"What type of test is this? Ray Stark is a delinquent. Are you going to have to beat up people for real to show an attitude like him?"
Wade muttered. In his entire career, he hadn't heard about such an absurd thing to get the role. Rather than doing a scene or talking about the analysis of the character, Asano had asked Aiden to show him the attitude.
It was a very ambiguous request and it could mean a lot of things.
There were eccentric directors all over the world and in the past, Wade had pestered directors for roles a lot. Some roles would take months to get as it was hard to persuade directors.
Compared to that, this was simpler but very different.
"I don't know but I guess I would need to find out."
Aiden said, looking outside the car window. They were just out of the meeting with Asano and Omar.
'An attitude.'
His mind immediately started thinking about it.
A delinquent normally has an attitude because he's a rebel. They don't really care a lot about things and are rebelling against various things for a lot of reasons.
But Ray, the main character of the movie, was someone who had reasons at every point. He wasn't that way because of being a rebel but because he had seen his father being timid all his life and knew that he needed to stand up for himself no matter what.
If he could make others fear him, no one would cross him.
Thinking of that, Aiden glanced at the packet of cigarettes that was just lying around.
It belonged to Wade.
He picked it up and Wade couldn't help but ask.
"Are you going to smoke? You never did that before."
"Ray smokes. It does make one seem cool with the correct posture. Even you need to accept that."
"Only kids smoke for such reasons. I smoke because I got a habit of it due to my job being stressful. My body would rather have lung cancer than give up on it."
Wade shrugged his shoulders and Aiden took one of the cigarettes.
He didn't light it up but just took it in his mouth, trying to get a feel of it.
He touched his hair with his left hand and realised that it had grown a lot in the last month. His hair always grew fast and Aiden didn't like it too big but this time, he decided to just leave it be.
'Let's hope I look good with long hair.'
***
As he had only three days to get the right attitude, Aiden quickly got into work.
To get a better understanding of delinquents, he started watching various movies that featured them and read articles about it.
Most forms of media always showed them in a negative role and rightly so as delinquents were not morally good but Aiden felt like there was also another side to them.
Aside from that, Aiden also practiced different postures for walking and got used to keeping a cigarette between his fingers.
A character's walk was a very subtle feature but it was a very necessary one. Certain characters' whole body language was timid while others walked with confidence.
Every small detail was necessary.
He also went to buy a few jackets that he felt Ray would wear. Black jackets, tight jeans and anything that suited his atmosphere.
As he didn't need to remember any lines and only work towards his atmosphere, it felt like a bit of easy work to Aiden.
His charisma had reached a certain level after doing so many roles and levelling up, so that was already helping him portray Ray as close to Asano's imagination as possible.
Finally three days later, Aiden and Wade again went to have a meeting in Omar's office.
***
"Ah, why is it so noisy in that room? Is someone swearing or something?"
"An actor and his agent are in the second meeting room. They came here because they are angry that a lot of the actor's scenes were cut in [Night Assassin]. Both of them are from an agency that doesn't have a lot of great rumours about them. I heard they are involved in a lot of criminal cases too."
"What a headache."
Asano muttered as he lowered his head. Omar sighed and gestured to one of his employees to go handle what was happening.
They were currently sitting in a meeting room, waiting for Aiden to appear.
To change the subject, one of the general managers opened his mouth.
"Do you think Aiden would be able to pass this test?"
It was an easy question to start a conversation with. Asano looked at him with interested eyes but didn't interfere in the conversation.
"He looks the part if we go by age. He can pass off as an 18 year old with a clean face. I don't know about the right atmosphere though."
An employee said and another added.
"He just played a teen in his Zetflix series, so he obviously looks the part of one but I seriously think one don't see him and think that he's a badass. You know that type of character which you know is dangerous. He has a calm demeanor about him and looks more suited to do gentleman type roles."
"Maybe but he did play the villain nicely in [Black Saints]."
"It's been two years since that movie. He's only doing morally good roles after that. He's been in a few rom coms too."
The employees talked like that but the general consensus was that Aiden was not suited well for the movie.
Perception was something that was formed with each movie and only veterans are accepted to play any roles with no difficulty.
There was a quote that an actor is only as good as his previous movie and that fits perfectly with Aiden. The public was somehow seeing him as more of a rom com actor due to his teenage roles.
He had already played a playboy character twice in two years and even if they were very different, one won't remember every detail until they are a big fan.
"You guys are underestimating Aiden a lot. He's a much better actor than most think and I have never seen fail in anything."
Omar said, shaking his hand and at that moment, the door to the room suddenly opened.
Eyes went towards the two people that entered and a few gasps came out in shock.
Wade and Aiden were standing there.
Rather than Wade, everyone's eyes went towards Aiden who was wearing a black jacket and his hair was tied up in a ponytail.
His face didn't show any expressions but he gave off a menacing feeling.
There was something very different about him than the meeting that had happened three days ago. It was like they were two different people with two completely opposite atmospheres.
Aiden was normally who people would feel like approaching but currently, he was giving more of a feeling where people would rather avoid him.
With Wade standing behind him, both of them gave the impression that they were from a street gang.
Due to his scary face and big stature, Wade could easily pass off as one without even trying to do something different.
"It seems like you have given heed to what I said."
Asano was the first to open his mouth and Aiden looked towards him.
"Yeah, I tried incorporating it into what I understood of Ray's character."
Aiden said and sat down without anyone telling him to. Wade stood next to him and for a while, Asano kept staring at him, like he was trying to see if every feature of Aiden matched with the imagination of Ray in his mind.
The silence was not broken by someone in the room but the voice that came from the meeting room next to it.
Aiden glanced at the wall, then looked up at Omar. He looked angry. Other people also seemed anxious.
"What is going on?"
"Some actor and his agent are causing a scene because his scenes were cut in my last movie. That actor was in a hit movie last time, so he became arrogant. My employees are dealing with it but it seems like it's not enough."
Omar sat up and walked out of the room. He was constantly frowning because this was just a case of hooliganism.
Aiden and Wade followed him. Asano guessed that something interesting was going to happen and did the same.
They walked up to the meeting room and saw a tall man pinning down an employee against a wall. There were tattoos all over his arm and he looked very scary.
Two employees were shivering in the corner while a man was sitting, relaxed like he was in a cafe. Aiden was able to see an arrogant smirk on his face.
The man was handsome and seeing what was going on, he took out a cigarette packet and a lighter from his pocket.
"I told you that I need to see your CEO. Do you really think it's a small matter? We were promised almost 30 min of screen time but it was reduced to half. Don't you realise how unprofessional it is?"
The tattooed man was speaking in a threatening tone, acting like those terms were written in the contract.
"I told you the director edited it out. Those scenes were making the movie look too long."
"Are you saying that my client did a bad job?"
The tattooed man shouted and Aiden opened his mouth.
"I don't think you understand English as that's not what that person is trying to tell you and going by how you are acting, I'm pretty sure that the director cut out those scenes just to give a middle finger to your client."
...
