Chapter 46: Dunkin’ Donut (Patreon)

Chapter 46: Dunkin’ Donut

Freshwater West, Pembrokeshire Coast. May 2009.

Who doesn’t love a good day at the beach? 

Rare though it was for the Harry Potter franchise, the core team - including Rupert Emma and I alongside the relevant production crew - had deserted Leavesden for the time being, in favour of filming on location. 

The set designers, being the terraforming titans they were, could have easily fabricated a portion of the ocean as a set piece using copious amounts of duct tape and a few cans of Sprite. Not like they hadn’t done it before with the lake in ‘Goblet’. But the scene being shot wasn’t anything so elaborate and didn’t require hours of underwater synchronised swimming. 

Plus, they had their hands full, moulding several other more heavily featured sets. Though the Forest of Dean wasn’t one of them. 

Neither was it an on location shoot interestingly enough. However, to be fair, probably only to me. Considering I hadn’t seen mention of it since one of the earliest drafts of the Deathly Hallows novel.

The surf. I breathed steadily and slowly into the regulator held between my teeth. Soft hissing followed a burble on my exhale. I traced the path of the bubbles floating upwards to glance at the scant few rays of sunlight barely peeking through the roiling waves just a couple of feet overhead. 

Might have felt deep, but I was crouched on my knees and standing up to full height would only have the water reach my waist.

The water was far too murky to see anything else, really. Not that there was anything overly amusing to look at, anyway. Best view I got was my personal human oxygen tank, lifeline, and floaty-talkie anchored behind me. 

Her hand reached for my hips, dove beneath my flowing shirt, and unhooked the tether on my harness attaching me to her. 

Couldn’t exactly tell the insurance adjusters that they needed to pay out a hefty sum just because one of their stars got swept away by a cheeky current. Far more manageable to claim and recoup medical costs for the lot of us getting absolutely shredded by the rocky, glassy pebbles masquerading as sand underfoot. 

She gently popped the regulator out of my mouth next. Literally stealing my breath away. By the very nature of being underwater, I was also robbed of my hearing; which is why the hand that fell on my shoulder served as my cue.

One. Two. Taps hit me firmly, signalling the next take. Heels planted as steadily as I was able to on the shifting stones. I braced myself. The third tap fell. I surged up, breached the surface of the battering waves, and greeted the salty air with a desperate gasp for oxygen.

I imagine daringly leaping off a dragon was conducive to this sort of response, but in reality, my reaction had more to do with the sudden wind chill slapping me across my drenched face. 

Emma and Rupert sputtered alongside me as they both did a briny spit take into their own respective cameras. 

It was early. Not the take, I mean. But the fact that we were filming a scene from the second movie while we’d barely scaled the tip-of-the-iceberg for the first. 

This was one of the odd quirks of filming and structuring the book into two movies. 

The plot and story were what they were. The adapted screenplay stuck as close to that as possible when the initial split was planned. But practically speaking, the final decision rested heavily in post-production and editing. 

Production, even at this stage, vacillated between shocking the audience with Dobby’s death or thrilling the audience with the Gringotts heist bookmarking part one of Deathly Hallows. 

A rather futile instance of indecision on their part, in my opinion. Given that every movie since ‘Goblet’ ended in a fan favourite characters’ execution. As well as David Yates’s penchant for melancholy. Wasn’t a doubt in my mind that ultimately we’d end up on the bummer option. 

We were essentially the first to do this, so there was an expected level of clunkiness behind the scenes.

Although we end up becoming trendsetters in the industry. Especially when all the studios, seeing our success soon, voraciously expand their appetites by unnecessarily splitting scripts into parts one, two, and three. Often in spite of narrative density. Or more accurately, lack thereof.

But hey, cash grabs were often no-brainers in every sense of the phrase.

Speaking of, I scrabbled around my own suddenly empty head. “H-h-” As I struggled to find my lines. 

Uncooperatively, my teeth clattered away. More interested in practising the castanets instead of helping me stutter out my dialogue. My lungs constantly and consonantly fluttered out staggered breaths, “H-h-h…” 

C’mon Bas, you can do it! ‘He knows. He knows we’re hunting horcruxes.’ just say that and you can replace your positively polar, wet clothes with a nice fluffy towel. 

“Holy shit, that’s cold!” Talk about freezing under pressure. 

“Cut!” Any chance the sudden biting breeze had interfered with the audio equipment? “Not the time to ad-lib, Bas. Stick to the script, if you please.” Guess not.

“God damnit, mate! Couldn’t you just have held out a little longer? I don’t want to go back in there. I’m bloody well freezing my bits off! Any more shrinkage, and you best believe I’m making you pay for the nob transplant.” 

“Just don’t expect me to be your donor for that particular procedure.”

“Who’d want your rotten cock, anyway?” Rupert couldn’t stop complaining about having to go back in the drink for another take.

While Emma was having trouble starting. “F-f-f-fuck you Bas.” 

“You kiss your mother with that mouth?” 

“M-more than you ever have.” Gasp! She can’t say that to me. I was an orphan!

Forget giving me the cold shoulder for my mistake. Emma went full fucking nuclear with that last rebuttal.

The indignity! The betrayal! I won’t let this stand. Or her either. 

One of the first lessons boys learn as children is to never hit a woman. Too bad for Emma, because apparently according to her, I didn’t have a mother to teach me that. So I swept the leg. 

“Wah-!” Splash! 

Rupert and I watched her flounder. She squawked and thrashed her arms, unable to fight the weight of her thirsty skirts swallowing the surrounding sea. “Hope you’re an organ donor, Bas. Because when she’s done with you, I think I’ll have what I need for the surgery, whether you like it or not.” 

“.... We should probably help her up.”

Taking the coward’s way out, and braving the cold; Rupert immediately turned on heel and waded back to his marker. “All you.”

As I reached over to yank her back onto her feet, I felt the sharp sting of her nails digging into my skin. 

For the first time in my life, I wished I’d used a body double for the stunts I pulled.

–

Grove of Narberth, Pembrokeshire. May 2009.

Switzerland was famous for a few things. 

First of all, chocolate. Though, my salivary glands remained far more partial to the Belgian variety. 

Second, Roger Federer. But unfortunately for him, the British isles had our own bootleg version of him in Jimmy Carr. Who rather effectively ruined the legendary tennis player’s reputation purely by virtue of how similar they looked. 

Both likely used the Swiss banking system to dodge taxes.

Their greatest contribution to the world, however, “enjoy your meal,” was unequivocally fondue. 

Our bellboy lifted the lid off of our late lunch and grandly unveiled the steaming pot of bubbling molten cheese. 

As the wafting scent turned my senses, too, into goo - there really wasn’t anything more comforting I could think of to eat. Specially after spending the day in the freezing, filthy ocean. 

Wasting no more time, I struck my hand out from beneath the shawl wrapped around me, nabbed a skewer off the tray, and stabbed into the nearest rosette of smoked ham. “Put that down. I want bread first.”

This was my room. This was my room service order. Yet I’d been the one relegated to a butler-cum-boiler. 

Scraping off the parma, I speared a cubed block of baguette and suffocated it in cheese. My ooey-gooey treat wasn’t the only warmth denied to me. I shivered (most definitely not in pleasure) as Emma’s icy hands found a fresh patch of skin on my torso to syphon the heat out of. “Perhaps a hot water bottle might serve you better?” My jaw still hadn’t stopped jittering.

“No. Now feed me.” Curled up against me, with the second half of the shawl draped over her shoulders, Emma impatiently held her mouth open, waiting for me to spoon feed her. 

As punishment for almost drowning her, I’ve been turned into her human serviette for the evening.

Well, if she wanted to be babied, I’d oblige. “Here comes the aeroplane brrrr.” 

Jet fuel can’t melt steel beams. But even as she ripped the chunk of cheesy bread off the floating prong I waved in front of her face, I’d bet anything that she wished her glare would immolate me on the spot.

“I rue the day I chose you both as my clients. Rue! Does it have to be so much to ask that at least one talent I manage be a normal human being?” Oh, yeah. Anita was here to crowd me, too. 

And she was in a mood. Couldn’t have been my fault, though. I was always this unmanageable. 

Maybe she’d feel better if she ate something. I veered the prong away from Emma’s chompers and swung it over to Anita. “Want me to feed you too?” In for a dollar, in for a dime…. that’s why I poop on company time? Nah, that’s definitely not how the saying goes. 

“Only thing I want from you - the both of you - is to please just start considering new roles from the pile I brought you. It takes time to organise auditions and plan around your filming schedules. At least if we wanna hit the ground running once Harry Potter finishes.” 

“Of course I will, Anita. You’ve been ever so patient with me this last year. I really needed that time to sort out my university applications. I promise to take a serious look at the scripts you’ve supplied. Plus, Bas’ll run lines with me to help me pick the best role. Won’t he?”

“He will.” Oh no, he won’t. Doesn’t matter how much you try to agree for me, Anita. I should have known this day would come - Hollywood elites selling me off like some cheap party favour. 

“Need I remind you I have three of my own projects to contend with?”

“I’d put a pin in that if I was you.” Before Anita could press me any further, our executive producer, David Heyman, nonchalantly entered my suite like he’d paid for the thing.

“Hey, man!” Which now that I think about it, he did. 

“Ladies, Bas. Quick update that may affect any and all short-term plans. We’ve hit a bit of a snag with production. I’d fill you in on the details but we’re still working things out.” Impeccably cryptic as always, David. “Just a slight delay, nothing to worry about, but it does mean you will have to postpone any plans for a little while longer than initially forecast. We will, of course, use the interim period to bolster our promotional efforts. Sorry, we’re all going to have to make certain adjustments.”

My contract with WB was exceedingly generous and had plenty of built-in leniencies that let me live my life the way I wanted to during and after production. Courtesy of Anita Spectre’s negotiating prowess. However, it came with an equal measure of obligation on my part. So whether it was reshoots, rescheduling, or even new marketing initiatives within a reasonable time frame. I was compelled to prioritise the franchise over anything else at that point. 

“Estimated timetable?” Anita also knew there was no fighting this, so immediately tried to salvage what she could. 

“Seven extra weeks, minimum. No greater than ten.” 

“Crap. Bas, that means we’re going to have to drop out of ‘The Other Guys’. Adam McKay won’t be able to suspend production for that long.”

Damn. And I really wanted to be in that movie, too. But needs must. “No biggie. If you’d like, I can personally call Adam and apologise.” Luckily, we were still in the handshake phase, so there was no contract to painfully break. Just bad news. 

“That’ll help. Thanks Bas. Dwayne won’t be too happy about it, though.” Huh? What’s this? Was The Rock - the newest of my agents’ high profile clients - cooking something? 

“What does he have to do with any of this?”

“Do I really need to spell it out? Not only are you dropping out of this project, which by the way he signed on for when I brought it to him. You also rejected ‘Fast Five’ outright.” I honestly wouldn’t have minded reprising my role as Sean in the Fast and Furious franchise. But the script when it specifically pertained to my character was a bit too thin for my liking. “He might get it into his head that you’re purposely avoiding working with him.”

Nothing so malicious. Just circumstance. “He’ll get over it.” Probably.