Page 33 of Method Acting

“It’s a style of acting,” I explained, “where the actor stays in character. Not just when the camera rolls but always. At home, twenty-four seven. You become the character.”

“Marlon Brando was famous for it, right?” Jimmy asked.

I nodded. “It can be intense.”

“Like an undercover cop,” Tater added. “Like if he infiltrates a gang, he has to be that character all the time.”

God bless him. I adored the guy. He really wasn’t the brightest, but that was actually a pretty good comparison. “Right.”

“And?” Jimmy asked.

“And this is like a 90210 reality TV twist. They’re gonna film us in our everyday lives.”

“As another character?”

I shrugged. “Yes, but each character is very similar to our own person, so we can play the part for the whole project.”

Tater blinked. “For how long?”

“We have another week or so of preproduction and then filming for two weeks. Which doesn’t sound long, but it’s twenty-four seven for two weeks.”

“Wow,” Tater said.

I nodded and sighed again. “And my character has a boyfriend.” I winced. “A long-term boyfriend. Been together a year.”

Jimmy’s smile was slow spreading. “Lemme guess. The generic guy.”

I really hate that word.

“His name is Amos. And he’s not generic. He thinks I’m generic. Well, he did. I don’t know. He told me he doesn’t think of me as generic anymore.” Which made me so stupidly happy. “He does like me. I know he does.”

Jimmy smiled at me. “So he’s finally on the same page. Thank god, because I was beginning to think you were going to pine forever.”

“I’m not pining. And it’s not... it’s not like romance or anything. He doesn’t like me like that.”

“But you like him like that.”

I scoffed because that was ridiculous. “Look, this project is a pretty big deal. I’m gonna have to spend time with him, and he’ll be spending time with me, here and around you guys. I need you to not make it weird.” I ran my hand over my face. “And there’ll be cameras around, so you might not wanna walk around naked...” Then I shrugged. “Or do. I don’t care. The editing team is gonna need to learn how to pixelate and blur, so whatever. Although it’s being live streamed, so I don’t know...”

Tate looked around the house. “There’s gonna be film crews? Here?”

Jimmy blinked. “Live streamed?”

I nodded. “Yep. Though I think they wanna try and keep it at Amos’s room, mostly. Less distraction for you guys, and he’s in the dorms and so are three of the others, so it’ll be like Melrose Place or some shit. God, I don’t even know. There’s minimal outline, minimal script. They just gave us some quick character profiles and some plot lines to make it interesting.”

Tater blinked. “What’s Melrose Place?”

I resisted sighing.

“And your character and Amos’s character are banging?” Jimmy asked. “So you gotta act all lovey-dovey with him all the time, day and night?”

“As long as there’s cameras around, I guess. We just need to stay in character. It’s about method acting. Capturing the psyche of our characters, their mental headspace.”

“And bed space.”

I rolled my eyes and sighed, then I groaned. “Pretty sure it won’t go that far.”

“But you gotta act like you’ve been together a year. Pretty sure couples who’ve been together for a year are fucking on the regular,” Jimmy said.

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