Chapter 117

When Aiden first started auditioning, Uncle Sam suggested he audition for an independent movie. While waiting for his turn in the waiting room, he saw Katie Brooks for the first time.

She was a struggler, the same as him, and they were also of a similar age.

During the audition, the Director, who felt they didn’t suit the characters, rejected both for the respective roles.

It was Aiden’s first rejection, and he wasn’t too bothered by it as he was not expecting to get the role the first time, but it was different for Katie, who had tears in her eyes.

Feeling bad about her, Aiden approached her, and they went to a cafe to talk. There, she told him that she had not gotten any role for more than a year and was on the brink of quitting acting.

She was depressed as many directors had told her that she would never be an actress. On that day, Katie had ranted out all her frustration to Aiden.

They were strangers, but she wanted to release the frustration that was eating her from inside. Upon hearing her story, although he couldn’t come up with any motivational speech, he advised her not to give up because of rejections because life isn’t finding shelter in the storm. Instead, it’s about learning to dance in the rain.

From that time, Aiden and Katie encountered each other in numerous auditions and often discussed acting and the type of roles they wanted to do.

Because of that, they became good friends, and after two months, Katie had actually gotten a good support role in a drama series.

Aiden remembered that he was glad for her at that time, and after that role, Katie’s career had always been on the rise. Then, finally, one of the agents from the Red Ant agency saw her acting and offered her a contract.

Aiden didn’t really see Katie after that as she reallocated to Los Angeles and started being a part of more movies with higher budgets and bigger studios.

Although there were quite a few movies that Aiden had watched in the theatre in which Katie had played a part.

In fact, she was one of the reasons Aiden hadn’t given up even after continuous failures. But seeing her right now in front of him, Aiden couldn’t help but be surprised.

Seeing her, he felt like she was still the same. Katie had brown hair bound in a ponytail, and her small face and delicate facial features gave her the vibes of a girl next door.

‘What is Katie doing here?’

He thought in his mind as a weird atmosphere started to build up.

Katie’s eyes were also wide, looking up at Aiden. She knew that Aiden was the male lead of [30 days of Happiness], but as they saw each other after a long time, she still felt a bit of awkwardness.

“Aiden, what happened?” Leo was the one to break the weird atmosphere. He glanced up between him and Katie. “Do you know each other?”

“Yes!”

They replied simultaneously.

Aiden took a deep breath and explained the situation.

“I met Katie a long time ago during an audition. We are friends but have not really talked to each other for a long time.” He then looked up at Katie. “I didn’t know you would be here today.”

Katie smiled at him and nodded her head.

“My agent gave me the script for [30 days of Happiness], and I really liked the plot of it, so I did an audition.”

“Yeah, she’s going to play the role of Claire Price, the female lead,” Omar said, and Aiden thought that the role of Claire was pretty, unlike Katie, who was a very reserved person.

But he knew that she was an outstanding actress.

‘She’s in Intermediate Grade 1. The same as me.’

He thought, sitting in front of her. As he sat down, Leo looked at everyone there and introduced Aiden.

“Aiden is playing the role of Arthur Reeves.” Everyone, including Katie, looked up at Aiden. “He’s also doing the soundtrack for the movie.”

“It’s very nice to meet you.”

Aiden said, looking at everyone. Aside from Katie, there were three more actors present there. One by one, everyone introduced themselves.

One of them was Fredrick Miller, a veteran actor who was mainly known in independent circles and had also acted in some series, gaining a lot of acclaim for his acting skills.

He was playing the role of Charles Dunkin, one of the most significant characters in the movie.

The other guy was Jayden Briggs, a 20-year-old actor playing the role of Sam, Claire’s ex-boyfriend, and the third guy was Colby Hudson, who was playing an Italian gangster that both Claire and Arthur would come across in a very comedic sequence.

“So, now that everyone is here, it’s good if you can get to know each other better and get a tacit understanding of each other’s characters.”

Leo said after a while. The whole cast was called here to give them a chance to get to know each other better, so the shooting could go smoothly.

It was also good to be close to your co-actor as the chemistry between them was easy to develop like this.

Fredrick, as a veteran of the industry, was the first to break the ice, and seeing him, others also opened their mouths. The talk was mainly about the script, characters and their favourite parts of the script.

Omar and Leo didn’t interfere much, letting the actors talk.

“Aiden, I heard you were the first one to get casted. Why did you audition for Arthur?” Fredrick turned towards Aiden and asked. The old man seemed curious to know his answer.

“I just thought that he’s fascinating,” Aiden said after thinking a bit. “He’s timid and awkward, but during the scenes in which he’s talking about his hobbies or just music, you can clearly sense the confidence. He’s very arrogant about his work, pretty much like how an artist is.”

“Is it easier for you to get into the character because both of you are musicians?” Katie asked, staring at him, and he shook his head.

“Not really. We both like music, but he’s more passionate than me. He’s the type of a guy you would find holed up in his room, half-crazy one day because he’s trying to focus too much on his music. Our personalities are different, too, and he has a sense of clumsiness around him. It’s only at the movie’s end when he really gets out of it and starts believing in himself more.”

Aiden gave a very detailed answer, making both Katie and Fredrick impressed. The other two also nodded, and the discussion went ahead, with other people talking about their characters and the relationship among their characters.

Even if a character doesn’t have a backstory, many actors will try to make an imaginary story in their minds so that the character looks real.

Both Fredrick and Colby talked in detail about that.

“You must be surprised to see me here.”

As Aiden listened to the conversation going around him, Katie suddenly whispered. Looking up at her, he nodded.

“Kind of. I just didn’t expect you to be in an indie movie, especially the one I’m doing. I guess Hollywood is really just a small circle.”

“Yeah, it is.” Katie nodded, smiling to herself.

She felt good to see Aiden again and know he had come this far. When they used to be in contact, he would never talk about music, so she was amazed when she saw him trending on Sparrow due to being in X-Star.

After that, Katie had kept on his career from time to time, but she hadn’t really expected to meet him as co-star.

“I thought you were only going to do big, commercial blockbusters. So what are you doing in a 5 million dollar project when you don’t even go below 50 million?”

Aiden raised an eyebrow. After getting an agent, Katie’s career trajectory had become one of an actor who would play a supporting role in many commercial movies.

Some worked, and some didn’t, but she had earned a lot of fame in the last two years for being a part of many big-budget movies.

If Aiden was honest, Katie was well over doing independent movies.

“My agent told me that I need to have critically acclaimed performances to be seen as someone who could lead a movie, so I’m trying to hustle in the indie world to show people that I’m not just another pretty actress. And I really liked the script of [30 days of Happiness]. Leo said you helped in modifying it.”

She tilted her head, and Aiden nodded.

“Yeah, but it was more of a discussion to give more exposure to Arthur’s characters and show his backstory. The earlier version missed a lot of points, so I just pointed it out during the audition. It wasn’t a big deal.”

Aiden was honestly saying that as he was sure that if the system hadn’t told him the script score, he wouldn’t have worked hard to analyse it whole and talk to Leo about it.

But Katie didn’t know that.

“I think it’s still quite impressive. First music and then this. You have changed a lot in the time I have not seen you.”

…

//Dream Note//

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