‘Casting’

MONTANA Issue Zero, Montana Lab, 2024

Dimensions: 220 x 300 mm, 212 pages, Swiss binding

David Campany contributes a short story, ‘Casting’.

‘Casting’ 

by David Campany

They had met the year before, in Venice, falling into conversation in the bookshop of the Palazzo Fortuny. Waiting in line to pay for a book, he noticed the woman in front of him had chosen the same one as he. A collection of photographs of landscapes, cars and abstraction. He had decided to buy it because he really wasn’t sure what to make of it. And now he wondered if she had chosen it for similar reasons. Holding his copy, he bumped her elbow very gently with his, and showed her the coincidence. She turned, smiled in surprise at the identical books, and looked up.  She studied his face briefly, and stated: “You were at the opera last night, at La Fenice.”

“Yes. I was, yes.”

“I was sitting behind you.”

She paid for her book, then he for his, and sort of together they took the stairs down to the street. Outside a nearby café, they found a table. They ordered drinks, and looked through the pages of their books. Each thought better than to try to find words. She glanced over to see if they were pausing at the same pictures.

They discussed the opera briefly, and Venice in general. The crowded churches. The daily struggle to find good coffee. The perfect little Olivetti typewriter museum in Saint Mark’s Square. “What do you do when you’re not in Venice?” he asked, in a corny voice he hoped might excuse the question.

“I work in movies, in Los Angeles,” she replied, mimicking his tone.

“Me too. In London.”

“Oh?

“Casting.”

“Ha. Me too!”

“Really?”

It soon became clear they had known of each other, and had even emailed briefly a few years earlier.

A film she cast had recently won Academy Awards for its two lead actors. This, among casting directors, is as good as it gets. While there are prizes for almost everyone who works in movies, there is no Academy Award for casting. In fact, there are no awards in the whole movie industry for casting. It is a vital and unspoken art, but to honour it would undermine the awards for the actors, and that cannot be allowed to happen. That was her theory, anyway.

She forced a smile. “I went to the Oscar ceremony. And when they won it was a great feeling.”

“I can imagine.” He thought for a moment. “Actually, I can’t imagine. I don’t know how I would feel.”

“Well, yes. Great and strange.”

Both were successful in their work, although she had been doing it for much longer. Of course, of course, they hadn’t got into it for the awards but the fact that they would never win one was still hard to take during awards season.

“They both gave extraordinary performances. The Oscars were well deserved,” he said. “That was pretty inspired casting. Unknowns with no Hollywood star appeal.”

“Thank you.  I fought hard for that. They wanted stars but I knew that wouldn’t work. The audience has to really not know their sexuality, not be swayed by any previous persona.”

“How do you feel about the backlash?” he asked.

“That he should have been played by a gay actor?”

“Yes. Another straight actor wins for playing a gay character.”

She rolled her eyes. “As soon as the nominees were announced it was crazy. The press wanted to know if he was ‘really gay’. In the movie he’s actually married to her at the start.”

“Yes, but the character was gay all along.”

“Well, the script was careful not to put it that way. He doesn’t say to her ‘I now realize I was gay all along. He says ‘People change’.” They paused, knowing both sides of the argument.

“You could argue it would have been more powerful if he had been played by a well-known straight actor…,” she offered.

He thought about this. “But I felt that when he was saying that people change, it was his way of being kind to his wife. At the cost of his own true feelings.”

“Really?” She looked confused.

“Yeah…. I think so.”

“So, for you he is a thoroughly gay character who really should have been played by a thoroughly gay actor?”

“I didn’t say that. And what does ‘thoroughly’ mean anyway?”, he shrugged.

“Sorry. Yes, exactly.”

“I should see the film again,” he confessed.

They left the Palazzo and walked the narrow streets in the last of the spring daylight. Near the steps of La Fenice, he took out his camera to photograph the ornate façade. It looked old, but was in fact a reconstruction, following a devastating fire. Her eyes looked up to where he was pointing the camera. Suddenly she asked: “Have you seen Don’t Look Now?”  In the brief silence as he framed his shot, she wondered why that movie had come to mind. Was it because Donald Sutherland plays an architectural restorer?

“One of the best British films!” he declared, with his eye to the viewfinder.

“One of the best films from anywhere.” She smiled to herself behind his back. “The love scene was shot in a hotel near here. Do you think it would have changed things if Julie Christie or Donald Sutherland had been gay in real life?”

“Probably,” he pondered.  “Although I guess any actor should be able to play any part.”

“In terms of sexuality, yes.”

“It certainly made a difference that Christie and Sutherland were having an affair, and they’d actually made love just before the scene was shot.”

“I didn’t know that. You mean it makes a difference once we know, or it made a difference for them in the shooting of the scene?”

“Both… I think.”

“Can two actors who are siblings in real life can play lovers in a movie?”

“Oh. Hmmm. They could. It’s only pretend. But the audience would have a lot to deal with if they knew.”

“Peter and Jane Fonda.”

“Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal.”

“John and Joan Cusack.”

“There’s Ann Cusack, Bill Cusack, and Susie Cusack too…”

“Woah.”

They entered Saint Marks Square and drifted over to the Olivetti museum. It was closed already. They peered through the window, then meandered across the square. Whenever she was in a crowd she thought of all the people as extras in a movie, being paid to walk inconspicuously, to make the scene look real. You don’t really cast extras. You just hire them.

__

The following year, they met again, in London at the BAFTA ceremony. This time a film he had cast was up for several awards. But it won nothing. At the after-party he spotted her, with her girlfriend.

“Hello!” She reached out her champagne glass, toasting him as he approached. “It’s a really great film. So sorry it didn’t win anything. Especially for the leads.”

“Thank you.” He rolled his eyes, smiling, recalling Venice. “The only nominees this year who were not unknowns! How are you?”

“Really well. Although I think I want to get out of casting.”

He was shocked to hear this. “But you’re the best…”

“Actually… it was that conversation we had last year. It made me wonder.”

“Really? Well, I hope I didn’t…”

“No, no, in a good way. I want to write instead.”

“Oh. What kind of writing? Novels?”

“I wish. There’s more money in scripts. Or maybe scripts just seem less scary to us.”

“Would you want to choose who plays your characters?”

She thought about this. “No. I don’t think I would even want to see the movie.”

__

 Author’s note: this was written in 2022, before casting became an ‘Oscar’ category.