Chapter Text
“Art is a lie that tells the truth.” --Pablo Picasso
Jyn Erso doesn’t actually believe that fake PR relationships exist in Hollywood anymore until her agent approaches her with that very idea. Of course, she thinks he’s talking about some terrible rom-com script that’s come across his desk or he’s just having a laugh, but he’s dead serious.
“So who has been cast as my true love, Bodhi?” she jokes, tossing a script about the friendship between a soldier and his murderbot (and of the course, the woman he loves--the soldier’s, that is, not the murderbot’s) onto the coffee table in his offices. “Someone hot, I hope.”
“Cassian Andor.”
“Wait, what? Are you for real?”
Of course Jyn knows who Cassian Andor is–only one of the most sought-out actors in all of Los Angeles–who has been famous since he was a child for his breakthrough role in a coming-of-age film about a child soldier. As famous as he is for his acting, though, Cassian Andor is also well-known for his playboy ways: a new starlet on his arm every few months, all of them forever twenty-five even as he gets older. But all this talk of a fake PR relationship. She can’t help but wonder . . .
Bodhi walks behind his desk and pulls out of a drawer a manilla envelope. Sliding a script out, he hands it into Jyn’s awaiting hands. She looks at it, puzzled.
“It’s the screenplay for the new Davitz Draven film.”
Jyn gawks at it and begins to leaf through the pages. “He hasn’t done a film in eleven years,” she says of the reclusive but uber-talented and serious director, unable to hide some of her awe. His last one, about a pioneer family in the Dakotas, had been the last movie that had moved her to tears, and she, along with many other actors and producers in Hollywood, had been wondering when his next project would be.
“I’ve read it, Jyn,” Bodhi says, crouching down near her. “It’s amazing; as amazing as you’d think it’d be. It has a once-in-a-lifetime role, too: a strong, mess, complex angry woman. It’s a star turn.”
Exhaling, Jyn reads the simple title, The Great Lake, and leafs to the first page. Then she frowns and looked up at her old friend and long-time agent. “How the hell did you get this, Bodhi?”
“It was sent to me.” He bounces on the armrest of the leather sofa in his office and grins wide. “Ask me why.”
“Why?” she asks, her suspicions deepening.
Bodhi grins from ear to ear. “Draven wants you for his lead actress! You specifically and by request! His people said he asked for you by name!”
“How the hell does he know who I am even?” she asks. And it’s a fair question. She’s a British ex-pat indie film actress whose biggest picture was where she died 40 minutes into the film. Her highest grossing one was a “I gotta-pay-my-bills, paint-by-numbers rom-com about a type A shoe designer with a fairy godmother who helped her win the heart of a type B CEO.” Jyn knows her place in the echelon of stars, and she’s barely treading water on the respectable part of the B-list where she’s more acting chops than marquee star power or eye candy. And as Bodhi is want to remind her, her on-set and off-set behavior hasn’t won her many fans in and out of the industry.
“I was told he loved your performance in If the Shoe Fits.”
“My terrible romantic comedy?” she squawks. “That’s mad!”
“That’s auteurs for you,” Bodhi says. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Jyn.”
“I cannot believe I am considering this.” She shakes her head and grabs the script, flipping through and reading the first few pages. It’s good. More than good. She feels a lump in her throat by the third page.
“Whose idea was this? The PR relationship part?”
“Draven’s.”
“What?” she yells. It's an unexpected twist in a situation that's already a tangled-up knot.
“Method to the madness of a genius," Bodhi says.
“I think what you mean to say is that it’s just pure madness, Bodhi.”
“It’s like method acting. Look, Jyn. That’s part of the contract if you want and get the part. It’s a few fake dates, some photos for the press. You don’t have to sleep with him. I checked.”
“Oh, well,” Jyn snarks. “Thank goodness for that!” Outwardly, she’s all feigned outrage and sarcasm, but her head is swimming. “And what does Cassian Andor think of this?”
“He's already signed on, so his agent says. Look, Cassian Andor is Draven’s favorite go-to actor, so he’s a definite for this project, so I have to assume he’s game or it was partly his idea. And I wasn’t given details, but he’s got a bit of a reputation as a ladies’ man, and I can only guess that this is a way to . . . change it, too, while shooting the movie.”
“Because I’m so not at all his type,” she says flatly, thinking about the leggy blonde models she’s seen with him on the cover of magazines while in line at the grocery store. “And I’m old. Well, too old for him by all accounts.”
“You’re only thirty.”
“That’s sweet of you to say only, Bodhi, but you know as well as I do that in this town, thirty for a woman is old to be playing everyone’s mum.”
“Look,” Bodhi says practically, “Draven and Alliance Studios wants you for this film, and the PR part–-that’ll benefit you both. You guys pretend to be in love while shooting and promoting the film and he looks stable, and well, you try to look stable, too, alright? It’ll soften your image.” Jyn shoots him a nasty look that he absorbs like a sponge does water because they’ve known each other long enough that they both know it doesn’t mean anything except that it’s her face , and continues talking like it was nothing at all. “We’ve talked about the brawling, Jyn. It doesn’t look good on you or anyone. No one wants that kind of colleague on set. And the fans--they’re going to start treating you like box office poison because they can’t separate actors from their roles, especially when they are women. You know how cruel the people can be.”
“They called Katharine Hepburn ‘box office poison,’ and she was fine,” Jyn says, though she knows the truth to everything Bodhi is saying.
“She also was born rich and had a studio contract, things you do not have. We both have to eat, Jyn.”
She gives a harsh laugh, puts a hand on his arm. “You really should get yourself some better clients, Bodhi. I’m going to be the death of you.”
Bodhi shrugs, his handsome face switching into a goofy grin. “We’re stuck with each other.”
“What does Cassian Andor say about all of this?”
“Guess you’ll find out when you do the chemistry read. You still have to audition for the role, but we’ve got you a foot in.”
And Jyn wants to flat out say no, that she’s not going to stoop to this level, but the script is amazing, and Draven’s films will be spoken about a hundred years from now, they’re that good, and to be part of that is something she does want. That Draven wants her in it is something she can’t say no to—but it also means she has to say yes to faking a romance with one of Hollywood’s hottest stars.
She supposes there are worse things, and she’s certainly made more reckless decisions before in her life, and she’s still here. So she looks up at Bodhi, meeting his eye, and says yes. Then sighing, she asks, “When’s the audition?”
+
“You signed me up for what?” Cassian barks at Kay when he’s informed about the fake relationship clause in the movie contract for Draven’s latest project. This was just supposed to be a business lunch to discuss his next project, he thinks, not a blindside hit. A tomato wavers on the end of his fork, and he jabs it in the air in his talent agent’s general direction. “How is this legal, Kay?”
Kay Tuesso looks at him impatiently. “You gave me permission to sign your name to whatever I found most beneficial to your career, Cassian,” he says dryly. “And I called you and emailed you about this. Repeatedly. Apparently you were too busy galavanting with Emily–”
“Amelia–”
“Does it matter?” Kay sighs.
“They are people, Kay. Amelia is a person.”
“The detail is irrelevant to our conversation,” Kay says, leaving Cassian flummoxed. “As I was saying, you gave me final control over contracts, and you’ve made it clear how important it was for you to do this film with Draven. He was insistent that you’d do it, anyway, so I told them yes and signed you up for it.”
“And Jyn Erso agreed to this?” Cassian knows some things about the woman who is apparently meant to be his new costar and fake girlfriend, but not enough to ever have actually agreed to something like this himself, especially since the last detail he recalls about her is the on-set fight she had with her last co-star that delayed production for two weeks.
“Keep your voice down, Cassian,” Kay hisses. Cassian turns slightly, sees glasses raised mid-sip, a camera phone being not so subtly raised in his direction and telltale fake "click" indicating to him that he'll be all over Twitter by dinner time. “People are watching. They’re always watching you.”
“She agreed to this?” Cassian repeats in a quieter, albeit still irritable voice. "Jyn Erso?"
“She did.”
“And is she crazy?”
“But all reports, yes,” Kay says, all seriousness, “but she is empirically a good actress, and I imagine your opposing temperaments would make for good on-screen chemistry. I’ve done the analysis.”
“I could just pull out, say no,” Cassian threatens, but Kay just tilts his head and raises an eyebrow.
“You saw the script, Cassian. Are you really going to say no to this?”
Cassian makes a face, but says nothing, focusing on the tomato and spinach in his mouth instead, working his jaw and his frustrations out at the same time.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Kay says, not hiding his triumph. He leans forward, tapping his knife against his glass of water and making the glass sing. “Besides, Cassian, while I am not your PR agent, I am your agent and I would hope, your friend, and this would not be bad for your image.” Kay waves his hand in an arc, as though painting a scene. “‘A wild stallion finally tamed?’ Fans love that story. They might stop calling you Cassian Casanova, too. I know how much you hate that nickname.”
“It’s insulting.”
“It is what it is.”
Cassian feels a pain begin to develop behind his eyes, and he pinches the bridge of his nose, hardly believing that he’s going to agree to this.
“Fans love it too when co-stars fall in love,” Kay adds. “I’ve seen the numbers. Your Q rating skyrockets if your on-screen chemistry really clicks.”
Cassian rubs his hand through his hair. “So I really have to do it? I have to pretend to fall in love with her? Outside of the movie?”
“Yes, Cassian. But it’s all pretend. And you’re good at pretending. Your Golden Globe nomination says as much.”
“Will anyone believe that two people like us would ever have a relationship?” Cassian asks.
“That’s part of the allure! Opposites attract. And she's age appropriate, solid career on her own. And she's still technically stunning. She has to be to be where she is in Hollywood, let's be frank. I know she’s not your usual type, Cassian,” Kay says, “but try.”
“I’m going to have to try very hard, knowing her reputation,” Cassian says. He sighs and pushes his salad away. “I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this.”
“By the way, you’re also going to have to break up with Emily,” Kay adds, motioning to the waiter for a refill of his vodka tonic.
“Amelia,” Cassian corrects. When the waiter comes, he asks for a refill too, on his negroni. He's going to need all the alcohol in America to get over what he's going to agree to next.
“Amelia then.”
Cassian doesn’t attempt to hide his sheepishness at what he says next. “Already done.”
Kay doesn’t even bat an eye.