aFireFist
A Life in Hollywood
Chapter 22 - Rachel McAdams - Part 1
Osiah landed at Heathrow two days after Melbourne. The terminal was bright and cold, full of people moving like they hadn't slept. He cleared customs with the usual bag and the radio already in the side pocket, then found the car the production had sent waiting outside. The driver nodded when he got in and didn't talk much after that. The drive out of London was grey and wet. Traffic stayed heavy until they cleared the city, then thinned. The buildings got lower. Rain streaked the windows. Eventually the car turned off the main road toward Longcross.
The house they had for him was short and brick, set back from the road behind a hedge that needed cutting. One of the production coordinators had left a key under the mat and a printed call sheet on the kitchen table with his name already on it. He dropped the bag by the door, checked the sheets, drank a glass of water from the tap, and slept for four hours on the bed that was already made.
The next morning was colder. He was at the gate at six-thirty with a coffee and the radio clipped to his belt. Security checked the badge against the list, nodded, and waved him through. The lot was already moving. Trucks idling. People in dark jackets walking with purpose. The low hum of generators under everything. He crossed the lot and went straight to the stage running the hospital interiors.
The set smelled like fresh paint and the plastic of medical equipment. Real monitors on the walls. Real beds with actual rails. Practical lighting that made the whole corridor look slightly too clean. A grip was still adjusting a stand when Osiah stepped on. The 1st AD, a tall woman with a headset and a pen behind her ear, spotted him and pointed at a clipboard on the table beside her.
"You're Morse, right? They said you were coming in. Hospital corridor's short on the second bank of lights. Can you walk it with the gaffer before we do the first shot?"
"Yeah."
The gaffer was already waiting at the top of the corridor with a meter and a roll of tape. They walked it together. The first practical was throwing too hard on the left wall and washing out the edge of the frame. They marked it. The second one was better but still hot where the camera would land on the wider shot. They marked that too. Halfway down, a cable was running loose across the floor where the dolly track would sit. Osiah pointed it out. The gaffer called a spark over to tape it flat and reroute the rest along the base of the wall. Osiah wrote the three notes on the sheet and radioed them to the 1st AD. She answered with a short "copy" and told them the actors were already in holding.
By the time they finished, Rachel McAdams had come out in scrubs. Hair pulled back tight, no makeup yet, shoulders already set like she'd been holding them stiff since she got in the car. She stood with the script supervisor near the edge of the set and went over a short block of dialogue for the camera test. Benedict was already on the mark in the operating-room set, coat open, looking at a monitor like he was actually reading the numbers on it.
Osiah stayed off to the side and watched the first take. Rachel's lines were clean. She moved like someone who had spent real time in hospitals—weight settled on one foot, free hand resting on the edge of the bed when she wasn't talking, nothing wasted. When they cut she rolled her right wrist once, slow, and flexed the fingers like they were stiff. He noticed it. He didn't say anything.
They ran the shot twice more. On the third she glanced toward the edge of the stage where he was standing with the radio. It wasn't a look for him. It was just her checking the room the way people do when they're waiting for the next call. He nodded at the 1st AD when she asked if the light note was locked and stepped back out of the way so the camera could reset.
Between setups he walked the other side of the stage. The Kamar-Taj courtyard build was still going up on the next stage over. Wood frames. Plaster that wasn't dry yet. A section of wall that was supposed to look like old brick. One of the construction leads was standing with a scenic painter, both of them looking at a test patch of mortar.
"It's too warm," the painter said. "Reads pink under the work lights. It'll look wrong once the practicals are up."
"Director wants it warmer," the lead answered. "Said the real courtyards in Nepal had that tone."
"Then we're gonna have to kill it with the lighting or it's gonna photograph hot."
Osiah stopped long enough to hear the end of it, then kept moving. A British grip he didn't know yet fell in beside him on the way back toward the hospital stage.
"You were on the Atlanta job, yeah? Civil War?"
"Parts of it."
"Was the airport as bad as people are saying? Heard they had half the company out there and still couldn't keep the schedule. Wind, right?"
"It was loud," Osiah said. "Lots of bodies. Wind was real. They got the shots."
The grip nodded like that matched what he'd already heard from someone else. "They're saying Spider-Man's locked in now. New one. And Black Panther's next after this. Someone in the office has the Infinity War dates on a board even if nobody's supposed to talk about it."
"Yeah."
The grip laughed once, short, and dropped it. Osiah checked the time and headed back to the hospital set. They were resetting for a wider angle on the corridor. Rachel was sitting on a folding chair near the edge of the practical lights, script open in her lap, rolling that same wrist again. She looked up when he walked past with a coil of cable over his shoulder.
"They said you were the one who fixed the corridor lights."
"Just marked them."
She nodded. "Thanks. The glare was sitting right on the monitor earlier. Couldn't see the eyeline."
"Yeah."
She went back to the page. He kept walking and dropped the cable where the spark had asked for it.
The rest of the morning stayed practical. A prop truck was late. Osiah stood with the 1st AD and the props lead near the stage door while they worked the radio and moved two scenes around it. They rewrote the afternoon call on the spot—pulled the wide corridor coverage and pushed the operating-room close-ups forward so Benedict and Rachel could stay in the coats and scrubs they already had on. He ate a sandwich standing up near the craft table and listened to two electricians talk about the next Marvel job while they waited for the truck update. One of them said Civil War was already locked for the first week of May and that the Spider-Man deal had closed. The other said he'd heard Black Panther was next after that and that the Infinity War dates were already sitting on the internal calendar even if nobody was supposed to say it out loud. Osiah didn't add anything. He finished the sandwich, checked the radio, and went back to the stage when the 1st AD called the reset.
Benedict came off the set during the lighting reset and stopped near the coffee urn. He poured a cup and stood there for a minute with the steam rising, watching two grips shift a stand out of the new camera path. Osiah was on one knee checking a cable run along the base of the wall, making sure the fresh routing stayed clear of the dolly track and wouldn't catch on the next move. Benedict looked over.
"You're the one they brought in from the other picture, aren't you?"
"Yeah."
Benedict nodded and took a sip. "They said you just came off a tour. Long one?"
"Long enough."
"I did Nepal for a week at the start of this. Cold at night. Different kind of long. You finish a day and the air's still in your clothes." He glanced back toward the operating-room set where the camera team was still resetting. "Still strange to come back to a stage and hear people talking about sling rings like they're real equipment. Last year I was doing Turing. Different rooms. Quieter. Nobody asking if a prop should catch the light or stay matte so it doesn't flare."
Osiah stayed where he was with the cable, thumb running along the tape to check the edge. "You getting used to it?"
"Getting used to the costume," Benedict said. "The coat's fine once it's settled. The rest of it still feels like someone else's job until the camera's rolling. The hands especially. They want specific shapes for the spells. Half of them still feel like I'm inventing them between takes." He looked toward the set again. "She's good. McAdams. Knows where to stand so the light doesn't fight her face. Doesn't burn the take trying to find it."
"Yeah."
Benedict finished the coffee and set the empty cup on the edge of the table. "See you on the next one."
He walked back toward the operating-room set. Osiah coiled the cable properly, clipped it flat against the wall so it wouldn't shift, and stood. The 1st AD's voice came over the radio a minute later calling for the next setup and asking for a clear on the corridor. He answered and started toward the stage.
Rachel was already on her mark when he got there. She looked at the monitor once, rolled her shoulders once under the scrubs, and settled her weight. The wrist stayed still this time. He stood at the edge of the set with the radio and watched the shot. The stage was bright and cold and smelled like paint and plastic and the faint burn of the practical lights running hot. Outside, the grey hadn't lifted. Inside, the next take started clean and they got it on the first try.
They broke for lunch at one. Osiah stayed on the stage long enough to confirm the afternoon call with the 1st AD and make sure the light notes from the morning were still holding on the corridor. The practicals hadn't drifted. When he came back out, Rachel was still in the holding area with a cup of tea, talking to the script supervisor about a small line change for the later scene. She looked over when he passed with the radio. He kept moving. There was still half a day left and a delayed truck somewhere on the road between the lot and the supplier. He checked the channel and headed for the production office to see where it actually was.
The production office was a converted room on the far side of the lot, fluorescent lights and two long tables covered in call sheets, half-drunk coffees, and a laptop with the truck tracker open. Osiah found the props lead already on the phone with the driver. The truck was stuck behind an accident on the A3. They were looking at another ninety minutes minimum, longer if the traffic didn't start moving.
The 1st AD came in while Osiah was still standing by the table. She looked at the updated sheet, then at him.
"We can pull the wide corridor stuff and shoot the close coverage on the operating room instead. Benedict's still in the coat. Rachel's available. You good to stay on the floor for the swap?"
"Yeah."
She nodded and started calling the change over the radio while she walked. Osiah went with her. The wind had picked up outside. It cut through the jacket he had on as they crossed the lot. On the stage the crew was already moving the cameras and checking the new marks when they got back. Rachel was standing near the edge of the set with her script, one foot up on a low apple box while she read the adjusted pages. She looked over when Osiah came through the door.
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