The Safe Place (Bridge To Terabithia) || ✓

Ch. 10 - The Cast

Since Mason's house had a number of vacant rooms, Leslie suggested to Scott to have him stay with them instead when he arrived a week later. Mason had no problem with agreeing to it and happily offered for his younger sister's friend to stay. Scott agreed to this after discussing it with his parents. In that one week that Scott wasn't around, Mason toured Jess and Leslie around the city, seeing the Statue of Liberty, going around Central Park, Times Square and visiting the Whitney Museum of American Art after he had learnt from Leslie that Jess loved art. They pretty much enjoyed themselves at Mason's expense because of Leslie's knack of convincing people.

A few days after Scott's arrival, the three kids's guardians received an email from the studio and filming began a week later. Although Leslie's scene wasn't to be filmed until the third day, she joined Jess and Scott with driving to the filming location since she wanted to see how everything was going to roll out and the director wanted the kids to get to know each other. Chris Columbus, the director of the film, more importantly introduced the three to the other supporting actors who would be portraying the characters that were going to be essential in the movie. When they got on set, a girl with dark brown hair, a few inches taller than both Jess and Leslie, introduced herself to the three.

     "Hi, I'm Mia, Mia Ritchie." She said, smiling softly as she approached them and gave a brief hug to each of them. "It's nice to meet you all."

Due to the fact that Mia was so friendly and such a cheerful and polite girl, Leslie was flabbergasted when she learnt that Mia would play the role of Clarisse La Rue, the girl who from the books, was described to be big, tall, and just mean looking. Well they got the height part and hair color but everything else was different. Mia laughed at this when Leslie mentioned it as even she herself was shocked when she found out that she got the role of Clarisse instead. According to Mia, she had been in a few low-budget indie films so she more or less had the experience of acting and being on screen, knowing her angles and cameras and all those stuff that sounded new to Jess and Leslie.

     While Jess and Scott were in the dressing room, Leslie stayed with Mia in the small trailer as both of them did not have any scenes to do. They had already met a couple more actors, one of them an actor whom they'd seen in movies more than one, Jeff Bridges, who was playing Chiron/Mr Brunner.

     "Do you meet actors like that every day?" Leslie asked, shocked after seeing a bunch of actors and actresses she'd seen from several movies before as she would sometimes go to the cinema in Arlington whenever her parents would be out of town for some book signings.

     "Well you see more of them in big-budget films like this one but there's a few of them in indie movies too." Mia replied calmly.

"That's cool." Leslie said with a grin.

"Why didn't you do anything when we were right next to THE Christian Bale?" Scott came in and chuckled. Jess was just trailing behind him, fiddling with his new shirt.

Mia's mouth fell open. "You met Christian Bale?!"

"See, this is how a normal girl's reaction should've been." Scott remarked with a smirk and then turned to Jess. "She was so calm and chill with the Batman, right?"

Jess chuckled and pursed his lips. "Yeah. Leslie, you should've at least felt a little nervous when you saw him." He said, smiling.

"I did feel a little of that... I mean, not that much..." Leslie defended herself and rolled her eyes with a sigh.

Taking the pack of gum that the make up artist gave him earlier, he offered a piece to Leslie and the others. Leslie happily took it, popping it in her mouth. She was listening to them talk when she heard a bunch of girls screaming just outside and then looked out to the window with a confused face. From a distance away she could see a guy with his back facing them while he seemed to have been taking pictures and signing autographs for the girls that were crowding him.

     "What's going on out there?" She said, particularly to no one and then got up, opening the door and staying at the stairs. Everyone followed and squeezed around her.

     "Oh my god, Jesse, I'm such a big fan!" One girl screamed.

     The three kids looked at Jess confusingly and he gave a puzzled look and shrugged his shoulders as he did not understand anything either. "Why are you all looking at me?"

Mia looked back at the guy with blonde hair and squinted her eyes. "Oh my gosh." She said, her eyes widening and she even seemed to be holding her excitement in. Everyone looked at her for an answer. "That must be Jesse McCarthy!" By then she was holding Leslie's arm and had almost screamed the name.

     Leslie popped the bubble when she heard the name. Hey, even she was still a so-called 'tween' so of course she was fond of stars such as Jesse McCarthy who would melt all the girls hearts. Jess and Scott weren't surprised by the behavior of Mia since they both knew what celebrities such as McCarthy, could do to girls, especially since Jess could recall that Brenda and Ellie were right down in love with him. They were, though, surprised when Leslie popped her bubble.

A few minutes later while they were watching from the same position, Jesse finished signing and he gave his fans a wave before walking back to his own trailer. As he did, he noticed the kids standing in their own trailer looking at him and he gave a smile to them and started walking towards their direction.

     The introduction between Jesse and the kids were kept simple and short as Jess and Scott had to be called for their scene. Being alone with Jesse, Mia could hardly handle herself without having to smile uncontrollably whenever he would be looking at her. Leslie on the other hand, just like what happened with Christian Bale, quickly got used to the presence of the singer and acted normal around him, treating him just like a regular guy.

     While the girls were having the chance to speak with the rest of the cast, Jess and Scott were filming their first few scenes which took more than twenty takes just to get their lines correct. It was mostly Jess saying his lines wrongly while Scott would hardly make mistakes. When they would take short breaks, Leslie would go ahead and run lines with Jess to help him out and give him pointers, as well as boost his confidence up. After that Jess would be able to deliver his lines better than before and finish his scenes quicker.

     In the afternoon after half the filming of the day were done, Jess and Leslie went to their trailer that they shared to do homeschool while Mia and Scott went to another separate trailer to do theirs as they were a grade higher than the two. Home school lasted for three hours, with Jess trying to catch up with what was being taught and memorizing his lines simultaneously in his head. To make it easier for him, Leslie would tell him to refer back to the book to know how his character was and the feelings he'd need to pull off. At the same time she'd be helping him with his school work, giving him hints along the way whenever he would look confused.

At the end of the day, they managed to finish the scenes before 9. Jesse drove back home just a few hours after talking with the rest of the cast as he had a schedule to follow for his singing career. While the boys had been busy, Mia and Leslie even got Jesse to sing a song for them which they had been dying to hear as Jesse's voice was golden to them. When everything was finished, Mason brought them back home to end the night.

Jess followed behind Leslie and plunked down the seat, tossing his head back and rubbed his right shoulder. He wasn't used to being in the same posture for so long and standing so much. Leslie offered to massage his shoulder for him which he appreciated very much.

"So how was the experience of acting for the first time?" Mason began.

     Leslie was grinning. "Um it was good I guess. It was long but it was fun to act." Jess said with a shrug and then looked at Leslie who was smiling. "What?"

     "It was just funny to keep hearing you say the same sentence over and over again and then changing the tone and how you'll say it out." Leslie beamed a smile.

"That was kinda fun too." Jess admitted.

Mason laughed. "Well you two just get a good night's sleep tonight. You have another long day tomorrow ahead of you."

     Jess and Leslie nodded, knowing how very true Mason's statement was. They eventually dozed off in the car 10 minutes into the drive which left Mason to laugh whenever he would hear a snore from one of them.