Page 28 of Take Me Away
My stomach drops.
The next video is someone talking at the screen while a headline from The Hollywood Reporter flashes neon pink: ‘VALE STUDIOS FILES $20M DEFAMATION SUIT AGAINST ISLA QUINN.’
I think I’m going to throw up.
I don’t have 20 million dollars.
Another, from Variety: ‘QUINN’S CAREER IN FREEFALL: “LIGHTHOUSE 2” RECASTING UNDERWAY.’
My breath is coming faster. Another tap.
Deadline Hollywood: ‘INDUSTRY INSIDERS: “ISLA QUINN IS UNINSURABLE”’
And the worst, from the trade magazine I’ve subscribed to since drama school: ‘WINTER BROTHERS DROP QUINN FROM “HAYES BIOPIC” AFTER PRESSURE FROM VALE.’
The Hayes biopic. Fuck. I’ve spent six months preparing for that role before even signing contracts because I want it so bad. That role has Oscar written all over it, but that’s not the only reason.
I want a challenge. Something clever, no green screen and battling thin air. No heavy monologues with predictable scores.
But just like that, it’s gone.
I just sit, staring at the old blanket on the bed. I can’t move. Can’t think.
This is it. It’s all over.
When you start out in the industry, you know it might not last. Every role is a stepping stone, either to the next one or to nothing. My career could have ended after the first movie. Your relevance is a currency you can’t control. Inflation is high and the cost is eye-watering. You keep going, though, one stepping stone to another. Maybe it’s an addiction to the high of success. Maybe it’s because you care.
When I was starting out, just riding the wave of my first movie and starting rehearsals for the second, when Vale was prevalent and moulding me into his perfect star, an older actress I was in rehearsal with turned to me over a crappy instant coffee. We were in a cavernous rehearsal space, the air cold, the tips of our noses pink. I remember looking at her, this icon, this person who had been photographed and immortalised in glossy paper and framed to last, but right then she had a droplet of water rolling from the end of her cold nose. She said, ‘Babe, you are only as big as your currency that day. One day you could wake up and the bank’s closed its doors.’
I took that to heart. Woke up every day expecting it to be over.
I never knew it would end because of the actions of a man. Because of what he did. Nothing to do with me, my ability, my ‘talent’, but rather because I spoke out about a man whose behaviour hurt others. Hurt me.
I blink fast, eyes stinging.
And then because I’m a loser, I tap my screen again, and read some more.
More hashtags pop up: #TeamMarcus. #QuinnCancelCulture. #WhyNowIsla.
Why now? Because I finally found the courage. Because I finally reached my breaking point when I saw his clammy age-spotted hand on the back of that young woman’s head. Because ten years of swallowing my truth had begun to poison me from the inside out. Because I realised that every single stepping stone I had balanced on had been marred by the man who had ‘made me’.
But none of that makes for a snappy hashtag, does it?
I tap on an Instagram post from Reid. Reid, whose toothbrush still sits in my London bathroom, whose sweaters are folded in my drawer, who whispered ‘forever’ against my skin just six weeks ago when our schedules last aligned.
It’s a picture of him with Marcus Vale. In the caption underneath he has written, ‘While I respect everyone’s truth, I’ve always known Marcus as a professional and mentor. There are always two sides. I ask for privacy during this difficult time.’
His difficult time.
I gag. It comes out of nowhere, but before I can move off the bed, I’m clamping a hand across my mouth.
His difficult time.
I stare at the picture of him with Vale. Reid and I had orbited each other for a couple of years. Now I think it was an orbit that Marcus Vale created.
Were Reid and I created?
He hasn’t called.
