The Understudy - Softcover

Nicholls, David

 
9780812971415: The Understudy
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0812971418 ISBN 13: 9780812971415
Verlag: Random House LCC US, 2007

Inhaltsangabe

Recently divorced actor Stephen C. McQueen (no relation, unfortunately) seems to have a knack for bad luck. But a failed marriage, a stalled career, a judgmental ex-wife, a distant daughter, a horrid little studio apartment in the far reaches of the London suburbs–all these pathetic elements seem to pale in the chiseled face of his newest tormentor: the Twelfth Sexiest Man in the World, Josh Harper.

Josh is the star of Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know, a biographical play about Lord Byron–and Stephen is his understudy. Not only is Josh fantastically, infuriatingly good-looking, internationally renowned, and remarkably talented, he’s also frustratingly healthy. No matter how many all-night booze-and-coke benders Josh goes on, he always shows up at the stage door for his call like clockwork. Stephen doubts he’ll ever get his chance to slip on the puffy shirt and tight breeches of Byron and tread the boards in the role that would certainly be the break he’s always waited for.

And just when Stephen’s sure he couldn’t resent Josh more, he meets Josh’s witty, restless American wife, Nora . . . and discovers he likes her a little too much. Another man might curse his luck at finding that his potential dream woman is a rival’s wife, but at this point, Stephen would expect nothing else. Caught between his stirring feelings for Nora, the demands of an insistent and secretive Josh, and his lifelong desire for a real career in show business, Stephen must make a terrible decision: Will it be the girl or the fame?

A hapless, bumbling bloke in love, an arrogant megastar with a potpourri of addictions, a sexy married woman out of her element in the fast lane–David Nicholls brings them all together in this knockout romantic comedy.


From the Hardcover edition.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

David Nicholls is the author of A Question of Attraction, which has been optioned for the screen by Tom Hanks’s Playtone Productions. He is also a successful television screenwriter whose credits include the third series of Cold Feet (seen on Bravo in the United States), as well as I Saw You and Rescue Me, both of which he also created. He co-wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of Sam Shepard’s Simpatico, which starred Jeff Bridges, Sharon Stone, Nick Nolte, and Albert Finney. He lives in London.


From the Hardcover edition.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Act One

H

Waiting to Go On

—That’s not real life, lad. That’s just pretending.

—But “real life” is how well you pretend, isn’t it? You. Me. Everybody in the world . . .

Jack RosenthalReady When You Are, Mr. McGill



Sunset Boulevard

H

Summers and Snow ep.3 draft 4

CHIEF INSPECTOR GARRETT (CONT.)

. . . or I’ll have you back directing traffic faster than you can say disciplinary action.

INSPECTOR SUMMERS

But he’s just toying with us, sir, like a cat with a—

CHIEF INSPECTOR GARRETT

I repeat— Don’t. Make It. Personal. I want a result, and I want it yesterday, or you’re off this case, Summers.

(SNOW goes to speak)

I mean it. Now get out of here—the both of you.

INT. MORTUARY. DAY

BOB “BONES” THOMPSON, the forensic pathologist, sickly complexion, ghoulish sense of humor, stands over the seminaked body of a YOUNG MAN, early thirties, his bloated body lying cold and dead on the mortuary slab, in the early stages of decomposition—CONSTABLE SNOW is clutching a handkerchief to her mouth.

INSPECTOR SUMMERS

So—fill me in, Thompson. How long d’you think he’s been dead for?

THOMPSON

Hard to say. From the stink on him, I think it’s fair to say he’s not the freshest fish on the slab . . .

INSPECTOR SUMMERS

(not smiling)

Clock’s ticking, Bones . . .

THOMPSON

Okay, well, judging from the decay, the bloating and the skin discoloration, I’d say . . . he’s been in the water a week or so, give or take a day. Initial examination suggests strangulation. By the ligature marks round the neck, I’d say the killer used a thick, coarse rope, or a chain maybe . . .

DI SUMMERS

A chain? Christ, the poor bastard . . .

CONSTABLE SNOW

Who found the body?

(SUMMERS shoots her a look—“I ask the questions round here . . .”)

THOMPSON

Some old dear out walking the dog. Nice lady, eighty-two years old. I think it’s safe to assume you should be looking elsewhere for your serial ki—

“Hang on a second . . . Nope—nope, sorry, everyone, we’re going to have to stop.”

“Why, what’s up?” snapped Detective Inspector Summers.

“We’ve got flaring.”

“On the lens?”

“Dead guy’s nostrils. You can see him breathing. We’re going to have to go again.”

“Oh, for crying out loud . . .”

“Sorry! Sorry, sorry, everyone,” said the DEADYOUNGMAN, sitting up and folding his arms self-consciously across his blue-painted chest.

While the crew reset, the director, a long-faced, troubled man with an unconvincing baseball cap pushed far back on a reflective forehead, dragged both hands down his face and sighed. Hauling himself from his canvas chair, he strode over to the DEADYOUNGMAN and knelt matily next to the mortuary slab.

“Right, so, Lazarus, tell me—is there a problem?”

“No, Chris, it’s all good for me . . .”

“Because—how can I say this—at present, you’re doing a little too much.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.”

The director peered at his watch, and rubbed the red indentations left by his baseball cap. “Because it’s getting on for two-thirty and . . . what’s your name, again?”

“Stephen, Stephen McQueen. With a P-H.”

“No relation?”

“No relation.”

“Well, Stephen with a P-H, it’s getting on for two-thirty, and we haven’t even started on the autopsy . . .”

“Yes, of course. It’s just, you know, with the lights and nerves and everything . . .”

“It’s not as if you have to perform, all you have to do is bloody lie there.”

“I realize that, Chris, it’s just it’s tricky, you know, not to visibly breathe, for that long.”

“No one’s asking you not to breathe . . .”

“No, I realize that,” said Stephen, contriving a chummy laugh.

“. . . just don’t lie there taking bloody great gulps like you’ve just run the two hundred meters, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And don’t grimace. Just give me something . . . neutral.”

“Okay. Neutral. But apart from that . . . ?”

“Apart from that, you’re doing terrific work, really.”

“And d’you think we’ll be done by six? It’s just I’ve got to be—”

“Well, that’s up to you, isn’t it, Steve?” said the director, resettling the cap, stalking back to his canvas chair. “Oh, and, Steve?” he shouted across the set. “Please don’t hold your belly in—you’re meant to be bloated.”

“Bloated. Okay, bloated.”

“Right, places, everyone,” shouted the first AD and Stephen settled once again on his marble slab, adjusted the damp underwear, closed his eyes, and did his best to pretend to be dead.

The secret of truly great screen acting is to do as little as possible, and this is never more important than when playing an inanimate object.

In a professional career lasting eleven years, Stephen C. McQueen had played six corpses now, each of them carefully thought through and subtly delineated, each of them skillfully conveying the pathos of being other than alive. Keen not to get typecast, he had downplayed this on his CV, allocating the various corpses intriguing, charismatic leading-man names like MAX or OLIVER rather than the more accurate, less evocative BODY or VICTIM. But word had obviously got round the industry—no one did nothing at all quite like Stephen C. McQueen. If you wanted someone to be pulled from the Grand Union Canal at dawn, or lie slack, broken and uncomplaining across the bonnet of a car, or slump prone at the bottom of a muddy First World War trench, then this was the man. His very first job after leaving drama school had been RENT BOY 2 in Vice City, a hard-hitting prime-time crime show. One line—

RENT BOY 2

(Geordie accent)

Why-ay, ya lookin’ fah a good time, mista?

—then a long, hot afternoon spent with his arm dangling out of a black trash bag. Of course, at thirty-two, his Rent Boy days were some way behind him now, but Stephen C. McQueen could still usually pass muster as most other remains.

But for some reason, today his technique was letting him down. This was a shame, because Summers and Snow was a TV institution, and in a few months upwards of nine million people would settle down in front of the telly on a Sunday night, to see him swiftly strangled, then lying here, inert, in a stranger’s underwear. You’d be hard-pushed to call it a break as such, but if the director liked what he did, or didn’t do, if he got on with his costars, they might use him again, to play someone who walked about, moved his face, spoke aloud. First Rule of Showbiz—it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Stay professional. Be positive. Be committed. Always have a motivation. The...

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Verlag
Random House LCC US
Erscheinungsdatum
2007
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0812971418
ISBN 13 
9780812971415
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
368
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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