Waiting for Callback (22 page)

From:
Charlotte at the Haden Agency

Date:
27 April 18:02

To:
Julia James

Cc:
Stella at the Haden Agency

Subject:
Elektra

Dear Julia,

I’m afraid that Mayday Productions have decided to go in a different direction on the
White Noise
project (mute, traumatized child role). They did
ask us though to pass on their thanks to Elektra who was apparently
very
convincing in this role at the audition! I’m sure they’ll bear her in mind for other projects.

Thank you for the messages asking for an update on the
Straker
(working title) project. As far as we know, no decisions on casting have yet been taken. It
may be that they have decided to cast the net wider and see more girls or it may be that the delay has nothing to do with the casting process at all. Sorry not to have more exciting news for you
and Elektra this time!

Kind regards,

Charlotte

• Time (awake) spent at school: 63.1 per cent; time at school spent thinking about acting: 37.5 per cent (which has reduced, but I’ve been
distracted by life drama).

• Number of auditions since Open Outcry: 4 (Stella’s on a mission to get me over it); strike rate: 0 (but I am now an EXPERT on
auditions).

Top Audition Rules

(as listed on google and annotated by me)

1.

Be yourself.

LOL don’t be youself; be the character. This is obviously a stupid rule.

2.

Wear all black so the clothes provide a neutral base for your characterization.

Unless ypi happen to have a stunningly vibrant purple schooluniform and you disposal. If you do whip it out.

3.

Be off book.

This is true, learn you lines even if they say you don’t have to then you can feel smug. Also your acting will be better.

4.

Be nice to the casting director.

Good plan. Playing hard to get really isn’t going to work when there are seventeen girls who look EXACTLY the same as you sitting in the waitng room.

5.

Walk in with good vibes

What does this even mean?

6.

Don’t request feedback.

I think I must be looking at an American list. I don’t know a single British actor who wouldn’t be way too awkward to do this.

7.

Always celebrate/console yourself with cake.

I added this one in. You’re welcome.

‘Elektra, do you want me to run these lines with you?’ my mum called upstairs.

‘It’s for a dead child. I don’t have any words,’ I yelled back.

‘No, not that one. The
Casualty
casting with seven lines before the operation,’ she bellowed.

Obviously, I would learn my lines, but I was in the middle of a mildly satisfying Sunday evening gossip session with Maia so I ignored Mum. I
needed
to know if Jenny had beaten Bella in
the battle to the death (well,
this
week’s battle to the death) for Max’s affections. I checked my phone. Excellent, she had (I liked Bella but I liked Jenny more).

What do you think of Torr?
asked Maia, moving on.

He’s nice

Bit up himself, right?

Bit

He was in my Tube carriage today
. She attached a pic of him, enormous headphones squashing down his hair. You could tell he was nodding along to the beat.

Some indie band that he’s ‘early adopting’, right?
That was my guess.

He probs knows the drummer

Hahaha Did you talk to him?

No. He was pretending he didn’t know me.

To be fair, as far as I knew, Torr did hardly know Maia.

My phone barked again.
Too cool?

So cool

Bit weird?

LOL maybe

And Moss is so boring when she’s with him

I know, right?
And then I felt guilty so I texted,
But they’re really sweet together.

No reply.

‘Elektra?’ my mum called again (of course she did).

‘Are you word perfect?’ The words bounced off the walls.

‘Yesssss.’ No.
Nooooo
.

‘I don’t believe you.’

How did she always know?

‘Come down and we’ll just run them a couple of times.’

I knew she’d come up if I didn’t go down and then she’d go on at me about the state of my room as well as how unprepared I was. Tidying it was on my list – but a long way
down from learning my lines.

‘I can practise them by myself,’ I said, helping myself to a slice of sponge cake when I came into the kitchen. ‘Hi, Dad.’ He was practically hidden behind a perfectly
constructed wall of files and just grunted a reply.

‘Get a plate for that. You can’t read the other parts on your own,’ said Mum.

‘Yes I can.’ I scooped the cream out of the middle with my finger. The cake was good. She should make more cakes and leave me alone to learn my own lines.

‘I want to help.’

My mother hadn’t had this much to do with my life since primary school. I’d thought I was long done with needing to be picked up in the car and submitting to having my hair brushed
and being reminded about my manners – but somehow I seemed to be right back there.

All that work I’d done, little by little, carving out territory for
me
and Mum was barging back in. I wasn’t talking about wild, open plains here, just enough space, any
space.

And she
loved
helping me learn lines. She got so into it, reading every other part with
feeling
and a wide range of disturbing accents. It annoyed me more than it should have
done.

‘Seriously, Mum, it’s fine. I’ve got ages and I’ll run them with Moss at lunchtime.’ That wasn’t true.

‘You’ve got two days and no you won’t. You’ve got Spanish oral practice at lunchtime.’

How
did she remember this stuff?
Why
did she remember this stuff? And that wasn’t the real reason I wasn’t going to run lines with Moss. The real reason I wasn’t
going to run lines with Moss was that Moss now spent every lunchtime ‘catching up’ with Torr over Snapchat (in case they’d missed some important development in each other’s
lives between 8.30 a.m. and 12.30 p.m.).

‘I’ve emailed Stella saying no to the
Twisted
casting,’ she said.

Well, that was predictable. Stella had asked (as a long shot) if I wanted to go up for the part of Holly in what she described as a ‘harrowing coming-of-age’ drama. I thought it
sounded quite interesting. My parents thought it sounded
horrible
(I think they took the bit about how it would be a ‘transformative experience’ a bit too literally).

‘Fine,’ I snapped and Mum’s shoulders went up and she looked hurt and made a big show of patting Digby and calling him a ‘good boy’. I got the point she was making.
Digby looked as smug as a Dalmatian can (which is actually quite smug).

‘Walkies,’ she offered and was gone before I could say sorry.

‘I don’t think you should talk to your mother like that,’ said Dad, looking up from his work. His tone was quite mild, but that was deceptive; he was seriously pissed with
me.

‘Sorry,’ I muttered. ‘I was going to say sorry.’

‘She’s only trying to help.’

‘But it doesn’t help. It just stresses me out. She makes everything such a big deal.’

There was one of those horrible pauses when you have enough time to wish you hadn’t said anything and your parent has enough time to think of something that will make you feel as bad about
yourself as you should.

‘She’s stressed too, Elektra. Have a bit of empathy.’

‘You mean because I’m stressing her?’

‘Not just you . . .’ There was a pause and we both thought about all the myriad things that could stress out my mum. ‘But yes, running you around to auditions and hanging about
waiting for hours isn’t something she chose to do.’

Fair.

‘And she finds it stressful, waiting to hear if you’ve got parts or second auditions.’

‘Why is that stressful for her? It’s worse for me.’

‘I’m not sure it is. But she worries for you because she loves you,’ he said calmly, rearranging his papers so that they were precisely aligned with the edge of the desk.

‘Well, you’re not wasting your time worrying about whether I’m going to get some acting part that I’m probably not going to get.’

‘No I’m not, but maybe I don’t need to worry because I know your mum’s worrying about it for both of us. And if she didn’t drive you to these godforsaken locations
I suppose I’d have to do it.’

I suppressed the thought that we’d probably get there and back a lot quicker. ‘You took me to the
Fortuneswell
audition,’ I said.

‘Yes I did, but that was in Central London and it was so boring it gave me new respect for your mother.’

My phone barked. Text from Archie. I surreptitiously opened it.
Hey, Elektra, what are you up to?

Yay.
Not much. What bout you?

‘Are you on your phone?’ asked Dad.

‘Sorry, yes I was.’ I turned it face down.

Dad still had things to say. ‘And if you do get parts who do you think will have to sort out the paperwork? You’re too young to do any of that.’

Also I’d probably forget everything and then lose it all.

‘Your mum does a lot for you, Elektra, and she doesn’t complain.’

Meaning that I did.

‘But Dad, seriously, she’s gone a bit mad. One minute she’s telling me the acting world is a horrible, exploitative industry and I should just be worrying about getting into a
good university and the next she’s, like, searching for open auditions on weird momager websites and pressing refresh on my IMDb page.’

Why? Why did she do that? As if it mattered what my ranking was – there are over four million actors listed on that site, thirty-nine million credits, so it’s kind of hard to stand
out. At number one today in the STARmeter is Jennifer Lawrence, up 11,779 (little green arrow) one day, down 41,324 (big red arrow) the next – go figure that nobody’s going be looking
me up that isn’t a blood relation. The STARmeter is a real thing – a sort of graph with little emoticons marking things like film releases and Oscar nominations or . . . well,
death
(kind of sick to give death an emoticon – a cute little tombstone if you were wondering), little peaks and troughs of popularity.