Unscripted Joss Byrd (6 page)

“At one point he rubs my head into the dirt.” Chris takes a deep breath and pushes his salad around with a knife. (He eats a lot of salad for a boy.) “There's a way to do it so it's not real-real. But man, oh man … it's
kind
of real. I mean, if I'm on the ground I'm on the ground, right?”

I want to wipe the dirt off his cheek, but I don't dare. If I was pretty and fourteen and he thought of me as a girl instead of a “little kid,” as he called me, I would. But I'm not, and he doesn't, so I won't. This could've been one of those movie moments: boy needs comforting. Girl is the only one who understands. Close up on both. His eyes. Her eyes. They lean closer. Will they kiss or won't they? But really it's just Christopher Tate and me sitting next to some bees at a stinking garbage can.

“Does it hurt?” I ask.

“It doesn't tickle, I'll tell you that. And of course we're going to have to do it, like, fifty times from every angle.”

He's right. It might take all day to get it right. In my last movie, a fight scene took four hours.

“It'd be fine if Rodney would maybe, like, joke around or something with me at least. But he's always
in
it; he's always in the zone. It feels like he hates me in real life.”

Rodney's stare through the screen door was mean enough for me. I can't imagine a punch, even a fake one.

“Why'd I ever say I would do this? I'm missing the first month of high school.” He kicks a pebble that hits the garbage can square in the middle. “Last week was soccer tryouts. They'll never let me on now.” Chris stabs a tomato slice, leaving the knife sticking straight up.

Right now I don't know what's harder: being an actor who hates school or being an actor who likes it. But me and Chris are one and the same in a bigger way; he needs to work. His folks and older brothers run a restaurant in Florida. I don't think it does very good.

“What if the only reason I was cast is because I look like Terrance in that picture?” Chris asks.

I don't know what to say. I've been wanting to bond more with Chris, but I was imagining spending a day at Dave & Buster's arcade.

“I've never done a drama before,” Chris says. “Just comedies—stupid stuff, like riding a Razor scooter through the hallways and junk.”

I've seen the movie he means—
Sixth Period Lunch
—but I don't say so because I've seen it more times than I want to admit. And when I found out we were going to work together I watched all of his scenes again.

Chris holds his head and lets out a loud sigh. “Ugh … I'm supposed to cry, too.”

That's one part of the script that always stays the same:
TJ cries.
He's almost crying now.
Just hold on to that,
I want to tell him, but I don't want to interrupt the thoughts that are swirling around in his mind.

“I've seen
Hit the Road
and
Buy One, Get One
,” he says, finally looking at me.

I stare at my rice. It doesn't affect me much when a hundred strangers watch my work, but I care what Chris thinks. Chris seeing my movies is kind of like him reading my diary, if I had a diary. I look so young in those movies. No wonder he thinks of me as a kid.

“I've seen you cry and scream and all that on-screen.” He leans forward as if I've got the key to the universe. “How do you do that?”

In
Sixth Period Lunch
, Chris Razor scootered through the cafeteria, smiling at the girls. In this one part, he takes off his hat and puts it on the prettiest girl as he glides past her. I can't believe a boy like that wants advice from
me
. I just learned that acting is reacting from YouTube, so what do I even know?

“Well, uh…” I pick the dirt under my fingernails while I think about how to describe what I do. “I use my triggers.”

“What are triggers?”

I peek at Chris. He's serious. He really wants my help. “Uh … they're bad stuff from my life,” I say quietly.

He nods for me to go on. He doesn't care what my triggers are. He only wants to know how I use them, so I sit taller and explain.

“I ask for quiet fifteen minutes before a tough scene, block everything else out, and think about it real hard until I feel it behind my eyes and my face and in my throat.” I hold my neck as I speak. “And then I bust it all out the second I hear ‘Action.'”

Chris sits real quiet for a long time, biting the inside of his mouth. It's probably the dumbest thing he's ever heard, and he's wondering why he bothered asking me. He should ask Rodney how to get in the zone.

Chris laughs. “I think I'm going to need more than fifteen minutes.”

I laugh with him. “Well, like the way you're feeling now. If you can bottle it up, then you can use it later.”

“Oh, great.” He throws up his hands. “I don't feel so bad anymore.”

“You can get yourself worked up again,” I say, secretly happy that I've made him feel better. “Use a trigger. Really. The more you practice doing it, the faster it works.”

He gives me a slight smile. “Okay. It's worth a shot.”

We pick up our trays and head back inside. The basement is filled up now with our starved crew, and just as I predicted, the rice pudding cups are gone. But there's some saint statue standing behind the dessert table with his arms open, praying for more.

We pass Rodney filling his tray. I can feel him watching me when I cross the room; it gives me the creeps. Poor Chris.

“Too hot outside?” Terrance asks as me and Chris join the table with the rest of the group.

“Bees,” I say.

“Yeah. Swarms,” Chris adds, and I feel like we're in on something together.

“Well, be careful. If you get bit on the face, that'll be it,” Viva says. She's very into protecting my face, not for my safety, but for the camera.

“Not bit.
Stung
,” I say.

“Cool it, Smart-mouth,” she says, giving me the eye. “And cover your wardrobe.” She tucks my napkin into my collar and spreads it across my chest as if I'm a baby about to eat mashed carrots. My wardrobe is a tank top with a picture of a rocket ship on the front. It's already dirtied on purpose, but it's not supposed to get dirty by mistake.

Just as we're getting settled, Rodney reaches across the table and snatches two of Chris's rice pudding cups as he heads to his seat. The grown-ups ignore it, but Chris closes his eyes and curses under his breath. I feel so bad that I give him one of my puddings as soon as Rodney turns his back. Let me tell you, pudding is the last thing that Rodney needs. He's plenty mushy around the middle, and don't even try to tell me he put on those pounds for his character.

“I got some extra potato salad. I know how much you like it, TJ.” My mother passes Terrance the bowl. She started using his nickname when we first got to the studio in Brooklyn. She likes getting chummy with people from the start. But I'd feel disrespectful calling him TJ.

“Ah, thank you. Bonus,” he says, mixing the potatoes with his corn. He passes me another napkin, since mine is around my neck. I grin at him. Terrance says that having meals together makes for a better movie because it makes us feel sort of like we're a family. He's right. This is the type of family I'd like, anyway.

The closest I ever had to a dad was Brian Shea Towson; he played my country singer dad in
Hit the Road
. We ate all our lunches together, too. I liked calling him Pops, even off set, which I guess is kind of like staying in character.

“Go easy there with the healthy stuff, Joss. What is that, broccoli?” Terrance inspects my tray. “If you get too tall, we'll have to recast you.”

Not funny.
And there goes a perfectly nice lunch with my happy imaginary family. I stare at my buttered roll.

If I could stunt my growth so I could play a child forever, believe me, I would. I'm lucky I still look young enough to play Norah. Doris says that being small in Hollywood is the pot of gold. There're a ton of parts until the awkward age. I'm living proof of that because I keep playing younger than I am. In
The Locals
, Norah is meant to be ten even though I'm twelve.

Terrance is talking to Christopher now, about the real day he tried to build the crow's nest. “I want you to remember the excitement I felt at the beginning. That lookout was going to be my connection to the ocean, the one place I really loved. It was going to be my escape.”

Chris is pushing his food around as he listens. He's under a lot of pressure, but at least he gets to talk with Terrance about his part. I don't know how Norah felt about the crow's nest or the ocean, and I don't know what's really in her heart. I've never played a real person before. I wish I could talk to her and know that I'm doing good enough.

“Terrance, when am I gonna meet the real Norah? You mailed my letter, right?” I say. Norah lives somewhere nearby. Damon helped me write a quick note asking her to visit the set. Terrance gave me her address to put on it.

“Don't be pushy, Joss,” my mother says. “Sorry.” She squeezes Terrance's arm and leaves her hand there.

“It's fine.” Terrance winks at me. “I did mail it, kiddo. I'd love for Norah to come. But she's very busy, my sister. She must be out of town.” Terrance drops his fork into his not-beef-stew and then he pokes me on the nose. I don't mind if he treats me like I'm ten when we're on set. But I wish he wouldn't do that in real life, especially in front of Chris. “But she's very proud of her mini-self. She really is.”

“Well … okay,” I say.

Just then I notice a plastic wristband on Terrance's arm. Chris is wearing one, too. “Hey, what are those wristbands?” I ask.

“Chris and I went to the driving range last night.”

“We got unlimited refills—golf balls, not sodas,” Chris says.

“Oh.” Besides missing so many good times, another problem with turning down invitations is that after a while you stop getting invited altogether. “Then what about the lighthouse?” I ask Terrance. “When can you take me?”

“Joss, TJ has enough to do right now. Don't go bugging him about sightseeing,” my mother says, even though Terrance had time for the driving range and the lighthouse was his idea in the first place. If Viva would stop kissing up to Terrance for two seconds, it'd be two seconds of pigs flying.

“But we're supposed to take trick pictures that look like I'm holding the lighthouse in my palm. Terrance said he'd do them with me.”

“Let's all nail scene fifteen first.” Terrance isn't kidding even a little. “Then we'll talk lighthouse. And Chris, don't forget to cut the wristband off before the shoot.”

Chris is biting the inside of his mouth again. I can tell that Terrance is making him even more nervous, so I drop my napkin on the floor and pull him down with me.

“You know,” I whisper under the table. “They can give you tear drops.”

“They can?” he asks, surprised.

“Sure.” I cover my full mouth. “The makeup department's got tears in a dropper. Plenty of actors use them.”

His face lights up. “Do you use them?”

“No…” I feel bad about that, for some reason. He looks so worried that I almost tell him I've been studying Vern LaVeque's Master Class. Almost. “I don't use them, but
everybody
does,” I say instead. “No one cares, anyway. No one cares how you get the shot, as long as you get it.” That sounds like something Viva would say, but it isn't. That line is all me.

 

5

Caroline, my stand-in, is twenty-three but my height and my coloring. We each get a stand-in: Jericho and Chris get Warner and Davey (grown-ups who are small). And Rodney gets a big guy named Frosty who's as doughy as him. Our stand-ins pretend to be us so that the crew can set up the camera and the lights and practice shooting all the movement without us. That's how we get time to rest or tutor, or in Rodney's case, to order fast food and nap in his trailer.

I'm obsessed with stand-ins; on
Hit the Road
I couldn't believe that I got one. For some reason I thought stand-ins would be only for adults. But that's how come I realized I was an actor, too. I figured if I needed a backup, I must be somebody important.

I wish I had a stand-in for real life. Can you imagine having someone walk through your day to make sure everything's fine before it's your turn? She could warn me, “Watch out for Viva. She's snippy today!” or “There's a pop quiz on fractions. Number 3 is C!” I could get used to that.

Caroline is up in my tree when we get back to set after lunch. She waves to me on my way inside the house. Viva says that stand-ins do a lot of work but don't get any glory. Caroline told me she likes this gig but is trying to get a real acting job. But to me, being a stand-in should come under the heading of count your blessings because she gets to stay at the Beachcomber, too, and she gets to eat all the same catering and sit up in a tree for the day. Best of all, she never has to learn any lines. If you ask me, she's pretty much got it made. So, I guess it all depends on your definition of
glory
.

Basecamp is too far away from set for us to get shuttled back and forth between takes, and we finished filming interior shots at the soundstage, so Damon and me are going to tutor in the house during the backyard scene. I'm supposed to do school for fifteen hours a week. Benji keeps track of my hours in a leather memo pad as if his life depends on it. He says that production can get in trouble if I don't meet my schooling requirements. We're two hours behind from last week, so that adds up to needing seventeen hours for this week. But Damon said we should try to live in the present. In other words, we're in denial about having to make it all up in the end just like we're in denial about the reading he wants me to do, and the long list of classwork Viva will sign off on. I've brought my backpack with some books, but they're just for appearances. All we're really going to do here is practice Vern LaVeque's listening, feeling, and reacting. Denial is just a real-life type of acting.