Performance In a Leading Role (4/20)
Title: Performance in a Leading Role
Author: MadLori
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Length: 6400 (this chapter)
Genre: AU, romance
Warnings: None
Rating: PG for now, may go up to NC-17 later
Summary: Sherlock Holmes is an Oscar winner in the midst of a career slump. John Watson is an Everyman actor trapped in the rom-com ghetto. When they are cast as a gay couple in a new independent drama, will they surprise each other? Will their on-screen romance make its way into the real world?
Chapter 1 -- Chapter 2 -- Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Film Shoot: Week Two
“Morning,” Harry said, joining Sally at the craft services table, as had become their habit.
“All right, then?”
“All right. You seen the Wonder Twins? John left without me this morning.”
“They’re over there,” Sally said, nodding off to her right.
Harry looked and saw Sherlock and John standing under a tree near where the first scene of the day was being set up, heads together, conferring intently. That was more or less their habitual pose these days. Two weeks into the shoot and everyone was still wondering what the devil had happened. They’d begun the shoot keeping their distance from each other, Sherlock aloof and remote as usual, and then overnight they had suddenly become thick as thieves. They spent long evenings together running lines and talking characters and whatever else actors did when they were shooting a film, and it was now standard procedure for them to feed lines to each other during coverage. Their trailers sat empty and unused for the most part. If one of them was on the set, they were both on the set.
As Harry watched him, John glanced over and saw her. He raised a hand in greeting. She nodded back, and he returned his attention to whatever he and Sherlock were talking about. “Chins’ll be wagging,” Sally muttered.
“About what?”
“You know. Them. There’ll be talk.”
Harry snorted. “There’s never anything but. Anyway, John’s straight. Ish.”
“So Sarah Sawyer isn’t his beard after all?” Sally said, smirking.
“I’ll claim diplomatic immunity on answering that question. What about Sherlock?”
“He’s equally bored by both genders. I’ve never known him to fancy anyone, not since I’ve been his PA, and that’s three years now. God, has it really been that long?” Sally was watching Sherlock and John. “Then again, I’ve never seen him voluntarily spend this much time with anyone, man or woman, and actually seem to enjoy it.”
Clara, the first AD, wandered over. Harry stood up a little straighter. “All right, Clara!” she said. Goddammit, don’t sound so eager.
Clara smiled. “Morning, Harry. You all seen Anderson?”
“Not yet. Why?”
“He’s bringing the screenwriter on set today. They’re finally going to settle on what the blazes we’re calling this film.”
“Huh. Just when I was getting used to ‘Untitled Film of Gayness,’” Harry said. Sally snorted laughter.
Clara gave her a look. “I know that’s going around the set, but don’t let Ang hear you say it. He’ll get irritated.”
“Oh, I won’t. But having a decent title will be a relief. Give you something to write on the clappers, anyway.”
“How’s the War of the Hydrangeas?” Sally asked, smiling.
Clara rolled her eyes. “Fucking hydrangeas. If I never see another hydrangea in my life it will be too soon. Do you know what the set dressers have to go through to get enough hydrangeas here in March? It’s not exactly the big flower season. Anderson is bitching about the expense but Ang insists. It’s a symbol from the screenplay, he wants them in the background, somewhere on all the sets. Sometimes they just get ideas in their heads and there’s no budging them. I tell him that nobody will ever notice the sodding hydrangeas but no, it’s significant, it’s a symbol of Benjamin and Mark’s delicate and beautiful love and the fragility of life and blah blah blah.”
Harry nodded in sympathy. “When John was shooting Holiday, With Nuts in Martha’s Vineyard, the director insisted that nobody wear the colour blue but John. It was pointless, nobody ever noticed, as far as I know he never gave a reason why, it was just this thing. It was like he thought if he did something pointless and pretentious he’d suddenly be the next Aronofsky.”
“Ang doesn’t need help achieving auteur status,” Clara said. “It’s just not in anybody’s dream job description to hunt down the last hydrangea in Ontario.”
“Oh, here’s Anderson,” Sally said, perking up a bit. “That must be the screenwriter with him.”
Harry watched Anderson, the line producer, approach with a woman. She was small and slender, with bright eyes and an eager expression. “Hi, Sally,” Anderson said, the hint of a smile touching his usually-surly mouth. Ah ha, that’s interesting, Harry thought. Then he was all seriousness again. “Clara, this is Molly Hooper, our screenwriter. Molly, this is Clara Denbrough, the first assistant director.”
“Nice to meet you,” Molly said, shaking hands with a bright smile.
“Likewise.”
“Can you look after her for a while? Introduce her around? Ang is in a conference call with Jim and I’ve got to deal with the funeral extras.”
“Sure.”
“Thanks,” Anderson said. He tossed Sally another shy glance and headed off.
Molly looked so excited that Harry was afraid she might vibrate out of her skin. “So Molly, welcome to the set. Writers don’t always find it terribly satisfying, though.”
“Everybody’s been really nice. I’m just excited to be here and see all of this happening.” She kept glancing over to where Sherlock and John were now just standing around, waiting for the scene.
Harry smiled. “Would you like to meet Sherlock and John?”
Molly nodded, grinning. “I’d love to.”
“I’ll get them. Wait here.” Harry trotted across the parking lot to the tree where their lead actors were both earning their very generous salaries by staring into space.
“What’s on?” John asked, seeing her approach.
“The screenwriter’s here. She’d like to meet you. You know, if you’re not too busy or anything.”
Sherlock gave her The Eyebrow. “Your PA is awfully cheeky, John. You ought to fire her.”
John sighed theatrically. “She’s family. So I suffer in silence.”
“Oh, you’re hilarious, both of you. Come on. Put on your Mr. Nice Actor faces, especially you,” she said, pointing at Sherlock.
“I am always nice. I am the soul of niceness and civility and all things admirable. I know because it said so in Empire magazine.”
They followed her back to where Molly was standing with Sally. Harry smothered a smirk as they approached. If this were a cartoon, Molly would have had big sparkly hearts where her eyes ought to be as she gazed at Sherlock.
“This is Molly Hooper. Molly, this is John Watson, and Sherlock Holmes.” Molly spared John a cursory glance as she shook his hand, her attention rather fixated on Sherlock. John exchanged an amused look with Harry.
“Gosh, it’s amazing to meet you,” Molly said. “I’m such a huge fan.”
Sherlock managed what might be called a charming smile. “Thank you. We’re all very excited about your script.”
Molly seemed to regain her composure and remember her role here. She wasn’t an autograph-seeking fan, she was the screenwriter. “Thanks,” she said. “I was happy to sell it at all, and then to have this director and especially both of you starring in it. I keep waiting to wake up.”
“This is your first script?” John asked.
“Not the first one I’ve written, but definitely the first one I’ve sold,” Molly said, laughing.
Sherlock looked her up and down. “You don’t make your living writing. You’re - oh, you’re a doctor. I’d say…forensic pathologist? You live alone, you write as a creative outlet and stress reliever. You have two dogs. Same breed, something small. You also jog, but habitually you do so after dark, when it’s cooler.”
“Don’t mind him,” John said, seeing Molly’s stunned expression. “We don’t usually let him out of his room when there are normal people about.”
“But that’s…”
“How’d I do?” Sherlock asked.
“Spot on! Everything! How did…”
“Oh, please don’t ask how he knew,” Sally interjected. “Because he will tell you, in great detail, more than you wanted.”
“You also don’t think John is right for this role,” Sherlock went on, as if Sally hadn’t spoken.
Molly reddened and glanced at John, who didn’t seem fazed. “Oh, that’s not true, I…I’m sure you’re just right,” she said, quickly.
“It’s okay,” John said. “You wouldn’t be the first to doubt it. Half the town is waiting to see me bodge this up. Sherlock wasn’t too chuffed at first either, were you?” he said, elbowing Sherlock.
“True. I’m afraid I allowed preconceived notions to interfere with my observations. But I can assure you now that a lot of people will be eating their words.” Harry looked at her brother, who was shuffling a bit, his ears reddening and the corners of his mouth twitching at the praise.
“I know you had Sherlock in mind to play Benjamin. Who’d you imagine for Mark?” Sally asked.
“I thought maybe Jeremy Renner?” Molly said, sounding a tad unsure, as if this might be a breach of etiquette.
John nodded. “Oh, well spotted. He’d have been good.”
“He turned it down,” Sherlock said, flatly.
John looked at him, surprised. “Really? I didn’t know it had been offered to him. Why’d he refuse?”
“The cited reason was scheduling conflicts. I suspect the true reason had something to do with the fact that his date bunged a drink in my face at the Governor’s Ball two years ago.”
Everyone laughed. “So, do we have a title yet for this picture?” Sally asked.
“Oh! Yes, we do,” Molly said, perking up. “We settled it last night.” She paused for suspense, a devilish little grin on her face as everyone waited with bated breath. “The film will be titled To a Stranger.”
“Hmm,” Sherlock said, thoughtful. “I like it. It’s - evocative.”
“Walt Whitman?” John said, smiling.
Molly’s grin widened. “Yes! You know that poem?”
John nodded. “Passing stranger, you do not know how longingly I look upon you. You must be he that I was seeking.”
“It’s one of my favorites. It seemed appropriate. I love the last line.”
“I am to see to it that I do not lose you,” John recited, quietly. Sherlock was looking at him, eyebrow arched. “What? I like poetry!”
“You are full of surprises, John.”
“Just because you probably couldn’t tell Eliot from Robert Frost. A study of literature and poetry is a valuable thing for an actor. And don’t give me that tired old ‘everything about humanity can be found in the works of Shakespeare’ rubbish.”
“I had no intention of giving you any such - rubbish,” Sherlock said, looking insulted at the suggestion.
“Are they always like this?” Molly said, leaning toward Harry.
“Lately, yes.”
“So I guess you two have known each other for awhile?” Molly asked them.
They both looked at her blankly. “Not really,” John said.
“We met at the first read-through,” Sherlock said.
“Really? Because it seems like you’ve been mates for years.”
They exchanged a look, tiny smiles crossing their lips. “Sometimes it sure feels like years,” John grumbled, but his eyes were twinkling.
Clara trotted over. “Walkthrough, lads.”
“That’s our cue,” John said. “It was lovely to meet you, Molly. I’m sure we’ll have time to talk later. Sherlock and I both have things we’d like to discuss with you about the characters, and a few lines we have some ideas for.”
Molly nodded. “I’ll look forward to it.”
They set off toward the setup. “You came on an exciting day,” Harry said.
“Oh?”
“They’re shooting the park scene today. Benjamin and Mark’s first kiss.”
Molly actually jumped up and down a little, like a kid. “Oh, I was hoping I might get to see that while I’m here!”
“What’s it like?” Harry asked. “Seeing characters you created coming to life, right in front of you?” Harry had never written anything in her life. Her exposure to the arts was strictly through John. But she imagined that it must be something, having made up a person out of whole cloth and then to see an actor making that person walk and talk and breathe.
Molly smiled, her eyes going a little moist. “I can’t begin to describe it.”
John was nervous. It had been a long time since he’d been nervous before a kissing scene. He’d done so damned many of them, he’d lost track. He’d got off with what felt like half the women in Hollywood. No matter what smirky questions journalists asked during junkets, it wasn’t sexy. It was something you had to repeat a dozen times from five or six angles , not to mention that you were kissing someone you may or may not be attracted to and there was a giant horde of sweaty crew members standing around.
But this was different. He didn’t know why, but it was. It was not his first time kissing a man. He hadn’t ever kissed one for a role, but he’d kissed a few in real life.
Not one like Sherlock. Sherlock was a walking counterexample. He was a brilliant actor who didn’t care about emotional awareness or character motivations. He had a genius intellect but didn’t know who the Prime Minister was. He despised inactivity but had chosen a profession that was 95% waiting around.
And most intrusively, for John anyway, he was an impossibly dishy man who seemed totally uninterested in sex or relationships.
John liked to think he had a pretty good handle on who he was and what he wanted. He wanted to meet someone special - someday - and settle down and have a family. This special someone had always, in his mind, been a woman. But he couldn’t deny that Sherlock twigged something in his gut, something he was resolutely ignoring. It didn’t help that Sherlock had apparently decided that John was the one person in the world he could be comfortable around, and the only person he would treat like a human being instead of an empty head on legs.
He wasn’t worried about the kiss. The whole “on-screen kiss sparks something off-screen” thing was more or less an invention of the public. Actors knew that if sparks flew off-screen, it wasn’t because of something that happened while shooting a scene. It was because of the extensive time you spent with co-stars and crew while the shoot was going on. He’d heard a fellow actor once say that actors aren’t paid to act. The acting, they do for free. They get paid to wait. It was true. Hours spent between shots, sitting on your duff in your trailer or at craft services. If you were sociable and got on with your co-stars, some pretty intense friendships could grow. Along with more-than-friendships.
Surprising as it was, John felt like he and Sherlock had, indeed, become friends. Sally herself had confirmed this just the night before. He’d been packing up his bag in his trailer when she’d come knocking. “Sherlock wants to know if you’d bring over that book you were discussing earlier when you go to his place tonight,” she said.
“Oh. All right.” Sally had just sort of stared at him. “What?”
“Nothing, I’m just - confused.”
“By what?”
“You know, he’s never had a friend before.”
John didn’t know what to say. He was as bowled over by the idea that a man like Sherlock had never had a friend as by the idea that he himself might now be one, after knowing him for only two weeks. “What about you?”
“Me? I work for him. I put up with his shite and give it back when he deserves it. But I don’t kid myself. I just can’t suss out what’s different about you. Lots of people have tried. Nobody ever got handed the keys to the kingdom, not like you have.”
He’d laughed, trying to make light of it. “Maybe it’s because I didn’t try.”
But Sally had gotten a thoughtful look at that. “Maybe.”
The fact was that he didn’t really have any close friends, either. There was Sarah, but he barely saw her anymore except when they did their dog-and-pony show for the press. She had Anthea and now the baby and her own career. It wasn’t like they spent hours together talking about life. Harry always said that the test of who you considered a good friend was if you were in a wreck at four a.m., who would you ring first?
He pondered this question, and was forced to come to the conclusion that right now? He’d ring Sherlock.
Sherlock was costumed and made up as Benjamin and looked particularly fit today. John looked down at himself. Mark was a smart dresser, much more so than he himself was (being the jeans-and-jumper sort) and he’d been costumed in a suit and a camel-colored topcoat, since it was meant to be midday. The park was roped off, the background extras were in their places. Some spectators were gathered by the ropelines, watching and snapping mobile pictures. John gave them a wave. He heard them squeal in delight and they waved back.
“Don’t encourage them,” Sherlock grumbled, appearing at his shoulder out of midair.
“They’re just watching. They’re not doing any harm.”
Sherlock made a vague growly noise. “I’d prefer not to be gawked at, especially today.”
“Why today?”
“We’re about to kiss, John. Many times. I’m sure any of the fine journalistic entertainment rags would love to have a set photo of that.”
John hadn’t thought of that. “Well, have them cleared off if it makes you happy.”
“What would make me happy is to get to work. Surely they’re ready by now.”
“I still wish we’d rehearsed this once or twice.”
“We did! Dozens of times.”
“Not the kiss.” Which was true. Sherlock had flat-out refused to rehearse kissing John. His logic was that Ang wanted this to be Benjamin and Mark’s first kiss, so it ought to be theirs, too. They’d rehearsed the ramp-up, the grabbing, the aftermath, everything but the actual snog.
John hoped his breath was fresh.
Clara started getting everyone cleared. Molly Hooper, the rather adorable screenwriter, had been installed in a chair near the monitors; she was perched right on the edge of her seat so she could be as close to the action as possible.
Sherlock strode off the set, his prop mobile in his hand. He’d already been filmed approaching the park, talking on the mobile. He’d just wait for the right cue to enter the park. John took his place under the big shady tree, the bay in the background.
Action was called. John began delivering his lines into his own prop mobile. These lines would all be replaced in ADR, of course. No way a good sound track could be laid down outdoors like this. Sherlock delivered his side of the mobile conversation from just off-camera. John moved around, letting his feet communicate Mark’s nervousness, his desire to move things forward with Benjamin even while he feared doing so.
And then Benjamin told him to turn around. He did so, and saw Sherlock striding toward him across the grass. Benjamin had just informed Mark that he’d never taken a risk in his life and he wanted to start now, with him. John let his hand fall to his side. Sherlock tossed his mobile to the ground. He walked right up to him, seized his face, and then…
Then it got different.
In rehearsals, it had always been one smooth motion. Benjamin grasped Mark’s face and they kissed. Benjamin’s initiation of the change in their relationship was contained in the swiftness and surety of that motion.
But this time, Sherlock hesitated. He took John’s face in his large, elegant hands, moved in, then paused. He just checked himself for a tiny second, looking into John’s eyes as if Benjamin were making sure Mark was okay with this.
Then he swooped in and kissed him.
Sherlock’s lips were full and soft. Their noses knocked a bit but that felt right, somehow. It was a first kiss, after all. A little awkwardness would help to sell it. John let Mark’s surprise stiffen his body, his mobile falling from his fingers, then his hands drifted up and seized Benjamin’s arms and he returned the kiss. Sherlock pressed in and it felt natural for John to open his mouth so he did, and immediately felt Sherlock’s tongue graze his. The rule for movie snogs, at least with women, was no tongue without advance discussion, but they were both men. And as in all else, Sherlock was the exception to everything.
When Benjamin broke off and drew away, he didn’t retreat as far as Sherlock had in rehearsals. They delivered the next few lines of dialogue in a half-clinch, holding the last beat until Ang yelled ‘cut.’ Spontaneous applause.
John grinned. “Fantastic, mate!”
Sherlock looked troubled. “I’m sorry, John. I don’t know what happened.”
“What do you mean? That was brilliant!”
“That wasn’t how we rehearsed it.”
“I know, but it was better, I thought. C’mon, let’s go watch the playback.” They trooped over to the monitors, where Ang was queuing up the shot. They watched it play out and John nodded. “Yeah. That’s definitely better. More realistic.”
Sherlock still looked uncomfortable. “If you say so. Mind if I change it back for the next take?”
John wanted to tell him not to, that what he’d done in the take had been an improvement, but it wasn’t his job to police Sherlock’s acting choices. “Go ahead,” he said. “I’ll be there with you no matter what.”
John pushed open the door to Sherlock’s studio-hired flat with his shoulder, balancing a big bag of Chinese food in the crook of one arm, his other hand occupied with a carrier bag of tonic water and limes. His own flat was directly across the hall, but he hadn’t been spending much time in it. “Oy, Sherlock? Give us a hand with this?”
“I’m occupied.”
“Oh, bully for you, then,” he grumbled. He staggered inside, shut and bolted the door and repositioned the bags for the trip to the kitchen. Sherlock was sitting on the couch, his hands steepled under his nose, doing bugger-all, as far as John could see. “Oh, right you are! I can see you’re so bloody busy!”
“I’m thinking.”
“And you’re incapable of carrying Chinese food and thinking at the same time?”
Sherlock abruptly bounded to his feet. “I was thinking about the scene today.”
“Which one? We shot three scenes today.”
“You know which one. The kiss.”
“What about it?”
“Ang told me that his favorite was the first take, the one with my - aberration.”
“Is that what you’re calling it?”
“It was a deviation from my plan. Yes, I’d call it an aberration.”
“You and your plans. You can’t plan every gesture and every blink of your eyes, Sherlock.”
Sherlock straightened up, looking a bit haughty at the very suggestion. “And why not?”
John frowned. “But…that’s not what you do, is it?”
“John, everything you have ever seen me do in front of a camera is planned and meticulously researched for authenticity. Every tilt of my head, every hand gesture, every intonation of speech is precisely calculated for maximum dramatic realism and effect. Surely you’ve observed this.”
“I’ve observed that you’re very consistent from take to take.”
“Not just consistent. Planned.”
John shook his head. “If that works for you then I won’t criticize. I couldn’t work like that. A performance has to be created from the thoughts, actions and feelings of the character. It has to flow naturally from inside me.”
“Doesn’t that imply that something of you is infused into the character, because he is based on what your emotional responses would be if you were him?”
“Well, I suppose it does.”
“Then that isn’t acting. Acting is putting on the skin of another person, adopting their mannerisms and their speech patterns and their very essence with such realism that there’s nothing of you in them.”
John held Sherlock’s gaze for a moment. “That sounds like a very cold-blooded way to craft a character.”
“Perhaps it is, but it’s worked for me in the past. Ironically, not everyone appreciates the nuance of such an approach.”
“I can’t imagine why,” John said, dryly.
“This is what concerns me. Today I did something that wasn’t rehearsed, that wasn’t planned. And it was deemed better by just about everyone, including you.”
“Sometimes spontaneity can be a good thing. What were you thinking about when you did it? That little hesitation right before you kissed me, that was what sold it. Why did you do that?”
“Well - I’m not sure. It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”
“See? It was a gut instinct. You’ve gone very deep into Benjamin’s character, Sherlock. You really know him, you’ve internalized him. So you did what you thought he might do. Benjamin wants to kiss Mark, he’s committed to doing it, but he’s a cautious man and he’s got that hesitance that we all have when we’re making a change in a relationship. So he does a bit of an eye-check. Just to be sure he’s not got it wrong. You followed your gut. It’s not something to worry about.”
Sherlock rubbed a hand through his hair. “I’m not accustomed to following that.”
“Everyone raved about your intuitive performance in Kanisza. I guess you’ve got them all fooled, huh?” John said. “You want some of this kung pao chicken?”
“Not hungry. And I’m not fooling anyone. I never claimed to be an emotional, intuitive actor. If people view my performances as intuitive, then that’s their interpretation. How that performance is created is none of their business. They’ll always assume whatever it is that they prefer to believe about how I work. I recall critics singling out one moment in Kanisza, during Alistair’s walkabout…” Sherlock trailed off, eyeing John’s expression. John gulped down his mouthful of chicken, feeling sheepish. “What? John, you look odd.”
“I have an awkward confession to make.”
“Yes?”
“I’ve, uh…never actually seen Kanisza.”
Sherlock blinked. “Oh. I see. Well, then my story won’t have much meaning for you. Forget I spoke.” He stalked back to the couch.
John rolled his eyes. “Come on then, it’s no reflection on you. You know I’m a fan. I just somehow missed that one.”
“I usually make it a point to see the nominated films every year.”
“You’re a member of Academy, you have to vote and all that.”
“Even if I were not, I’m always interested in examining the work of my colleagues.”
“Well, pardon my being an ignorant tosser, but I’m typically working a lot during award season. I don’t have to keep my schedule free for awards and interviews and such the way some people do!” Sherlock said nothing. “Let’s watch it now.”
“What?”
“Let’s watch it now! We’ve got on-demand on these tellies. And if it isn’t there we’ll watch it on streaming.”
“John, there’s really no need,” Sherlock said, softening a bit. “I don’t require you to have viewed my entire filmography.”
“But this is the film you’re most famous for, I really should see it. I’ve always wanted to, it’s just that the time runs away as it does.”
“No, it’s quite all right. We needn’t spend our time watching my backlist.”
John narrowed his eyes, suspicious. “Why are you resisting?”
“I’m not resisting!” Sherlock snapped, too quickly.
“Yes, you are! You don’t want to watch it! Oh, are you one of those actors who can’t bear to watch themselves on screen? Because that would just be too precious for words.”
“I am not - precious! I’m just not comfortable seeing myself.”
“Come on, why not?”
“I can’t stop second-guessing my work!” Sherlock exclaimed. “And I keep thinking, my God, do I really look like that? With this ridiculous chin and this face? I’m afraid I’m a slave to my vanity, John. Feel free to inform the Daily Mail.”
John was astounded. He sat down on the couch a bit away from him. “Sherlock, are you having me on?”
“No, why would I be?”
“Do you honestly believe that you don’t look good on screen?”
He snorted. “Part of being an actor is allowing yourself to be seen at your less than perfect moments. Doesn’t mean I want to be the one seeing it.”
“I can’t believe this. You have no idea, do you?”
“No idea about what?” Sherlock asked, looking distressed at the concept of something daring to exist that he had no idea about.
“Sherlock - you’re…” John trailed off. Let’s see, how to say this without it sounding like a come-on. He opted for direct. “You’re bloody gorgeous. You should have heard the squeals from every woman I know when I told them I’d be working with you, not to mention playing your romantic interest. Even Sarah, and she doesn’t like blokes!”
“Is that so,” Sherlock said, sounding dubious.
“It is most decidedly so. How can you not know this?”
“I suppose I’ve been told. I just can’t quite see it myself.”
“Oh, none of us can. We all think we’re hideous trolls and no one will ever love us, don’t we?”
“The idea that no one would ever love you is just as preposterous as you seem to think are my doubts about my appearance.”
John flushed, not quite sure how to take that compliment. “Um, thanks, I think.”
“I just mean that you’re the sort of person that most people would find easy to love,” Sherlock hastened to add. “You’re friendly and easygoing and have a way of conversing with people that I have never quite mastered, although if I’d cared to do so I surely would have.”
John smiled, impressed by Sherlock’s backpedaling skills. “Let’s just watch the bloody film, shall we? Your vanity will survive.”
Sherlock fetched a deep, long-suffering sigh. “Very well, if we must.”
Kanisza was, indeed, available on-demand on Sherlock’s telly. John brought over his Chinese and some wine and they settled in to watch it. Sherlock was tense as the film began, but as it unspooled he seemed to relax.
John had read a lot about the film, of course, and knew its basic plot. It had been nominated for Best Picture and many still considered it a travesty that it hadn’t won, beaten out by a more accessible (and more profitable) war film that had been blatant Oscar bait. As it was, the film’s only two Oscars were for its cinematography and for Sherlock’s performance. He’d been the prohibitive favorite that year. Kanisza was almost entirely Sherlock’s film, he was in almost every scene. He played Alistair Templeton, a sheltered Oxford philosophy professor who traveled to Australia to work on a paper with a reclusive philosopher he only knew through email. The philosopher took Alistair to his remote home in the outback, and then mysteriously died. Alistair remained in the man’s home for several months and found himself living out the philosophical principle of Gestalt that the two had been studying while coming to the disturbing idea that his friend’s death may not have been natural.
John soon forgot his Chinese food, enthralled. The cinematography was stunning, even on this small screen. Sherlock’s performance was as transporting as had been advertised. His Alistair was eager but naïve, properly English but a closet hippie who yearned for a transformative experience.
“This is so Polanski, I can’t even tell you,” John said, about an hour into the film.
“You think so?” Sherlock said, not taking his eyes off the screen.
“It reminds me of The Pianist. All that silence, Alistair alone and without dialogue for such long stretches.”
“That comparison has been made before.”
“My God, how are you holding the screen by yourself without speaking for such long periods? I can’t look away.”
“I invented thoughts and writings and internal monologues for every second of Alistair’s screentime. I can tell you exactly what he’s thinking for every moment he doesn’t speak.”
“It shows.” John fell silent and they kept watching. “Is that as remote as it looks?” he finally asked, about half an hour later, while Alistair was doing his walkabout in the central Australian desert.
“Yes, it is. Terrence insisted on practical locations. Everything had to be shipped in and dear Lord, the generators. We set up a base camp where we could reach a few weeks’ worth of locations by lorry, then moved the camp, and so forth.”
“It is a crime that he wasn’t nominated for this.”
“Agreed.”
They finished watching the film in silence. When it was over, John just sat there for a moment, absorbing it. “Holy God, Sherlock. If I weren’t already in awe of you…” He sighed. “What am I doing sharing a screen with you?”
“You’re doing a proper good job of it.”
“I can’t do what you did in that film.”
“Of course you can’t, nor should you. If you’d been cast, you’d have created your performance, not mine.”
“It wouldn’t have been as good.”
“We can’t know that. Based on what I know of you now, it would have been interesting.”
“Your co-stars were all fantastic, too.”
“I agree. I’d gladly work with any of them again. It’s less certain whether they’d be so eager to work with me again.”
“The word was that you were very intense on that shoot.”
“I had a challenging role to prepare for. I had no time for nonsense.”
“You’ve a challenging role to prepare for now, too. And yet you’re making time to watch films with me,” John said, smirking at him.
Sherlock glanced at him, a tiny half-smile sneaking onto his lips. “Perhaps the company is more motivational now than it was then.”
John was flattered, but he couldn’t think of a way to respond that wouldn’t sound hopelessly ingratiating. “So was it too awful, watching yourself?”
Sherlock made an indeterminate noise in his throat. “I suppose I could get used to it.”
“You looked bloody fantastic in that film. All that flattering late-afternoon sunlight and the tan and the fetching outdoor togs.”
“Terrence kept wanting me to look like some sort of Byronic hero, or like Redford in Out of Africa. I was keen to be as dirtied-up and disheveled as possible. It was nonstop war with the makeup people.”
John looked at him, sitting with his knees drawn to his chest and his hands clasped around them in an endearing, child-like pose. He felt a sudden rush of affection for his odd co-star - certainly the strangest friend John had ever made. He’d never expected to feel any sort of connection to him, let alone to become his friend. But how could he not? The man was a walking gravity well of enigmatic intrigue. “You’re just at war with the world, aren’t you?” he asked, quietly. It was a shame. He wouldn’t have to be at war with it if the world could pause and look for a moment, and see him for who he was. If he’d let them. John supposed there was equal blame on both sides of that particular dust-up.
“It often seems so. But I’m not at war with you, am I?”
John smiled. “I hope not.”
“Good. I find it’s rather pleasant to be at ease, for once.”
“Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“At ease.”
Sherlock looked at him and smiled, not his smirky little lip-curl or his ‘I’m being forced to tolerate your presence’ fake smile, but a warm, real one. “Yes, John. I believe I am.”
John smiled back, and for a moment they just let the moment sit there and steep in silence. “Well, shall we queue up one of my films, then?” he teased. “Perhaps you’d enjoy the high-flown dramatic stylings and wacky hijinks of Havana Honeymoon?”
PASSING stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me, as of a dream,)
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall’d as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,
You grew up with me, were a boy with me, or a girl with me, 5
I ate with you, and slept with you-your body has become not yours only, nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass-you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,
I am not to speak to you-I am to think of you when I sit alone, or wake at night alone,
I am to wait-I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.
--"To a Stranger," Walt Whitman
MetaNotes for Chapter 4:
1. The quote about an actor performing for free but being paid to wait is by Wil Wheaton, blogger/actor/awesomeness and unofficial King of All Geeks, although he may have been quoting someone else.
2. ADR = Additional Dialogue Recording. Commonly known as “looping.” Almost all films contain some looping; it’s damn near universal for outdoor shoots where wind and traffic noise and leaves blowing and shit often make the audio track recorded during shooting unusable. The actors go into a studio and re-record their lines while watching themselves so they can match their lip movements. Most actors hate doing this and most directors try and minimize the amount that is required. Bad looping is a hallmark of low-budget, poorly-made films.
3. Anderson is the film’s line producer. The line producer is basically the film’s shop foreman. The producer writes the checks and hires everyone, the line producer makes sure the trains run on time and the shit gets done on-set. The producer is often not on set (most producers have more than one project going at once) but the line producer always is. They’re doing most of the day-to-day work running the shoot. It’s a thankless but infinitely crucial job.
4. The “Terrence” referenced is meant to be Terrence Malick. Sherlock already referenced him in the last chapter. The sort of film that I’m describing in Kanisza would probably require a director with pretty rarefied auteur sensibilities but the ability to direct intense on-location shoots and handle big sweeping productions. Malick directed The Thin Red Line and has that reputation.
5. If you haven’t seen The Pianist, do it immediately. In my opinion it’s a better Holocaust film than Schindler’s List. It is not an easy film but it is brilliant.
6. The “Aronofsky” referenced is Darren Aronofsky, probably the most prominent bona-fide auteur filmmaker working today. He directed Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, The Wrestler, Black Swan and others.
One note about me: I’ve gotten comments regarding my knowledge of the film industry. I ought to clarify that most of it is secondhand. I do not work in the film industry, although I’ve known people who do, and I read a lot of books about it. I have written in the film-analysis and criticism areas and have learned a lot that way. Still, I am no doubt making mistakes, oversimplications and out-and-out fabrications. So don’t take it all on faith. It’s as accurate as I can make it but no guarantees.
Next Chapter
Author: MadLori
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Length: 6400 (this chapter)
Genre: AU, romance
Warnings: None
Rating: PG for now, may go up to NC-17 later
Summary: Sherlock Holmes is an Oscar winner in the midst of a career slump. John Watson is an Everyman actor trapped in the rom-com ghetto. When they are cast as a gay couple in a new independent drama, will they surprise each other? Will their on-screen romance make its way into the real world?
Chapter 1 -- Chapter 2 -- Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Film Shoot: Week Two
“Morning,” Harry said, joining Sally at the craft services table, as had become their habit.
“All right, then?”
“All right. You seen the Wonder Twins? John left without me this morning.”
“They’re over there,” Sally said, nodding off to her right.
Harry looked and saw Sherlock and John standing under a tree near where the first scene of the day was being set up, heads together, conferring intently. That was more or less their habitual pose these days. Two weeks into the shoot and everyone was still wondering what the devil had happened. They’d begun the shoot keeping their distance from each other, Sherlock aloof and remote as usual, and then overnight they had suddenly become thick as thieves. They spent long evenings together running lines and talking characters and whatever else actors did when they were shooting a film, and it was now standard procedure for them to feed lines to each other during coverage. Their trailers sat empty and unused for the most part. If one of them was on the set, they were both on the set.
As Harry watched him, John glanced over and saw her. He raised a hand in greeting. She nodded back, and he returned his attention to whatever he and Sherlock were talking about. “Chins’ll be wagging,” Sally muttered.
“About what?”
“You know. Them. There’ll be talk.”
Harry snorted. “There’s never anything but. Anyway, John’s straight. Ish.”
“So Sarah Sawyer isn’t his beard after all?” Sally said, smirking.
“I’ll claim diplomatic immunity on answering that question. What about Sherlock?”
“He’s equally bored by both genders. I’ve never known him to fancy anyone, not since I’ve been his PA, and that’s three years now. God, has it really been that long?” Sally was watching Sherlock and John. “Then again, I’ve never seen him voluntarily spend this much time with anyone, man or woman, and actually seem to enjoy it.”
Clara, the first AD, wandered over. Harry stood up a little straighter. “All right, Clara!” she said. Goddammit, don’t sound so eager.
Clara smiled. “Morning, Harry. You all seen Anderson?”
“Not yet. Why?”
“He’s bringing the screenwriter on set today. They’re finally going to settle on what the blazes we’re calling this film.”
“Huh. Just when I was getting used to ‘Untitled Film of Gayness,’” Harry said. Sally snorted laughter.
Clara gave her a look. “I know that’s going around the set, but don’t let Ang hear you say it. He’ll get irritated.”
“Oh, I won’t. But having a decent title will be a relief. Give you something to write on the clappers, anyway.”
“How’s the War of the Hydrangeas?” Sally asked, smiling.
Clara rolled her eyes. “Fucking hydrangeas. If I never see another hydrangea in my life it will be too soon. Do you know what the set dressers have to go through to get enough hydrangeas here in March? It’s not exactly the big flower season. Anderson is bitching about the expense but Ang insists. It’s a symbol from the screenplay, he wants them in the background, somewhere on all the sets. Sometimes they just get ideas in their heads and there’s no budging them. I tell him that nobody will ever notice the sodding hydrangeas but no, it’s significant, it’s a symbol of Benjamin and Mark’s delicate and beautiful love and the fragility of life and blah blah blah.”
Harry nodded in sympathy. “When John was shooting Holiday, With Nuts in Martha’s Vineyard, the director insisted that nobody wear the colour blue but John. It was pointless, nobody ever noticed, as far as I know he never gave a reason why, it was just this thing. It was like he thought if he did something pointless and pretentious he’d suddenly be the next Aronofsky.”
“Ang doesn’t need help achieving auteur status,” Clara said. “It’s just not in anybody’s dream job description to hunt down the last hydrangea in Ontario.”
“Oh, here’s Anderson,” Sally said, perking up a bit. “That must be the screenwriter with him.”
Harry watched Anderson, the line producer, approach with a woman. She was small and slender, with bright eyes and an eager expression. “Hi, Sally,” Anderson said, the hint of a smile touching his usually-surly mouth. Ah ha, that’s interesting, Harry thought. Then he was all seriousness again. “Clara, this is Molly Hooper, our screenwriter. Molly, this is Clara Denbrough, the first assistant director.”
“Nice to meet you,” Molly said, shaking hands with a bright smile.
“Likewise.”
“Can you look after her for a while? Introduce her around? Ang is in a conference call with Jim and I’ve got to deal with the funeral extras.”
“Sure.”
“Thanks,” Anderson said. He tossed Sally another shy glance and headed off.
Molly looked so excited that Harry was afraid she might vibrate out of her skin. “So Molly, welcome to the set. Writers don’t always find it terribly satisfying, though.”
“Everybody’s been really nice. I’m just excited to be here and see all of this happening.” She kept glancing over to where Sherlock and John were now just standing around, waiting for the scene.
Harry smiled. “Would you like to meet Sherlock and John?”
Molly nodded, grinning. “I’d love to.”
“I’ll get them. Wait here.” Harry trotted across the parking lot to the tree where their lead actors were both earning their very generous salaries by staring into space.
“What’s on?” John asked, seeing her approach.
“The screenwriter’s here. She’d like to meet you. You know, if you’re not too busy or anything.”
Sherlock gave her The Eyebrow. “Your PA is awfully cheeky, John. You ought to fire her.”
John sighed theatrically. “She’s family. So I suffer in silence.”
“Oh, you’re hilarious, both of you. Come on. Put on your Mr. Nice Actor faces, especially you,” she said, pointing at Sherlock.
“I am always nice. I am the soul of niceness and civility and all things admirable. I know because it said so in Empire magazine.”
They followed her back to where Molly was standing with Sally. Harry smothered a smirk as they approached. If this were a cartoon, Molly would have had big sparkly hearts where her eyes ought to be as she gazed at Sherlock.
“This is Molly Hooper. Molly, this is John Watson, and Sherlock Holmes.” Molly spared John a cursory glance as she shook his hand, her attention rather fixated on Sherlock. John exchanged an amused look with Harry.
“Gosh, it’s amazing to meet you,” Molly said. “I’m such a huge fan.”
Sherlock managed what might be called a charming smile. “Thank you. We’re all very excited about your script.”
Molly seemed to regain her composure and remember her role here. She wasn’t an autograph-seeking fan, she was the screenwriter. “Thanks,” she said. “I was happy to sell it at all, and then to have this director and especially both of you starring in it. I keep waiting to wake up.”
“This is your first script?” John asked.
“Not the first one I’ve written, but definitely the first one I’ve sold,” Molly said, laughing.
Sherlock looked her up and down. “You don’t make your living writing. You’re - oh, you’re a doctor. I’d say…forensic pathologist? You live alone, you write as a creative outlet and stress reliever. You have two dogs. Same breed, something small. You also jog, but habitually you do so after dark, when it’s cooler.”
“Don’t mind him,” John said, seeing Molly’s stunned expression. “We don’t usually let him out of his room when there are normal people about.”
“But that’s…”
“How’d I do?” Sherlock asked.
“Spot on! Everything! How did…”
“Oh, please don’t ask how he knew,” Sally interjected. “Because he will tell you, in great detail, more than you wanted.”
“You also don’t think John is right for this role,” Sherlock went on, as if Sally hadn’t spoken.
Molly reddened and glanced at John, who didn’t seem fazed. “Oh, that’s not true, I…I’m sure you’re just right,” she said, quickly.
“It’s okay,” John said. “You wouldn’t be the first to doubt it. Half the town is waiting to see me bodge this up. Sherlock wasn’t too chuffed at first either, were you?” he said, elbowing Sherlock.
“True. I’m afraid I allowed preconceived notions to interfere with my observations. But I can assure you now that a lot of people will be eating their words.” Harry looked at her brother, who was shuffling a bit, his ears reddening and the corners of his mouth twitching at the praise.
“I know you had Sherlock in mind to play Benjamin. Who’d you imagine for Mark?” Sally asked.
“I thought maybe Jeremy Renner?” Molly said, sounding a tad unsure, as if this might be a breach of etiquette.
John nodded. “Oh, well spotted. He’d have been good.”
“He turned it down,” Sherlock said, flatly.
John looked at him, surprised. “Really? I didn’t know it had been offered to him. Why’d he refuse?”
“The cited reason was scheduling conflicts. I suspect the true reason had something to do with the fact that his date bunged a drink in my face at the Governor’s Ball two years ago.”
Everyone laughed. “So, do we have a title yet for this picture?” Sally asked.
“Oh! Yes, we do,” Molly said, perking up. “We settled it last night.” She paused for suspense, a devilish little grin on her face as everyone waited with bated breath. “The film will be titled To a Stranger.”
“Hmm,” Sherlock said, thoughtful. “I like it. It’s - evocative.”
“Walt Whitman?” John said, smiling.
Molly’s grin widened. “Yes! You know that poem?”
John nodded. “Passing stranger, you do not know how longingly I look upon you. You must be he that I was seeking.”
“It’s one of my favorites. It seemed appropriate. I love the last line.”
“I am to see to it that I do not lose you,” John recited, quietly. Sherlock was looking at him, eyebrow arched. “What? I like poetry!”
“You are full of surprises, John.”
“Just because you probably couldn’t tell Eliot from Robert Frost. A study of literature and poetry is a valuable thing for an actor. And don’t give me that tired old ‘everything about humanity can be found in the works of Shakespeare’ rubbish.”
“I had no intention of giving you any such - rubbish,” Sherlock said, looking insulted at the suggestion.
“Are they always like this?” Molly said, leaning toward Harry.
“Lately, yes.”
“So I guess you two have known each other for awhile?” Molly asked them.
They both looked at her blankly. “Not really,” John said.
“We met at the first read-through,” Sherlock said.
“Really? Because it seems like you’ve been mates for years.”
They exchanged a look, tiny smiles crossing their lips. “Sometimes it sure feels like years,” John grumbled, but his eyes were twinkling.
Clara trotted over. “Walkthrough, lads.”
“That’s our cue,” John said. “It was lovely to meet you, Molly. I’m sure we’ll have time to talk later. Sherlock and I both have things we’d like to discuss with you about the characters, and a few lines we have some ideas for.”
Molly nodded. “I’ll look forward to it.”
They set off toward the setup. “You came on an exciting day,” Harry said.
“Oh?”
“They’re shooting the park scene today. Benjamin and Mark’s first kiss.”
Molly actually jumped up and down a little, like a kid. “Oh, I was hoping I might get to see that while I’m here!”
“What’s it like?” Harry asked. “Seeing characters you created coming to life, right in front of you?” Harry had never written anything in her life. Her exposure to the arts was strictly through John. But she imagined that it must be something, having made up a person out of whole cloth and then to see an actor making that person walk and talk and breathe.
Molly smiled, her eyes going a little moist. “I can’t begin to describe it.”
John was nervous. It had been a long time since he’d been nervous before a kissing scene. He’d done so damned many of them, he’d lost track. He’d got off with what felt like half the women in Hollywood. No matter what smirky questions journalists asked during junkets, it wasn’t sexy. It was something you had to repeat a dozen times from five or six angles , not to mention that you were kissing someone you may or may not be attracted to and there was a giant horde of sweaty crew members standing around.
But this was different. He didn’t know why, but it was. It was not his first time kissing a man. He hadn’t ever kissed one for a role, but he’d kissed a few in real life.
Not one like Sherlock. Sherlock was a walking counterexample. He was a brilliant actor who didn’t care about emotional awareness or character motivations. He had a genius intellect but didn’t know who the Prime Minister was. He despised inactivity but had chosen a profession that was 95% waiting around.
And most intrusively, for John anyway, he was an impossibly dishy man who seemed totally uninterested in sex or relationships.
John liked to think he had a pretty good handle on who he was and what he wanted. He wanted to meet someone special - someday - and settle down and have a family. This special someone had always, in his mind, been a woman. But he couldn’t deny that Sherlock twigged something in his gut, something he was resolutely ignoring. It didn’t help that Sherlock had apparently decided that John was the one person in the world he could be comfortable around, and the only person he would treat like a human being instead of an empty head on legs.
He wasn’t worried about the kiss. The whole “on-screen kiss sparks something off-screen” thing was more or less an invention of the public. Actors knew that if sparks flew off-screen, it wasn’t because of something that happened while shooting a scene. It was because of the extensive time you spent with co-stars and crew while the shoot was going on. He’d heard a fellow actor once say that actors aren’t paid to act. The acting, they do for free. They get paid to wait. It was true. Hours spent between shots, sitting on your duff in your trailer or at craft services. If you were sociable and got on with your co-stars, some pretty intense friendships could grow. Along with more-than-friendships.
Surprising as it was, John felt like he and Sherlock had, indeed, become friends. Sally herself had confirmed this just the night before. He’d been packing up his bag in his trailer when she’d come knocking. “Sherlock wants to know if you’d bring over that book you were discussing earlier when you go to his place tonight,” she said.
“Oh. All right.” Sally had just sort of stared at him. “What?”
“Nothing, I’m just - confused.”
“By what?”
“You know, he’s never had a friend before.”
John didn’t know what to say. He was as bowled over by the idea that a man like Sherlock had never had a friend as by the idea that he himself might now be one, after knowing him for only two weeks. “What about you?”
“Me? I work for him. I put up with his shite and give it back when he deserves it. But I don’t kid myself. I just can’t suss out what’s different about you. Lots of people have tried. Nobody ever got handed the keys to the kingdom, not like you have.”
He’d laughed, trying to make light of it. “Maybe it’s because I didn’t try.”
But Sally had gotten a thoughtful look at that. “Maybe.”
The fact was that he didn’t really have any close friends, either. There was Sarah, but he barely saw her anymore except when they did their dog-and-pony show for the press. She had Anthea and now the baby and her own career. It wasn’t like they spent hours together talking about life. Harry always said that the test of who you considered a good friend was if you were in a wreck at four a.m., who would you ring first?
He pondered this question, and was forced to come to the conclusion that right now? He’d ring Sherlock.
Sherlock was costumed and made up as Benjamin and looked particularly fit today. John looked down at himself. Mark was a smart dresser, much more so than he himself was (being the jeans-and-jumper sort) and he’d been costumed in a suit and a camel-colored topcoat, since it was meant to be midday. The park was roped off, the background extras were in their places. Some spectators were gathered by the ropelines, watching and snapping mobile pictures. John gave them a wave. He heard them squeal in delight and they waved back.
“Don’t encourage them,” Sherlock grumbled, appearing at his shoulder out of midair.
“They’re just watching. They’re not doing any harm.”
Sherlock made a vague growly noise. “I’d prefer not to be gawked at, especially today.”
“Why today?”
“We’re about to kiss, John. Many times. I’m sure any of the fine journalistic entertainment rags would love to have a set photo of that.”
John hadn’t thought of that. “Well, have them cleared off if it makes you happy.”
“What would make me happy is to get to work. Surely they’re ready by now.”
“I still wish we’d rehearsed this once or twice.”
“We did! Dozens of times.”
“Not the kiss.” Which was true. Sherlock had flat-out refused to rehearse kissing John. His logic was that Ang wanted this to be Benjamin and Mark’s first kiss, so it ought to be theirs, too. They’d rehearsed the ramp-up, the grabbing, the aftermath, everything but the actual snog.
John hoped his breath was fresh.
Clara started getting everyone cleared. Molly Hooper, the rather adorable screenwriter, had been installed in a chair near the monitors; she was perched right on the edge of her seat so she could be as close to the action as possible.
Sherlock strode off the set, his prop mobile in his hand. He’d already been filmed approaching the park, talking on the mobile. He’d just wait for the right cue to enter the park. John took his place under the big shady tree, the bay in the background.
Action was called. John began delivering his lines into his own prop mobile. These lines would all be replaced in ADR, of course. No way a good sound track could be laid down outdoors like this. Sherlock delivered his side of the mobile conversation from just off-camera. John moved around, letting his feet communicate Mark’s nervousness, his desire to move things forward with Benjamin even while he feared doing so.
And then Benjamin told him to turn around. He did so, and saw Sherlock striding toward him across the grass. Benjamin had just informed Mark that he’d never taken a risk in his life and he wanted to start now, with him. John let his hand fall to his side. Sherlock tossed his mobile to the ground. He walked right up to him, seized his face, and then…
Then it got different.
In rehearsals, it had always been one smooth motion. Benjamin grasped Mark’s face and they kissed. Benjamin’s initiation of the change in their relationship was contained in the swiftness and surety of that motion.
But this time, Sherlock hesitated. He took John’s face in his large, elegant hands, moved in, then paused. He just checked himself for a tiny second, looking into John’s eyes as if Benjamin were making sure Mark was okay with this.
Then he swooped in and kissed him.
Sherlock’s lips were full and soft. Their noses knocked a bit but that felt right, somehow. It was a first kiss, after all. A little awkwardness would help to sell it. John let Mark’s surprise stiffen his body, his mobile falling from his fingers, then his hands drifted up and seized Benjamin’s arms and he returned the kiss. Sherlock pressed in and it felt natural for John to open his mouth so he did, and immediately felt Sherlock’s tongue graze his. The rule for movie snogs, at least with women, was no tongue without advance discussion, but they were both men. And as in all else, Sherlock was the exception to everything.
When Benjamin broke off and drew away, he didn’t retreat as far as Sherlock had in rehearsals. They delivered the next few lines of dialogue in a half-clinch, holding the last beat until Ang yelled ‘cut.’ Spontaneous applause.
John grinned. “Fantastic, mate!”
Sherlock looked troubled. “I’m sorry, John. I don’t know what happened.”
“What do you mean? That was brilliant!”
“That wasn’t how we rehearsed it.”
“I know, but it was better, I thought. C’mon, let’s go watch the playback.” They trooped over to the monitors, where Ang was queuing up the shot. They watched it play out and John nodded. “Yeah. That’s definitely better. More realistic.”
Sherlock still looked uncomfortable. “If you say so. Mind if I change it back for the next take?”
John wanted to tell him not to, that what he’d done in the take had been an improvement, but it wasn’t his job to police Sherlock’s acting choices. “Go ahead,” he said. “I’ll be there with you no matter what.”
John pushed open the door to Sherlock’s studio-hired flat with his shoulder, balancing a big bag of Chinese food in the crook of one arm, his other hand occupied with a carrier bag of tonic water and limes. His own flat was directly across the hall, but he hadn’t been spending much time in it. “Oy, Sherlock? Give us a hand with this?”
“I’m occupied.”
“Oh, bully for you, then,” he grumbled. He staggered inside, shut and bolted the door and repositioned the bags for the trip to the kitchen. Sherlock was sitting on the couch, his hands steepled under his nose, doing bugger-all, as far as John could see. “Oh, right you are! I can see you’re so bloody busy!”
“I’m thinking.”
“And you’re incapable of carrying Chinese food and thinking at the same time?”
Sherlock abruptly bounded to his feet. “I was thinking about the scene today.”
“Which one? We shot three scenes today.”
“You know which one. The kiss.”
“What about it?”
“Ang told me that his favorite was the first take, the one with my - aberration.”
“Is that what you’re calling it?”
“It was a deviation from my plan. Yes, I’d call it an aberration.”
“You and your plans. You can’t plan every gesture and every blink of your eyes, Sherlock.”
Sherlock straightened up, looking a bit haughty at the very suggestion. “And why not?”
John frowned. “But…that’s not what you do, is it?”
“John, everything you have ever seen me do in front of a camera is planned and meticulously researched for authenticity. Every tilt of my head, every hand gesture, every intonation of speech is precisely calculated for maximum dramatic realism and effect. Surely you’ve observed this.”
“I’ve observed that you’re very consistent from take to take.”
“Not just consistent. Planned.”
John shook his head. “If that works for you then I won’t criticize. I couldn’t work like that. A performance has to be created from the thoughts, actions and feelings of the character. It has to flow naturally from inside me.”
“Doesn’t that imply that something of you is infused into the character, because he is based on what your emotional responses would be if you were him?”
“Well, I suppose it does.”
“Then that isn’t acting. Acting is putting on the skin of another person, adopting their mannerisms and their speech patterns and their very essence with such realism that there’s nothing of you in them.”
John held Sherlock’s gaze for a moment. “That sounds like a very cold-blooded way to craft a character.”
“Perhaps it is, but it’s worked for me in the past. Ironically, not everyone appreciates the nuance of such an approach.”
“I can’t imagine why,” John said, dryly.
“This is what concerns me. Today I did something that wasn’t rehearsed, that wasn’t planned. And it was deemed better by just about everyone, including you.”
“Sometimes spontaneity can be a good thing. What were you thinking about when you did it? That little hesitation right before you kissed me, that was what sold it. Why did you do that?”
“Well - I’m not sure. It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”
“See? It was a gut instinct. You’ve gone very deep into Benjamin’s character, Sherlock. You really know him, you’ve internalized him. So you did what you thought he might do. Benjamin wants to kiss Mark, he’s committed to doing it, but he’s a cautious man and he’s got that hesitance that we all have when we’re making a change in a relationship. So he does a bit of an eye-check. Just to be sure he’s not got it wrong. You followed your gut. It’s not something to worry about.”
Sherlock rubbed a hand through his hair. “I’m not accustomed to following that.”
“Everyone raved about your intuitive performance in Kanisza. I guess you’ve got them all fooled, huh?” John said. “You want some of this kung pao chicken?”
“Not hungry. And I’m not fooling anyone. I never claimed to be an emotional, intuitive actor. If people view my performances as intuitive, then that’s their interpretation. How that performance is created is none of their business. They’ll always assume whatever it is that they prefer to believe about how I work. I recall critics singling out one moment in Kanisza, during Alistair’s walkabout…” Sherlock trailed off, eyeing John’s expression. John gulped down his mouthful of chicken, feeling sheepish. “What? John, you look odd.”
“I have an awkward confession to make.”
“Yes?”
“I’ve, uh…never actually seen Kanisza.”
Sherlock blinked. “Oh. I see. Well, then my story won’t have much meaning for you. Forget I spoke.” He stalked back to the couch.
John rolled his eyes. “Come on then, it’s no reflection on you. You know I’m a fan. I just somehow missed that one.”
“I usually make it a point to see the nominated films every year.”
“You’re a member of Academy, you have to vote and all that.”
“Even if I were not, I’m always interested in examining the work of my colleagues.”
“Well, pardon my being an ignorant tosser, but I’m typically working a lot during award season. I don’t have to keep my schedule free for awards and interviews and such the way some people do!” Sherlock said nothing. “Let’s watch it now.”
“What?”
“Let’s watch it now! We’ve got on-demand on these tellies. And if it isn’t there we’ll watch it on streaming.”
“John, there’s really no need,” Sherlock said, softening a bit. “I don’t require you to have viewed my entire filmography.”
“But this is the film you’re most famous for, I really should see it. I’ve always wanted to, it’s just that the time runs away as it does.”
“No, it’s quite all right. We needn’t spend our time watching my backlist.”
John narrowed his eyes, suspicious. “Why are you resisting?”
“I’m not resisting!” Sherlock snapped, too quickly.
“Yes, you are! You don’t want to watch it! Oh, are you one of those actors who can’t bear to watch themselves on screen? Because that would just be too precious for words.”
“I am not - precious! I’m just not comfortable seeing myself.”
“Come on, why not?”
“I can’t stop second-guessing my work!” Sherlock exclaimed. “And I keep thinking, my God, do I really look like that? With this ridiculous chin and this face? I’m afraid I’m a slave to my vanity, John. Feel free to inform the Daily Mail.”
John was astounded. He sat down on the couch a bit away from him. “Sherlock, are you having me on?”
“No, why would I be?”
“Do you honestly believe that you don’t look good on screen?”
He snorted. “Part of being an actor is allowing yourself to be seen at your less than perfect moments. Doesn’t mean I want to be the one seeing it.”
“I can’t believe this. You have no idea, do you?”
“No idea about what?” Sherlock asked, looking distressed at the concept of something daring to exist that he had no idea about.
“Sherlock - you’re…” John trailed off. Let’s see, how to say this without it sounding like a come-on. He opted for direct. “You’re bloody gorgeous. You should have heard the squeals from every woman I know when I told them I’d be working with you, not to mention playing your romantic interest. Even Sarah, and she doesn’t like blokes!”
“Is that so,” Sherlock said, sounding dubious.
“It is most decidedly so. How can you not know this?”
“I suppose I’ve been told. I just can’t quite see it myself.”
“Oh, none of us can. We all think we’re hideous trolls and no one will ever love us, don’t we?”
“The idea that no one would ever love you is just as preposterous as you seem to think are my doubts about my appearance.”
John flushed, not quite sure how to take that compliment. “Um, thanks, I think.”
“I just mean that you’re the sort of person that most people would find easy to love,” Sherlock hastened to add. “You’re friendly and easygoing and have a way of conversing with people that I have never quite mastered, although if I’d cared to do so I surely would have.”
John smiled, impressed by Sherlock’s backpedaling skills. “Let’s just watch the bloody film, shall we? Your vanity will survive.”
Sherlock fetched a deep, long-suffering sigh. “Very well, if we must.”
Kanisza was, indeed, available on-demand on Sherlock’s telly. John brought over his Chinese and some wine and they settled in to watch it. Sherlock was tense as the film began, but as it unspooled he seemed to relax.
John had read a lot about the film, of course, and knew its basic plot. It had been nominated for Best Picture and many still considered it a travesty that it hadn’t won, beaten out by a more accessible (and more profitable) war film that had been blatant Oscar bait. As it was, the film’s only two Oscars were for its cinematography and for Sherlock’s performance. He’d been the prohibitive favorite that year. Kanisza was almost entirely Sherlock’s film, he was in almost every scene. He played Alistair Templeton, a sheltered Oxford philosophy professor who traveled to Australia to work on a paper with a reclusive philosopher he only knew through email. The philosopher took Alistair to his remote home in the outback, and then mysteriously died. Alistair remained in the man’s home for several months and found himself living out the philosophical principle of Gestalt that the two had been studying while coming to the disturbing idea that his friend’s death may not have been natural.
John soon forgot his Chinese food, enthralled. The cinematography was stunning, even on this small screen. Sherlock’s performance was as transporting as had been advertised. His Alistair was eager but naïve, properly English but a closet hippie who yearned for a transformative experience.
“This is so Polanski, I can’t even tell you,” John said, about an hour into the film.
“You think so?” Sherlock said, not taking his eyes off the screen.
“It reminds me of The Pianist. All that silence, Alistair alone and without dialogue for such long stretches.”
“That comparison has been made before.”
“My God, how are you holding the screen by yourself without speaking for such long periods? I can’t look away.”
“I invented thoughts and writings and internal monologues for every second of Alistair’s screentime. I can tell you exactly what he’s thinking for every moment he doesn’t speak.”
“It shows.” John fell silent and they kept watching. “Is that as remote as it looks?” he finally asked, about half an hour later, while Alistair was doing his walkabout in the central Australian desert.
“Yes, it is. Terrence insisted on practical locations. Everything had to be shipped in and dear Lord, the generators. We set up a base camp where we could reach a few weeks’ worth of locations by lorry, then moved the camp, and so forth.”
“It is a crime that he wasn’t nominated for this.”
“Agreed.”
They finished watching the film in silence. When it was over, John just sat there for a moment, absorbing it. “Holy God, Sherlock. If I weren’t already in awe of you…” He sighed. “What am I doing sharing a screen with you?”
“You’re doing a proper good job of it.”
“I can’t do what you did in that film.”
“Of course you can’t, nor should you. If you’d been cast, you’d have created your performance, not mine.”
“It wouldn’t have been as good.”
“We can’t know that. Based on what I know of you now, it would have been interesting.”
“Your co-stars were all fantastic, too.”
“I agree. I’d gladly work with any of them again. It’s less certain whether they’d be so eager to work with me again.”
“The word was that you were very intense on that shoot.”
“I had a challenging role to prepare for. I had no time for nonsense.”
“You’ve a challenging role to prepare for now, too. And yet you’re making time to watch films with me,” John said, smirking at him.
Sherlock glanced at him, a tiny half-smile sneaking onto his lips. “Perhaps the company is more motivational now than it was then.”
John was flattered, but he couldn’t think of a way to respond that wouldn’t sound hopelessly ingratiating. “So was it too awful, watching yourself?”
Sherlock made an indeterminate noise in his throat. “I suppose I could get used to it.”
“You looked bloody fantastic in that film. All that flattering late-afternoon sunlight and the tan and the fetching outdoor togs.”
“Terrence kept wanting me to look like some sort of Byronic hero, or like Redford in Out of Africa. I was keen to be as dirtied-up and disheveled as possible. It was nonstop war with the makeup people.”
John looked at him, sitting with his knees drawn to his chest and his hands clasped around them in an endearing, child-like pose. He felt a sudden rush of affection for his odd co-star - certainly the strangest friend John had ever made. He’d never expected to feel any sort of connection to him, let alone to become his friend. But how could he not? The man was a walking gravity well of enigmatic intrigue. “You’re just at war with the world, aren’t you?” he asked, quietly. It was a shame. He wouldn’t have to be at war with it if the world could pause and look for a moment, and see him for who he was. If he’d let them. John supposed there was equal blame on both sides of that particular dust-up.
“It often seems so. But I’m not at war with you, am I?”
John smiled. “I hope not.”
“Good. I find it’s rather pleasant to be at ease, for once.”
“Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“At ease.”
Sherlock looked at him and smiled, not his smirky little lip-curl or his ‘I’m being forced to tolerate your presence’ fake smile, but a warm, real one. “Yes, John. I believe I am.”
John smiled back, and for a moment they just let the moment sit there and steep in silence. “Well, shall we queue up one of my films, then?” he teased. “Perhaps you’d enjoy the high-flown dramatic stylings and wacky hijinks of Havana Honeymoon?”
PASSING stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me, as of a dream,)
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall’d as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,
You grew up with me, were a boy with me, or a girl with me, 5
I ate with you, and slept with you-your body has become not yours only, nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass-you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,
I am not to speak to you-I am to think of you when I sit alone, or wake at night alone,
I am to wait-I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.
--"To a Stranger," Walt Whitman
MetaNotes for Chapter 4:
1. The quote about an actor performing for free but being paid to wait is by Wil Wheaton, blogger/actor/awesomeness and unofficial King of All Geeks, although he may have been quoting someone else.
2. ADR = Additional Dialogue Recording. Commonly known as “looping.” Almost all films contain some looping; it’s damn near universal for outdoor shoots where wind and traffic noise and leaves blowing and shit often make the audio track recorded during shooting unusable. The actors go into a studio and re-record their lines while watching themselves so they can match their lip movements. Most actors hate doing this and most directors try and minimize the amount that is required. Bad looping is a hallmark of low-budget, poorly-made films.
3. Anderson is the film’s line producer. The line producer is basically the film’s shop foreman. The producer writes the checks and hires everyone, the line producer makes sure the trains run on time and the shit gets done on-set. The producer is often not on set (most producers have more than one project going at once) but the line producer always is. They’re doing most of the day-to-day work running the shoot. It’s a thankless but infinitely crucial job.
4. The “Terrence” referenced is meant to be Terrence Malick. Sherlock already referenced him in the last chapter. The sort of film that I’m describing in Kanisza would probably require a director with pretty rarefied auteur sensibilities but the ability to direct intense on-location shoots and handle big sweeping productions. Malick directed The Thin Red Line and has that reputation.
5. If you haven’t seen The Pianist, do it immediately. In my opinion it’s a better Holocaust film than Schindler’s List. It is not an easy film but it is brilliant.
6. The “Aronofsky” referenced is Darren Aronofsky, probably the most prominent bona-fide auteur filmmaker working today. He directed Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, The Wrestler, Black Swan and others.
One note about me: I’ve gotten comments regarding my knowledge of the film industry. I ought to clarify that most of it is secondhand. I do not work in the film industry, although I’ve known people who do, and I read a lot of books about it. I have written in the film-analysis and criticism areas and have learned a lot that way. Still, I am no doubt making mistakes, oversimplications and out-and-out fabrications. So don’t take it all on faith. It’s as accurate as I can make it but no guarantees.
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