Not Without You

‘Sophie. You’re a really talented actress. We have to make sure we exploit that. Let me show you something.’ He’s still nodding. Then he stands up, strides to the other side of the huge office, picks up a pile of paper.

My gaze drifts out the window. Downtown Beverly Hills gleams through the glass wall. It’s a beautiful day. Of course it is. The purple-blue jacaranda trees are out all over LA; they stretch in a line down towards West Hollywood. It’s spring. Not like spring at home in the UK though, where everything’s lush and green and hopeful. In northern California the wild flowers litter the canyons and mountains along Route 101, and the fog clears earlier in the mornings and the surf frills the waves, but in LA spring is like any other season: more sunshine. It’s the only time I miss home. I was never a country girl, but you couldn’t live in Gloucestershire and not love the bulbs coming up, the wet black earth, the freshly minted green everywhere. Sometimes I wish—

A loud thud recalls me to my senses as Artie throws a script on the table in front of me. ‘This,’ he says. ‘This will blow your mind.’

I look down at the title page. ‘Love Me, Love My Pooch’, I read.

‘Yes!’ Artie’s rubbing his hands. ‘It’s getting a lot of heat. Cameron’s interested, but she’s way too old. Universal want it for Reese but I heard she passed already. And some people say Carey Mulligan is super keen. So we need to move fast. Do you want to read it tonight?’

I’m still staring at the script. ‘Carey Mulligan wants to star in Love Me, Love My Pooch?’

Artie nods, looking amazed. ‘Sure, honey. Why not? You think – oh, wait, do you think it’s, ah, kinda silly? The title?’

‘A bit,’ I admit, relieved. ‘It’s—’

‘No problem!’ He waves his hands. ‘Listen. We can change that. The important thing is the material. And the material is fan. Tastic.’

‘What’s it about?’

‘I heard it’s Legally Blonde meets Marley and Me. Schlubby guy meets hot girl, hot girl not interested, schlubby guy uses dog called Pooch to get hot girl. Girl falls for schlubby guy.’ He laughs. ‘Cute, huh? It’s so cute!’

I hear myself say, ‘Yeah! Sounds good.’ Then I correct myself. ‘What I mean, Artie, is – sure it’ll be great, but I don’t know.’ I take a breath. ‘I’d like to do a movie that’s – uh. Maybe not about some girl hanging out for a boyfriend and being ditzy. Something a bit more interesting.’

Artie nods enthusiastically. He brushes sugar off the front of his black silk shirt. ‘Great. Sure. I’m with you. Let’s talk about it. I can see you want a change. You’re not just a beautiful face. You’ve got so much talent.’

‘Well … thanks.’ I nod politely; I’ve learned to accept compliments over the years. Not that everyone agrees with him. The critics are … hmm, how shall I put this? Oh, yeah, VILE about my films; the more money I make the ruder they are. ‘Sophie Leigh’s Sweetener Overload,’ the LA Times called my last movie.

‘Listen, I don’t want to play Chekhov or anything. I’m not one of those annoying actors who tries to prove themselves on Broadway.’ I can hear my voice speeding up. ‘It’s that I don’t always want to be playing someone who’s a dippy girlie girl who gets drunk after one cocktail, who’s obsessed with weddings and babies and has a mom and dad with funny one-liners who live in the suburbs.’

There’s a pause, as Artie tries to unpick what I’m saying. ‘I guess you’re right.’ The smile has faded from his eyes and he’s silent for a moment, tapping one foot against the coffee table. ‘We don’t want to get into a Defence: Reload situation,’ he continues, suddenly. ‘You’re back on top. We shouldn’t jeopardise that, Sophie, that’s totally true.’

‘No way,’ I say warmly. Though I hadn’t said anything of the sort, he’s right. ‘God, that was terrible.’

‘Listen.’ He grabs my hands. ‘You were great in it! Astonishing! It’s just America’s not ready for you to do martial arts action.’ He shrugs. ‘Or hipster mumbly independent shit. You’re with me now, OK? I am never gonna let you make the same mistake.’

‘Sure.’ Artie’s right, as always. Anna was my old UK agent back from South Street People, the teenage soap that I had my first big role in. I left her after first Goodnight LA, the art-housey independent film I’d always wanted to make, disappeared without trace and then Defence: Reload totally bombed. Two flops in a row. Biiiiiig mistake. Huge. As they say. I’m not made to wear leather and do high-kicks. The film was horrible and Anna was useless about it – everything seemed to take her by surprise and she’d flap and cry down the phone. It was time for a change. I went with Artie, and he put me in Wedding of the Year, and it spent three weeks at number one and was the fifth-biggest grossing picture of 2009. Anna understood I had to move. It’s all part of the game – we’re still friends. (Translation: I sent her a gift basket. We’re not friends.)

‘I’m not talking about doing another Defence: Reload,’ I say. ‘But … well, I don’t always have to be the daffy girl who loses her engagement ring, do I? Look at that pile. There has to be something in there.’

Artie gets up. ‘You don’t want to see everything, trust me. Here’s the highlights.’

He flicks the list over to me.

Bridezilla. Boy Meets Girl. Bride Wars 2. Two Brides One Groom. I glance down the list, the same words all leaping out and blurring into one huge inkjet mush of confetti. I turn the page. ‘This is the rest of the scripts I’m getting sent?’

‘Yeah, but you don’t need to worry about that. These are not projects to take seriously.’

I scan the second and third pages. Pat Me Down. She’s So Hot Right Now. From Russia with Lust. ‘What’s My Second-Best Bed?’ I say wearily.

Artie takes the piece of paper off me and looks at the list. ‘No idea,’ he says. He gets up and goes over to his glass desk, taps something into his computer. ‘Hold on. Oh, yeah. It’s some time-slip comedy. They sent it to you because … there was some note with it. I remember reading it but I can’t remember it. I think it was because you can do a British accent.’

‘Well – yes,’ I say. ‘They’re right there. What is it?’

‘Second-Best Bed …’ His finger strokes the mouse. ‘Second-Best – oh, yeah, here it is. She’s a guide at Anne Hathaway’s cottage and she dreams Shakespeare comes and visits her.’ Artie shakes his head, then turns to the shelf behind him, picking a script out of a pile. ‘Who’d wanna guide people round Anne Hathaway’s cottage? Why’s Anne freaking Hathaway living in a cottage anyways? She just got a place in TriBeCa. I don’t understand, that’s crazy.’

‘Anne Hathaway was Shakespeare’s wife,’ I say. ‘That’s who they mean. Her house was outside Stratford-upon-Avon.’ I’ve been to Anne Hathaway’s cottage about three times. It was a short coach drive from my school. Closer than the nearest Roman fort or working farm, so our crappy school used to take us there every year – it was almost a joke. I remember one year Darren Weller escaped from the group and ran into the forest. They had to call the police. Darren Weller’s mum came to meet the coach. She screamed at Miss Shaw, the English teacher, like it was her fault Darren Weller was a nutcase. I can picture that day really clearly. Donna and I went to McDonald’s in Stratford and drank milkshakes – simply walked off while the others were going round his house or something. It’s the naughtiest thing I’ve ever done.

It’s funny – I never thought Donna and I would lose touch. We stopped hanging out so much when I moved to London for South Street People, then she had a baby. She wasn’t best pleased when I told her I was off to Hollywood. I don’t think she ever really believed I wanted to be an actress. She thought it was all stupid, that Mum was pushing me into it.

‘OK, OK.’ Artie isn’t interested. ‘Take them, read them through if you want. But will you do me a favour?’ He puts his hand on his chest and looks intently at me. ‘Will you read Love Me, Love My Pooch for me? As a personal favour? If you hate it, no problem. Of course!’ He laughs. ‘But I want to see what you think. They’re offering pretty big bucks … I have a feeling about this one. I think it could be your moment. Take you Sandy–Jen big. That’s the dream, OK? And I’m working on it for you.’ He takes his hand off his chest, and gives me the script, solemnly. ‘Now, tell me what picture you’d like to make. Let’s hear it. Let’s make it!’ He claps his hands.

I’m still clutching the pile of scripts, with Love Me, Love My Stupid Pooch on the top. I clear my throat, nervously.

‘I want to … This is going to sound stupid, OK? So bear with me. You know I moved house last year?’

‘Sure do, honey. I found you the contractors, didn’t I?’

‘Of course.’ Artie knows everyone useful in this town. ‘You know why I bought that house?’

‘This is easy. Because you needed a fuck-off huge place means you can tell the world you’re a big star. “Look at me! Screw you!”’ Artie chuckles.

‘Well, sure,’ I say, though actually I don’t care about that stuff that much the way some people do. I’ve got a lot of money, I give some of it away and I take care of the rest, I don’t need to go nuts and start buying yachts and private islands. This was the place I always wanted. It’s a beautiful thirties house, long, low, L-shaped, high up in the hills, kind of English meets Mediterranean, simple and well built. Blue shutters, jasmine crawling over the walls, Art Deco French doors leading out to a scallop-shaped pool.

I love it, but it has a special connection that means I love it even more.

‘I bought the house because it belonged to Eve Noel. She lived there after her marriage.’

Artie’s lying back against the couch. He scrunches up his face. ‘Who? The … the movie star? The crazy one?’

‘She wasn’t crazy.’

Artie scratches his stomach. ‘Well, she disappeared. She was huge, then she vanished. I heard she was crazy. Or dead. Didn’t she die?’

‘She disappeared,’ I say. ‘She’s still alive. I mean, she must be somewhere. But no one knows where. She made those seven amazing films, she was the biggest star in the world for five years or so, and then she vanished.’

‘OK, so what?’ Artie puts his hands behind his head.

‘I want to make a film about her.’

From my bag I pull out a battered copy of Eve Noel and the Myth of Hollywood, the frustratingly slim biography of her that ends in 1961. I must have read it about twenty times. ‘So … it’d be a film about where she came from, about her starting out in Hollywood, what happened to her, why she left.’

‘I never knew you were into Eve Noel. Old movies.’ Artie makes it sound like I’ve told him I love anal porn.

‘Sure,’ I say. ‘My whole childhood was spent on the sofa watching videos. It’s a wonder I don’t have rickets – I never saw the sun.’

Artie grunts. He doesn’t much like funny women. ‘So why the big obsession with her?’

‘She’s the best. The last real Hollywood star. And she … She grew up near me, a little village near Gloucester?’ I can hear the edge of the West Country accent creep into my voice, and I stutter to correct it. ‘It’s crazy, no one knows what happened to her, why she left LA.’