about.
Honestly, on days like today, I seriously wonder what the hell I’m doing pursuing a career in acting. Though, to be entirely fair to the Warty Alien costume, there’s scarcely a day goes by when that thought doesn’t occur. I’m only stuck in the bloody job because of a childhood spent following Cass from audition to audition, during which time I utterly failed to gain any decent qualifications – or other career ideas – of my own.
Well, that and the fact that I’ve always had a bit of a fixation with the movies, and I’ve spent far too long kidding myself that grunting about as a non-speaking extra on iffy British TV shows is halfway to the Old Hollywood magic I’ve long been seduced by.
Far too long, because I don’t think any of my Hollywood heroines ever had to schlump around the arse-end of King’s Cross in latex warts on a boiling June morning …
‘Cheer up,’ a fellow alien says, passing me by on its way out of the Wardrobe trailer nearby. ‘It might never happen.’
‘Easy for you to say. You’ve lucked out.’ I mean this because it – he, I guess, from the voice inside his alien head – is nowhere near as grotesquely attired as I am. His is more like a spacesuit: Guantanamo-orange canvas with a matching orange plastic bubble helmet. No latex, no warts, no problem. ‘But thanks for the moral support. It’s nice when us extras stick together for a change.’
‘You’re welcome. I mean we have to, don’t we, with these arsehole lead actors swanning around the place?’
I snort. ‘When they can even be bothered to turn up, of course.’
‘Oh?’
‘We’re all waiting for his Lord Chief Arsehole to decide whether we’re worthy of his time or not. Dillon O’Hara, I mean,’ I add, for clarification of the ‘Lord Chief Arsehole’ bit.
‘Really? Because I heard he was only called for eleven a.m. So in fact, if he turns up in the next half-hour or so, he’ll actually be early.’
‘Bollocks,’ I snort. ‘He’s late because celebrities like him love to be late. It’s their favourite way of proving to people what a big shot they are.’
‘Be fair to the poor guy,’ the alien extra says. ‘Maybe he got stuck in traffic.’
‘If there’s anything at all he got stuck in, it’s more likely to be some leggy supermodel.’
And then I stop talking.
Because the alien extra is taking off his helmet, and it turns out that he’s not an extra at all.
It’s Dillon O’Hara.
‘That was fun,’ he says, a wide grin spreading over his face. His accent is Irish now, instead of the English one he – I now realize – has been putting on for the last couple of minutes. ‘I felt a bit like a prince in a fairy tale. You know, the kind who disguises himself as a peasant in order to mingle with the real peasants and find out what they truly think about him.’
I’m mortified.
But at the same time, I have to say, I’m outraged. Because not only has he just quite deliberately set me up, he’s also – I’m fairly sure – just pretty much called me a peasant.
‘I didn’t mean to imply,’ he says, as if he’s read my mind, ‘that I think you’re a peasant.’
‘I should bloody well hope not.’
‘But then, to be fair to me, you did just call me – now, what was it? – Lord Chief Arsehole.’
‘That was different …’
‘That’s true. It was behind my back, for one thing.’
‘It wasn’t behind your back!’
‘Well, it wasn’t to my face.’
‘You set me up! You … entrapped me.’
‘Oh, stop getting your knickers in a twist. If you’re wearing any knickers beneath that thing,’ he adds. ‘I mean, Jesus, these costumes are like a bloody sauna as they are, without adding extra layers beneath them, aren’t they?’
I would say something in reply – I’m not sure what, exactly, because it’s not often that I get asked by strange men if I’m wearing any knickers, let alone strange men like Dillon O’Hara who, now that I come to notice it, is even better looking in real life than he looked on the pages of Cass’s Grazia – but I’m stunned into silence by the fact that he’s starting to take his clothes off.
Seriously: he’s undoing the Velcro down the front of his jumpsuit, peeling the fabric off his shoulders and down to his waist and then – oh, dear God – pulling his T-shirt up and over his head to reveal the most perfect torso I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
I’m not exaggerating: his shoulders are wide and packed tight with lean muscle, he has a smooth, rock-hard chest, and an actual, proper six-pack where most men – my horrible ex-boyfriend Daniel, for example – sport varying sizes of beer gut.
‘Ahhhhh.’ He lets out a sigh of satisfaction. ‘That’s better. They told me, the nice Wardrobe girls, that I’d be more comfortable if I took my T-shirt off, but I got all shy.’ He grins at me, in an extremely not-shy sort of way. ‘I assumed they were just after my body.’
I can’t tell, dazzled as I still am by the ridiculous perfection of the body in front of me, whether his cheeky arrogance is attractive or annoying.
I think, probably, it’s fifty-fifty.
For now, anyway, I need to concentrate on not staring while Dillon swivels round and takes something out of the back pocket of his jeans.
It’s an open packet of Benson & Hedges, from which he’s pulling a cigarette.
‘No!’ I yelp, and then, because he looks rather startled, I explain: ‘I mean, you can’t. Vanessa will have your guts for garters if you light up in costume.’
‘Vanessa … Vanessa … oh, you mean the scary production lady?
It’s reassuring to realize that Dillon is as scared of Vanessa as the rest of us.
‘Yes.’
‘But I’m the big star, right? I should be allowed to do whatever I want, whenever I want?’
I think he’s joking …
‘Or,’ he adds, with another of those grins, ‘I could just nip round the back of this catering bus and have a sneaky smoke where Vanessa won’t catch me. Might be safest all round, hey?’
‘I think that would probably be best.’
‘Join me?’
‘Huh?’
‘Join me? In a cigarette?’
‘Oh … I don’t smoke.’
The
