Ronan sat with the fear working its way under his skin. No agency. He’d said it out loud now, and hearing it out in the open only made the problem feel more solid than it had in his head.
"Will I still get the role without anyone representing me?" He worked to keep his voice steady. "I’ve heard some actors handle their own deals, no agent at all. Could I do that? Or does having no agency just make everything harder?"
He asked it like a man laying out his options. He wasn’t. Underneath, the no-agency thing had him rattled all the way down — he just didn’t have a better card in his hand, so he played the calm one.
Hill and Jenny traded a look, neither of them saying a word.
Hill leaned back in his chair. "All right. Straight answer. Does it get complicated with no agency?" He gave a short nod, answering himself. "Yeah. A lot more complicated. A production like ours doesn’t usually touch an unrepresented actor — and I’m not telling you that for our sake. I’m telling you for yours."
He let it sit a beat, then went on.
"We can still make a deal with you directly, no agent in the room — that part’s doable. But once it moves over to the network’s business affairs people to actually paper the contract, and it will, you’re sitting across from a team whose whole job is to pay you as little as they can get away with. No agent in your corner, nobody who does this for a living talking your number up? They’ll clock that in about two seconds. They lowball your fee, strip the perks, and you sign it because you don’t know any better. That’s not a maybe, kid. That’s how it goes every single time."
The color went out of Ronan’s face on the spot. Five years in this business, and he’d heard the stories — actors getting worked over on their own deals, signed for next to nothing because nobody was in the room pushing for them. Not all of them, sure. He knew a handful who’d handled themselves fine and come away with the right terms. He just wasn’t sure he’d be one of the lucky ones.
’So this is what Circle Agency was betting on.’ The thought settled in cold. ’They figured I’d never land the part — and if I somehow did, I’d walk straight into this. Nobody to speak for me, and the deal chews me up.’
Hill and Jenny both caught the color drain out of him, and neither had to work hard to guess what had put it there.
"And I’ll be honest with you," Hill said. "Me telling you all this cuts right against my own interest. I’m on the production side of the table. It’s good for me if we land you cheap — that’s the whole job, keep the spend down wherever we can. A kid walking in with no representation is exactly the kind of break a production prays for."
Jenny shot him a look. "Henry. Go easy on him."
"It’s Hollywood, Jenny." Hill spread his hands. "This town isn’t built for anybody who can’t take a hard truth — everybody knows that walking in the door. And me laying it out for him straight instead of letting him find out the hard way? That’s generous. Nothing harsh about it."
Ronan dipped his head. "No — thank you. For telling me." Then, quieter, the dread dragging his eyes down toward the table: "So... I’m not getting the part, then?"
That pulled a small laugh out of both of them.
"Course you’re getting the part." Hill was still half-smiling. "Relax. You just need somebody to represent you first — that’s all this is. It’s the whole reason I’m walking you through it. For your own good."
The relief lasted about a second before it curdled. An agency. Easy for them to say. The only agency Ronan had ever known was the one that had just thrown him out on the street, and he didn’t have the first idea where else a guy like him would even start.
Both of them read the helplessness settle onto his face.
Hill’s mouth curved. "I can see it right there on you," he said. "You’ve got no idea who’d take you on, do you?" Ronan managed a small, embarrassed nod, and Hill kept going. "I’ve got a friend. Good agent, been at it for years. Let me give him a call, set something up, get the two of you in a room together. How’s that sound?"
The gratitude came up in Ronan all at once, more than he knew what to do with. He bowed, low, the way he always did.
"Thank you. Really — thank you."
Hill huffed out a laugh. "What’s with all the bowing? You Japanese or something?" He’d tossed it off without thinking, the kind of thing you say just to fill the air.
Ronan nodded. "I’m actually half-Japanese, sir."
That caught Hill off guard.
Jenny’s brows lifted. "Huh. You don’t really read as it." Korean American herself, she’d crossed paths with a few half-Japanese guys over the years, and the kid in front of her didn’t quite fit the picture.
Ronan gave a small, sheepish smile. "My dad’s got the stronger genes, I guess. Pretty much everything about me came out looking more American." He added, "My mom’s the leaner one, dark hair — I got her hair off her, and her build, so I came out lean like she is. My dad’s blond, and, uh, kind of on the heavy side, honestly. Though I did get one thing off him — I’m six feet, and that height’s all his."
That pulled a laugh out of Jenny, the crack about his old man landing better than he’d probably meant it to.
While they’d been talking, Hill had already dug out his phone and started dialing. He put it to his ear, and when the call connected his whole tone slid into something easy and familiar.
"Hey — how you doing?"
He listened a second, and whatever came back made him snort. "Wait, hold up. You can’t move your actors because they’re not good enough to book?" A grin spread across his face. "Then this is your lucky day, Riley. Perfect timing. I just sat here and watched a kid tear the whole room apart in his read — real talent, the kind you don’t come across twice a year. Let me put the two of you in a room. What do you say?"
Whatever Riley said back, it plainly wasn’t yes. Hill rolled his eyes. "You don’t have the time. Riley. Riley, listen to me — this is not the kind of thing you pass on, I promise you. Tell you what. I’ll send you the tape from his audition. You watch it, and then you tell me I’m wrong."
He waited. Whatever Riley saw in the offer was enough, because his tone came back around.
"There it is." Hill sounded pleased with himself. "I’ll fire it over to you tonight. Just do me a favor and get down here quick, yeah? Sign the kid, rep him, whatever you’ve gotta do — we want to move on production now, not next month."
A last word or two, and he ended the call.
Ronan had watched the whole thing with hope written all over him.
Hill pocketed the phone. "All right, kid. Meeting’s set." He tipped his head. "I’ll give you his number, and you’d better actually call the man. He wants to know you’re the real deal before he commits, so I’m sending him your audition tape — let it make the case for you."
The emotion welled up in Ronan before he could get on top of it. "Thank you — really, sir. I won’t forget this."
Hill waved him off, but there was a half-smile under it. "You’d better not. I’m not doing this out of the kindness of my heart — I’m putting a bet down on you, and I’m building a relationship here I expect to see something back from someday. So don’t make me look bad."
"I won’t, sir."
They went back and forth a little longer, and once Ronan had the agent’s number saved in his phone, he showed himself out.
The door had barely clicked shut behind him when Felix twisted around in his chair. "So, boss — we calling it? Wrapping the auditions?"
Hill shook his head. "You deaf? We want Ronan for the lead — not Thomas. Which means we’ve still got a Thomas to find. So no, we keep going."
Jenny didn’t look up from her notes. "Don’t go clocking out in your head already, Felix. We’ve still got a job to do here."
Felix had nothing to say to that. He picked his sides back up and got ready to read the pirate again for whoever walked in next.
And they walked in, one after another, each taking their turn at Thomas. Every last one of them, measured against what Ronan had done in that same chair, came off badly — reciting the man where the kid had somehow lived him.
Hill and Jenny couldn’t keep the dissatisfaction off their faces. Felix, for his part, thought a couple of the reads were pretty solid — the kind of candidate you’d normally be glad to turn up.
The difference was simple enough. After what they’d watched Ronan pull off, the bar in that room had jumped, and the director’s and writer’s taste had climbed right up with it. What would’ve impressed them first thing that morning barely moved the needle now.