on set where people could hear you. Now it's just us." She points her fork at me. "Tell me the truth."
I lean back in the booth and consider how to say this without sounding like I'm performing admiration because I know that's what she's expecting.
"I think you're the most disciplined person I've ever met.
And I think the version of you that people see in interviews and on red carpets is real, but it's only about twenty percent of who you actually are.
The rest of it is what I saw today. You're a professional in a way that most people never figure out how to be. "
She blinks slowly. "That… might be the nicest thing anyone's said to me in years."
"I'm not trying to be nice, I'm trying to be accurate."
"Well, it's both." She picks up her coffee, wraps both hands around the mug even though it's not cold in here.
"Most people think acting is just about emotion.
Like if you feel it hard enough, that's all that matters.
But it's not. It's about control. It's about knowing exactly how much to give and when to hold back.
It's technical and it's exhausting and most days I'm not sure anyone actually sees that part. "
"I saw it."
She nods slowly, still holding the mug. We finish our pie in silence and the waitress brings the check. I pay before Millie can argue, and we walk back out into the late afternoon light that's turning everything gold and hazy.
"You want a ride?" I ask.
"I'm taking the subway."
"I know. I'm asking if you want a ride anyway."
She considers this, then shakes her head. "No. But thanks."
"Okay."
She starts walking toward the subway entrance, then stops and turns back. "Duncan?"
"Yeah?"
"Today was good. You showing up, not being in the way, actually paying attention. That was really good."
"I'm glad."
She nods once, then disappears down the subway stairs, and I'm left standing on the sidewalk in Queens with the smell of coffee still on my clothes and the image of her throwing that wrench into the toolbox burned into my memory.
I pull out my phone and text Jeremiah. "She let me stay for the whole shoot. That's progress, right?"
His response comes thirty seconds later. "That's something. Don't screw it up."
I pocket my phone and start walking toward the car I called ten minutes ago, replaying the last six hours in my head.
The way Millie looked in that director's chair with Doritos crumbs on her fingers and her guard completely down.
How she reset between takes like she was rebooting her entire operating system, as well as the way she smiled at her phone when she thought no one was watching.
That version of her, the one that isn't performing for cameras or managing her public image or strategizing her Oscar campaign, that's the version I want to know.
And I think, maybe, she's starting to let me.