Owen returned to filming on Wednesday.
It was a nine-hour day. Shorter than the previous one and, thankfully, less exhausting. The scenes left to shoot through Saturday were considerably simpler. After what they had done at the beach, the rest of the schedule felt much more manageable.
Even so, there was something on his mind that would not quite leave him alone.
The project Jenna was considering accepting.
She had mentioned it to him on Tuesday. At first, Owen had been curious, even interested. When he heard the name Trey Edward Shults, a director associated with A24 films, all of them within a more indie circuit and carrying a certain degree of critical prestige, the project had given him a fairly good first impression.
It was not a bad sign.
In fact, it was a promising one. But then Jenna added one detail.
The script was not Trey's. It was The Weeknd's.
At that moment, most of Owen's expectations collapsed all at once.
Why so much pessimism?
Because this was not simply a singer wanting to try his luck in film. This was the lead actor and creator of The Idol.
The Idol was an HBO series created by Abel Tesfaye, known worldwide as The Weeknd, alongside Reza Fahim. The story followed Jocelyn, played by Lily-Rose Depp, a pop idol trying to reclaim her place as America's most provocative pop star after canceling her latest tour due to a nervous breakdown. In the process, she began a complicated relationship with Tedros, played by Abel himself, a self-help guru and leader of a kind of modern-day cult.
The series had premiered in June of that same year.
Barely three months had passed since the world had witnessed such a disaster.
Unfortunately for Owen, he had seen it even earlier. In May, when he went to Cannes.
During the festival, when Good Will Hunting had its great moment, with more than ten minutes of applause, two awards, and a massive boost to his prestige as an actor, The Idol had also been presented there. Its first two episodes were screened before the television premiere.
Owen had already had bad vibes about the project from the beginning.
A pop singer, with no real acting career, no visible training, and nowhere near enough experience, taking the leading role in a massive HBO production was exactly the kind of decision that bothered him. Not because a musician could not act.
There were cases where it worked. But when someone entered a huge project solely because of their name, without first proving they had the necessary tools, Owen tended to expect the worst.
And the worst came.
He watched it because Matt, Gaten, and the others dragged him to the screening out of pure morbid curiosity. The series had already been surrounded by noise, rumors, and comments about its production, and everyone knew how critical Owen had been whenever the subject came up in conversation.
So they ended up there.
Watching the first two episodes.
It was very bad.
The five-minute ovation it received at Cannes did not change that. To Owen, it had been more diplomacy than genuine enthusiasm. The cast and crew were present, the festival had its customs, and no one wanted to turn the theater into a funeral.
But as soon as the critics left the screenings, the reviews began to appear, and they were devastating.
This time, moreover, the critics were not disconnected from the general public. When the series arrived on HBO in June, audiences were even harsher. Many scenes became memes. The dialogue was mocked, the script was attacked from every direction, and The Weeknd's performance ended up becoming one of the most criticized parts.
Perhaps the most criticized.
It was described as expressionless, grotesque, and ridiculous. Some scenes went viral for all the wrong reasons.
Owen was not surprised.
He had expected it ever since Cannes, and a part of him, though he would never say it out loud, felt a certain satisfaction when he saw the reaction.
Not because of Lily-Rose Depp, or the rest of the crew, or the people who had worked on the series without being responsible for the final result.
But because of Abel.
Owen saw acting as his greatest passion. Acting was not only talent. It was also technique, discipline, study, and years of experience.
For someone to come in from the music industry, with no evident training, no significant courses, no previous acting career, and without having proven anything in front of a camera, only to star in a production worth more than fifty million dollars because of his name, seemed disrespectful to the craft.
Abel had money. If he truly wanted to act, he could have studied. Taken classes, trained with teachers, something.
But no.
The result was there for everyone to see.
"Did you think it was easy?" Owen had thought when he saw the audience's reaction.
And now his girlfriend was coming to him with a project written by that same man. A terrible actor and a screenwriter who had already shown enough problems to set off alarm bells.
The script for The Idol had originated with Abel. He had sold the idea to HBO, and HBO, alongside A24, ultimately financed the series.
In a way, it was similar to what Owen had done with The Spectacular Now. He had written the script, sold it to A24, and later landed the leading role.
But only in a way.
The difference was important.
The Weeknd was one of the most listened-to musicians on the planet. With that level of fame, when selling an idea to HBO, it was fairly likely that one of his conditions had been to star in it. The role of Tedros did not seem like something he had earned through a demanding audition process. It seemed like part of the package.
Owen, on the other hand, had not possessed that kind of power when he sold The Spectacular Now.
At the time, he had a certain level of fame, yes. He also had growing prestige as a young actor, and the fact that he had written the script gave him an advantage because he "knew" the character from the inside. But even then, he still had to audition. An advanced audition, with fewer obstacles than an unknown actor would face, but an audition nonetheless.
Until then, however, Owen had not unleashed all of that criticism in front of Jenna. He had not said, "Are you crazy?" or launched into a speech about The Idol, the disaster at Cannes, and everything else.
He had bitten his tongue and let the days pass.
Partly because he expected Jenna to realize it on her own. She had meetings on Wednesday and Thursday. Owen hoped they would go badly. That the script would make her hesitate, or that her CAA agent would connect two brain cells and advise her that it was not a good idea.
But the opposite happened.
Jenna became more interested.
She would not only be the female lead in the movie. She would also receive an executive producer credit, which would give her a certain amount of creative influence over her character and some decisions related to her arc. It was not absolute control, but it was a stronger position than that of an actress hired only to perform.
That interested her.
She had already tried that kind of role with Netflix on Wednesday. She had enjoyed having a voice and pushing the series toward something closer to what she wanted to make.
There was also Trey.
For Jenna, and for many young actors with artistic ambition, working with a respected director within the indie circuit was an opportunity that was difficult to ignore. Those kinds of names did not always guarantee box-office success, but they could offer a different kind of prestige and benefits.
A movie that moved away from overly commercial territory and allowed her to show a different range as an actress.
Especially since they had pitched the movie to her as an auteur-driven psychological thriller.
Unfortunately for Owen, Jenna was the only actress being considered for the role.
There was no casting process. They had made her a direct offer. That was not unusual. Many established actors, or actors with enough fame, did not audition for projects like that. Sometimes, a role was even written with a specific actor or actress in mind from the very beginning.
On Friday, after filming, Owen was at home, sitting in the dining room. His laptop was open on the table, and he was typing nonstop.
Jenna sat across from him, also with her laptop open, reading aloud the script they had sent her.
An actor who was directly offered a role did not sign a contract without reading the material first. That was basic. Jenna now had the script her agent had passed along, and she was reading it aloud so she could also get Owen's opinion.
When she finished, she stared at the screen for a few seconds. Then she looked at Owen, "Well... it's clearly not finished."
Owen did not answer immediately.
The only thing that seemed one hundred percent settled was the general premise. The document was around sixty-five pages long, while a feature-length screenplay usually fell somewhere closer to ninety or one hundred and twenty.
It was not impossible to work that way, nor was it unusual.
Many movies had started with incomplete scripts, unfinished scenes, dialogue rewritten during production, or pages arriving almost as they went along. Sometimes it worked. Other times it did not, and it was a bad sign.
"Mm," Owen murmured without looking away from his screen.
Jenna made another comment about a scene in the second act, and Owen responded with another monosyllable.
That made Jenna look at him with narrowed eyes, "Are you listening to me?" she asked.
Owen stopped typing for a moment and looked up, "Yes, although legally, you probably shouldn't be reading it to me."
For an actor to receive a script before signing, their agent usually had to accept fairly strict confidentiality terms. Jenna was not supposed to show it or share it with anyone outside her immediate team.
Jenna looked at him with a faint smile, "Are you going to report me?"
"Maybe," Owen commented, bringing a hand to his chin as though he were seriously considering it.
"Always so professional," Jenna said, shaking her head in amusement.
She was not worried about that. She knew Owen was not going to leak anything to the press or discuss details of the project with anyone outside.
Jenna rested her chin in the palm of her hand, "Come on, tell me what you think."
"Do you want my honest opinion?" Owen asked.
Jenna nodded.
"All right," Owen said, partially closing his laptop.
"Accepting this project is a bad idea. Very bad," Owen said bluntly after a few seconds.
The smile disappeared from Jenna's face.
She had not expected that statement. She thought he would say something about the script, some criticism.
"What?" she asked.
Owen looked at her seriously, "Jenna, this entire project is one giant red flag. How can't you see that?"
She frowned, "Because of the script?"
"Not only because of the script," Owen replied, "The financier is Abel. Doesn't that tell you anything? Do you remember when we watched The Idol in Cannes with the guys?"
Owen now knew that the project was not simply another story written and starring Abel.
It was worse. He was going to finance it himself with fifteen million dollars.
That meant he held all the power.
Owen did not wait long before explaining. He did it quickly, barely giving Jenna room to interrupt him, because he had spent several days biting his tongue and his patience was running out.
The Idol had not been financed by Abel. It had been an HBO and A24 production. Even so, his influence within the project had been enough to cause a massive change in the middle of production.
Rolling Stone, one of the most important music and pop culture magazines in the United States, had published an extensive investigation only a few months earlier.
The article gathered testimony from thirteen members of The Idol's crew and described major creative changes and a set that had ultimately turned into a disaster.
According to that investigation, The Weeknd had not been satisfied with the show's original direction. He felt the story was focusing too heavily on the female perspective of Lily-Rose Depp's character. HBO eventually fired Amy Seimetz, the original director, discarded an enormous amount of already-filmed material, and hired Sam Levinson, the creator of Euphoria, to rewrite and reshoot much of the series from scratch.
Owen still remembered reading it in disbelief.
Several reports estimated that, under Seimetz, nearly seventy percent of the season had already been filmed. Even so, all of it was discarded. The budget skyrocketed, the story was rebuilt on the fly, and the season was ultimately reduced from six episodes to only five.
All of that for a series that, once released, ended up being ridiculed by critics, turned into memes by the public, and canceled because of its terrible reception.
That had happened when Abel was not even the primary financier.
All he had was his name, his status, and the ability to threaten to abandon the project over "creative differences."
Now the situation was different.
If Abel was putting fifteen million dollars of his own money into it, then there would be far less room to stop him.
Owen could not believe Jenna was willing to overlook something like that.
It was not some hidden rumor. It was public, and there were articles and statements from people who had worked there.
"Knowing everything that's come out about The Idol, do you really want to walk onto a set where he has even more control?" Owen asked.
Jenna's frown deepened.
Not because Owen was completely wrong. In a way, he was right. There were worrying signs, and she was not blind. She knew the project carried risks.
The problem was his tone.
He was not shouting or raising his voice, but he sounded as though he could not believe she had failed to reach the same conclusion on her own. As though he were explaining something obvious to someone who simply did not understand.
That bothered her.
Owen, who did not seem to notice, kept talking, "And the worst part is his acting. What he did in The Idol was an insult to anyone who takes acting seriously. God, and I had to watch it on a giant screen in France."
He scoffed and shook his head, remembering that screening in Cannes.
Jenna stared at him, "Are you listening to your tone?"
Owen blinked, "What tone?"
"Yours," Jenna replied, "Arrogant and conceited."
"I'm just saying he was bad, like every critic and everyone on the internet..." Owen said.
"No. You're talking as if no one should be allowed to try acting unless they first follow the path you consider the right one," Jenna shot back, "Can't a musician want to get into movies? Can't he use his money, his connections, or his fame to try doing something that interests him?"
Owen looked at her in disbelief, "Did you see his scenes in The Idol? Do you seriously want him as your co-star? He sings very well, I'm not denying that. He's one of the most famous singers in the world right now. But acting..."
He paused for a second, as though trying to choose less harsh words, "He was... bad. Look at it this way. It would be like if I decided tomorrow that, because I have money, I'm going to invest twenty million dollars into making my own album. I walk into a studio, ask them to put autotune on me, hire expensive producers, and announce that I'm a singer now. Can I do it? Yes. Do I have the right? Also yes. Would it be a good idea? Probably not. The logical thing would be to take singing lessons before crashing headfirst into a wall."
Jenna kept looking at him, no longer amused by his hypothetical example, "Trey is directing," she said, "That's not a minor detail. He's also working as a co-writer."
Owen clicked his tongue, "Do you really think Trey will have any real power if Abel wants to change something?"
He let a few seconds of silence pass before continuing, "HBO couldn't win that power struggle when Abel wasn't even financing the series. They ended up firing the director and losing millions in footage. What do you think is going to happen now, when on top of writing and starring in it, he's also putting up the money?"
Jenna did not answer, so Owen did, "Trey's power will depend on how much Abel decides to respect him. The same goes for your executive producer credit. If Abel wants to change something because he doesn't like how his character comes across, or because he thinks the story doesn't revolve around him enough, who is going to stop him?"
Jenna tightened her jaw slightly, "Barry Keoghan already signed. He has one of the major roles."
Owen fell silent.
Barry Keoghan was not a minor name.
He was a thirty-year-old Irish actor with an increasingly respected filmography and an Oscar nomination that very same year for The Banshees of Inisherin. He had also worked with major directors, including Nolan. He was hardly someone with poor judgment, or an actor desperate enough to accept anything placed in front of him.
If Barry had signed, it meant he had seen something in the project.
At least, that was how Jenna saw it.
It also gave her a certain sense of reassurance. If he was involved, the acting quality on set would not depend solely on her if she decided to accept. There would be someone experienced enough to balance out some of that inexperience.
Owen did not respond immediately. He had no immediate way to counter that.
He did not understand how an Oscar-nominated actor had agreed to a project like this.
"The money is the only explanation," he said at last.
Jenna looked at him as if that answer seemed far too easy.
But Owen was serious.
Even though the budget was fifteen million dollars, it was still a relatively modest psychological thriller. If Jenna had been offered one and a half million dollars, Barry, with his asking price and the current stage of his career, had probably been offered somewhere between two and three million.
For a shoot lasting a month or a little longer, that was an enormous amount of money.
Jenna, for example, would earn two million for the second season of Wednesday, but that shoot would involve eight episodes and probably five or six months of work. Compared to that, a movie that took only a few weeks and paid over a million dollars could be very tempting.
Many actors would accept for that reason alone.
They had to capitalize on their moment.
The worst part, as far as Owen was concerned, was that Jenna did not even seem primarily interested in the money. Of course, a salary of more than a million dollars for a month of filming was no small thing, but that was not where her enthusiasm came from.
It came from what the character offered her.
"Oh, come on," Jenna said, her patience wearing thinner, "Are you really going to reduce it to that? Barry Keoghan only accepted because of the money?"
"I'm not saying it's impossible that he sees something good in it," Owen murmured.
"Not everyone turns down a project just because the script is unfinished or because there's a chance it might go wrong," Jenna replied, "A lot of actors like taking risks."
Owen looked at her with a hint of offense. Did she think he did not take risks?
But after thinking about it for another second, the answer was a little strange.
In this life, perhaps not that many.
His filmography had been built around projects he already knew had succeeded in his previous world. Proven stories, scripts he knew in advance, and decisions that, although they might look risky from the outside, were not nearly as uncertain for him.
It was not exactly playing blind.
In his first life, he had taken risks. Many of them. He had read scripts without knowing whether they would lead to anything good and had bet on projects where nothing was guaranteed.
But even then, there was one rule he rarely broke.
The script came first.
Not the director's name. Not the promise of prestige. If the script was not ready and the story did not have a solid foundation, Owen walked away.
That situation was exactly that.
An unfinished script, a shoot planned for the following month, and too many strange signs disguised as an artistic opportunity.
And that was without even counting all the previous red flags Owen had listed for Jenna.
The argument continued for a while.
It was not an explosive fight. Owen and Jenna were not the type to shout.
The problem was the way they spoke to each other.
Jenna felt that Owen was not giving her an opinion, but judging her judgment. And Owen, although he tried not to sound that way, spoke like someone who saw the mistake far too clearly and could not understand why she did not see it the same way.
In the end, neither of them convinced the other.
They went to bed with the mood between them somewhat tense.
The following morning, Owen woke up early and left for the set for the final day of filming San Junipero.
The day was short. At around four in the afternoon, after the final scene, the last slate came down.
Kogonada watched the monitor for a few more seconds.
Then he looked up, "Cut!"
There was a brief silence, followed by applause.
At first, the crew celebrated in a restrained way, but the energy quickly grew as the reality of finishing the shoot sank in.
Even Kogonada, always so calm, gathered everyone a few minutes later and gave a short speech. He thanked them all for their work and for the effort they had put into every scene.
Then he added that he was inviting the entire crew to dinner that night at seven at a nearby restaurant.
This time, the applause was louder.
Owen clapped, somewhat surprised. He had not expected an invitation like that from Kogonada. Not because he was cold, but because he was so serious and measured on set that it was hard to imagine him organizing a dinner for everyone so naturally.
"Are you going?" Sadie asked, looking at him curiously.
Before Owen could answer, Kogonada passed by them and pointed at him with absolute calm, "He's going."
Owen looked at him in amusement, "You make decisions for me at dinner too?"
"Yes," Kogonada replied, and kept walking.
Sadie laughed.
Owen shook his head, but smiled as well, "All right. I'll go, I won't be even a minute late, and I'll order whatever I feel like. You're paying for it anyway."
Kogonada raised one hand, accepting the challenge without even looking back.
Owen then looked at Sadie, "Are you going?"
"Of course. I don't want Kogonada to scold me. I'll see you there," she replied, tucking a strand of red hair behind her ear.
San Junipero had officially wrapped filming.
After saying goodbye to the crew, taking a few photos, and repeating several times that they would see each other again in a few hours at the restaurant, Owen left the set.
But he did not go home. He headed to his parents' house.
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