Philadelphia
Glenn Mackey had a stock response whenever somebody asked him his opinion: “Interesting,” followed by a long, thoughtful pause.
If Glenn timed it right, the other person would interrupt with their own thoughts, which they were all too happy to share anyway.
Once you got someone going, talking about things they wanted to talk about, it was easy to parrot and cajole them into an extended conversation which made the other person believe you were, in fact, a deep thinker and serious person.
It worked for conversations about television.
“Have you seen Pierogi Empire? It got nominated for a bunch of Emmys.”
“It was very interesting.”
“Yeah, I mean, it’s not groundbreaking but I thought it had a unique structure, how it wraps the narrative around a bunch of different characters’ point of views. I always enjoy shows that try to push me a little.”
It worked for conversations about sports.
“Watch the game last night?”
“Wasn’t that interesting?”
“Not sure why you’d kick a field goal at the end instead of trying to throw at least one more time.
Run it out of bounds or spike it if you have to.
I know they were out of time-outs, but you gotta go for it, you know?
Today’s athletes. It’s like they don’t even want to win. They just want to get paid.”
It definitely worked for conversations about politics.
“This new caucus is calling themselves the ‘Restorers,’ and I’m worried there’ll be more of them elected after the midterms.”
“It’s interesting, for sure.”
“Scary, but yeah. They effectively created their own political party. And the president is totally in line with their agenda. Every time I think we’ve hit a new bottom as a country—”
Glenn learned a lot about his interlocutors this way, which made future conversations easier.
He knew what people cared about and what they thought was important.
He knew who read the news and who only read headlines.
He knew who wanted to be flattered and who was genuinely curious about what Glenn thought.
This latter group was the most difficult to deal with, since it became clearer to Glenn with each passing year of his life that he had almost nothing of interest to say or contribute in any situation on any topic.
Glenn knew things, of course. He liked to watch plays and movies.
He kept abreast of current events and trends in show business and was generally thoughtful in remembering acquaintances’ birthdays and children’s names.
But when he was alone and had the time and the space to search his own mind for a unique or original thought, some new piece of fascinating information or witty observation, he had nothing.
His mind was blank, empty, open, waiting to be filled by the rest of the world but incapable of producing anything on its own.
“So did you get a chance to watch the movie?” Jules asked. “What did you think of it?”
“It was interesting,” Glenn said. He was still vibrating from the show. Why did Jules want to talk about himself now?
The director and half the cast were singing karaoke up at the bar, a Bowie song none of them knew the words to.
This was the extent of the cast party—bad singing and cheap drinks at a dirty bar that didn’t card college kids.
One of the actors carried a round of shots to Glenn’s table, but Glenn was still nursing his beer and Jules wasn’t in the mood.
“I can’t drink them all!” the actor protested.
“Give one to Becky,” Glenn said. Becky was already drunk. She shot back two vodkas and then gave Glenn a hug.
“You were spectacular, just spectacular!” she told him. “You should have been Prospero for our whole run!”
“Don’t tell Connor!” Glenn laughed, but she was right. He was great tonight, and he knew it.
“You played Miranda?” Jules asked her. “You were good, too.”
Becky poked Jules in the chest. “Are you Glenn’s famous Hollywood friend?”
“Famous? Oh, I don’t think so.” Jules tried not to smile but did anyway. Glenn hated that. “I’m a writer. I’m the showrunner for the Malicarn Expanded Universe.”
“Ooo, showrunner,” Becky said. “I’m a runner at a Greek restaurant. Bad tips.”
The Bowie song ended and suddenly word got around about Glenn’s friend. Everyone surrounded Jules, giving impromptu auditions, claiming they could swordfight or ride a horse.
“I don’t mind wearing heavy costumes all day long!” “I have directorial experience in film, too. Well, commercials.” “My background is improv, you need that right?” “I can do accents.”
Someone brought Jules another beer. Glenn wondered how often Jules paid for his own drinks these days.
“What’s it like to work on a franchise that big?” someone asked.
“The work’s hard, no doubt about it,” Jules said. “Long days, especially on set. But this new phase is going to be really good. Lots of innovative storytelling, blurring the line between fiction and reality, some new directions, smart head-scratchers for cliffhangers on the TV shows.”
“Cliff-hangers? Doesn’t the streamer release seasons all at once?”
“Yeah, they do. But you still got to keep people watching. There’s actually a story guy who comes in and works on episode endings.
That’s his whole job. The last sixty seconds of an episode.
He’s got it down to a science, how to make sure you end it right so that the audience keeps watching.
He’s terrific. Went to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. ”
“Hasn’t the whole steam gone out of that franchise?” Becky asked. “Feels like after you exhausted the source material it’s been on fumes. Everything is a prequel now.”
“Oh, no!” Jules said, animated but not offended.
“I think we’re just hitting a new stride.
Our new mission goes beyond story. It’s all about story worlds now.
Building them, growing them. Stories end, but story worlds never do.
Yeah, we’re focused on the prequel space but we have so much we can fill in. ”
Glenn remembered in college that Jules had considered working in tech, until he failed his first computer science class.
“When you go back to the original movies or books,” Jules went on, “they are richer experiences now. Have you watched the latest film? The Rage of the Red Mage?”
“I heard it wasn’t very good,” Becky said. “I don’t like titles that rhyme.”
“You should see it!” Jules said. “The scanned characters are great! I think they’re better than the original actors.”
“You’re not endearing yourself to us,” said Becky. “We don’t want to be replaced by brainwashed automatons.”
“Speak for yourself, Becky!” Multiple cast members, a few quite drunk, shouted this and similar interjections at Jules’s general direction. “I’d kill for a job like that!”
“A lot of people like our new approach,” Jules said. “The films are more popular than ever.”
“Box office and popularity aren’t really the same thing.”
“Memory scanning is the future. It’s not about the story, it’s about the world.”
“But it’s not art,” said Becky.
“No, it’s life!”
As if on cue, on the bar TV a commercial played for the new Malicarn film.
There was a medieval-looking landscape, a lush orchestral score, and a scene of the hero, a knight named Prion, leaping above a stone wall and crashing into a swarm of villainous trolls.
Prion looked just as he always had in the previous movies—sturdy and wry, fighting evil while throwing out quips and one-liners.
But the Prion in the trailer was not Marvin Powell, the actor who played him for decades.
Not exactly. The news had been all over the trades and film blogs and social media feeds for months.
Prion and Powell still shared the same body, but Powell’s memories and personality had been temporarily altered by a neurological simulation of the actual Prion character, scanned into Powell’s brain like a file onto a computer.
Powell, despite not looking it, was turning fifty and didn’t really enjoy the work of filming medieval fantasy epics anymore.
But he still wanted to get paid, and the audiences still wanted to watch Prion. Now they could.
“It’s fun to write for these characters,” Jules said. “They take every line and note totally seriously. The perfect actor.”
“That’s because they don’t even know that they are actors,” Becky said. She ordered another beer.
“They’re actors all right. They have a role to learn.
But the role is the only thing they learn.
They aren’t pretending to be a character.
Imagine if Daniel Day-Lewis could inhabit a character by taking on their actual memories, and totally forgetting his own.
If he inhabited someone for that long, fully inhabited with absolutely no knowledge of any other life, how extraordinary would that performance be? Total. Method.”
Glenn was about to object that Jules didn’t have any idea what the Method was, but Jules continued talking.
“The Method’s all about bringing your inner emotions into the character,” Jules said.
“But if you are the character, you don’t have to work to bring those out.
And look, it’s this or AI actors, existing only in a computer, we all know it.
But AI can’t be original. By its nature it just repackages what came before.
These are real people, making real, original choices.
The truest kind of storytelling imaginable. ”
“Didn’t the military use brain scanning to train supersoldiers or something?” asked Becky.
“Yes, the Pentagon developed the tech first,” Jules said.
“But it didn’t save the Defense Department money.
Doesn’t really change one’s physical abilities, or skill in shooting at a target.
A problem for soldiers, but not for us. Plus the military ended up with all sorts of legal problems and lawsuits.
So we bought the tech. Short-term it’s expensive, but we realized this is valuable IP.
Why shouldn’t we use cutting-edge tech for art? ”