Acting Out [Student/Teacher, GxG]

Damage Control

"As you all know, the next two months are going to be a little different than what you're used to." Professor Keane's tone was always too cheerful for 5am on a Monday, especially when I knew exactly what was coming and didn't like it one bit.

"As production students, you're all very familiar with being behind the camera so it's time for you to discover what it takes to be the talent." God, than damn voice just killed me. I took a sip of my coffee and turned to the decidedly guilty looking blond beside me.

"Your fault." I seethed. Was it cruel to make him feel worse than he already did? Maybe. Was my accusation true? Unfortunately it was.

At our school, the year started out with a month long on-set placement — we all figured it was a test to 'weed out the weak' but no one could argue that it wasn't effective. Whoever could make it through thirty fifteen hour days on a big budget film set with no training or experience could probably survive a year in what was commonly known as the most intensive production course running.

Caleb and I had been dumped onto the same production, 'War Games', which was basically a parent approved, unaffiliated remake of Game of Thrones (although production would vehemently disagree).

The producers thought it was brilliant.
I'm pretty sure the creator had a brief stint as a ghost-writer for Glee.

Regardless, we worked our asses off day and night for 29 days on that show like it was going to get us both showered in accolades. And as luck would have it, on the 30th day it all went to shit.

There was pressure from the studio and several investors to wrap early on and the producers were feeling the heat, which meant that, by extension, everyone was feeling the heat.

13 hours into our shooting day, the crew was starting to get agitated and, long story short, the sound mixer ripped into Caleb for not being able to stop second team cast from making noise in the Green Room.

The thing about Caleb is, he's defensive as all hell. As you can imagine, he didn't take it well and wound up leaving in a huff after yelling about how the cast needed to "do their fucking jobs," among other things.

After this outburst, four unfortunate things happened:
1. the mixer yelled at the producer
2. the producer threatened to fire the locations manager
3. our principal was notified
4. the prestigious North American Film Academy developed its mandatory 'Versatility Training' course

Essentially, they were saving face and we were looking at two months of acting classes to teach us just how gruelling the lives of the other half can be. Versatility my ass.

We were hand-picked; the best and the brightest of some 4,000 applicants. We wore comfy clothes and thick-rimmed reading glasses and drank bitter coffee behind our MacBooks and expensive cameras and made entire worlds out of words and we were damn well amazing at it. But acting? That was another story.

It was totally unnecessary and (though we hated to admit it) totally unavoidable.

"I'm sure it wasn't just me, Ro." Caleb hissed. I was about to reply when I realized how quiet the room had gotten.

"Mister Gunderson, do you have something to share with the class?" Professor Keane prompted, his tone betraying his not-so-secret hatred of the boyish student. "You of all people should be paying attention."

"Ooh, burn." I whispered, raising an eyebrow and smirking at Caleb.

"Miss Harris!" Oh fuck.

"Learn!" I yelped. "I told Cale-, uh, Mister Gunderson that he needs to learn. You know, from his mistakes." My face was bright red at this point. I hated getting singled out in class, especially by Keane who was currently glaring daggers at Caleb and I.

"Well I'm sure you'll both learn quite a bit from your new instructor." He spoke carefully, addressing the class once again. "As this will be NAF's first ever acting course, we went to great lengths to find an instructor capable of teaching the subject to our standards."

Jesus Christ, did he even know how to speak without sounding like he was reading off of a script? It was too fucking early for this. Secretly I did wonder who they chose. It was notoriously difficult to get a teaching job at NAF — hell, i think even our receptionist had a master's degree.

"After much deliberation, the board was able to make a decision that we're all very comfortable with, and I expect you'll be on your best behaviour tomorrow when she arrives." Yeah, I didn't miss the pointed glare that accompanied that last bit.

"So who's the lucky lady?" Someone called out teasingly from the back of the room. Keane had on this smug little smile that instantly piqued my curiosity. I took another sip of my coffee, wondering where this was going.

"Claire Lane."

No sooner had the words left his mouth than I found myself spluttering and covered in coffee. My choking spell barely raised an eyebrow as every student in the room sat there in various stages of disbelief.

Claire Lane had been the industry's golden girl for the past fifteen years since she scored the lead on a mega-blockbuster that got turned into a franchise. Since then she'd been nominated for three Academy Awards and when it was announced that after 11 years there would be a 4th movie to the series that launched her career, all bets were on her finally taking home the Oscar.

That's when things got messy.

Rumours started flying that years of living the high life had taken their toll on the starlet; every gossip rag on the shelves had 'inside sources' claiming that Claire was an addict — in and out of rehab, and a month later word got out that she'd been recast. None of it was ever proven, of course, but the fact that she'd taken a job teaching a bunch of disgraced college students how to make-believe on camera did little to dispel the rumours — at least in my opinion. It reeked of damage control, which was fitting because that was exactly what this joke of a course was designed for.

Now this was going to be interesting.

——

Author's Note:

This idea popped into my head today so I decided I'd play around with it. It's going to be pretty different than the stories of this genre that I've read on here and definitely a little darker, but I hope you like it!

How do y'all think Claire's first day is going to go? Any predictions on what Rowan will think of her? I'd love to hear your thoughts and your reasoning for them!