Casting Call - Avatrice

Chapter 1

Ava Silva could not believe her eyes, she kept staring at the screen, worried that if she looked away the tweet would disappear. All of her friends thought her obsession with Rebecca Summers was slightly insane, or 'completely deranged' to quote Mary. But she could not help it, no other writing had ever made her feel the way the woman's books did. Not that she would ever admit that to anyone, with a majority of the world fixated on her she did not get to have much of a private life, those book were hers and hers only.

She loved being an actress, and she somewhat liked the attention, well the positive part at least, the press was not her favorite but still, she loved acting more than anything.
However she had never loved being an actress quite as much as she did in this instant.

It was the first Thursday of the month, so of course she was staring at her phone, following Rebecca Summers' monthly Q&A, she was hoping for an announcement about Broken Kingdoms 3, or for a new Casefile release. This is why Rebecca was her favorite author, she dabbled in all and any genre, without ever missing the mark.
Nothing however, could have prepared Ava for Rebecca's answer to the most recent question : "Do you have a fancast for Iara and Ayélen ?"

Ava kept on rereading the response, making sure she wasn't dreaming, she had already taken a dozen screenshots of it : "I have not found my dream cast for Iara just yet, but for for Ayélen my absolute dream actress would be Ava Silva, she is Ayé in my mind."

It had been twenty minutes, Ava's social media had blown up in response but she still hadn't moved. Her favorite author of all time whom she had been reading and rereading for the past ten years actually knew who she was, not only that but she actually dreamt of Ava incarnating one of her characters. Which would be crazy enough but on top of it all Ayélen was Ava's favorite character throughout all of Rebecca's books. She might pass out, passing out would be a normal reaction, right ?

It was fine, she was fine, she could be calm and normal about this, she was not at all planning on printing and framing this tweet. Instead, Ava answered, this was her one chance to be noticed by the author.
"This is my absolute dream role, just tell me when and where <3 (also sign my books pretty please ?)"

Unbeknownst to the actress - halfway across the world, the woman hiding behind the nom de plume 'Rebecca Summers' was having the exact same reaction.
"Camilla you don't get it, she replied !" The author was screaming at her best friend through the phone, "she knows who I am ! She loves my books !"
"Everyone knows who you are, Bea."
"But it's Ava Silva !"

Both of them were slightly freaking out, because as much as Camila loved to make fun of her best friend, this was indeed, Ava Silva, THE Ava Silva.
"Do you - do you think she's serious ? Like if I were to get a good adaptation offer for 'Broken Kingdoms' ?
"I think so, I don't see why she'd tweet this back otherwise, but unless we get a multi-million adaptation offer there's no way we can afford her."
"I know... but just let me dream for a while."

* * *

This interaction stayed with Ava for a long time, but life went on and with it came new projects. Her agent had convinced her to star in a new movie. The story wasn't bad per se and it had a lot of big names in its credits, but Ava just wasn't passionate about it. Of course it would never keep her from doing her best, but she already knew this movie would bring her a step closer to loathing the career she once loved so dearly.

She should not complain, she had the life that so many dreamt of, the life that she herself had once dream of. But she was bored, she missed the excitement and the passion of acting, she missed the time when she got role solely based on her talent rather than her name. She had not lost her talent, that much she knew, but nowadays it carried less weight than her name did.
So she went to the office to look through the script box, usually her agent was the one to read the hundreds of script they got sent, but sometimes Ava liked to read a few just out of curiosity.

All Ava intended was to sit at JC's desk to read, swear to god she was not planning on snooping. But the envelope at the top of the mail bin was addressed to her - albeit it through her agent - so technically it was hers to read.
Less than twenty minutes later she was standing at his front door, the letter still in her hand.

"Is this real ?"
"Ava..."
"I asked is this fucking real ?"
"It is."
Ava felt like she had just been punched in the gut, how could he have hidden this from her and just thrown it away ? He was her friend, he was even her sort of boyfriend sometimes, how could he ?
"You're fired."
"Ava, honey, you're over reacting."
"Am I ? Am I, really ? This is my dream, JC ! This is all I've ever wanted this past decade, how dare you not even tell me ? How dare you take this away from me ?" Ava wanted to yell and cry but she did neither, she stayed calm and cold, she had learned long ago that being seen as emotional was being seen as weak.
"Who cares ? You can't do it anyway, you've agreed to be in the 'Space Raiders' sequel."
"I care ! And this movie sucks anyway. I hated it from the start."
"It's gonna make us a lot of money, Ava. Be reasonable please."
"I'll be whatever the fuck I want to be and right now I'm pissed ! I don't care about the money, I've got more money than I know what to do with, I'm doing this and I don't care what you or anyone thinks about it!"
"You'll be ruining your career."
"Then I'll go out with a bang !"
Ava turned and left, she could not care less about ruining her career, all she could care about right this instant was working with her favorite author.

* * *

Beatrice was stressed, she had known this letter was a long shot, the project hadn't even been announced yet and Ava was one of the biggest actresses of this generation. A simple tweet from over a year ago was not enough to mean anything. But what else could she do, she dreamt of working with Ava but she wasn't quite desperate enough to directly text her. Could she even do that ? What if she freaked out Ava, they didn't even know each other.
Still, you have to reach for your dreams, right ?

"Dear Miss Silva,I am writing to you to follow up regarding the letter my team has sent to you, about the adaptation of 'Broken Kingdoms'. While I do realize that a tweet is not a promise of anything, I want to make sure you are aware that the role of Ayélen is yours if you would like to portray her.I would also like to remind you that this project, while very exciting, is still unannounced, so I would appreciate your utmost discretion.Thank you in advance,R.S"