The set was buzzing with activity: actors, makeup artists, stylists, and all their assistants, stage technicians: camera operators, professional tradesmen, people passing back and forth on walkie-talkies. It was like being on a construction site with pop-up buildings that were propped up and pulled down as the shoot required.

Gamelandia was a bigger film than Alpha and, a fantasy, required some more elaborate set designs, a combination of soundstages, and CGI. And overseas location shooting for the plot’s multi-setting ‘level’ backdrops, which I was not needed for, because I doubled in close-ups where background wasn’t a focus.

Earlier that morning, Raf drove me past a guard gate into the shoot location: a soundstage built inside a converted factory, and one of a number of production-owned block buildings which was now busy with noise and people in the throes of film-making. No trailers like on the set of Alpha; here each smaller building was set aside for the various departments: production, wardrobe and make-up, and back lot for shooting.

The exterior looked like a logistics operation for a warehouse distributing photography equipment, rather than a film set. Vans lined the concrete roads intersecting the factory buildings, down which golf cars rolled, technicians armed with cabling and equipment stands passed by, people ran back and forth,  aides chattered into walkie talkies with driven strides, avoiding eye contact.

We were met by an assistant director who pointed us past some traffic road blocks, towards offices set up in rooms conjoined to the main factory. Make-up and wardrobe had fitted out one of these offices with a row of light-bulbed dressing tables. The tables were filled and weren’t ready for me, so we moved on down a hallway lined with various crew members to the holding area, a brightly lit room filled with fold-out chairs basically a waiting room for actors until they were called on set. Seats were filled with extras in baroque period-era fantasy regalia, and seeing elves and goblins draining bottles of coke was still a novelty I hadn’t yet gotten over. But the room itself was drab, noisy and didn’t help take my mind away from my racing thoughts. First day on set of a new movie always felt like first day at a new job.

So we went through where the room spilled out into a brick-paved patio area with benches and tables shaded by expansive, square commercial parasols, as at an outdoor café, but no food, though there was supposed to be a catering tent around here somewhere. Raf took a seat, placing me down on one of the tables.   

A kid with impeccably styled sandy hair, age somewhere in the realm of eighteen, loped over, like he was journeying around the set, rather than actually having a strict destination in mind. I guessed he was one of the leads, he looked like he’d come from make-up. He lifted his head and eyed me with interest. We met eyes and he said:

“HEY. THE LITTLE DUDE.” He gave me a quick eyebrow raise. “SIN?”

“Sin?” I furrowed my brow.

He stared at me blankly. Then something seemed to register.

"LOTTA PEOPLE ASK ME,” he said, “AND I ALWAYS SAY: ONE WORD: INSOLE LIFTS. WELL, THAT'S TWO WORDS. BUT THAT'S ALL I GOT. SORRY."

Then he walked away.

Nonplussed, I stared at Raf. He just stared back at me and shrugged.

“DON’T TAKE HIM SERIOUSLY.”

A dark-haired girl wandered over, and like the guy, young – younger than me at least. All the kids playing the leads looked fresh out of make-up and evidently, the make-up team were doing utmost to make them look as glamorous as possible for a bunch of kids running through wild forests and hinterlands.

“ERIC,” she said dryly. “HE’S PLAYING MIKE. WE WERE DOING LINE READS AND HE’S STILL IN CHARACTER. FULL MIKE.”

There was an in-joke in there I didn’t get. But then again, I never bothered to read any of the Gamelandia books. I had no lines, so I could get away with it.

But I nodded sagely, struck by a sudden, inexplicable need to not look novice or dumb; I mean, all these kids were new and I was the one with previous acting experience under my belt, if only one prior movie. Not to mention, the girl was flashing me a stomach-fluttering smile and putting me in a very vulnerable position. She had a disarmingly forward, friendly manner and one of these smiles that lit her face right up, no surprise the casting director signed her on. But I guess I had grown a little cynical to engaging smiles since Natalie.

In the intervening moments, she gave Raf the faintest look over – as if trying to discern if he was my body guard – before taking a step closer to the table, and me.

“I’M ALEXA. AND I’M MADISON.” Then she explained: “WE HAVE THIS GAME; WE’RE TRYING TO MATCH CAST TO ONE OF THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS. I SAY ERIC IS WRATH.” Her hands slid into her pockets as she shifted her weight back and forth between her feet, appraising me. “WHAT DO YOU THINK?”

“My sin?” I clarified. “Can I answer in multiple?”

“NO,” she laughed. “AND YOU CAN’T ANSWER FOR YOURSELF. I MEAN, FOR ME; WHAT DO YOU SAY?”

How the heck was I supposed to answer that? I’d just met her. Although, her radiant smile had hushed to a smirk, as if she didn’t expect a serious answer. What even were all the deadly sins; her smile was so bright it short-circuited my brain.

“Um…I don’t know – vanity?”

“LAST I CHECKED, VANITY ISN’T A SIN.”

“You could be a spokesperson for Porche.”

“QUITE THE LITTLE CHARACTER, AREN’T YOU?” She shook her head. I couldn’t help think I was a few years older than her, but she was talking to me like I was the younger one.

“I’m the expert on playing little characters.”

Her smile broke free again, while my heart simultaneously seemed to break free and somehow float out of my chest before I could stop it. She seemed surprised I would be so defiantly upfront about my size, and not unpleasantly.

“YOU MEAN PRIDE,” she corrected gently. “WE’VE ALL PRETTY MUCH DECIDED THAT JAKE IS PRIDE – JAKE’S PLAYING ADAM.” She watched me again, with that calm, mildly amused expectation.

Well, what else was there? Sloth? She was too coltish to be sloth. But, that moment, my brain felt like sloth. I hadn’t felt this peppy and venturesome since meeting Jen at a party (correction: second time we met) and impulsively manufacturing a selfie with her.

“I’d like to buy a vowel, Alexa.”

“YOU KNOW WHAT,” she chuckled, whirling away and pushing her hair back, “I’LL LET YOU THINK ABOUT IT.”

She gave me the subtlest ‘eyebrow jump’ over her shoulder before she left.

“SEEYA JERRY. ADIOS.”

I looked back up at Raf, but he was checking his phone, rapidly thumbing the virtual keypad, texting something.

“KNOW YOUR SINS, JERRY?” he said, chuckling. “SHE WAS FISHING.”

My eyes scanned the vicinity in desperation: crew members passing two and fro, carpenters and electricians doing the rigging, laying cabling, testing spark effects, adjusting camera equipment, rigging pulleys in preparation for the wire stunt work.

My throat was inexplicably dry as a desert. I’d seen a coffee cart on the way in, but I wanted something cool, like Kolade. Ultimately, I settled for a bottlecap of Raf’s mineral water.

We returned to make-up, and I spent some time sitting on the vanity counter in front of one of the mirrors while getting made-up to look like Mike. This involved taking all my clothes off, except for my underwear, and then being powdered up to look alarmingly pale, with a bluish tint, especially my lips and around my fingernails, which had to be dabbed with a very fine, precise brush. Staring at myself in the towering mirror, I wondered if Mike was supposed to be some kind of zombie or space alien.

Then I was heading to the set, the soundstage inside one of the larger buildings, an expanse, high-ceiling warehouse divided up into walled off areas called ‘Stage A’, ‘Stage B’ etc. Raf kept my phone while handing me over to an assistant director who would help place me around the stages, not before facetiously stressing I was an actor, not a prop.  

The aide carried me into a big, open floor studio with lime green walls. Mounds, steps and ramps made of props covered in green sheets were built up to look like small hills to me. A crew member explained it would be a snowy mountain in the finished film.

We were between takes. Members of crew had cameras and equipment in position, various department heads being consulted on footage already shot.

“HEY HO, IT’S PAPA SMURF. HUGE FAN OF YOUR WORK, MR. SMURF.”

Alexa had wandered over, and I nearly didn’t recognize her. She must have just come from wardrobe and was in full costume: ornate midriff-exposing armor, prosthetic elf ears and arcane tattoos. Then I noticed her feet were bare.

“Where’s your shoes?” I asked.

She glanced down, lifting and wiggling her toes, contemplating.

“YEAH, HAVE YOU SEEN THE BOOTS ON THE ELVES? THAT’S SOME WICKED KNEE-HIGH MEDIEVAL PRADA RIGHT THERE. I GOT SHAFTED BY WARDROBE, DEFINITELY.”

I stared at her ear prosthetics.

“Aren’t you an elf?”

“YOU READ THE SCREENPLAY, RIGHT?”

“Through a haze.”

She feigned alarm and disappointment.

“WELL, I HEARD YOU WERE A PRO.”

“But, young lady, speed-reading a script while multi-tasking ten other things is what all we industry long-timers do.”

She folded her tattoo engraved arms.

“BUT, TINY MAN, DO YOU KEEP YOUR TINY MOTORBIKE IN A TINY GARAGE, TOO?”

“I don’t have a tiny motorbike.”

She rocked back on her heels and swished away from me.

“THEN HOW DO YOU SPEED READ?” she said over her shoulder.

“Oh.”

 “OH, ZING.”

We ran the first takes of my scene: a frozen Mike was buried in the snow and the elf giantess Madison dug him up and conjured a fire with magic to warm him beside until he melted, and then – with more magic – resurrected him, though he lost one of his three game lives. The script supervisor suggested this is not what happened in the source novel, but I hadn’t read it, so, not a problem.

I was required to lie on the ground ‘buried’ under some sheeting, while Alexa dug me out, plucking me up delicately around the waist. As Mike was frozen, I had to keep my limbs and head stiff while my waist was snatched up, which was difficult after several takes. So, support rods were attached to my back and limbs to keep them straight, and removed once Mike had been melted. I played limp while Alexa ‘resurrected’ me, and then acted out some takes with her (though my lines would be dubbed over by Eric’s voice in editing).

Apparently, Eric would be running through the same scene but with props to stand in for the scaled up body parts of Madison’s which he would be interacting with. Editing would splice these scenes into a composite.

This dual-style shooting of me doubling Eric carried out throughout the shooting for the film.

*

I’d been working on Gamelandia for some weeks.

Raf strode up to collect me from set, after another long day of shooting. Getting off set as the sun was going down, we missed the worst of the clock-off peak hour traffic, but it was not much lighter. While I bumped around in my harness on the vibrating vinyl shotgun seat, car engines grumbled past the window next to me, like passing steam trains.

The car pumped forward to chase down a green light, causing the harness to jerk, digging into my chest before relaxing again. It suddenly struck me that I’d been taking the Roburfortis consistently every week, one quarter tablet as prescribed, but the booster seat harness still fit me snugly as always, unless Raf had slackened it while I wasn’t looking.

“Hey, Raf,” I asked, “do I look bigger?”

He frowned in thought, trying to interpret my question.

“BEEN PUTTING LIFTS IN YOUR SHOES LIKE THAT GUY SAID?”

“I mean, larger.”

“NO WAY, YOU’RE NOT FAT. LARISSA WOULD BE ON YOUR BUTT OVER IT, TAKE IT FROM ME.”

“I mean,” I sighed, hating to emphasize it, “taller, broader, wider; bigger along every dimension. The last few weeks, maybe you’ve noticed something – anything – different about—”

“OH, YOUR PHONE BUZZED WHILE YOU WERE ON SET,” he interjected at a sudden thought, “SO I TOOK A CALL FOR YOU; LISTEN, THIS CHICK WANTS YOU TO CALL HER BACK.”

“For a movie?”

“NO, NOT WORK…PERSONAL.”

“What was her name – was she with a business?”

“NOTHING. NEITHER. JUST A NUMBER.”

“Weird.”

Raf threw me a sideways look.

“MY BOY IS GETTING BOOTY CALLS BY WOMEN WITH SEXY ACCENTS!”

I laughed.

“You serious?”

“I DON’T KNOW, MAN, BUT SHE DIDN’T GIVE ANYTHING AWAY. SHE WAS ULTRA COOL, LIKE STEEL, NO MESSING AROUND, LIKE—”

“But—”

“—THAT’S WHY I THINK IT’S, YOU KNOW… BOOTY. GONNA CALL HER BACK?”

I looked away, stared into the distance, fidgeting with my phone, wishing it was small enough that I could slide it into my pocket and forget about it.

“Nothing’s going to happen,” I said. “I’m engaged.”

“BUT JUST GET BACK ON IT, SEE WHAT SHE WANTS, IN CASE I HAVE IT WRONG.”

It was too late today. I planned to do it tomorrow. But then tomorrow came, my thoughts were on work, and I forgot.

*

It was a break on set. Raf sat at a bench, and me sitting on a table, eating some morsels from the catering tent as I scrolled through my phone’s recent list looking to see if Farris had called me recently with any updates. Most of the received numbers were the same: Jennifer, Raf, even the vet, to confirm a prescription refill, and imploring me to make a follow up appointment to review my regime – been dodging that one for a while now…

…And a received call for a number that, at first, I didn’t recognize. It was the mystery call Raf had fielded the other week, the suspected ‘booty call’. I’d been so busy I’d forgotten about it until now. What if it was serious? – A job related offer. My hand hovered over the ‘dial back’ option.

Then, looked up.

A member of crew was calling for me: costume fitting; my butt had to be in front of the camera.

As I got to my feet on the table, and Raf lifted himself off the bench, I said:

“Raf, could you do me a favour?”

“TRY ME. WHAT DO YOU NEED?”

“You remember the woman who called for me? While we’re shooting, could you call her back and see what she wants?”

“AH, BUT I ALREADY KNOW WHAT SHE WANTS,” he chuckled, “SHE WANTS YOU.”

When I didn’t say anything, he added, more seriously:

“I CAN TRY, CHIEF, BUT…I WOULDN’T COUNT ON GETTING A STRAIGHT REPLY.”

“Well, if she wants me that bad, she has to give something up: a name, or organization. Otherwise, no deal.”

*

Later, I was hanging around off-set. The outside patio from the holding room was a common meeting place during odd hours. If Raf or one of the aides took me there, I usually bumped into one of the kids before long.

Today it was Alexa and Cody. Cody was playing Tony, a character who assumes the role of a wizardly mentor. Off-set he and Alexa were quite close, even though her on-screen romantic interest was played by Jake (playing Adam), and she technically had the most screen time with Eric (playing Mike). And since I doubled Mike, some of that screen time was with me.

Cody knew one of the technician crew members, and he told us some funny stories and anecdotes about his experience working on sets with celebrities. It was nearing the end of my scenes for the day, and Raf arrived to pick me up, but I was waiting for the okay from the director’s aide to go.

Alexa went off to make a phone call, and Cody began shifting on his feet, pacing a little, sucking in air. I wondered if he was rehearsing lines in his head.

Then he turned to me, and said:

“IF I DON’T TELL SOMEONE I’M GOING TO MESS MY LINES. CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET?”

He had a closely shaved head, but was still wearing a wig of long, braided brown locks, plus a short beard, for his wizard character.

“About what?”

He nodded in the direction Alexa had gone. Now his voice was charged, almost humming:

“THAT GIRL COULD CAST A SPELL ON ME ANYTIME. ALREADY HAS.”

“Who? Alexa?”

“HER ENERGY. YOU FEEL IT?”

“She’s got a cute smile,” I admitted. “And yeah, she’s pretty.”

I felt a bond with her, if for no other reason than her audacity and roguish sense of humor made me think, vaguely, of a slightly younger Jennifer.

Cody shifted on his feet, throwing a look down at me and then looking away again. His voice lost its spark, becoming self-conscious.

“CUTE, HOW?” he repeated, distracted. “REALLY, GIRLS MUST SEEM LIKE VERY PRETTY DINOSAURS TO YOU.”

“You've seen giant girls on billboards?” I shot back. "You don't think they look strange."

“JERRY IS A HIT WITH THE LADIES,” Raf said. He’d seen female crew members gushing over me, convincing him to let me take a ‘ride’ in their hand, putting me in their pocket for a selfie, coloring my palm with ink to press against my signature on a business card, while they squeal-laughed over the tiny imprint.

“SO...” Cody began, “…I’M GOING TO ASK HER OUT. IF YOU'RE SUCH A SUPERSTAR ON THE OPPOSITE SEX, PLEASE ADVISE."

“Probably take the wig off, first.”

Cody pulled at his wig self-consciously.

“THEY SET IT WITH SPECIAL GLUE, AND IT’S A BITCH TO RE-APPLY.”

“That’s okay. Maybe she’s into Vikings.”

Cody suddenly spun around and began pacing erratically again.

“OH SHIT, SHE’S COMING BACK,” he hissed out of the corner of his lips. “WHAT DO I DO?”

“Pretend she’s already said yes.”

“ALEXA, HI,” Cody announced, clapping his hands together. Alexa gave him a strange look; they’d just been talking not long ago.

“I’VE GOT LIKE, FOUR MINUTES,” she interrupted, “AND THEN I HAVE TO BE IN MAKE-UP.”

Cody cleared his throat.

“RIGHT, UM…SO, ALEXA, YOU UP FOR GOING OUT WITH ME LATER? LIKE, FRIDAY NIGHT?”

She frowned.

“WE’RE GOING TO THE RED STAR FRIDAY NIGHT. JAKE, ERIC, MEGAN – YOU STILL COMING?”

“OH YEAH…”

She laughed.

“HOW COULD YOU FORGET? IT’S OUR THING THAT WE DO!”

He butted in hopefully:

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING NEXT WEEK?”

She pivoted around fully at him, marking him down with an appraising stare.

“CODY, ARE YOU ASKING ME OUT ON A DATE?”

I heard Cody’s throat trying to work as he struggled to meet her confrontational manner.

“THAT IS INDEED WHAT I AM DOING. SO…”

“CODY…”

She looked away for an instant, put her hand against her forehead, sweeping her hair around her shoulder, twisting it.

“I LIKE YOU BUT…THERE’S SOMEONE ELSE.”

“OH. RIGHT.”

What he was thinking came through in his tone: a girl as hot as Alexa; of course she must already be spoken for.

Biting her lip, she turned and left.

Cody stared after her, then letting out a long breath that he’d been holding in for a while.

“BE HONEST,” he drawled. “I TOTALLY BLEW THAT, DIDN’T I? IT WAS THE WIG.”

I shrugged.

“It’s not endgame. Once this film comes out, you’ll be drowning in female fans.”

“I LIKE YOU BUT I LIKE SOMEONE ELSE,” he repeated, mulling it over. “BUT REALLY? – OR GIRL CODE FOR ‘NO CHANCE.’”

“I don’t think she’s speaking in codes. You guys dating and working together could be weird. She’s got romantic scenes with Jake.”

He pondered on this.

“MAYBE SO, TINY BRO.”

The director’s aide briskly appeared for me.

“JERRY. STAGE C.”

“Sorry, Raf,” I said, as the aide picked me up. “I thought I was done.”

“NO SWEAT, LITTLE CHIEF. TELL ME WHEN THEY CALL IT IN.”

*

Raf reclaimed me from set, gripping me in one hand, while his other hand fiddled with my miniature phone in his pocket. It was darkening outside. His steady lumbering strides carried me back towards his car in the parking lot, and then the downtown streets were rolling past.

“OH RIGHT,” Raf remembered suddenly, “—WHILE YOU WERE ON SET TODAY, I GAVE THAT LADY A CALL–” quickly adding, “—WELL, OKAY, I TRIED.”

“You couldn’t reach her?”

“NO, I GOT HER, IT’S JUST THAT SHE IS COOL,” he accented this the way a guy would call a woman ‘hot.’ “WON’T TALK TO ME – TOLD YOU – SHE WANTS YOU.”

“Did she give you anything?”

“YOU WANT ANSWERS YOU’VE GOTTA TALK TO HER.”

“Okay,” I sighed. 

Right at that moment there was buzzing from inside his pocket.

“OH,” he exclaimed, as if to say ‘well, there you go.’ He yanked it out and gave it to me. I answered the call.

“Look,” I said, and immediately demanded, “you need to be upfront with me or I hang up, right now. Starting with a name.”

“I-it’s Natalie,” came the reply.

“Oh.” My cheeks went red. “You didn’t try to call me earlier?”

“Bad time? I know it’s late, I only just—”

“It’s fine. Never mind.”

“Are you sure? You sound…” she deliberated on the word, “…tired.”

“No, I…I thought you were someone else.”

Then there literally came the sound of someone else, a male voice grunted in the background. My brain flatlined for an instant. Then it hit me: her boyfriend, Grant, right? My nerves skipped at the sound of his timbre, so much deeper than my own. I tried to imagine, of possibilities, what he had said: want a snack from the refrigerator, Nat? – Here, let me open it for you with my big, strong arm…

Her voice snapped my mind back.

“—break coming up, Grant and I are going to be visiting some family and friends in Bayside, so I wanted to put the suggestion out there – ‘cause I know—“ a microsecond delay, “—Jennifer is back there, right? So if you’re down that way we could, maybe, get together, the four of us.”

“Makes sense,” I mumbled, not knowing what I was responding to.

“Great! We’ll talk sooner and figure it out. Say hi to Jennifer for me!”

Too late I thought: hot yoga with Grant? Shoot me.

Not quite, but something arguably worse.