Chapter Text
Poe Dameron wanted nothing more than to be done with the press junket and go home.
Press tours in general were not his favorite thing, but junket days were by far the worst. Talk shows were easy. Group interviews? No problem. But the endless onslaught of one on one interviews that were too short to really get into anything meaningful with a rotating cast of entertainment reporters who more or less blurred together was never his idea of a good time.
And this particular junket day was exceptionally brutal.
He was currently promoting a small indie film that he was extremely proud of, but all anyone could talk about was the upcoming blockbuster franchise that he was starring in. While it didn’t come out for another eight months, the first teaser trailer for it had dropped the day before and after about three or four questions relating to the work he was there to actually promote , the interviews would inevitably turn to questions about the upcoming film.
Questions he was contractually unable to answer.
For the most part.
While a lot of the details surrounding the Starkiller Saga were secrets that were bound by a pretty intense NDA, there were several that he’d been given the go ahead to reveal since the teaser dropped. Details that were still relatively vague and ultimately unimportant to the main plot of the film, but enough to build a buzz until Starkiller Celebration where the full trailer would be released and he’d be at liberty to discuss more. It was just that Poe hadn’t really been in the mood to divulge any of those details that day knowing full well that if he said anything that was more than a coy “we’ll have to wait and see,” it would overshadow anything he said about his current film.
So it was a long day of him trying to be nonchalant and charming, evading answers with a smile when he really just wanted to scream in frustration.
At thirty-two, Poe had been in the business for a little over a decade, having been cast in his first film while he was studying at Takodana Arts Academy . He had a steady stream of b-parts in major motion pictures with some starring roles in a few off-Broadway productions until six years ago when he’d landed the lead in a film by famed indie director Leia Organa-Solo who had been in the audience of one of those off Broadway productions. She had marched backstage after the show—Poe quickly found out that no one could really stop Leia from doing pretty much anything once she was determined to do it—and asked him then and there if he would be interested in starring in a film she was working on . That little movie about a proud but struggling folk musician had garnered him plenty of attention during awards season—including a surprise Oscar nomination that year.
Since then, it seemed as though his star had skyrocketed.
He had a steady stream of work ranging in everything from the smaller independent films to the larger studio productions, though landing a leading role in the upcoming Starkiller franchise was by far the biggest thing he’d ever done in his career. And he was excited about it. He really was. It was just that the movie he was currently promoting, a bold unconventional production of Macbeth, was a project that was near and dear to his heart.
It reunited him with Leia who he had genuinely enjoyed working with and practically owed his career to—a fact that she frequently reminded him of with one of her trademark smirks—and Macbeth was one of his favorite plays. He was stunned when Leia had approached him for the role—he was a little young to be playing the tragic Scottish King—but when he heard Leia’s vision, he immediately said yes.
It was unlike any Shakespeare production he’d ever been a part of or even seen. They had used the Restoration adaption of the script, choosing to set the events of the play in seventeenth century Bedlam instead of doing a traditional, straightforward staging. It’d required a lot of research—Leia had worked closely with a whole host of scholars to make sure every aspect of what they were doing was true to the source material and true to the time in which it was set. Poe spent months developing this version of the character Macbeth—working with a handful of research fellows and professors who specialized in everything from Shakespeare to Restoration England to really get his performance right. A performance he considered to be some of the best work he’d ever done.
He wanted to talk about it.
Which was why it was so damn frustrating that all anyone cared to ask him were the basic “So another cinematic adaption of Shakespeare…” and "What makes Shakespeare so timeless?" line of questioning before quickly turning into questions that were intended to no-so- subtly trick him into giving out details for Starkiller .
After a couple hours of this, he was nearly at his breaking point when his assistant, Snap, came over with a bottle of water and the good news that the next interview would the last one of the day .
Poe looked over towards the door where a young woman had just entered the room, stopping in front of one of her outlet's technicians to get mic’d up. She appeared to be in her early to mid - twenties, but despite her youth, he couldn’t help but notice how striking she looked— then again, a crisp white blazer was pretty hard not to notice in an otherwise darkened room. He was pretty sure she wasn’t aware that he could see her as she stood there letting her colleague adjust the settings on her mic pack while she quickly read through her note cards .
Poe knew that he was intruding on a private moment —her last-minute preparations to make sure she would n’t forget to say a line or to make sure she had the pronunciation of certain words right . It was a ritual he was very familiar with . He was about to look away when suddenly, her entire face lit up as she smiled at something the sound technician had said to her . While Poe wouldn’t say he knew every single reporter who had interviewed him today—he recognized quite a few of them from previous press tours and movie premiers . He did not recognize her.
I would remember that smile , he thought to himself before he immediately shut that line of thinking down.
He was at work and so was she. He would be nothing but professional.
Poe watched as the reporter moved towards him , trying his hardest not to notice how her hazel eyes seemed to sparkle when they met his or how her chin length hair had been styled in silky looking waves that perfectly framed her face. He definitely did not examine too closely why it was that he found himself smiling his first genuine smile of the day when she took her seat across from him as the camera crew finished setting up .
She h eld out a hand.
“I’m Rey. Rey Smith with Niima Entertainment News.” She said with that smile of hers that, up close, was genuinely disarming and…a British accent?
“Poe Dameron .” He replied , reaching out to take her proffered hand, “You’re with NEN?”
It was a fairly large entertainment outlet that had both a prime-time television show and large digital presence. They ’d been around for decades and had several entertainment reporters that had become personalities within their own rights—Rey Smith , however, was not a NEN personality that sounded familiar .
Rey nodded, before she glanced around nervously, “This is my first one on one interview, actually.”
And now he knew why.
“Well, I promise not to make it too painful.” He joked as he braced himself for what he assumed would be a slow and stilted interview. He even felt a little sorry that her first one-on-one was for such a niche film.
At least she seems nice enough, Poe thought. Maybe the interview wouldn’t be too terrible—his last one for the day, he reminded himself.
Much to his surprise, it was the best interview he'd had that day.
Rey asked him engaging questions about the creative choices specific to the film’s adaption that she had no doubt gleaned from the previously released press materials, but there were certain questions she asked that indicated she had done research well beyond the press release. She asked questions specific to the Restoration adaption of the script and how it differed from the First Folio, and Poe was more than happy to answer them in as great a detail as the questionsdeserved.
She checked her note cards every once and awhile to ensure that she was asking all that she had intended, but she wasn’t afraid to ask follow up questions as his answers warranted them in a way that seemed as though they were just having a nice chat over coffee. Albeit an extremelynerdy chat, but in her follow ups, Poe noticed that Rey would help breakdown his answers, clarifying a few things in a jovial way that when the interview would be edited down, their conversation would be entertaining to theater enthusiasts and general audiences alike.
Most refreshingly, she didn’t ask about Starkiller once.
“I’ve got to say, I’m impressed at your self-control.” He remarked towards the end of their allotted ten minutes.
She scrunched her nose in confusion, “Pardon?”
“You’re the first one today that hasn’t asked about Starkiller .” He explained, pointedly ignoring how adorable—there was really no other word to describe it, professionalism be damned—she looked when she looked at him as though he had just said something completely baffling.
“Well…you’re here promoting Macbeth.” She stated slowly as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“Yeah, but… ” Poe faltered, trying to figure out what he wanted to say. This had all sounded much more charming in his head—he’d make a quip, she’d respond with a laugh, and they would move on. He had not expected her to call him out on his bullshit—hadn’t he just been complaining that all anyone wanted to talk about was Starkiller?— though he didn’t think it was a conscious effort on her part. She seemed genuinely confused as to why he had expected her she to ask him about the upcoming blockbuster.
“Generally, people end these things with questions about it since the trailer dropped yesterday.” He continued, stumbling only slightly over his words when he realized he was practically explaining her job to her.
Smooth, Dameron.
“You know…” Why was he still talking? “…try to grab a quote that would be a click-worthy headline.”
Rey seemed to think about this for a moment before she gave him a considering look, “Well, can you tell me anything other than what we already know about your character Casar Casio, other than he’s a Resistance fighter pilot or anything beyond a literal interpretation of the footage in the trailer?”
“Not really, no.” He answered.
“Then it sounds like asking you questions about Starkiller would be a waste of both of our times.”
A beat passed before Poe let out a surprised laugh and Rey’s eyes immediately widened when she no doubt realized how brisk she had sounded.
“Oh! ” she exclaimed, “ I am so sorry—“
“Don’t be.” Poe waved her off, grinning, “It’s refreshing.”
“Thank you.” She mumbled dipping her head down as she looked back down at her note cards, her cheeks tinging slightly pink from what Poe was certain was carefully concealed mortification.
He snuck a look over at Snap who gave him the signal that it there was only one-minute remaining in the allotted interview time, a fact that surprisingly made him feel a little sad.
“Final question!” He announced as he clapped his hands together excitedly, “What do you got for me?”
Rey glanced up, meeting his enthusiasm with a small smile of her own, all hint of a blush gone .
She was back to business.
“You’re no stranger to the troubled King of Scotland, having performed the role at Takodana —”
“How do you know that I played Macbeth at Takodana?” He interrupted, stunned that she even knew that fact.
There had been one , maybe two reviews about it—they were actually Poe's first reviews ever—but he had no idea that they were still out there, circulating around on the internet. At least, no one who had interviewed him previously had found them. He remembered with some sense of relief that they had at least been good . Well, as good as they could be about any twenty-year-old performing Shakespeare with all the sincerity of what he had considered at the time to be a that of a 'true thespian.'
Rey simply blinked at him in that no-nonsense way of hers that Poe was starting to find a little too endearing, “Well…I do my research.”
“Indeed, you do.” He agreed as a slow smile began to spread across his face, giving her an apologetic wave, “Sorry, continue.”
“What was it like taking on the character again after twelve years let alone in such a unique adaptation him?”
Poe practically beamed at her before launching into one of his most heartfelt answers of the day. Sure, he may have delved a little too far into the weeds about his process as an actor, how you always have to see things from the character’s perspective and believe what the character believes. After all, the most compelling villains—or at least in this instance, tragic protagonist—think that what they’re doing is right. If you as an actor don’t believe that, why should you expect the audience to? Why would anyone want to watch a character make mistake after mistake if they weren’t invested in them if you as an actor didn’t give an audience reason to invest in them, no matter how doomed their fate?
At the end Poe peppered in some self-deprecating humor about how his ‘process’ has evolved since his days in school to balance it all out so he didn't seem like a total hotshot. When he was finished, Rey gave him a small nod.
“Thank you, I think that just about does it for my time.” She moved to stand as the production crew around them began their tear down process, but he motioned for her to sit, earning a small frown from both her and Snap.
Poe had moved without even thinking, not ready for this interview to be over quite yet. He knew this interview was a good one, his own personal biases aside. There was a lot of information contained in his answers about the film—a credit to Rey’s questions—but as much as Poe had enjoyed finally being able to say everything that he had wanted to, he knew that there wouldn’t be a large amount of traffic heading to NEN’s site to watch this particular interview or really, any of the day’s interviews.
Not unless something else drew them there first.
“Give me one of your cards.” He said, holding out a hand.
Rey did as she was told and handed him the topmost card of the three she held in her hand, though she was looking at him very skeptically, which was fair. He was being more than a little cryptic.
But instead of explaining, he asked, “Do you have a pen?”
She quickly produced one and watched him as he began to scribble something on the bottom of her card underneath the questions and topics she had neatly printed there that appeared to be organized with some sort of color-coded system, because of course they were.
He handed her the card back despite wanting to examine it a little more and motioned for the film crew to start rolling again .
Rey looked from the card to Poe with a shocked expression and he gave her what he hoped was a reassuring nod. She glanced over at the camera operator to confirm it was okay for her to go before meeting his gaze once more.
“So…Poe…” She began carefully, almost hesitantly, “ I would be remiss if I didn’t ask about Starkiller.”
“Another upcoming small art house film I’m working on, yes.” Poe joked as he slipped back into the comfortable candor they’d had during their interview, trying to convey that this wasn’t a trick.
“What can you tell us about your character…the dashing Resistance pilot, Casar Casio.” Rey kept her expression carefully neutral, though her right eyebrow did arch a bit when she had read his character description—okay, maybe he’d gotten a little carried away and underlined ‘dashing’ more times than was strictly necessary.
“Well, for starters he’s best freaking pilot in the galaxy.” He exclaimed, grinning when Rey gave a small surprised chuckle, “He’s one of the Resistance’s most decorated pilots and he's been sent on a mission by a certain princess, and what happens on that mission sets off the chain of events of the entire movie.”
“So , a bit part then?” Rey asked with thinly veiled amusement at his theatrics. Good. She was playing along.
“More or less.” He agreed with a grin, “Lliam Khram is missing and Casar has been tasked with securing the intel on how to find him.”
“And does he?” She asks, setting him up perfectly for…
“We’ll just have to wait and see.”
Rey chuckled, nodding in a self deprecating way that suggested she should have known that would be his answer and Poe saw it for what it was—her acting as though she was just another reporter trying to trick him into giving her information even though he had freely given it to her.
Rey Smith from Niima Entertainment News was good.
“Well, I can’t wait.” Rey responded, betraying nothing as she wound the interview down for a second time, “Poe, it’s been a pleasure.”
She held out a hand once more and he shook it, smiling well beyond when the cameras turned off.
“Wow, that was…thank you.” Rey said almost as if in shock as the production began to pack up around them , her previous bravado instantly gone once the cameras turned off.
“Thank you for a great interview. ” Poe replied as he moved to stand, a member of the production crew helping him remove his lapel mic , “Really that was…that was a hell of a first one-on-one.”
With the microphone off, he was free to go—his long day of press finally over.
It was weird, then, that he was suddenly reluctant to leave.
Clearing his throat before he could think too hard on why he felt that way, he gave Rey a small wave goodbye.
“It was nice meeting you, Rey Smith.”
And before he could say anything too terribly stupid and unprofessional like 'I hope we see each other again soon,' he headed home, chiding himself the entire way.
Get it together, Dameron, he thought.