Page 25 of Bad Reputation

“Cole? You ready?” It was Tasha, trying to reclaim her best friend.

Which was fine. It was where his attention ought to be. Maggie wasn’t miffed at all. Nope.

“I’m fine.” Maggie considered adding some white lie, likeMust have been bad fish pie, but she didn’t want to lie to him. Not even about something trivial.

“Good.” Then he returned to Tasha.

They left the room with the rest of the cast trailing behind, as if the actors were a royal court taking the lead of their king and queen.

The doors closed behind them while Zoya jotted notes on her tablet. When she finished, she paused, read over what she’d written, and gave a satisfied nod. Her eyes popped up and skimmed over the room, her expression bright and lively. “What’d you think?”

The crew began talking at once.

“That last action sequence is going to be a bear—”

“They’re still not ready for the sword choreography—”

“I have concerns about the location shooting—”

“We really have to start thinking about music—”

“Okay.” Zoya projected her voice over the din. “Let’s start with David, and then we’ll go to Kevin.”

David Keith, a Black British man who was always impeccably put together, was the director of photography and would be shooting the show. “I only have a few notes. Shirley tells me that the production is still waffling on two locations for exterior shots. The National Trust is being difficult about Gladstone’s Land, so Tom is scouting a backup plan. Alas, it’s in Glasgow, so it’d completely cock up the schedule.”

“Fuck, I don’t like to hear that. Let me send you the most up-to-date version. I wanted to have things finalized by the end of next week.”

“I don’t think that’s possible.”

“Understood.”

They were going to spread the nine table reads out over the weeks of rehearsal before they moved to Scotland. Zoya was planning to direct the first, fourth, and ninth episodes, but the directors for the rest were listening from the edges. This really was like shooting several movies at the same time.

Zoya chatted with the directors, with Alexa about wardrobe, then with Ryan for stunts.

“And Maggie, how are things coming on your end?”

“Well,” Maggie said carefully, “we’re not as far with the choreography as we’d like, but since that’s a much larger conversation, I don’t want to bog down this check-in.”

“I have time now. We good, everyone else?” Zoya asked. The room muttered assent. “Great. I’ll see you all back here Wednesday for the episode-two read-through.”

As the crew left, Zoya patted the spot next to her at the table. Maggie moved over and arranged her drawings between her two copies of the script.

“What’s going on?” Zoya asked.

“Tasha Russell is being . . .”

“Tasha?”

“Yeah. She’s made it clear she thinks this is unnecessary, even as she’s also ... look, I’m reading between the lines here, but I think she’s got some issues with nudity. Can I ask if anything came up during negotiations?”

Zoya shot a look at Esme to confirm before saying “No. We went into the nudity waiver discussion with her agent thinking there would be some pushback, but basically, she was really committed to the part. She signed the show’s standard rider.”

“It’s just that she hasn’t done nudity sinceCosa Nostra. That’s a long time for an actress not to take her clothes off on screen, especially someone who takes the kinds of parts she does.”

Quite frankly, most action movies were pretty male-gaze-y. For Tasha to have maintained such a vise-tight grip on her image was impressive.

“Hmm.” Zoya wasn’t agreeing or disagreeing. Just digesting.

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