Chapter 8
Some people behind us clapped during the credits.
The lights came up a little, and I was having a hard time stopping crying.
Tyrell from Marketing walked up to me with Katie the Publicist. He asked if I was all right.
I nodded and smiled. I didn’t want to seem like the kind of person who cries at their own movie, but I couldn’t recover from it.
“I don’t know why I’m crying,” I said. “I mean, I knew what was going to happen.” Tyrell laughed, and then said, “You must have given a lot of yourself to that performance.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, thanks. Juniper’s great in it, isn’t she?”
“For sure, but you’re a revelation. Congratulations, Kai.”
Kathryn emerged from somewhere behind me, grabbed me around the waist, and said, “What’d ya think?”
“I think it’s good?” I said. “The end really got me.”
“It’s that Lou Reed song,” Kathryn said.
_____
Everyone walked out of the theater together. The light outside was squintingly bright. Lon and Natalie were sitting in a golf cart right outside the screening room. Natalie jumped up, hugged Kathryn, and then asked Juniper, “Well?”
“It’s very good,” Juniper said. “I have some notes for Kathryn.”
“Oh, Junie, wonderful. Of course they’ll be brilliant,” Kathryn said, and then Matthew walked up and she said, “But I’ve got to get back to the edit suite, so please share notes with Nat and Lon, okay?” She turned her back to us and hugged Matthew. “What’d you think?” she asked him.
“Even better on the third viewing.” Matthew smiled.
“Let’s get some dinner,” Natalie said to us, “and dig into your notes.”
“Nothing’s locked,” Lon added as he got out of the golf cart. “Absolutely want to hear your notes. Did they tell you about the test scores?”
I reached into my pocket for my phone and saw that I had a text from Agent Bob. CALL ME. Ellen grabbed me and turned me toward Caitlyn, the editor of the movie, who asked me what I thought.
“I think I liked it? I’ve never really—” Ellen tugged on my arm and said, “One moment,” then pulled me aside and muttered, “You don’t think anything.”
“I am quite certain I liked it,” I said to Caitlyn, who laughed.
“How did it feel, watching yourself?”
I paused. “Exposed,” I said.
“I can imagine,” Caitlyn said. “Most young actors mimic. They don’t express fear or the terror of helplessness; they perform them.
A kid’s scream in a horror movie almost always says more about what movies they’ve seen than what fears they’ve known.
But spending these three months with your performance…
When you screamed at Carly, I mean, even now I’m saying it like it was real. But in a way it was real, wasn’t it?”
Ellen said, “I’ve got to get Kai onto this golf cart for his producer meeting.”
I was ushered onto the back of the golf cart, which in the end fit only Lon, Natalie, Juniper, and me. I was sitting backward, so I watched Matthew and Kathryn and everyone else recede as we pulled away.
Lon said, “We’ve now got release dates in eighteen territories.
Eighteen. It’s about an American artist and we have eighteen international releases.
Last night—Nat says that dreams are just the brain’s version of waste expulsion, but last night I dreamt I was standing on the roof of my house and a B-52 bomber flew overhead and I thought I was in a war zone but then the bomb doors opened and money flew out from the sky and fluttered down all around me, from absolutely every country on earth—dollars and euros and reals and pesos and pounds.
I have seen our future, friends, and it is multinational. ”
“Juniper has some notes,” Natalie said.
“Right. Let’s talk ’em over at dinner. We want you both for the junket.
Obviously one in New York a week before the premiere as I’m sure you’ve discussed with your teams, but with so much international buzz we’re trying to capitalize.
Europe looks a maybe. Could be London, could be Paris.
Kai, do you have a favorite designer? Juniper, you have someone, yes? ”
“Dior. Kai, do you have any notes or is it just me?” Juniper asked.
“Wait, when is the premiere?” I asked.
“The premiere is Wednesday the second,” Juniper said.
“Of October?”
“Yes. Did you like the Lou Reed song at the end, or did it feel a bit on the nose?” she asked. We were getting off the golf cart now and into an SUV.
“I…liked it?” I ventured as I crawled into the way-back.
Juniper joined me. “Really.”
“I mean, I’m not a music supervisor,” I said.
“Indeed,” Juniper said. “Nor, for that matter, is Kathryn. Natalie, do you like the Lou Reed song at the end?”
“We already paid for it,” Natalie answered.
“But do you like it?”
“She likes it. We like it,” Lon said. “The song isn’t changing. Great song. Lou Reed wrote a song about Andy Warhol dying and we play the song over Andy Warhol dying. It’s pretty simple stuff.”
“But the song itself—”
“Has been purchased,” Natalie finished.
“Well,” said Juniper. “Yes, I see. Shall we begin discussing notes?”
“I feel like we already have,” Natalie answered.
Juniper pulled out her black leatherbound notebook.
“In the first scene between Andy and me, we’re on my coverage when he says, “I never fall apart because I never fall together,” and I look so amused and charmed by him and not at all like a real reporter, and I just think in the very first moment it undermines my seriousness as a journalist and so I wonder if at least for that line we could be on Andy’s coverage and see him saying that, and then go back to a less starry-eyed version of Carly when we cut back to her.
” She then continued to talk like that about almost every single shot in the film.
Juniper had noticed a hundred things that I hadn’t, thought about a thousand angles I hadn’t considered.
She viewed the movie the way athletes look at film of old games.
At the restaurant, I read the menu and watched as Juniper broke down every scene of the movie and how each could be improved.
While I’m sure that Lon and Natalie found that ninety minutes excruciating, I was just astounded.
How could someone notice so much? Care so much?
I can’t remember even one percent of what she said, but, like, at one point she questioned the color correction of a scene that takes place in my bedroom because it made the windows look dark, when as she understood it the room had been lit intentionally to emphasize that all the light was coming from outside, because the house itself had become what she called a “well of metaphorical darkness.”
They let her talk. Natalie took notes. I ate a quinoa bowl with grilled vegetables.
Juniper had some sort of salad and a lot of water.
And then as Lon placed a very sturdy-looking Amex card on top of the bill, he said, “Juniper. I adore you. You’re going to make a great director someday. But you are not directing this film.”
“I’m not trying to direct it; I’m trying to—”
“We will absolutely pass along a version of all this to Kathryn,” Lon said. “Absolutely. But listen, this movie is ninety-two percent top two boxes as is. Can it be better? Sure. Citizen Kane could be better. But ninety-two percent top two boxes? I’ve been doing this a long time.”
“He’s been doing this a very long time,” Natalie added.
“And this is only the second movie I’ve ever had that was over ninety percent top two boxes.”
“The other one was Moulin Rouge,” Natalie said.
“The studio shit the bed on the awards campaign, and it still won four Oscars.”
“Should’ve won Best Picture,” Natalie said. “They got screwed. But that’s the Academy.”
“I’m not going to tell Kathryn to recut the entire film when it’s ninety-two percent top two boxes.”
“At least the cemetery scene,” Juniper said. “And the—”
“Listen, get some rest. I know it’s hard to see yourself up on screen. I know this is a stressful process. It’s stressful for me too.”
“I’m not stressed,” Juniper said. “I want to make the movie bet—”
“And we want to make it better, too,” Lon said. “And your notes will make it better.”
“We will absolutely pass on a version of this to Kathryn,” Natalie said. “These are great notes. Very helpful.”
“But we also want to manage your expectations,” Lon said.
“The movie is basically locked,” Natalie said.
“And we all need to be advocates for it. It’s in everyone’s best interest to love the movie.”
“We’re all on the same team here,” Natalie added.
“Yeah,” Juniper said. “Yeah. Right. I get it.”