Page 20 of Marisol Acts the Part
Even with my name, he still doesn’t seem to be able to place me. His expression doesn’t soften, no shine of recognition in his piercing blue eyes.
“Polly-Rodriguez?” I add, hoping that’ll bridge the gap. But no dice. Just an empty thousand-yard stare.
Well, he’ll definitely know who I am in the next hour.
Before my brain can go down a panic spiral of wondering if he never meant to cast me in the first place and whether this was all either a massive mistake or a horrendous prankmy team is pulling on me, I flip open the box in my hand and hold it out toward him.
“I brought cupcakes!” I say as brightly as I can even though I’m definitely starting to panic. I can’t let him see the holes in my armor this soon into the game. “For the first day of production.”
The cupcakes do the trick. Rune finally stops staring at me and focuses his attention on the box instead. The stern line of his mouth twitches slightly—into a smile, I hope. But of course, it’s a frown.
“Are any of these gluten-free?” he asks, his voice hoarse like he’s getting over a cold.
“Oh.” My heart drops into the pit of my stomach. “N-no. I’m so sorry.”
I’ve spent the past ten years living in Los Angeles—how the hell did I forget to make sure I had gluten-free, vegan,andketo options?
“But I can—” I’m not even sure what I’m offering when Rune holds a hand up and cuts me off before I can finish.
“You can take your seat,” he says, the timbre of his voice so low I’m not sure if he means it as a threatening command or a gentle suggestion.
Either way, I follow orders.
Confidence shaken, I rush back to my seat at the table, setting my box down and trying to control the heat in my cheeks.
Other members of the cast slowly begin to trickle into the room. My grasp of this season’s plot is limited—pun intended—at best. Rune’s overzealousness when it comes to leaks applies to the script too. Last week, Delia sent me a heavily redactedscript for the first episode of the season, edited down to include only the scenes I’m in.
Confusion about the plot of the show aside, I was pleasantly surprised by the size of my role. Delia said it was a substantial guest star role, but based on the number of pages I have, I’m in at least 75percent of the first episode, with a guarantee that I’ll be in six of the total eight episodes of the season.
No surprise, Miles’s character, Will, takes up the biggest chunk of the pages I’m able to read. A troubled, but privileged, teen boy who battles the allure of drugs and alcohol when he has to grapple with the loss of both his dad and his younger brother in a car crash he may or may not have caused.
Definitely a far cry fromAvalon Grove.
My character, Zoe, is a step out of my own comfort zone. Once again, I’m tied to Miles but in a very different way than Joe and Celia were. While Celia was the shy wallflower with a passion for gardening, Zoe is an oil heiress with a platinum credit card and a grudge against anyone who’s ever gotten in her way. Which now includes Will, ever since he dumped her days after his dad and brother’s funeral. Did Rune know about us, or is the breakup parallel a coincidence? In any case, from what I can tell, Zoe is mean, ruthless, and an absolute bombshell.
Our scenes together are charged, fraught with a spark that’s either hatred or unresolved sexual tension. I’ve gone from the sweetheart, the girl who gets the happy ending, to the girl everyone is supposed to hate. Part of me is intimidated by the thought of playing someone so outside of my usual range—and what it’ll mean to play someone designed for people tohate. But a bigger part of me is pumped. What better way to break out of my lovestruck-teen typecast than by playing someone who sounds like she’d happily run a boy over with her Prius if he so much as breathed in her direction?
While everyone else trickles in, I sneak a few peeks at the rest of the cast. From what I can see, we’re the youngest members of the cast. The men huddled at the end of the table, laughing and slapping each other on the shoulders as they flip through their scripts, have faces I vaguely recognize but can’t quite place. Opposite the men are several women reading quietly to themselves, wearing crisp button-downs and pencil skirts or slacks that wouldn’t be out of place in an office.
Beside the group of women is a surprisingly familiar face.
Dawn Greene is one of the few young actresses of my generation who didn’t get her start on a show likeAvalon Grove.Though, fun fact, I did see her in the waiting room of one of my final callbacks. Of course, she wasn’ttheDawn Greene at the time, but I knew she looked familiar when I saw her plastered on posters across Hollywood Boulevard a few months later. I’ve always wondered if we were going out for the same part, since there wasn’t anyone else in the waiting roomthat day. If she was, I wish I could’ve added that to my acting résumé—potentially beat out Dawn Greene for her first major part.That’s got to count for something.
Dawn’s career started off with a bang—playing daughter to the lead in a prestige drama series calledColdhearted,about an average man turned serial killer that lasted six seasons. While her role didn’t earn her any major awards, she did win the country’s heart—becoming Hollywood’s sweetheart with her gold ringlet curls, rosy cheeks, and bright ocean-blue eyes.Things didn’t slow down for Dawn after that show wrapped, either. She’s had a handful of lead roles since then in smaller budget, but still highbrow, coming-of-age films, and a few horror films that were duds script-wise but huge smashes at the box office. The last show she did—about a girl who starts a burglary ring at her college—was canceled after a single season but earned her plenty of praise, along with several award nominations. Her loss at the Emmys last year sparked a sizable outcry online.
In short, she’s exactly the type of person I should befriend on my journey to evolve my career.
I lean over toward Dawn, her white-blond hair held back in a sleek bun with a few well-placed curls framing her face. She doesn’t look up from her phone until I clear my throat, jumping as if I startled her.
“I’m Marisol, nice to meet you!” I say, careful to avoid letting my voice gettoohigh-pitched, the way it always does when I’m nervous or excited—and today I happen to be both.
Dawn gives me a tight smile. “Pleasure,” she replies, her posh British accent clipped and to the point, so different from the American one she often has on-screen.
I consider offering my hand to shake, or telling her I’m a big fan even though, honestly, I fell asleep during the pilot of her last series, but I decide against it. The last thing I want is to seem like an overeager fangirl. Or risk her asking me what I liked about the show.
Her brows furrow suddenly, scrutinizing my face so intensely it makes my cheeks hot. “Aren’t you an influencer?”
“O-oh, no,” I say quickly, though Ihavedone my fairshare of brand deals. Who am I to turn down getting paid in exchange for trying new skincare and makeup, which I was probably going to do anyway? “I was onAvalon Grove.And a couple of smaller-budget movies,” I explain, resisting the urge to list the rest of my filmography. BesidesAvalon,not much from my résumé is a standout.
