Adam knew Salma Hayek’s overseas credits demonstrated she wasn’t intimidated by difficult material.
The female lead for Saw carried specific physical and psychological demands, requiring someone who was not only striking on camera but completely uninhibited when the tension ramped up.
Her stepping into the role wouldn’t be a problem at all.
Adam handed her a short segment of the script to read.
He watched her work through the scene, noting how her performance and physical presence perfectly anchored the heavy material.
Satisfied that she fit exactly what he had in mind, he asked the only question that mattered.
“Do you have representation yet?
An agent?”
Something in her expression lifted, clearly recognizing the implication.
It most likely meant the female lead role was hers.
She quickly shook her head.
“No, I haven’t been in the country long, and I’m still working on my English.”
“If you end up with the part,” Adam said smoothly, “you’d need to sign with my agency, CAA.
Does that work for you?”
“That’s no problem at all,” she answered decisively.
Adam thanked her and let her go, already certain the decision was made.
Over the rest of the afternoon, dozens of actresses cycled through the room for the same role, but none left the same indelible impression.
A few tried to leverage the industry’s older, sleazier dynamics, leaning into implication rather than craft, hoping it would tip the scales in their favor.
Adam ignored the attempts.
For his directorial debut, his sole focus was the picture’s execution.
Hollywood had no shortage of beautiful women; once he established his name with a hit, the rest of the industry’s perks would take care of themselves.
The male lead auditions concluded quickly.
In a contained horror film of this structure, the male protagonist carried considerably less narrative weight than the female lead.
The true challenge was casting the anchor of the entire script: Jigsaw.
Adam sat through dozens of readings that afternoon but found no one who possessed the necessary gravity.
Although Jigsaw’s screen time was minimal, the entire psychological architecture of the film rested on his presence landing flawlessly every time he appeared.
Adam knew the actor who eventually immortalized the role, Tobin Bell, hadn’t even begun his screen career yet.
With over a decade separating 1991 from the original timeline, waiting for him was an impossibility.
Besides, Adam had no interest in a blind recreation.
Saw had its flaws, and finding his own, unique version of the antagonist was an area he needed to put genuine effort into.
As the building emptied out for the evening, Adam packed up his notes and pulled out his phone to call Derek.
“Hey, it’s Derek.
What’s going on?”
“No luck on Jigsaw,” Adam said.
“Nobody over forty I’ve seen today fits what I need.
Tell casting to loosen the age requirement.
We’ll solve the rest in the makeup chair.”
“Noted.
Actually, Adam…
I have a friend who might fit exactly what you’re picturing.
You free tonight?
Come by my place.”
Adam hesitated for a fraction of a second before agreeing.
Derek had already proved his worth, and turning down a dinner invitation over nothing felt like bad politics.
Meeting an actor didn’t obligate him to a contract; the final call remained entirely his.
“Sure.
Tonight works.”
Derek’s home was a typical, quiet middle-class house tucked into a suburban neighborhood.
Inside, his wife was finishing up dinner preparations while Derek sat in the living room with an old friend—a kind-faced, high-foreheaded actor named Clark Gregg.
“Clark, trust me on this.
You’ve got the exact potential this part needs.”
“I didn’t realize you saw me that way, Derek,” Clark joked, leaning back on the sofa.
“You really think I’m cut out to play a serial killer?”
The two men shared a long, enduring friendship—the kind that survives one person thriving while the other treads water.
Derek had watched Clark scrape by on uncredited work for several years.
Now that Derek had actual leverage and a project in hand, bringing his friend in was a reflex born of genuine loyalty.
Clark’s pedigree certainly wasn’t the issue.
He was a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, an institution that ranked right alongside UCLA and USC.
His talent was undeniable.
But the industry ran on momentum, and Clark had simply been starved of it.
A solid education couldn’t fund an endless Hollywood grind.
Yet, the partial script pages dealing with Jigsaw that Derek had shown him earlier had already pulled him in completely.
The doorbell rang.
Derek jumped up to open the door, and Clark stood as well, masking a spike of nervous energy.
“Welcome my friend, the next great director of this town, Adam Cole,” Derek announced loudly as he pulled the door open.
Adam offered a wry, almost speechless look.
In the CAA offices, Derek was composed and formidable; at home, completely relaxed, the armor dropped entirely.
“You didn’t really need the introduction,” Adam said, stepping inside.
He naturally shook Clark’s hand—his own features sharp, composed, and strikingly handsome, projecting the kind of intense, cinematic presence that usually belonged on a screen rather than behind a camera.
Adam took a seat.
Before either of them spoke another word, Adam had made his decision.
Jigsaw would be entrusted to him.
The logic was impossible to articulate out loud, rooted entirely in Adam’s knowledge of the future.
With the right, subtle shift in tone, Clark Gregg could perfectly embody the unnerving stillness Adam needed.
This was the man who would eventually become Agent Coulson—the steady, trusted utility player who united The Avengers and anchored Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Adam knew Clark’s trajectory well.
Despite the prestigious NYU background, Clark wouldn’t land a steady supporting TV role until 2006.
He was destined to struggle through Hollywood’s lower tiers for another decade.
But Adam knew something the rest of the industry didn’t: Clark possessed an immense, latent audience appeal.
Coupled with his theatrical training, he was more than capable of chilling a theater.
Physically, the fit was seamless.
Clark already had a mature, weathered steadiness to him.
With the right practical makeup, he could easily achieve the effect of a fifty- or sixty-year-old man.
Sitting across the coffee table, Clark naturally had no idea the role was already firmly in his hands.
In his thirties, staring at this young man, Clark couldn’t suppress a quiet, inward sigh.
Compared to his own exhausting, decade-long struggle just to get a foot in the door, Adam operated on a completely different level.
He was a prodigy who already commanded a New Line Cinema budget before his college graduation.
It was undeniably the kind of opportunity worth envying.