Hollow Hearts

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" Hollow Hearts"

How does one begin loving such a fine specimen of manhood, as is Richard Holcombe?

Well I hate to believe it, but it wasn't that awfully hard.

His face was like fine ivory, sharp and clear at every edge. For all that boyish charm, he was after all a Costinean, his gentlemanliness pouring from every pore. He was a silent speaker, and was a young eighteen when I met him first, at the script reading of the film just after the auditions had concluded and we had been confirmed for our roles.

Me, a Lenter all my life suddenly found myself in the big bad and supposedly unforgiving world of cinema that is Costinea. He on the other hand was the third son of one of the city's biggest names in the business. His eldest brother was supposedly the one that his father favoured the most. He, Andrew Holcombe had already carved out a name for himself as one of the biggest action stars our generation would see. Quite clearly Papa Holcombe didn't need or expect much of his other sons.

And so it was that Richard or "Roy" as everyone called him, was allowed to do his own thing. That explained why he had landed himself a lead role in the film of a director who hated mainstream cinema to the core and anything associated with it.

I respected him because I knew that he had fought a longer and much harder battle to establish himself in the eyes of Gaspard as someone who loathed meaningless cinema as much as he did, despite being the son and brother of men who made only such films.He had to prove himself an artist and win Gaspard's favour, even before being tested for the role.

I on the other hand had had a different battle to fight.

My family was small. A mother who was chronically ill, to the point of being bedridden post forty, and a largely absentee father. Well no, he didn't run off or something like that. It's just that work kept him away for long. He was hardly around in my life. I suppose being an infantryman's daughter is all about that. There was always food on the table and a good school to go to. But that was about it. No fancy clothes or shoes. No branded mobile phones. I vividly remember how wide-eyed some of my friends would be, when I would tell them that I was a single child. "How lucky," they would say, "You have everything your way,don't you?"

I'd pretend to smile.

And that's when I realised.

That a middle class upbringing had stunted me.

I wanted everything that it didn't give me. Wanted is a slight word. I yearned for it.

I wanted to be famous and rich and have clothes to wear.

I wanted crowds to chant my name in anticipation of a fleeting glance of my face. I wanted it all.

Of Course I was naive. I didn't know how hard it all was. I was clear that I would face and fight my battles and to be the actress of my generation was my goal. But I didn't know how to get there.

So I landed in Costinea, a city where no soul knew me and I knew no one. I barely had a jeans and a few unstained tee-shirts and one prized black heel, for a photos hoot. I had done theater a few times in school, but other than that, was an absolute novice.

The first office I knocked on was that of the esteemed director Gaspard Fontaine Emmanuel Keaton, or as the world knew him, Gaspard.

I had no makeup on, my hair was long, up to my hips, and I hadn't styled it since my twelfth birthday. So I wasn't expecting much. I thought to myself, "If this doesn't work, we'll knock on other doors. So long as they don't ask me to sleep with them for a movie, I'll do it." His staid secretary took one look at me and said "Darling, your kind walks out of this office almost as swiftly as it walks in." "Ah, well, you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, a movie by its trailer, or.. an actress by her face." I retorted as politely as I could.