Page 8 of Declan

A few cast members read over their scripts as they snacked and sipped water. I greeted them as I passed.

During the pre-production, we’d done the cold readings and line rehearsals before jumping into the actual filming. Location shooting—like what we were doing in Addersfield—was trickier.

In a studio, there was sound control and we didn’t have to worry about the weather. Location shooting could be stalled, sometimes for hours, if it was sunny when we started the scene and then the sky decided to open up and pour on us. Or if we found ourselves in the middle of a damn tornado like when I was filming on location in Oklahoma for a cowboy role.

We could’ve done all of the filming for the movie back in the other studio, but the director wanted authenticity and to bring attention to the town. Big productions had the potential to do that; have a town as the focal point in the movie, and then afterward, people flocked to the place, like what happened to Forks, Washington with that vampire series.

“About time you showed up.”

I turned to see Jennifer.

Her red hair was pulled back and she wore a simple V-neck shirt and jeans. Her character in the movie was kind of plain and awkward—again, typical romance—so her wardrobe wasn’t anything too glamorous. Not until the big wedding scene at the end, anyway, when she’d be dolled up and transformed into a total knockout. They spent a lot of time on Jen to make her look amazing while also giving the impression that she was low-maintenance. Movie magic.

“Hey, beautiful.” I hugged her. “Miss me?”

“Uh huh. About as much as I miss the pimple on my nose.”

“Ouch.”

She smiled.

Days on set were long and exhausting. Fifteen-hour days, six-days a week were the norm. I barely had time to properly greet Jen before I was pulled into my trailer and had several people touching me at once. Hair, some makeup, wardrobe.

I skimmed the script to refresh on the scene we were filming before going to the marked spot outside.

We were in a garden that overlooked the river.

Movies were hardly ever filmed from beginning to end. Often times, we filmed the middle scenes first and jumped around. The scene that day was toward the end of the movie when my character realized he didn’t want his big city life and wanted to instead make a life with the small-town girl.

Fucking bullshit.

By the time I returned to the hotel that night, I was drained and fell into bed without even undressing first. Too tired to think about anything other than sleeping.