Work Text:
You are a man. You are an actor.
You have been many men, each of them a construct, a collaboration, built from a writer’s words, a director’s thoughts, and your own movements, your voice and gestures. Your job is playing ‘let’s pretend’.
You take it seriously, despite the occasional thought that it’s a weird way to make a living. There is craft to it, and you work at making your face show only what you want to show, only what you believe your character would feel. When and how he would smile, the pace of his steps, how he moves his hands, all focused on where the camera is, an eye with a whole audience inside it.
You get roles partly because of your skill, and partly because of the way you look. People call you attractive, and when you look at the professional photographs your agent sends out, you can see it, although when you look in the mirror it’s just you, the face you’ve had for years. Your body is a tool, one you use both in your work and to sell your skills, and so you take care of it. Maybe you’re a little vain, but really, vanity is a good thing to take into an audition, when you have to convince a bunch of strangers that you’re the best.
That’s hardest thing about your career. The job never lasts, and sometimes it feels like you spend more time auditioning than acting. Your income is unpredictable at best, and that pressure is unrelenting, especially now that you have kids. You try for a lot of pilots, because if a TV show gets picked up and goes into production, that can mean months of work, maybe even years.
Then it happens. You get a leading role, the series becomes popular, and you are working steadily, focusing on one character. You get to know your castmates, you have colleagues you see every day and talk to every day, about the scripts, and about your shared craft, acting. It’s a luxury, having time to discover and create the man you’re pretending to be. The writers give you bits of his history, and you fill them in so you can figure out his reactions.
You spend so much time thinking about him that he becomes almost real to you. Sometimes you even have conversations with him, just shooting the breeze, giving him lines as if you were one of the scriptwriters.
Your family is far away, so you have a lot of time for that sort of thing. Like a lot of shows, yours is filmed in Canada to keep the costs down. Your wife doesn’t want to move to another country with the kids. Who knows how long you’ll be there? she says, and you have to agree. So you go home for visits. The rest of the time, there’s your castmates, and the small community of expatriate actors around the studio complex. Since the hours are long, there isn’t much time for socializing in any case. It’s easier to focus on your work when you’re not going home every night. When you’re with your family, you’re really there, and when you’re not, you spend half your time trying to be someone else.
As it turns out, your character becomes real to other people too. The show is a success, and you have fans, something that has not happened before. You get recognized. “Aren’t you that guy from…?” Sometimes they get it wrong, confusing you with another actor, even though you don’t think he looks much like you. But sometimes they know your name, and your character, and seem thrilled to be near you, or to have you scribble your name on a napkin. You smile and shake their hands and thank them for watching your show, and that becomes another character you play. The Gracious Actor, Who Seems Just Like a Regular Guy. You do appreciate the fans. They are the reason you are working steadily, not worrying so much about money or preparing for audition after audition. But their excitement can be a little disturbing. They think you’re special, but you really are just some guy, a guy who pretends for a living.
Then you find out about the stories. You’ve heard of fan fiction, but it still feels odd to realize it’s being written about your show, about you. There’s a conversation about it on the set. Since it’s an ensemble show, there are five of you who are core characters and appear in almost every episode. Some of it is really weird, they say. I never read the stuff. The actor who plays your character's best friend says it’s a compliment, that people are so invested in your show and your character that they want to write stories about it. You shrug and say it’s an occupational hazard, like being pestered in restaurants when you just want to eat something and relax. No big deal.
You’re curious, though. You wonder if your castmates, who claim they never read the stories, are telling the truth.
One night, you can’t sleep. You spent the day shooting a big action sequence. Lots of running and shooting and tense moments, plus the underlying tension of trying to hold that mood in your mind while you’re between shots, getting your makeup touched up. Your body is tired, but the adrenaline hasn’t quite worn off. So after you finish a Skype call with your wife (she looks tired, too, and the kids are already in bed), you don’t turn your laptop off. Instead, you enter your character’s name in a search engine, and then—you have to think a moment to remember the term—the words ‘fan fiction.’
You are taken aback by the number of hits. There are literally hundreds of times more sites than even your best guess. You know that searches like this turn up lots of duplicate hits, but it’s still kind of mindboggling.
You click.
Many of the stories seem to be about your character and his best friend on the series. Not surprising, you do a lot of scenes together, and these scenes are often used to illuminate previously hidden aspects of both characters. You and he have a good rapport offscreen as well as on, and it shows up in the rushes. So that makes sense.
Then you find that a large number of the stories depict the characters as lovers.
It’s enough for one night. You shut off your computer and try to sleep.
You try to forget about the stories, but you don’t quite manage it. Another sleepless night happens, and you decide to read one, although not one where your character is gay. You’re not quite ready for that. You find one where the summary talks about an adventure, and it reads like a novelization of an episode. In your mind, you picture the sets and the scenes as you’re reading. The quality of the writing is surprisingly good, and it’s kind of fun.
You try another one, but the grammar is atrocious and you give up after a paragraph. You turn out the light and lie there, thinking about the first story, and what you think your character would have done differently.
The show is renewed for another season, and the cast gathers at a local bar to celebrate. You get drunk, and wonder to yourself what it would be like if all the characters you played got drunk together. You try to imagine it. It’s pretty amusing, but maybe that’s just the beer talking. You figure someone out there has already written that scene, and you laugh a little.
The party breaks up early, since several of the cast have a 6:00 am call. You don’t need to be in until noon, so you take a taxi from the bar back to your apartment, still buzzed. You think about another year of the show, hanging out with these people who have become not just colleagues, but friends. New scripts. Maybe a chance to direct an episode, which you’ve been thinking about. You’ve seen enough bad directing that at least you know what not to do, that’s for sure. You flop down on the bed, and your laptop’s there, so you decide to see if you can find that story, the one where everybody’s drunk.
You find a story, and you start reading. There’s a pretty funny drunk scene at the beginning, but then it follows your character home and gets inside his head, and that’s even more interesting. In this story, you—he—is lonely. He’s smart, but a little damaged, defensive and trapped inside his walls. This is good stuff, you think to yourself, this writer has really thought about the character, sort of the way you do. Some different conclusions, but it makes you think you’ve been getting across a little more of the character’s nuances, the way you wanted to, so the viewers see there’s more to him than the action-hero jock in the scripts.
You keep reading, and the best friend character shows up, to help your character work on a project. At least it isn’t the old race-against-the-clock trope, which is so, so tired. And this writer’s got the tone of voice right. He's saying things the character might say, in one of the better scripts. Not all of them are this good, frankly.
And then, in the next paragraph, they’re kissing. Whoa.
The thing is, the writing is still good, and it’s not so much about the kissing as the feeling, each character’s emotions as the kiss happens. The description is tender, and joyous the way a first kiss should be. It’s plausible, this kiss.
It makes you think of the first time you kissed your wife, how right it felt. How much more you wanted from her, more kissing, more everything.
Whoa.
It ends not long after the kiss. They’re interrupted, but they both go off smiling, knowing they are wanted, that they will be kissing again. The two imaginary men are happy.
You emerge from the story. Reading has always been like this for you, when you get caught up in a story, everything real seems to fade away and you’re there, in your mind. And then you’re back in your own bed, alone, your laptop screen the only light in the room.
You’re sleepy. Too much alcohol, and it’s just weird to imagine kissing another man, much less a guy you know, a guy you work with every day. You know a lot of gay guys, and they’re cool, it doesn’t bother you, but you’ve never wanted to kiss any of them. Or your castmate, who is as straight as you are.
Long, crazy day, what with the renewal and the party and now this. Unsteadily, you head for the bathroom. You drink a glass of water, and bring another one back to the bed—you’re not first on the call sheet tomorrow, timewise, but showing up with a hangover is damned unprofessional, and that’s not you.
You lie down, thinking about the character in the story, his loneliness. You can use some of that, maybe. Fill in a few more of the blanks, make your pretending a little more real. A little glow from the bedside table reminds you that you haven’t shut down your laptop.
You re-read the description of the kiss before you close the browser and power it down.
You dream about your wife. In the dream, you’re both younger, and you’re in that apartment she had when you met her, with the annoying roommate and the cat. You’re kissing her on the roommate’s ugly sofa, kissing and kissing and holding each other, and the cat tries to crawl into your lap and you’re laughing.
When you wake up, you’re still smiling. You go to work, wondering what you have yet to discover about the man you’re pretending to be.