Role of a Lifetime II
By: Kenneth Kirk
(© 2023 by the author)

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

kkirk@tickiestories.us

Chapter 19

When the Screen Actors Guild award nominations were announced, Brant was again honored for his supporting role in The Seminary Scandals and, unbelievably, I was nominated for Best Actor for my performance in Stronger Than Ever.  Mom was also nominated for Best Female Actor in a Dramatic Television Series.  Mom and Dad told us we were doing very well in the awards races for 2022.  Privately, Brant and I were realistic that there were considerably fewer competitors this year due to the massive shutdowns of the studio productions during the pandemic.  Nevertheless, each nomination astounded me because it was affirmation that I have a good level of respect within the industry.  Wow, life has changed in the past two years!

Before we knew it, we were attending the SAG awards, sharing a limo with Mom and Dad.  The evening was a whirlwind with shouting, hugging, music, and quick interviews on the red carpet and in various backstage areas.   We saw many friends and coworkers from actors to directors and producers and top crew members.  On this particular night, we again had cause to celebrate as Brant’s name was called by the lovely Penelope Cruz as the Best Supporting Actor of 2021.  As the cameras zoomed in on us while she spoke, my heart practically burst with pride in Brant’s achievement.  We immediately jumped to our feet for a tight embrace followed by a long kiss as the theme song from The Seminary Scandals played on the PA system.

Brant dashed to the stage to accept the statuette from Penelope along with a hug and kisses on the cheeks and a handshake from co-presenter Jeremy Renner. 

He stepped to the microphone and began speaking loudly to be heard above the adulation.  “Thank you!  Thank you!  Thank you!” he grinned broadly.  When the applause tapered off, Brant waved the award and shouted, “This is the best feeling!  I’m so grateful to receive this award from my peers: the actors and actresses who grace our screens and tell our stories.  The story written by Hank Yelson, produced by Harvey Levy, M. G. Keller, and Diane Paulson, and directed by Richard Blaine was such an exciting story to tell.  Thank you all for trusting me to bring Lorenzo Bianco to life.  There are dozens of people to thank from my wonderful parents and siblings to my teachers and previous directors and my in-laws who encourage me so much.  I especially want to thank my beautiful and talented husband Sky Ford for teaching me so much about who I am and who I want to be!  Without him, well, my life would not be so much fun!  And I don’t think I could have brought as much emotional understanding to this role.  Thanks also to the other actors in The Seminary Scandals, especially the amazing Randall O’Malley.  Thanks, dude!  I love you all.  But I love Sky the most!”  Amid thunderous applause, Brant went to the back of the stage as I wept openly, comforted by my dear mother.

Half an hour later, Rachel Hughes nabbed the win for her work in Beauty Pageant.  She looked spectacular and gave a heart-felt shout-out to Dad, Brant, and me.

Will Smith won the Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role award for “King Richard.”  Even though I didn’t get my own statuette, it was a very exciting evening and our 2 wins out of 3 noms score as a family was pretty awesome. 

********* 

Filming for my 2-episode arc on Beauty Pageant began the day after the SAG Awards with a gigantic brunch in honor of the star of the series, Rachel Hughes, my own mother.  I had rehearsals while some other scenes were being filmed.  By Wednesday, I was made-up and filmed two scenes that were short and relatively easy.  After that, I filmed every day for about 10 days and was then finished with the project.  The whole time on set was interesting and rewarding, even my first hetero screen kisses and (OMG) a straight sex scene.  Britannia Flood, my romantic co-star chided me a bit during the filming of our scenes together, especially the one when we get sexy together.  She said it was a great honor to be my first onscreen girl and that I’d done a passable job of pretending to be attracted to “vijayjay.”  I responded that I thought the Emmy voters should consider how much I was working against type.  The episodes in which I would appear were the first two episodes of the new season and would air in September.

Meanwhile, Brant was appearing on every talk show his producers could book to plug My Days in Kabul and then Manhunt on the Moon, which hit the theaters on March 15.  Brant’s performance as LT Commander Oscar de Oliviera was sometimes riveting and always powerful as the lieutenant colonel spearheaded the investigation into the murder of a research scientist at a closed research station on the Moon.  As a nod to Brant’s fanbase, the director included a few shirtless scenes and one shower scene in which a good portion of Brant’s fabulous flesh was on display.  We agreed the nudity was quite peripheral to the plot, but we laughed that it might be years before we would ever again play a role that didn’t exploit our bodies at least a little.

With both movies playing at the same time, it seemed that Brant was everywhere – on television, on billboards, on pop-ups online, and on posters around town.  Between all these publicity appearances and his preparation work for RFK, he stayed very busy.   

********* 

Late in March, we received the draft script for Living Large.  Brant was being interviewed for a short segment of 60 Minutes while I was in rehearsals for my 9-1-1 appearance.  I got a text from Juanita.

JUANITA: LL Script received.  Dinner at our place tonight?

ME:            If it works for Brant.  Time?

JUANITA: 7:30?

ME:            Yes.

Five minutes later I received another text from her.

JUANITA: Brant says dinner okay.  Dress casual.

ME:            😃 See you then!         

********* 

Dinner was Cajun Tilapia with red beans and rice taken on the back patio.  I’ll admit that just being with Hector and knowing that one of these days we would be fucking each other made me a bit crazy during the meal and our discussion but we all enjoyed hanging out.

Brant had glanced over the script before I got home from the studio and thought it looked like a very interesting plot.  Of course, it was not very definitive when it described the sex scenes.  Apparently, the plan was to let us more or less do what comes naturally when filming those.  That technique had certainly paid off well for Laying Low, so we hoped it worked as well for Living Large.

After dinner, we stepped inside to Juanita and Hector’s living room so we had better lighting to look at the scripts.  For a few minutes we all had our heads buried in Harold Gillespie’s screenplay, but after a while we became more conversational about it.

“This is going to be quite a change for me,” Hector noted.

You got that right, I thought.  “How do you mean?”

“I’ve never gotten to play a professional person before.  I’m pretty thrilled to be portraying an architect and, I guess, a very good one if Chrystal follows me from Miami.”

Brant chuckled.  “I think Chrystal is following you for more reasons than your architectural talents, dude.”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh,” my husband said.  “Have you ever looked at your ass?”

I laughed and Hector, bless him, blushed.

Juanita laughed, too.  “I think that is obviously her motive.  She’s a real cougar, isn’t she?”

“You know the part was written specifically for Rachel, right?” I asked.

“Really?”  Juanita said.  “I didn’t know.”

“I don’t think there is any actress better at playing a cougar than my mom.”

“She’s the only Emmy-nominated cougar I know, Sky,” Juanita shot back.

We all laughed at that.

“Chrystal is definitely the comic relief in the movie,” Brant noted.

“She’ll love that!” I chuckled.

“The script is quite detailed about most of the scenes,” Hector observed, “but sort of stops when there’s a sex scene.  Aren’t those scripted out?”

“Most of the time,” Brant nodded, “but David Dawson told us when we were filming Laying Low that he would just let us do what came natural.  I think it worked well because we had so much enthusiasm for each other that it came across.  Of course, we were falling in love as the filming progressed and I think you can tell at the end of the movie that we are more committed to each other than at the beginning.”

“I’ll bet that does explain the high degree of realism in Laying Low’s sex scenes,” Juanita said.  “You’re playing a couple in love and you actually are such a couple.”

“Shit!” Hector exclaimed suddenly.

We all looked at him curiously.

“What’s the matter, hon?” Juanita asked.

The poor man looked quite unsure of himself.  “Well, I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Why not?” Brant asked.

“I, uhm.  You see, uhm.  Well, two reasons, I guess.  I mean, I love you guys.  A lot.  But not, you know, not that way.  Uhm, fuck, I’m looking forward to fucking your asses, sorry Juanita, but I don’t know if I can pretend to be in love with you.”

Brant and I both chuckled.

“Hector, we don’t expect you to be in love with us,” Brant said.  “You know, romantically.  But, I think if you can relax and get excited about having some hot forbidden sex, it will come across as falling in love.”

“Maybe.”

“What was the second reason you aren’t sure about this?” I asked.

“Uhm, well, this is sort of embarrassing.”

“We’re all friends here, dude,” Brant assured him.

“I don’t know anything, well, not much anyhow, about having sex with a guy.  I’m afraid I’ll come across as some sort of dip shit or worse.”

I laughed.  “Sorry, Hector, I didn’t mean to laugh.  Look, your character has just gotten divorced and feels drawn to guys, especially Brant’s character.  The fact that you aren’t very experienced with men will probably be a big plus.  All the new experiences you’ll have will register on your face and it will seem very real.”

“Sky’s right, my friend.  Don’t worry about the sex.  I promise you it will be fun and it will be quite realistic, too.  Your performance will be fine.”

“Honey,” Juanita said, “you just need to relax.  You’re a very sexy man and you will respond to these two beautiful men very convincingly.  You’re going to turn in a great performance and have some very good fun at the same time.”

Once again, I was amazed at Juanita’s openness to this whole situation.  I need to be more like her.

“One thing that we did during the filming of Laying Low that made a big difference for me was to refrain from having any sex between the filming of our sex scenes.” 

Hector stared at Brant as if he was crazy, then glanced at me.  I nodded and he looked back at Brant.  After a moment he looked at Juanita with an apologetic look.  “You mean, not any at all?” Hector asked with a hint of incredulity.

“Yes,” I nodded, “but we weren’t in relationship with anyone else, so that made it easier.”

“Why?”

Brant smiled.  “We reasoned that if we were really horny, we’d have a more, uh, raucous time during the filmed scenes.”

“It worked, too,” I agreed.  “We would usually have 4 or 5 days between scenes and we would both be quite horned up so we would really go at it when we filmed.  David also agreed to film one of the scenes every few days so we weren’t weeks without.”

“Very clever,” Juanita said with a head shake.  “If I can get one shot at Hector the day after you film, I could agree to help out.”

“Oh, girl!” I giggled.  “I think that’s a very generous offer on your part.”

We shared a general chuckle, although I’m not entirely sure we convinced Hector that delaying gratification would be such an enhancement of our performances.  Just you wait and see, I thought.

To be continued...

Posted: 06/09/2023