Chapter 2
Then
Ten Years Earlier
“Come on baby, you’ve got this,” I cooed lovingly—and while I may have been talking to my ancient, barely running Honda Civic that just started making its all-too-familiar “I’m about to crap out” noise, this pep talk could just as easily be aimed at myself.
I was on my way to audition for the lead female role in The Lost Letter, a World War II–era romantic weepie that, frankly, I had no real business even being in contention for.
Word on the street—and by the street, I meant my shrewd, well-connected agent, Joanne—was that the director had screen-tested just about every buzzy young actress under the California sun but had yet to find the one who shared the right chemistry with Ryder Perry, the film’s already-cast leading man.
In their desperation, the casting directors decided to open up the field to unknowns, and unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on how you looked at it—I was about as unknown as it got (though Joanne preferred the word undiscovered).
They were scraping the bottom of the barrel, and I was at the bottom of the Hollywood food chain.
Bottom line: This could be my lucky break, and I did not intend to blow it.
Unfortunately, no amount of résumé padding could mask the fact that my on-camera credits had been a little more modest than I’d hoped since moving to LA a couple of years ago.
Sure, I’d landed a handful of small but memorable guest-starring roles—“patient of the week with rare mystery illness” on a long-running medical drama, “sassy barista” in a raunchy buddy comedy, a turn as “Blonde #3” in a campy sorority flick among the most notable—but nothing that had propelled me into name recognition territory as of yet.
And while I lived in fear of the day Joanne decided her investment in my career would never pay off and dropped me from her roster of Hollywood hopefuls, so far her optimism had remained unflagging.
“The role of a lifetime is only one audition away!” was among her favorite refrains, and who was I to argue?
According to her, I was poised for a breakout role—and I sure hoped she was right, because I was desperate to break out of the shabby, shoebox-sized studio apartment I was barely able to scrape together enough tips from my waitressing job to afford.
It only takes one, I reminded myself now. Why not you?
The casting director’s office was located in a flat, gray, nondescript building in one of the countless strip malls scattering Studio City.
Once I swung my car into a parking space and killed the engine, I took a moment to settle myself, letting the stress of LA traffic fade away as I slipped into the calm, clear headspace needed to nail this audition.
I smoothed my dress, a retro number with an ambiguous timestamp (“Late thirties or early forties,” the shopgirl had speculated, as good a guess as any) that I snagged on the cheap from a vintage store on Melrose.
I absolutely could not justify the expense—at this point, even ramen would be an extravagance—but I dubiously rationalized it as an investment for future auditions.
I flipped down my visor mirror to confirm the pins holding my hair in its old-fashioned style hadn’t budged, then wished for the millionth time that Kendall was here to work her magic.
She would’ve had me looking like the reincarnation of Ingrid Bergman with one hand tied behind her back.
Alas, she was at home in Indiana in her first year of cosmetology school, so my subpar attempt at historically accurate makeup would have to do.
While I didn’t typically resort to cosplaying for auditions this way, I was willing to pull out every stop if it helped the casting director envision me in this role.
As an actress, I’d gotten used to the way I was evaluated by the powers that be: harshly and quickly, often before I’d had the chance to open my mouth.
Knowing I may only have a few seconds to make an unforgettable first impression, I’d do just about anything to stack the deck in my favor (within reason—no casting couches for me, thankyouverymuch).
I’d long since made my peace with the inhumanity of it all: the callous physical appraisals, the snap judgments, the unsparing critical feedback, the brutal and constant rejection.
I’d had to get comfortable with being viewed as a commodity, a product to be packaged and sold—because to casting directors and studio heads, that’s exactly what I was.
I knew my assets, and I used them to my fullest advantage.
I was five foot five—not so tall that I towered over height-challenged leading men, but not so short that I had to stand on milk crates in every scene.
I was lithe and in shape, with an hourglass figure that made clothing come alive on screen.
My thick, wavy strawberry-blond hair could be tamed into a sleek blowout or coaxed into bigger, bouncier curls.
Olive skin, straight white teeth, and clear blue eyes the color of tropical water rounded out the picture, with a wide smile and dimples I knew just how and when to pop.
Of course, looks only took you so far in this industry.
Pretty faces were a dime a dozen; you couldn’t take two steps in this town without tripping over a woman who’d outshine you, who’d make you feel plain and lackluster in comparison.
No, to make it in Hollywood, you needed to have a magical combination of talent, persistence, and luck, in addition to that elusive X factor, that hard-to-put-your-finger-on secret ingredient that made you stand out from the crowd.
A producer once told me my greatest asset was my versatility, that I could believably shape-shift from “girl next door” to “femme fatale” or even “villain” with the right costume change.
It was a compliment any of my peers would kill to hear—no actor wanted to be typecast, doomed to play the same roles over and over again—though this alleged “advantage” hadn’t exactly translated into silver screen success.
Yet, I told myself firmly. It only takes one.
I drew upon that optimism now, donning a friendly but confident smile as I made my way into the building.
“Here for the screen test?” a young guy manning reception asked as I walked up, and when I nodded yes, he tapped a few keys on his laptop. “Name and agent?”
Once I was checked in, he directed me to a row of chairs against the wall and told me they’d call me when they were ready.
I took a seat, sending polite, guarded smiles to the handful of other women waiting their turns, noting a few familiar faces.
While it was never fun to be confronted with your competition, I’d done this enough times that it no longer got under my skin the way it once did.
If there was one thing I’d learned from the audition circuit, it was that comparing yourself to others was a waste of energy.
I’d either be what they were looking for or I wouldn’t, and my performance was the only element of this whole crazy world I had any control over.
I rubbed at the gooseflesh on my forearms, unsure if it was due to the subarctic temperature in this waiting room or the nervous jitters I was feeling.
To distract myself, I pulled out the script sides to look over my lines for the hundredth time, though it was hardly necessary at this point; I could recite the scene with my eyes closed.
I always came prepared to auditions—it’s the type A overachiever in me—but committing these lines to memory was effortless in a way I’d rarely experienced before.
I felt these words in my bones. They were imprinted as deeply on my heart as my brain.
In fact, I’d been so riveted by the audition pages Joanne sent over that I beelined to a bookstore to get my hands on a copy of the novel The Lost Letter was based on.
I tore through it, reading late into the night despite an already-late shift serving drinks to rich, handsy men at the high-end hotel steakhouse where I waited tables, my heart pounding the deeper I got into the story, unable to fall asleep until I learned the fate of the star-crossed lovers.
I knew better than to get attached to a part before I’d landed it, and I typically trusted that things would work out the way they were supposed to, but I instinctively knew that if I didn’t win this role, I’d harbor an irrational hatred of my replacement for the rest of my days.
Stop getting your hopes up. You’re a nobody.
I winced, doing my best to banish the intrusive thoughts—and not just those, but all the others that swirled around in my head these days in an endless, dizzying loop.
About the minuscule sum left in my bank account, and how I’d pay rent if my restaurant manager grew tired of me missing shifts for auditions and fired me.
About my fear that I’d have to call my parents and ask for money when I knew they didn’t have much extra to begin with.
About how seedy and intimidating LA could feel to someone who came from a town with three stoplights.
About how long I could give myself to make it in this business before throwing in the towel and heading back to that same small town, tail between my legs, disappointing everyone who believed in me.
Thankfully, I got called back before I could fall too much further down the ruminations rabbit hole. Another assistant led me down a short hallway and through an unmarked door, where a mustached man with dark brown hair and glasses, slim and youngish, maybe early forties, rose to greet me.
He had a relaxed, genial smile, and upbeat energy that was infectious. “Hi, I’m Nathan Chamberlain, director of The Lost Letter, but you can call me Nate. It’s nice to meet you…?”
“Scarlett,” I told him, shaking his outstretched hand. “Nice to meet you, too.”