Page 87 of The Actor: Harrison
“You want to distribute it for one week in Los Angeles so you can be nominated for the Oscar?” he asks.
Aaron already laid out our goals before we got here, and now I’m sure we overestimated our movie. Maybe Aaron was too happy to finally work with me that he completely misread our potential? We should have asked for a smaller fish, aim for less pretentious targets.
I look at Sienna, her expression unreadable, same as Aaron. Am I the only one freaking out right now?
“I’m not doing it,” he adds.
There it is. Our dreams going up in flames. I look down at my hands and I can’t think of anything to say. The disappointment is so massive it’s burning a hole straight through my chest.
“I’m not going to waste my time and resources for something that small. You have a gold mine right under your ass and you want to just do the bare minimum?” he asks.
Wait.What?
“I want to go big with this one. I want national distribution. Or, even better, we should try for worldwide. You have the potential to make history at the box office and I’m not passing this up just because you want to be eligible for an Oscar nomination. I won’t even discuss an offer for anything less,” he says firmly and we’re all completely speechless.
It’s Aaron who breaks the silence. “There’s no time for a campaign so massive. How could we pull off something like that? We’d need to find the contacts for worldwide distribution, it would take months.”
He’s not wrong. We’re risking biting off more than we can chew and ruining everything.
My stomach dips like I’m on rollercoaster. What he’s considering is gargantuan, with a lot of work for a team we don’t even have. I glance at Sienna and she’s studying the man like she’s figuring out a puzzle. The small smile tells me she’s close to solving it. Or she’s losing it. At this point, I’m not sure of anything.
“Okay, let’s do this,” she says firmly.
Aaron and I turn toward her, trying to see if she’s joking or not. She looks at both of us and smiles, shrugging.
“I know, it’s risky and we could fail. But, what’s the worst thing that could happen? We won’t be nominated for the Oscar? It would suck, but we’d have worldwide exposure for the movie. When I started this project, I assumed it would be an indie movie. This is already a victory for me. If we’re nominated for the Oscar, that’s just the cherry on the top,” she points out, and I can’t disagree with her.
Working on this project was strange in that I saw the potential and wanted more. It’s amazing that we’ve come such a long way since that party in January, but I lost focus of the fact that this started as an indie movie. Now we’re talking about distributing it worldwide. That’s not just big, it’s impossible. We’ve already done the magic, we’re already winners.
“Let’s do this!” I blurt out and feel my chest expand with happiness and fear and a hundred different feelings I can’t name.
Aaron crosses his hands behind his neck and leans back in his chair grinning. “Let’s do this.”
“Get ready to flaunt your dick all over the world,” Sonny smirks at me.
My eyes fly to his, wide like saucers. I completely forgot about my full-frontal nude scene.
“Shit.”
The crowd outside the iconic movie theater on Hollywood Boulevard is loud. Barriers along the street keep the fans on the other side of the oriental-designed building. They’re screaming Harrison’s name, mostly, but they’re calling my name too.
It’s the first time in my life that I have a movie premiere for one of my projects, let alone one this massive. Nervousness grips my stomach and I’m struggling to stand up without crumbling on the red carpet.
We did it. We worked overtime to bring this to life. Sonny used his connections to sell the movie overseas and we actually pulled off the kind of launch usually seen with blockbusters.
“Are you nervous?” Harrison grabs my chin between two fingers and gently forces me to move my wide eyes from the crowd to his face.
“Terrified,” I admit.
“Are you going to throw up?” He smiles at me.
“Probably.”
“Can you try not to do it in front of the cameras?” He chuckles.
“I can try, but I can’t guarantee anything.”
This time he laughs and it’s enough to relax my nerves a bit. I’m not completely chill, but at least my stomach doesn’t hurt.
