Chapter 10
It was
now week four of the filming of the movie. Everything was going as Tony planned
with him moving all of my belongings to his place. My old place was already
almost completely empty. Theresa wasn’t really devastated with the news of
me moving away from her, but as she said, “Ya gotta do what ya gotta do.
Go move in with your man!” So my normal life was doing all right.
Now
with my work, Marilyn and I have become good friends, and Kenneth and I had our
first movie kiss a day or two ago. Of course we both were professional about it,
but Marilyn seemingly wanted me to kiss and tell. (I told her “It was
fine,” but she wanted to believe otherwise). As for the others on the set,
we all get along great, and I have nothing against any of them, but
there’s one person that I wonder about. Whenever I’m around
Christina, the woman in charge of my clothing, I get this feeling that
she’s not very fond of me. Sometimes during the shooting I can feel her
watching me, and whenever Kenneth tells her to have my wardrobe ready for the
next scene, she’s never ready. And she rarely talks to anybody else on the
set. Not that it’s that big of a deal, but I’ve just been noticing
her a lot lately.
One
day she was taking my measurements for some new clothes and we had our first
altercation where it all began. She was down on her knees and on the floor
measuring my shoe size when she asked me if I was interested in Kenneth. I told
her that I was interested in working with him, and that was all.
“Really? Because
you two look really compatible,” she said as she got up from the ground.
“But that’s just what I think.”
“Oh, no. I already
have a boyfriend. Actually, I’m engaged to be married.”
“Oh that’s
great! But like I was saying, you and Kenneth have something
there.”
“Ah, well I never
would have thought.”
And I didn’t. I don’t think there were ever moments when I
questioned my relationship with Tony. Or maybe Kenneth and I just did some
excellent acting in our scenes together. I had no idea where Christina was
seeing all of this.
The next day after a long day of work, I was in the dressing room changing and
Christina was also in there waiting for me.
“What a day! Four
costume changes in one day. I think that’s a new record for us,” I
said as I was changing into my normal clothes.
“Yeah I would say
so too. I’d bet you were glad to change your clothes after getting all hot
and heavy with Kenneth,” she replied.
“What do you
mean?”
“You know what I
mean.”
I continued to change my clothes, confused and wondering what Christina was up
to. The next day, Marilyn and I went to lunch together and I told her about
Christina.
“That’s
really weird. She’s never said anything like that to me,” Marilyn
said and took a sip of her drink.
“Maybe she’s
jealous or something,” I suggested.
“Well if she was
jealous, I don’t think she’s be saying that you two look good
together.”
“Good point there.
I don’t know. I guess she’s just weird like
that.”
“Are you going to
tell Kenneth about this?”
“Probably not, but
if things get worse with her, then I might have to.”
Soon enough, the situation began to get worse. I don’t know if it was
Kenneth’s intentions for the movie, but I’ve noticed that my clothes
were one or two sizes smaller. I’d look at myself in the mirror and see
that my clothing was showing more of my figure than usual. I asked Christina if
my clothes were supposed to be so tight and she said it looks fine. Maybe to her
it did, but I got uncomfortable about it.
Later that week we began to work on a love scene between my character and
Kenneth’s. The scene takes place at his character’s house, where he
was helping me with homework, and we end up making out and frantically taking
off each other’s clothes. It was awkward at first because for one thing,
neither of us was in that kind of mood. The other was that it felt so real and
it was like both of us didn’t want to do it. Everybody watching told us
that we needed to get into it more. Then we had to explain that it was only the
first take, so it wasn’t supposed to be perfect. We rehearsed that scene
more and soon we both became a little more comfortable with each
other.
During a break, Kenneth and I were sitting on the bed.
“So how are you
doing with this scene?” he asked.
“I’m getting
used to it.”
“I know
you’re uncomfortable doing this scene with me because you’re with
Tony. I was uncomfortable at first too, but that’s how it
is.”
Strangely enough, I wasn’t even thinking about Tony. I kept wondering
about what Christina was going to comment on later today. I closed my eyes and
lay down on the bed.
“What’s
wrong, dear? You look concerned about something.”
“Oh, it’s
nothing.”
After the short break, we went back to the love scene. We finally had the
‘taking each other’s clothes off’ part done with. The next
thing we had to work on was the lovemaking part. Kenneth pulled me aside and
told me that I was supposed to be shirtless in this scene and I acted like I was
okay with it. But in my head I was freaking out. I know it was just acting, but
I know I’d be uncomfortable baring myself to an almost complete
stranger.
So I went on the bed and under the covers and took off my shirt from under
there. Kenneth joined me under the covers and lay on top of me. It was a good
thing that we still had our underwear on, otherwise it would be too real for me.
He helped me to get positioned correctly so that it looked believable on screen.
He told me where my arms and legs should be and what to do during the scene. He
looked down at me and asked, “Are you okay?” I gave him a little
smile and nodded my head. He yelled “Action!” and we started doing
our thing. The first take lasted only a few seconds because there was a little
problem with the lighting in the room. There were three cameras around us to get
the different angle shots. Kenneth was of course fully aware of it and during
our “love-making” he kept reassuring me and telling me to get more
into it. Luckily if anything we were saying to each other ended up on camera, it
would be edited out. Plus, there was going to be music dubbed over the
scene.
The end of the day was approaching and we stopped filming early. The scene
wasn’t completely finished so we had to continue it the next day. As
usual, I know Christina would say something about the day’s scene.
“You know, I
wouldn’t have thought it would take that many takes to film that one
scene,” she began as I was changing clothes.
“Yeah well
surprise, surprise,” was my reply.
“Seems to me that
you two need more practice with each other. We should have kept filming for
those last twenty minutes.”
“Look, Christina. I
don’t know what you’re getting at, but I already told you. I’m
happily engaged and Kenneth and I have a professional
relationship.”
“It has nothing to
do with you being engaged. I’m just saying that you guys need to perfect
your scene, that’s all.”
I rolled my eyes, unknowing to her, and finished putting my clothes on. The next
day, it took a few times before we got more into the mood of finishing the
scene. There was this one moment during the shooting of this scene where I
thought it was perfect. Perfect as in we didn’t have to do any more takes.
Right before the scene was almost over, Christina jumped out in front of the
camera and told them to stop filming.
“What’s
wrong?” Kenneth asked as Christina came up to the bed and looked under the
covers.
“I just needed to
make sure if Jennifer was shirtless like she’s supposed to,” she
replied and walked back to where she was originally standing. “Okay,
sorry. Go on.”
“How did that look
to you guys?” Kenneth asked the crew.
“Well it was really
good before that sudden outburst, but you might have to start all over again. It
probably wouldn’t look right if you started from where you left
off,” said one of the cameramen.
“Well I’m the
director and I say we start from where we left off. We’re taking up too
much time with this one scene. If we don’t get this over with, I’m
going to get used to this!” Kenneth said angrily.
“Whatever you want
to do, Mr. Branagh.”
I looked over at Christina and she was nodding her head and smiling at
me.