Aaron opened his front door at seven in the morning.
Nicole Kidman stood in the hallway, looking like she hadn’t slept.
He didn’t blink.
“I have a phone.
You have the number.”
“The Warner preview for Dead Calm is tonight,” Nicole said, stepping past him into the apartment without an invitation.
“You said it was the most critical night of the year.”
He shut the door.
He walked to the kitchen, poured a glass of tap water, and drank it.
“I’m handling the screening.
It’s done.
What do you actually want, Nicole?”
She crossed her arms, her anxiety bleeding into the room.
“I’ve been on your roster for two weeks.
You haven’t checked in.
You haven’t pitched me.”
“I’m an agent, not a publicist.
I don’t check in unless there’s paper to sign.” He walked into his home office, grabbed a clipped stack of pages off his desk, and dropped them on the glass coffee table in front of her.
“Disney.
Early development.
The working title is $3,000.”
She picked the stack up, flipping the pages.
“It’s barely an outline.”
“It’s a blueprint for a dark, gritty feature that they are going to inevitably sanitize into a four-quadrant romance,” he said, his voice flat.
“The underlying structure is highly commercial.
They need a female lead who doesn’t carry domestic box-office baggage.”
Nicole looked at him, her expression guarded.
“I heard you were buying a script yourself.
If you’re moving into production, why am I reading for Disney?”
“Because I don’t own a studio, and you don’t have domestic box office history,” he said simply.
“I am building capital.
When Soderbergh hits Cannes, my call volume goes up.
Until then, you audition.”
He grabbed his keys off the kitchen counter.
“We’re leaving.
I booked you a chair at a salon on Beverly Drive.”
Nicole touched her tightly permed curls, defensive.
“What’s wrong with my hair?”
“It looks like Australian television,” he replied cleanly.
“Disney casts movie stars.
We need to straighten it out.”
“You have a good eye,” she noted, following him toward the door.
“Why didn’t you become a director?”
“Directors have to beg studios for money,” he said.
“I prefer taking it from them.”
At noon, he dropped Nicole at the salon.
Chemical straightening was going to take at least three hours.
He got back in his car, merged onto the 405 South, and drove down to Manhattan Beach.
He parked in a strip mall and ducked into Video Archives, a cramped local rental shop, to hunt for a specific French New Wave cut.
The place was standard retail—rows of plastic VHS clamshells, a rack of heavy LaserDiscs, and the stale smell of industrial carpet.
Behind the register, a television played a chaotic barrage of kicks and dubbed sound effects.
A lanky, frantic-looking clerk with a jutting chin was leaning over the counter, completely absorbed by the screen.
“Shaw Brothers,” Aaron noted, recognizing the distinct saturated colors of a Hong Kong martial arts import.
The clerk snapped his head up.
“Yeah!
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin.
Most guys walk in here asking for Spielberg or Stallone.
You know Gordon Liu?”
“I know the Hong Kong output,” Aaron said.
“They operate on a fraction of Hollywood’s budget, but their action choreography are years ahead.”
The clerk lit up, talking at a hundred miles an hour.
“Exactly.
It’s visceral.
It’s real.
American action is all explosions; this is flesh and bone.
I’m Quentin, by the way.
Quentin Tarantino.”
Aaron looked at him.
Hyperactive.
Unpolished.
Obsessive.
“Aaron Anderson.
CAA.”
Tarantino stopped mid-breath.
He wiped a hand nervously on his jeans.
“You’re an agent?
At CAA?
Man, I thought you guys only wore suits.”
“Only when I’m billing someone,” Aaron said.
He looked around the cramped store.
“You work at a register.
That means you either watch a lot of movies, or you write them.
Which is it?”
Tarantino leaned over the glass counter.
“Both.
I’ve got a couple of scripts I’m knocking out right now.
Crime stuff.
Dialogue-heavy.”
Aaron reached into his jacket, pulled out a business card, and slid it across the glass.
“I took a rookie director to Sundance a few months ago.
Sex, Lies, and Videotape.
We’re going to Cannes in May.”
Tarantino stared at the card.
“I read about that deal.”
“Finish the scripts,” Aaron said, holding the clerk’s manic gaze.
“If the pages are as sharp as your taste in imports, call the number.
I don’t just shop paper.
I package directors.”
Tarantino picked up the card carefully.
“Give me four weeks.
I’ll have them typed.
Man, just getting a real agent to read my stuff…”
“Four weeks,” Aaron repeated.
“Don’t miss the deadline.”
He turned and walked out of the store, the cheap bell on the door chiming behind him.
He stepped back onto the pavement, the Los Angeles sun beating down on the concrete.
Nicole Kidman in the chair.
Quentin Tarantino on the hook.
He adjusted his collar and kept walking.
The assets were falling into place.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Thank you so much for reading!
Peace out,
Lucent.