The Star

Maxwell Dandy has a fine physique - tight, lithe, CASTABLE. Taut mocha body topped off with thick chocolate moustache. And, lurking beneath, the thin satisfied lips of a hatefully spectacular lover.

He is invariably the first to take off his shirt when the weather allows, to parade around La Cienega Park in his unfeasibly tight shorts (on anyone else ridiculous, but around his upper thighs quite the sexiest thing that any passer-by can ever have seen). He will stop and talk to THE FANS (if they're able to speak), sign photos, kiss babies, "do his thing"... and they will swoon and faint, probably, and he'll call an ambulance and sit in the back with the emasculated husband, reassuring him that his wife will be ok, that it was just the heat, when we all know that she's only cracked her head open because HE'S SO BLOODY GORGEOUS.

I'm working with Maxwell Dandy next month. We're filming the sequel to Prometheus Lives. I'm playing Fourteenth Mortal. I wish I was playing the eagle.

Bathtime

Maxwell Dandy peels off the facemask and blinks into the bathroom mirror. Widening his eyes, he feels the remnants of the mud crack in the grooves of his forehead. He wipes them away with a fluffy white hotel hand towel, rolls his shoulders and peels off the dressing gown.

It has been a long day's filming.

The bath is nearly full behind him - he reaches out through the steam and turns the taps to off. The salts fizz in the water below and spread out into the bathroom air, as if it is being hot-boxed with Friar's Balsam.

Maxwell dips a toe fearfully below the surface, then, with growing confidence, a foot and a calf. He reaches across, opens the window a crack and commits his other foot to the tub.

He lowers his bottom below the surface and sighs as the water crackles against his skin.

There is a telephone beside his head. He reaches across and dials nought for reception. Oysters and champagne will be delivered to his suite in twenty-five minutes time. He wonders belatedly whether Janine likes shellfish.

Russian Dolls

Jennifer Parker scrolled back up to the top of the page and perused her composition. It was a fair assessment of an above-average entertainment, she thought. Not too generous, but not unkind by any means. She had picked up on all the obvious points of interest - the continuous use of iambic hexameter, the elaborately constructed overhead set, the controversial casting of Maxwell Dandy as the eponymous vivisectionist...

The content of her evaluation was not in question, but her chosen style would inevitably be a matter of concern. She hoped her reviewer would look kindly on her overuse of the semi-colon and the Oxford comma, and instead enjoy the smoothly continuous flow of her prose. Of course, his or her concerns would be affected by the spectre of his or her own reviewer, although surely that individual could not be too harsh for fear of being critiqued in turn.

Jennifer read through the piece one final time, then pressed "Send". The cogs of the critical machine creaked ever onwards.

The Supporting Cast

I am not the main character in this movie; I am in the background of every shot, loitering blurrily, out of focus but always in the picture.

Everywhere I go, so too does the camera, filming Maxwell Dandy's every move in crystalline close-up; every hair, every pore is meticulously explored.

In the café, as I sip my cappucino quietly, I look up and into the lens. Maxwell Dandy is at the next table, delivering a devastatingly honest and crushingly moving monologue, soliloquising like a tragic hero with his unfeasibly well-defined jawline and his Roman nose and his sensational rhetoric. He improvises most of his lines, you know.

They are filming him now, and me, as I type. He's crying. He's lighting a cigarette. He's looking around. He's looking at me. The camera is rolling still. I'm going to have to stop now. He's walking over. He's calling my name. He's shouting. Maybe my part is bigger than I'd thought.