I snorted into my pillow. Friends with movie stars? Now that was a true fantasy. I rolled over and scribbled lyrics and possible chords for the song that had been in my head all day. A tune about breaking out of your bubble only to find yourself hopelessly underground.
“Great,” I murmured. “One day on set and I’m writing about hobbits.”
IRIS & RYDER Film: Elementia
Director: Cate Collins
On Location: Day 2
Aran Islands, Ireland
Filming Notes:
Morning establishing shots on the west end of the island. Afternoon shots with SEVYN. No dialogue.
Etc. Notes:
BRILLIANT CRAIC
Because It’s Not a Story Set in Ireland without It
Ryder woke me up, hopping around the trailer like a cricket. He pushed a note card in my face. “What is this?” I asked.
“Film stuff. Henrik said it’s the side for the day.”
“Okay, but why are we getting one with our names stamped on it?”
Ryder shrugged, and I commenced my daily battle to dress, groom, and get Ryder out the door. The picnic tables outside were bustling with crew members having breakfast. We collected some food from a small buffet, and Ryder beelined for Eamon and Roxanne, who were deep in conversation. I tried to sit silently, but Ryder yelled, “Hey, guys!”
Roxanne pointed to her plate. “You know they call this ‘breaky’ here? And this is somehow ‘bacon.’” She held up a thick piece of ham on her fork.
Ryder was shocked. “But that’s not bacon!”
“That’s what I’ve been telling Eamon.” Roxanne looked glorious this morning; she’d paired gold eye shadow with a dark hoodie. Man, I wished this girl would give me lessons.
“Yesterday Eamon taught me about ‘the toilets’ and ‘slagging,’” I said, enjoying the way his ears—his real ears—turned red. Without the elf prosthesis, he no longer looked ridiculous, and I confirmed what I had suspected yesterday: he was, underneath the nerdisms, cute.
“Do you guys want to see the costume trailer?” Eamon asked. “It’s great craic.”
Roxanne snapped her fingers. “I know this one. Craic means fun.”
“I want to have some crack!” Ryder shouted.
Roxanne laughed against the back of her hand while I gave Eamon a withering look. “Real funny,” I said. “You can explain to my dad that he’s not talking about hard drugs.”
“What?” Ryder asked. “I can’t go?”
“Eat,” I said. “And you can go as long as Eamon promises to watch you.”
“You don’t want to come?” Eamon asked.
“I’m going back to bed. It’s dead o’clock back in LA.” I turned to my brother. “Listen to Eamon.” My brother waved me away, and I grabbed my cold toast and headed toward our trailer.
When I passed Julian’s, he popped his beautiful head out. “Hey, Iris, get in here. We’ve got real lattes.”
“And a fruit plate!” Shoshanna yelled from inside.
Cue epic morning with Hollywood stars. If I’d written an honest email to my parents about my second morning in Ireland, it would have been all exclamation marks. I didn’t, of course; they did not deserve to know how amazing it was to hang out with Julian Young and Shoshanna Reyes.
Last night, around the second hour of why am I so tired and yet cannot sleep, I’d looked up Shoshanna’s IMDb page. She was eighteen and had three times as many credits as Julian. Mostly indies, but also a lot of TV shows. In short, she was a pro. They both were. And I spent an entire morning swapping favorite YouTube videos with them.
At some point, I tried to ask why they’d agreed to do a movie they clearly weren’t into. I must’ve messed up the phrasing though because Julian got excited to show me the first cut of the teaser trailer. “They’re going to add music, but it’s pretty hot already,” he said, pulling it up on his laptop. “Cate thinks we need to leak this early to rev up fan support.”
“Brilliant move,” Shoshanna said in a rather giddy Irish accent. When Julian and I looked doubtful, she added, “What? I want to beef up the special skills section on my résumé.”
“Keep working on that accent, Shosh,” Julian said dryly.
Shoshanna hit him with a pillow.
Julian used a remote to turn off the lights, and Shoshanna scooted in on one side of Julian while I claimed the other. The laptop screen lit up with a video. Black screen first, followed by Shoshanna’s icy voiceover: “I was cursed by lightning at birth. Untouchable.”
I snorted, and they both glanced at me, troubled. On screen, two hands appeared through the black, and I recognized Julian’s long, lovely fingers. The hands almost touched, but then Sevyn’s—Shoshanna’s—crackled with static sparks, and Evyn’s hand recoiled.
“That was only the beginning.”
“That shot seemed cheesy,” Shoshanna whispered. “But it looks good.”
Julian shushed her as a montage of a rustic kingdom and a foul-faced king thundered across the screen. There was a deer in the woods, and then Sevyn was running, angry, branches tearing at her clothes. She fled through a tunnel, coming out behind a mammoth waterfall. Evyn appeared behind her, pleading, but a great, clawed hand reached through the veil of water. Julian’s best acting face filled with dread in the moment before he was ripped through. Gone.
It was pretty affecting, to use Dad’s favorite word, and when the screen went black, I had a bizarre urge to whack the computer to make it keep playing. “That’s it?” I asked. “Evyn was kidnapped? Is that why Sevyn ends up on a quest?”
Shoshanna crossed her arms. “If we’ve made M. E. Thorne’s anti-fantasy granddaughter curious, we’re golden, Julian. This is going to be the big one. I told you.”
“Shosh…” He winced as she gave him a murderous look. “…anna, the trick is not to get your hopes up.
