Find a quiet spot, turn the page, and let’s see what this story has been hiding 🌙 ✦ The crew wrapped the day before New Year’s Eve, which put everyone in a good mood.
After dinner, Evan changed into clean clothes and went to the bar too.
He did not bother anyone.
As usual, he hid at one corner of the counter, ordered a large beer, and drank slowly while thinking through what came next.
“Hi, Evan.” Naomi sat beside him and tapped her bottle against his glass.
“Why do you always drink alone?
Or do you just like secretly observing everyone from the bar?” Evan took a long swallow and glanced toward the direction she had come from.
Lily and Ross were trying to drink each other under the table, and several people were shouting now and then.
“No.
I’m just not used to that atmosphere.
What about you?
Why aren’t you joining them?” Naomi tilted her head toward the celebrating crew.
Lily had a bottle of hard liquor in her hand and was pouring it straight down her throat while the people around her cheered.
Naomi’s expression twisted.
“God, if she drinks like that, does she not care about her body?
I really can’t get used to the way they party.” “Lily works behind the camera,” Evan said.
“Unless she wants it to, her figure doesn’t affect her career.
And this is nothing.
Even among famous stars, self-discipline is rare.” He understood that world fairly well.
Truly disciplined stars were few.
Drinking was hardly the worst of it.
Drug addiction, sleeping around, swinging between partners, chasing extremes, the entertainment class found endless ways to destroy itself.
Naomi had not truly touched that world yet.
Small actors did not even qualify for that kind of indulgence.
She asked, half curious and half disbelieving, “Actresses too?
If famous women drink like that, how do they keep their figures?
I can’t believe it.” Evan finished the rest of his beer, tapped the bar hard, and signaled the bartender for another large glass.
Then he turned back to Naomi and indulged in a little industry gossip.
“Not all actresses.
But at the kind of parties people throw in this business, heavy drinking, coke, weed, whatever else, none of it is rare.
That’s the circle.
Men, women, stars, everyone looks for stimulation.” Naomi listened to what was nearly an open secret in the industry.
She had heard pieces of it before, and she was not naive, but in her imagination the business was still bright and glamorous.
Not rotten to that degree.
“Will we become like that one day?” she asked.
“Don’t think so far ahead, Nami.
If you want that life, first you have to become successful.
Right now it’s still far away from us.
Success doesn’t make self-destruction a privilege, but that’s how people inside the circle often justify it.” Naomi smiled bitterly.
She understood the cynicism behind the answer, even if she did not accept it as truth.
“Wait for me.
Bathroom.” Evan watched her set down the bottle and take her purse toward the restroom.
As soon as Naomi left, Luke sat beside him, alcohol already on his breath.
“She’s calculating,” Luke said.
“But I can tell she hasn’t turned into that kind of groupie.
She treats you well.
Maybe you could consider having an actual girlfriend.” Evan lit a cigarette and shook his head.
“Not now.
Right now, there is only work in my head.
Before I succeed, I’m not touching the relationship question.
This is fine.
If you like each other, spend a night together.
If the feeling is gone, don’t bother each other.
Hollywood-style love.
No need to think too much.” That attitude would have sounded ugly anywhere outside Hollywood.
Here, especially inside this business, it was almost ordinary.
Even outside this entertainment-sick business, breakups and casual arrangements were a normal part of life.
Some parts of America, especially the middle of the country, were conservative, but casual relationships were already ordinary among young adults in most major American cities.
“As long as you’re happy.” Luke clinked bottles with him, then went back to celebrate with the crew.
“Evan, aren’t you going to stop them?” Naomi had returned from the restroom and was pointing toward the crew.
He turned and finally noticed that several of them had moved into the private side room off the bar, swaying with the music.
Ross took a heavy pull from a hand-rolled joint near the side door, then passed it to Lily, who was already clearly drunk.
“Forget it.
Let them be.
Let’s go back.
I’ve had enough to drink, and I don’t want to stay here.” He put on his jacket and led Naomi toward the door.
At the entrance, he stopped and waved Luke over.
When Luke came, Evan reminded him to watch everyone and make sure no one got into trouble.
Only then did he leave with Naomi.
The hotel had closed that side room to outsiders for the wrap party, leaving only crew members and a few temporary actors there, so Evan was not afraid of them causing a public problem.
The work was finished.
What they did now was their own business.
At private parties like this, alcohol and weed were common enough.
Smoke curling near the side door surprised no one.
Evan had first encountered weed in high school.
He had been curious enough to wonder what it was like, but he had never acted on it.
He was too rational.
In his mind, anything that opened that door could lead somewhere worse.
During the shoot, he had seen Ross and a few others smoking in corners.
He had not been stupid enough to interfere.
This was a Hollywood norm.
Under California’s bright sunlight, the place was full of shadows no one wanted to name.
“Are we going back?” Naomi asked.
“Back.
If you still want to talk, the hotel has beer.” He opened his room door, took two cans of beer from the refrigerator, and they sat by the window looking out at the bright night sky.
“Evan, don’t tell me you’ve never smoked any of that,” Naomi said.
“Not even at parties in school?” She had clearly seen the disgust in his eyes when he looked at the joint.
“No.
I was curious, but I never touched it.
Later, classmates and teammates decided I was boring and stopped inviting me to parties.” Not before, not now, not later.
No matter how much pressure his work put on him, he would not touch those things.
Hollywood magnified every emotion.
It gambled with power, wealth, and opportunity as the stakes.
Too many people in film and entertainment went from victims of those substances to enablers who dragged others with them.
The abnormal lifestyle of fame, the weight of pressure, the stimulation of success, and the strange ease with which money and reputation appeared, all of it produced a group of people who found it hard to remain emotionally grounded.
Evan had seen too many stories in his previous life.
Hollywood stars ruined by drugs could form a line, and that included A-listers.
There were famous examples: Robert Downey Jr.
and his father, Robert Downey Sr.; and River Phoenix, whose name would one day become inseparable from Hollywood’s darker excesses.
Long before Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr.
would endure addiction, arrests, and imprisonment before rebuilding his career.
Mel Gibson would later take a financial risk on him by helping make The Singing Detective possible.
River Phoenix would not get the same second chance.
His fatal overdose would become one of the clearest symbols of how quickly Hollywood’s private excesses could turn irreversible.
“Hey.” Naomi nudged him hard.
“Where did you go?
You froze.” Evan came back to himself.
“Sorry.
What did you say?
I started thinking about something.” “I asked whether you want to come to my room or if I should stay here.” “No, Nami.
Rest.
I want to think through postproduction.” This was the final night of the crew’s existence, and it was also a key night for Evan as a director.
In two months of shooting, he had tested too much of what he had only learned on paper.
He had also learned to compromise for the sake of work.
Except for Luke, none of those crew members would participate in postproduction.
Their work was done.
They would drink hard, numb themselves, and then return to the hunt for the next crew.
So the doubts they had about Evan at the start, the fights between props and set dressing during production, all of it would end with this night.
The next morning, the convoy returned to Los Angeles.
One by one, quietly, everyone separated.
Evan transferred the processed camera negative to a bank vault while the workprint and sound rolls were prepared for postproduction, then returned to the studio apartment he had not seen in two months.
He had no holiday.
A new round of work had to start immediately.
He picked up the phone and called his agent.
“Hello, this is Evan Rosenberg.
Jimmy, shooting is finished.
I need to talk to you.
If it’s convenient, come by my apartment.” “Sure.
I’ll come over this afternoon.” Jimmy hung up.
During the past two months, aside from occasional calls to his two clients, he had not visited the set once.
In his mind, this movie was already labeled as a rookie director’s practice project.
He had helped recruit most of the crew and actors, so he understood exactly what level of production it was.
If there had not been some commission in the preparation stage, he would not have been especially enthusiastic.
A barebones production team of barely more than a dozen people counted as a microbudget production even in independent film.
Making a film of real quality under those conditions was difficult.
Hearing that production had finished smoothly already made him think Evan had done well.
He knew the young director’s ambition.
Evan was not treating this as a student exercise.
He definitely wanted theatrical release.
It was not impossible.
The odds were just painfully low.
Every day, countless crews started shooting in Hollywood.
Only a very, very small number ever reached theaters.
✦ ✦ ✦ Ready for more?
CREATORS’ THOUGHTS TheBacklot Thank you for reading.
I hope this chapter drew you further into the story.
Stick around, because there’s still a lot waiting just ahead.