The plane left LAX at 9:00 PM and would take more than 10 hours to arrive at Heathrow. While I was on the plane, I decided to rewatch the original Sleeping Beauty from 1959 that I had downloaded for the flight, in a completely legal way of course… no, but seriously, Netflix should let us download stuff for things like flights or road trips, it would be an instant success. Anyway, I decided to watch it because they had only given me the script for my scenes and I wanted to see if I could gain anything more about the story from that movie. I had also bought a book with the original fairytale by Charles Perrault to read.
Okay, maybe I was a bit nervous for someone that's going to be on the big screen for less than 20 minutes, but hey, can you really blame me? This is a 180 million dollar production with Angelina Jolie as the main lead. Anyway, on my left, my brother was watching Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. I would be watching it with him if I wasn't so stressed about my role. We had the same taste in movies and shows; that was one of the good things about him. We never fought over what we wanted to watch.
In the end, I decided to go to the bathroom. I needed to calm myself down a bit; stressing out like this would only wear me down.
"Calm down. You can do this," I thought, splashing water on my face and taking a few deep breaths. "I can do this."
(Break)
We arrived in London at 3 PM local time. I had wanted to watch more of the stuff I had downloaded, but I fell asleep about two hours into the flight and didn't wake back up until we arrived.
As we got out of the airport, I saw someone holding a board that said Xavier Wilson & Family, which felt a little surreal. He was tall and had a tired look to him. He soon saw us and started walking toward us.
"Hello, mister, I'm Xavier Wilson!" I said, putting on my nicest smile.
"Hi, Xavier. They gave me your headshot so I could recognize you. I'm Henry Schneider. I work under Zack Roth, who's an associate producer on the movie," said Henry.
"It's very nice to meet you, Henry," replied my father.
"I'll be driving you guys to your accommodation first. It's a hotel 20 minutes from Pinewood Studios and 30 minutes from the center of London," he said, getting in the car. "It's also around ten minutes from here, so don't worry—the drive won't be too long."
"That's great," replied my mother, probably thinking of all the great things they could do without me, because yes, it just hit me that I still had to work while they went and spent twenty-eight days on vacation.
"You'll also start shooting tomorrow. Today, you can just relax a little and go to sleep early, because tomorrow you start work," he said, turning back to me. "Be ready, because it's harder than you think, but a lot of fun as well."
Soon enough, we arrived at the hotel and opened our suitcases. We were staying here for basically a month, after all. We had two rooms: one for my parents and one for me and my brother. It was a nice, cozy room with two queen beds and a balcony with a chair, giving us a view of the English countryside. I decided to take a seat and read my fairytale book until we went to have dinner.
"You ready for tomorrow?" asked my father while we were going back to our rooms. We had found a nice Indian restaurant near the hotel that had a good rating on TripAdvisor, so we ate there and were very satisfied.
"Yeah, but I'm also a little nervous, to be honest," I replied, shuddering with both excitement and anxiety, thinking of my first day on set. "It's one thing doing your part in an audition with like three people watching you, it's another doing it in front of like twenty people who have seen better actors than you, and with the knowledge that it'll be recorded for millions to see."
"I guess that's true, but I don't think you should worry too much. Everybody messes up at some point, even big stars and big directors," he said comfortingly, putting a hand on my shoulder.
"Wow, that's how you comfort me? By implying I'll mess up for sure? Not by saying I'm a great actor and that I won't mess up my scenes? Such a good father," I teased, nudging him a little.
He chuckled at that, ruffling my hair before saying, "Just don't worry too much, okay? It's normal to feel nervous, but don't let it consume you. And for the record," he said, pausing for a second, "you are a good actor, no scratch that you're a great actor. It's true you haven't been in a lot of movies, but from what I saw of your little plays and taped auditions, you've already grown immensely and I personally can't wait to see how far you'll go on this journey of yours." He then broke into a teasing smile and added, "Plus, with all those damn acting classes I paid for, you were bound to get better. Just imagine—almost five years of acting classes and not a single improvement."
I laughed at the thought. "Yeah, that would've sucked," I said.
We continued talking before going back to the rooms. Me and Luca decided to watch the first Spider-Man with Tobey Maguire. A new one had come out about a month ago, but I didn't enjoy it as much as this one. After finishing the movie, we went to sleep.
(Break)
"Your parents can accompany you around here if they want, but we'd prefer if they either didn't come too often or didn't bother us too much. We have a movie to film, and some of y'all can be pretty overbearing sometimes."
"This is your schedule for the week. If any changes are made, you'll know the day before. Over there is the hair and makeup department, and over there is the costume department. Over there are the private rooms of Robert, Elle, Sharlto, and Angelina, don't go in there unless they invite you in. This is the private room for the rest of you guys," a woman said to me with way too much energy for someone who looked that tired, she also handed me my schedule while pointing in a bunch of random directions at a few doors. "Lastly, behind that door is the studio, so be quiet and wait for the light to turn off before going in," she said, pointing to a door at the far end of the hallway with a red light currently on.
"I have other things to do, so I'll leave you to it. Goodbye," she said before leaving promptly and disappearing, literally.
"Um… so what do I do now? Where do I go?" I asked, turning toward my father, who had come with me to the set for my first day.
"How would I know? Look at your schedule, no?" he replied, shrugging.
I looked at my schedule. It was currently 9:30 in the morning. I didn't have a scene until 11:30, so I needed to go to the costume department. I probably needed to get fitted before going on set, so I followed the arrows to the costume department.
I arrived in front of an open door where a nice lady with blond hair and a kind smile was working on some armor.
"Um, hello, is this the costume department?" I asked nervously, like an idiot. Of course it was—they had a million different costumes, armors, wigs, and swords right in front of my eyes.
Luckily, the nice lady simply replied, "Yes, it is. You must be Xavier, our little Prince Charming."
I blushed in embarrassment at the nickname. "I'm here for my costume fitting. It says I have a scene in two hours, so yeah…" I said, my voice faltering.
"Of course. Can you tell me what scene it is?" she asked patiently.
I looked back at my schedule. "It says scene 28."
"Claire, help the boy out," said the blond lady.
Another lady, who I assumed was Claire, came next to her and said, "Okay, let me take your measurements again, since you kids are at an age where you're always growing."
I stood against the wall, with my father letting me be and taking a seat next to the door.
"You grew by two centimeters. You're 182 centimeters now," said Claire, smiling.
"Will that be bad?" I asked, nervously. They had taken my measurements right before the table read about three weeks ago, and I was still 180 centimeters back then.
"It's fine," Claire said. "Elle grew during the early rehearsals as well, as did the younger version of Maleficent, so we prepared larger clothes for everyone."
"Here, these should fit you nicely," she said, handing me my prince costume. It was a warm brown cape with beautiful patterns on the borders, along with a very soft off-white linen shirt that was slightly loose, and a knee-length green tunic with the same floral and geometric patterns all over it that was slightly heavier. I also had a brown leather belt designed to carry a sword, which they had given me in a scabbard that had the same green patterns as my tunic and cape. The sword was metal and, of course, only looked pointy, but was made of simple metal, which made it slightly heavier than I expected. Lastly, I wore fitted brown trousers that I could tuck into the knee-high brown leather boots, which looked worn but well kept.
I went into a dressing room, put on the clothes, straightened my back, and looked at myself in the mirror. I looked dashing, with a noble but approachable vibe.
I came out of the dressing room, where Claire took one look at me, straightened my clothes here and there.
"You look perfect—absolutely charming," she said, giving me an approving look. "The ladies will all fall for you."
I felt my cheeks redden at the compliment. "Thank you," I stammered.
"Now you just need to go to the hair and makeup department next door, and you'll be all set."
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y'all I forgot about table reads 💀, I'll do better next time I promise but I'm not rewriting a chapter to include that shit tho