We spent the next few hours between the beach and food, swimming, eating, watching the different street performances near the Pier. Alex continued filming at random moments, he was actually quite inconspicuous with it and it almost felt like we were not being filmed.
As we were getting ourselves some churros from a stand near the beach, Alex decided to start chatting with a few pretty girls that were also there. We joined him and I of course started talking with them as well, though one of them caught my eye more than the others, she had long brown hair, a beautiful smile and was probably three inches shorter than me, though more than her physical appearance she seemed familiar, like I had seen her before, she was cute too.
"So what's your name? You seem familiar" I asked the girl.
She laughed at that, "Does that line usually work on girls you flirt with ?"
I immediately flushed in embarrassment at my forwardness, I truly didn't even mean it as flirting too, I awkwardly replied "Sorry that wasn't what I meant. Are you an actress ? I swear I've seen you in a movie before."
She raised a brow at that and smiling said, "Oh so you think I'm beautiful enough to be an actress, that's very nice of you. What's your name ?"
So she was teasing me. It seems like she knew exactly what I was talking about. I was about to reply when I realized who it was : the girl from True Grit, Hailee something, who was nominated for best supporting actress at the Oscars last year. Since I had recognized her I decided to tease her back.
"Not just beautiful enough to be an actress but an Oscar nominated one, I think."
She blushed at that and pouting a little, replied, "So you were teasing me from the beginning huh ? You actually knew who I was "
" Would you believe me if I said no?" I asked, shrugging.
"Not really, though I have to ask. How did you recognize me, almost no one does ? I've changed a lot since then." she said curiously.
"I saw the movie only recently, though it still took me a while to remember you, plus I still don't remember your name." I said in a teasing tone.
She looked at me for a while and for a solid minute I thought I had blown it, that's when she said, "You're interesting, I'm Hailee Steinfeld, you ?"
"Xavier Wilson."
"So are you also an actor ?" she asked
It was my turn to raise a brow in surprise, "What makes you think that ?" I replied
"We've barely met and the only thing you've talked about is movies, outside of my beauty of course." she laughed, flipping her hair behind her back exaggeratedly.
"Fair enough" I sheepishly replied. "You're right I'm also an actor, though I'm still looking for my breakout role to be honest."
"That's cool, I tried for quite a few years before I got mine." she said, "Are you from LA ?"
"Yeah"
"So am I and I can tell you, it's an advantage, I wouldn't have gotten as many opportunities if me and my family had to travel all the time." she replied honestly.
We continued talking for a while, getting to know each other. She was 15 as well, a month younger than me, she lived in Thousand Oaks and she had just filmed the Ender's Game adaptation in Louisiana. Soon enough though, I got called by Ethan, we had to go back.
We quickly separated from the girls, slowly moving before going towards Ethan's car. I was minding my business when all of a sudden Alex put his arm around me and with a shit-eating grin said, "So was your conversation interesting? Did ya have fun?"
I rolled my eyes but smiled nonetheless, I truly hadn't come in with any intentions of doing anything, I had just recognized her from somewhere, but she had been quite nice to talk to. That's true.
"Yeah she was nice, she's also an actress, and was in the Cohen brothers True Grit." I said, trying to steer clear of the obvious subject.
"Yeah alright whatever, good for her, did you get her number ?" retorted Alex, tightening his arm around me into a headlock.
"Ah fuck, I forgot." I said, struggling to get out of his headlock, he was seriously way too strong for a 16 years old.
Alex released his hold on me at that, then looked at me a bit too condescendingly for my liking and said, "Bro…seriously ? You forgot?... You're going to die a virgin."
"Fuck off" I replied, flipping him off.
"All right, you guys, that's enough, get in the car, but don't put your sandy ass feet in there without cleaning them first, got it? I'm not cleaning my car again just because of you two." stated Ethan, nagging us for no reason.
"Yeah, whatever, shut up with your ugly ass car." I replied, still annoyed at the fact that I hadn't asked Hailee for her number, to which Ethan then put me in a headlock too.Something he could do better than both me and Alex by the way, since he was taller, stronger and more experienced than both of us in martial arts.
"Alright, alright sorry jesus christ it's not that deep bro." I gasped , tapping out immediately.
"Pussy," said Ethan, laughing.
"Dude you're 18, you technically just assaulted a minor, you could go to jail you know that right ?" I countered, unwilling to back down
Ethan simply replied, smiling almost cruelly if it wasn't for that joking glint in his eyes,"Do you want to know what real assault is? let me show you for a second, come here, mother fucker."
I immediately ran as fast as I could, with Ethan right behind me just as fast while Alex simply laughed, running after us.
(Break)
"So are you ready for the audition ?" asked my father, opening the car door.
"As ready as I can be, yeah, luckily I was able to remember all of my lines." I replied.
I got in the car and an hour later we were parking the car on Beverly Boulevard, near the Blumhouse headquarters. As we were walking towards the building where my audition was going to take place, I saw James there, waiting for me.
"James what's up" I said, giving him a polite hug.
"Nothing much, everything seems to be going finally well for The Purge" he replied. "By the way the second part of your paycheck has been sent to us by Disney, you should get it today or tomorrow, it was 30k."
"Alright thanks." I answered, trusting him.
Right before we started filming, Disney had sent me the first part of my 95k paycheck, in this case 30k, it was sent to UTA and James who got 10% of that. Leaving me with 27k, I had decided that I would put 30% of all my paychecks in my Coogan account to let it grow and over the past nine years had accumulated 25k dollars in there plus with this paycheck I would be adding 30k it would be growing to 55k in there, the money also wasn't just sitting there, me and my mom had invested the money into five companies: Apple, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Disney and Hasbro.
Why these five specifically? It's simple, my mother chose three of them and I threw a tantrum until they let me pick the other two, in which case it was Disney because of Pirates of the Caribbean and Hasbro because I had an obsession with nerf guns at the time. I don't know what I was thinking but hey, at least it wasn't the worst choice I could've made, which is also probably why my mom and the bank let it be.
Anyway we soon entered the building and then the seating area before the audition.
"Hello, are you guys here for the audition ?" said a nice lady at the reception desk.
"Yes, my client is Xavier Wilson." replied James
"Alright take a seat." said the nice lady, gesturing towards the seats.
"Okay Thank You" said James, smiling. He then turned to me and my father and said "Alright take a seat I have to go and say hi to a friend of mine."
We sat down in the room, I took out the audition scene, I wanted to reread my script.
"Yo, you're that guy from the Maleficent audition right?" I heard a voice say behind me.
I turned around where I saw Timothee, the guy I talked to before the Maleficent audition.
"Yeah, you failed that audition right ?" I replied, keeping him on his toes, he was still competition after all.
"How would you know that though ? Maybe I just got back from the set." he said, crossing his arms and looking at me condescendingly.
I smirked at that, "I know for a fact that you didn't though."
"Really how?" he replied, not convinced but not contradicting me either.
"What do you think ?" I said looking straight back at him, still smirking at him.
He stood silently, looking at me for a while before a glint of realization crossed over his face for a second, it was brief but still long enough for me to see it.
"You got it ? How ?" asked Timothee a little shocked at the revelation.
I couldn't resist it so I simply smirked and said, "I guess I'm just a better actor than you, better looking too."
"Fuck off, I'm serious, how did you get it ?" asked Timothee, laughing, sitting next to me.
I thought about it for a while, then said, "Well the truth is I don't know how good of an actor you are, but I think honestly I just had better chemistry with Elle Fanning."
Timothee raised a brow at that, "The little girl who played Aurora in that Audition? Isn't she like fourteen ? How could you possibly have chemistry with her ?"
A look of realization crossed my face, "Oh were you uncomfortable with how young she was? Lucky for me I'm just a year older than her so there was no reason for me to be uncomfortable, unlike you."
"Right, I forgot." mumbled Timothee, "But I'm seventeen so yeah it was a little weird honestly."
"Anyway, do you think you'll get this one ?" I asked.
"Yeah I'm pretty sure, I've been preparing for a while now for this audition." he replied confidently. "What about you?"
"I just got back from the set of Maleficent so I'm pretty jet lagged, maybe you'll get it who knows?" I said, shrugging. "I'm still pretty confident though, after all, I beat you once didn't I ?"
"Oh it's on, I'll get you an invite to the premiere and make you watch me play the role when I beat you this time." he stated, not backing down.
"I can't wait," I said laughing.
(Break)
I entered the audition room, where Lisa Fields, the casting director, was sitting on the right side of the table, along with two others I didn't recognize were sitting behind a table.
"Hello, I'm Xavier Wilson, I'm fifteen years old and I'm auditioning for the role of Charlie Sandin. Nice to meet you"
"Alright Xavier I'm Lisa Fields and I'm the casting director for this film" said Lisa.
"I'm John Barba and I'm in charge of Supporting casting." said the man on the left side of the table.
"I'm James DeMonaco, the writer and director of The Purge." said the man in the center, looking at me with sharp eyes, as if trying to see through me.
"The plans have changed by the way, we're making you all do another scene from the movie not the one we gave you." he said, pausing for effect. "This one has less words in it but we need to see the right emotions on your face, you have five minutes to read the scene and prepare," he said, giving me what I guess would be my new script.
I read the script as quickly as I could. The gist of it was that Charlie, the character I was auditioning for, saw a man in need outside of his house who was secured and after hesitating for a while decided to let him into their home against what his parents told him. The rest of the scene is mostly him screaming at the man to hurry up and get inside the house.
I reread the script as much as I can and then I close my eyes for a few seconds, imagining myself in this kid's shoes. What would I do in this situation? How anxious would I be? How much would I hesitate?
"Whenever you're ready" I hear a male voice say, probably the director James.
I sit a few more seconds before finally saying "I'm ready"
(Break)
Charlie is sitting down in his secret place looking through his little robot's eyes, which he's controlling to go across the house. He enters the security control room and points his robot to look up towards the live camera feed, to which he suddenly sits up: A man is running away from something and hides behind the gates of a neighboring house.
Charlie sits up and runs to the control room, and looks at the feed, he sees that the man seems to be shouting something unclear so he puts the volume on louder..
"Help me ! Someone please help me !"
Charlie hesitates, he knows his father would forbid him from opening their doors to this person. His finger hovers over the passcode buttons.
"They're coming after me alright ? Can anybody help me ?" shouts the man.
James zooms in on the man trying to see more clearly.
"Please ! They killed…I just need to get somewhere safe, does anybody hear me?" the man shouts again.
"Look I won't hurt you ! I don't want to die. I don't deserve this."
Charlie bites his fingers anxiously, his brows furrowing, not sure what to do.
"Why won't anybody help me? I just need somewhere to hide. Somebody please just open the door for me." he says again in an exhausted voice.
Suddenly gunshots are heard and Charlie flinches, scared.
"They're coming, they're coming, somebody please help ! They're going to kill me." the man shouts again
Charlie takes a deep breath and no longer hesitating puts the code in to disarm the house.
The house is disarming slowly and Charlie runs towards the front door, opens them and shouts anxiously, "Come here! Let's go ! This way!"
The man starts running towards him.
"Come on! Hurry!" he continued shouting "Hurry! Go Go ! Hurry"
"Alright thank you for auditioning, we'll be in touch with your agent to let you know if you got the role." said Lisa, the casting director, her face undecipherable .
"Thank you." I said getting up and walking towards the exit.
I knew, getting out of there that I had just given the best audition that I could at the moment. Considering the sudden change of script, and the few words I had to say. I think overall I had done the best that I could, I had on purpose made sure to visualise the situation and the way I would feel before instead of memorizing every word written on the script. The change was obvious, they wanted to see who could portray as much emotion as possible, so that's what I just did.