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“... and that should do it!”
Juliet Watson grins at the camera before stepping back to reveal the scene behind her. In the foreground, a pair of young women sit side by side in a couple of folding chairs: the girl on the right, clad in an eye-catching red cashmere sweater with a gold collar to match her short blonde hair, sits with her hands resting serenely on the black fabric of her skirt, a warm and inviting smile on her face as her green eyes follow Juliet who hurries back to claim the unoccupied chair opposite them.
The smaller girl on the left, dressed in a conservative grey cardigan over a white blouse and lighter grey skirt, with her long dirty-blonde hair tied up into a tight though somewhat disheveled bun, slouches in her chair with one leg bouncing restlessly and her hands seemingly unable to decide where they wish to light.
They are tucked into a corner of a bustling set fashioned to resemble a high school hallway, with rows of lockers painted in red, blue, and grey lining either side. Behind the trio, a couple of props assistants walk in their direction carrying a life-sized skeleton between them before turning to disappear behind a door on the right. On the other side of the hallway, an open door reveals a “classroom” that appears to be doubling as a craft services area for the moment, a gaggle of chattering actors and extras and stagehands milling about to spoon food from the aluminum catering dishes that adorn the desk and tables onto the paper plates they carry.
“Well, Jules?” prompts the actor on the left, her almost roguish red-lipped smirk seemingly at odds with the anguished-looking dark circles that have been painted under her hazel eyes. “Would you like to tell us why you’ve gathered us here today?”
Digging a small notepad out of the pocket of her denim jacket, Juliet says “Well, Kate, while I may play ‘Juliet Watson - ace reporter for the Blackwell Totem’ on screen, I’m also pursuing journalism and film-making degrees in real life--”
Kate rolls her eyes and groans, her gruff voice carrying the weariness of someone who’s had this conversation too many times in the past. “Trust us--we know.”
“--and since we’re in the midst of shooting the second film in the surprise hit series, Life is Strange,” Juliet continues undeterred, “I thought that now would be the perfect time to do some ‘off-the-books’ interviews of some of the cast and crew to capture this moment for posterity! Who knows, this could even be part of a documentary someday.”
“By ‘off-the-books’ I take it this is somethin’ y’all haven’t gotten the studio to sign-off on?” the taller actor drawls skeptically, her natural southern accent making her sound more like the waitress her costar Joyce Price is known for than the Seattle socialite she herself plays on screen.
“Awww c’mon Vic! What, are you afraid of a little guerrilla journalism?”
“‘Gorilla’ journalism?” Kate snorts. “Ooo-kay, Dian Fossey.”
“Well I, for one, think that’s a lovely idea,” Victoria chides, before turning a charming smile Juliet’s way. With one stockinged leg crossed over the other, she clasps her hands together in her lap like the very picture of prim anticipation.
“Fuck it!” Kate shrugs and reaches for a pack of cigarettes that rests on the small stool serving as a make-shift table between the three of them. “My agent could stand to have the twelve foot pole stuck up his ass pulled out a notch or two, anyway!”
“Great! Then why don’t we start by having the two of you introduce yourselves?”
Glancing at Juliet for the go ahead before addressing the camera directly, the taller actor straightens her shoulders and says “I’m Victoria Chase, and I play Victoria Maribeth Chase…” Her accent shifts mid-sentence, taking on the haughty tone and cadence of the fictional mean girl of the same name. “-- the Queen Bitch of Blackwell Academy.”
Tapping the rectangular package in the palm of her left hand, Kate follows Victoria’s lead. “And I’m everyone’s favorite holy-rolling girl-next-door-- and walking after-school special-- Kate Beverly Marsh.”
“It’s unusual for actors to share names with the characters they play… why do you think that’s the case for these films?” Juliet asks.
That earns another snort from Kate. “You’d have to check with Evan and Nate for that one, since they’re the head-bitches-in-charge. But if you ask me? They were just too lazy to come up with a couple dozen names on top of writing and directing and all that other shit.” She pauses after plucking a cigarette out of the pack, waggling it questioningly between her index and middle finger. “Do you mind? You are cutting into prime smoke-break time here, after all…”
“Go ahead,” Juliet says with a conciliatory wave, before adding “I think a lot of your fans would be shocked to know that you smoke...”
“No fucking shit!” Kate presses the cig, which looks incongruously large set against her small mouth, between her lips to free her hands as she leans over to fish her lighter out of her messenger bag. “Because I’m just a sweet, Jesus-loving little cinnamon roll, too pure for this world? That’s acting for you, kiddos-- God damnit, I swear to fucking Christ I’m going to play someone who wears clothes with fucking pockets one of these days…”
“Well, that and the fact that your voice is so smooth.”
“Well, it takes a fuckload of work to keep it that way, Jules…” Kate interrupts herself with a gleeful noise of triumph upon finally digging the stainless steel flip-lighter from its confines. “I only let myself have two a day, for one, and drink a lot of hot tea with honey and all that shit to keep the old vocal cords in good shape.”
“But if you have to go to so much trouble, why do it at all? Is it an addiction or just a guilty pleasure?”
“The latter for sure,” Kate mumbles around her cigarette as she strikes the lighter until the flame takes hold. Leaning back into her chair and taking a long, slow drag, Kate exhales a plume of smoke in a satiated sigh before continuing. “I don’t know, I guess it’s something to look forward to? There’s just nothing I love more than a good smoke after a long day.”
“Hey!” Victoria interjects, punctuating her outrage with a light whack to Kate’s shoulder.
“Almost nothing!” Kate hastily concedes, before grinning saucily at the camera. “My beautiful girlfriend, everyone.”
Victoria attempts to “Hmmph!” her displeasure, but she can’t quite hide the smile tugging at her lips… especially when Kate reaches over to Victoria’s lap to take her hand, intertwining Victoria’s fingers with her own. “Well I hope you enjoy it, Katie, because that is your second one for today already.”
Kate sighs in mock exasperation. “Damn Tori, as good as you’ve got this whole ‘nagging wife’ routine down, you’d think I’d put a ring on it already...”
If Victoria takes any offense to Kate’s affectionate jab, her smug little smirk doesn’t give it away at all. “Well just bless your heart if you think you’d actually have the guts to propose to me first .”
Juliet allows the pair a few moments to exchange silent, scandalized expressions of ‘I know you did NOT just say that’ and ‘Oh honey you better believe I DID!’ before continuing the interview.
“Speaking of your roles, how did you come to play, as you said, the jesus-loving cinnamon roll, too pure for this world, Kate Marsh?”
Kate’s head tilts back as another groan erupts from her throat before she says, “I don’t know... I actually auditioned for Victoria.”
Juliet’s gasp is drowned out by the real Victoria’s loud laughter. “You auditioned for the bully?”
Kate frowns as she nods, waiting for Victoria to swallow her laughter before answering, “I, umm, actually auditioned for Chloe’s role first, though.”
“Oh wow!” Juliet exclaims
“Yep, I read for Victoria’s role, I read for Max’s role, I read for Chloe’s role - I even tested for Rachel Amber!”
“So, were the auditions bad?” Juliet asks, pulling on this thread.
“Atrocious,” Victoria answers, her tone somber nigh-to-mournful.
Kate’s mouth widens with surprise before her small hand shoots up to swat Victoria’s shoulder. “Bitch! They were great!”
Victoria howls with laughter again, raising her hand to find Kate’s once more as it rubs the spot on her shoulder that she’d smacked earlier.
“Did the directors ever explain to you why you didn’t get any of those roles?” Juliet asks, her own curiosity now leading the way.
Kate sighs before she answers, “Apparently, even though my read through was fucking great, I don’t ‘visually look very imposing’ when next to any of the other actors.”
“In other words... she’s a pipsqueak.” Victoria interjects with that smooth drawl.
Kate’s jaw drops, and she wags a warning finger at her girlfriend. “I can whip your ass, bitch!”
That only elicits a cheshire cat grin from Victoria. “Promises, promises...”
Before Kate can act on any of her playful threats, Juliet asks “many ‘Life is Strange’ fans would consider the two of you an unlikely couple based on the characters you play, but you’ve been dating ever since your roles on the country-western teen drama, ‘Fast Lead Change’, a few years back, right? Were sparks flying from the start?”
Using her free thumb to toy with the red-smeared butt of her cigarette, Kate props an elbow up on the back of her chair and gives her lover a salacious eyebrow waggle. Victoria rolls her eyes, her cheeks flushing a light shade of pink.
“It was actually my debut role…” she says, her eyes taking on a far-off, nostalgic twinkle. “I was a fresh-eyed teenager just barely out of my junior year in high school... and more nervous than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockin’ chairs, mind you. And here comes this five-foot-nothin’ girl not much older than I was, in her child’s medium-sized cowboy boots and a hand-woven bullwhip on her hip, saunterin’ around all full of piss and vinegar like she owned the place. Would y’all believe she walked right up to me, tipped her cowboy hat and said ‘Don’t worry babe, I’ll take good care of you’... like she wasn’t fresh off the breakfast cereal commercial circuit herself?”
“Bitch don’t front, you know you loved it…” Kate casts a cheeky grin Victoria’s way before taking another drag.
Victoria squeezes their joined hands tightly, gently rubbing Kate’s thumb with her own. Her gaze softens as she wistfully admits “... I was quite taken from the start.”
“What about you, Kate?” Juliet asks, “Was it love at first sight for you as well?”
“Yer darn tootin’…” Kate’s caricature of Victoria’s accent is as exaggerated as her expression is sincere. “This prize-filly done lasso’d my heart quick as you please.”
Biting her lip, Victoria leans in closer to Kate, who pauses to blow a jet of smoke up and away from her girlfriend before closing the distance between them for a quick, gentle kiss. It’s soon followed by a second, and then a third before they pull away, their eyes filled with the promise of more to come later.
Clearing her throat, Juliet says “‘Episode 2 - Out of Time’ features some heavy themes of bullying, depression, and even suicide. Has your relationship off-set made your adversarial roles more challenging?”
“It was awkward sometimes for sure,” Victoria admits. “The thought of bein’ so cruel to this sweet, innocent little angel just broke my poor heart every time.”
“Bull-shit!” Kate’s laugh is halfway between a smoky cough and the braying of an hornery mule. “If anyone is the innocent one between us it’s Tori here. She literally wouldn’t hurt a fly… in fact, the other day she grabbed a cockroach with her bare hands to take it outside just to keep me from stomping the little asshole.”
“It was a palmetto bug!” Victoria protests, her accent making the last syllable of the word sound like ‘-tuh’ instead of a ‘-toe’. “And it wasn’t hurtin’ anybody! The poor thing probably just came in to escape the rain, is all.”
“How did you prepare for the role of the school bully, then?” Juliet asks. “Did you draw from your own experiences growing up?”
“Oh yeah, I was a pretty late bloomer confidence-wise-- with my fair share of body-image issues to boot-- and before my acting career took off I ended up being bullied pretty severely from middle school on up. I guess you could say I took bits and pieces from all my former bullies and combined them into, what Katie here so decorously puts it, ‘one heinous mega-bitch.’”
“And by the way--” Kate addresses the camera again, the two fingers she’s using to hold her cigarette pointed in an almost gun-like posture. “To Becca ████████, Gabby ██████, and Anne ████████████, if you see me in the streets you best walk the other way. Because I do know what all you raggedy skanks look like and I can guaran-fucking-tee one thing: it’s on sight.”
“Oh hush, you…” Victoria weakly protests, but the adoration she holds for her partner is clearly present in her eyes when she raises their joined hands to kiss the back of Kate’s.
Juliet presses on. “Back to the subject of romance, both of your characters are often paired with that of Max Caulfield by the fandom at large. How do you feel about the Marshfield and Chasefield shippers out there?”
“We love it!” Victoria exclaims, bouncing her crossed leg in rhythm with her speech. “It’s so movin’ to see how the fans identify with these characters in their own unique ways, and how that extends to all the relationships they imagine for them. If someone feels chemistry between Victoria and Kate or Taylor or Max, well...? That tells me I’m doin’ somethin' right.”
“Hell, some of the more devout fans out there give me a whole goddamn harem! And to them I say… I like your fucking style,” Kate says with a wink and a grin that can only be described as ‘shit-eating’.
Juliet eagerly leans forward, with a gleam in her eye reminiscent of a wolf on the trail of an especially juicy morsel. “And what about the rumors that have swirled about either of you having dated Max off-set?”
Kate smirks and takes a quick pull of her cigarette before dryly answering “I mean don’t get me wrong, I think it’s fair to say neither one of us would kick Max out of bed…”
“Wouldn’t... or haven’t?”
Kate and Victoria share an amused, knowing look, before the former finally says “Well, Jules, as someone in the biz yourself you know what they say… ‘if the Honey Wagon's rocking, don't go knocking…’”
“... And, of course, that Katie and I are in a loving, committed relationship…” Victoria helpfully chimes in.
“... but that’s not to say that a bit of good-natured ‘play’ between consenting adult co-stars ever hurt anybody,” Kate finishes.
“And that’s all you’ll get out of us. If you want to know more about Max Caulfield’s love life you’ll have to ask her… or maybe a certain someone else on the cast.” Victoria punctuates that last part with a conspiratorial wink.
“Fair enough.” Juliet heaves a long-suffering sigh before admitting defeat by skipping the next couple of pages in her scrawl-filled notebook. “Moving on, what would you say is your biggest inspiration for…”
“Kate…?” a bright-eyed young production assistant calls from behind them. “Evan’s been calling for you, everything’s prepped and ready for your rooftop scene.”
“Ugggghhhhh…!” Kate moans. “I hate getting wet…”
“That’s not what you said last night,” Victoria teases.
“Guess I walked right into that one...” Kate deadpans as she carefully extinguishes her cigarette on the side of a chair leg. Sealing the mostly-smoked butt into a plastic baggie, she says “don’t give me any shit when I finish this later, it still only counts as two!”
Rather than offer any kind of protest, however, Victoria takes Kate’s cheeks in both hands and pulls her into a slow, passionate kiss, the press of their lips and quick, gasping breaths the only sounds that pass between them for several long moments. “You’ve got this, baby…” she whispers on the break. “Knock ‘em dead.”
“I’ll see you when we’re done…?” Kate asks, her voice the closest it's been to her soft-spoken on-screen counterpart the entire interview.
“You know it. I’ll be waitin’ just off-set with a warm blanket and a hot coffee-- with a little shot of something extra, just the way you like it.”
Kate lovingly presses her forehead to Victoria’s for a few seconds before rising to stand. “God, I don’t deserve you.”
Victoria seemingly refuses to release her grip on Kate’s hand just yet. “Don’t I know it…”
“Well I guess we can leave things there for now,” Juliet concludes. “Do you have any advice you’d like to share with your audience before you go?”
“Let’s see… be gay, do crimes…” Kate says, before stepping behind Victoria’s chair. Winking at the camera, she adds “... and wish you were me,” before bending down for one final kiss, this one even deeper than the last. The kiss lingers long enough to leave her girlfriend breathless when she finally pulls away.
“And you, Victoria…?”
With her hand resting on her chest above her heart, Victoria watches her girlfriend walk away before turning back to the camera, two blooms of red clearly visible on her cheeks. She tilts her head in thought for a second before giggling and offering a small shrug of her shoulders.
“A-fucking-men.”