Ryan's audition process was simple: give it your all, and if you get it, that's fine; if you don't, it's also fine. Auditioning was just part of the job. Still, some nerves were inevitable. His hand shook slightly as he lifted his cup, causing a splash of hot coffee to spill onto his scuffed Dr. Martens.
He scanned the holding room, a space so familiar he could draw it from memory: a stale, white-walled prison filled with young, fidgety actors sizing up their meager résumés against the rest of the lot. Over by the front desk, Penn Badgley—an oddity in a room like this, considering his established success on Gossip Girl—was casually flirting with the receptionist. Ryan quickly clocked the competition.
So I have to be better than him, Ryan thought. He was great as Seth Bregman.
To be honest, Ryan had always been a fan of Penn's. He'd loved You, and Penn's podcast—because who didn't host a pod these days?—had offered genuine comfort back when Ryan was still a struggling nobody. But deep down, he knew that given the chance, he could capture the tragic, frantic essence of Seth down to the bone.
Twenty minutes later, the inner door swung open. Penn emerged with an easy grin that radiated effortless confidence. Ryan looked past him, took a slow breath, and steadied his pulse.
"Ryan Stone," the casting assistant called out.
Ryan stood up, smoothing his jacket, and walked into the small audition room. Inside sat the casting director, the CD assistant, a camera operator behind a tripod, and a reader holding sides.
Susan Shopmaker, the CD, was flipping through a notebook when she looked up at him. "Hello. State your name and agency for me, please."
"Ryan Stone. Gersh Agency," he said, looking straight into the lens.
"Thank you. Seth Bregman is a young, greedy analyst who wants to make it big on Wall Street like Will Emerson. But his world crashes down when he realizes he's getting fired from the firm because it over-leveraged on toxic mortgage-backed securities. You have the scene with you?"
"Yes."
"Begin when you're ready."
The reader set the scene: Will and Seth driving slowly through lower Manhattan, the glass towers spanning up and out in front of them through the windshield. There was a long silence, and finally—
"So, am I getting fired?" Ryan said. His voice was quiet, fragile, cracking under the weight of the realization.
Instantly, his mind was pulled back to the final days before the overdose. In his previous life, he had been the consummate working-class actor who never quite caught his break. When that first lead role had finally come, he'd bought a bottle to celebrate opening week—until the brutal reviews rolled in and the box office tanked. The tears, the suffocating panic, and the slow realization that the dream was dead.
I'm such a waste. I wanna go home to see her. I have no future.
He remembered the neck of that Don Julio bottle, the cold dread of an entire life slipping away between his fingers.
The reader's voice brought him back. "Probably. Yes... almost definitely."
"Oh," Ryan murmured. "Why?"
The raw sadness that came out of that single word was enough to freeze the room. Susan, who had just been going through the motions, was floored. She had thought Ryan was just another pretty face—a dime a dozen in this business. She had walked in confident that Penn would lock down the part, but now she was completely unsettled.
He has potential, Susan thought. But who is he? Let me test him.
"That was great, Ryan," Susan said, leaning forward. "I was wondering if you could read a different scene."
The dread that had settled over his face lightened just a fraction. "Sure."
"Okay. You're crying in the washroom because of the firm's collapse, and Jared, the CEO, comes in to shave."
Ryan grabbed the arms of the chair. This time, his thoughts bypassed the industry altogether, plunging straight into the loss of his mother—taken by illness just weeks before the death of his career and his life.
Acting was all I had left after that, he thought. It was supposed to show her my love. She was always so supportive, and she never got to see her son succeed. But shame or disappointment was never on her face. The awkward Thanksgivings when the unavoidable question was asked to her: "Is he still acting?" She would always smile back, beaming with pride while I shuffled out of the conversation with my head down. She kept every memento from every tiny set, treasuring them like family heirlooms.
"You just fired me," Ryan whispered. His expression looked like a man forced to bury two lives at once: his mother's, and the future she had dreamed of for him.
"I'm sorry..." the reader said, momentarily transfixed, visibly thrown off balance by the intensity in Ryan's eyes.
Ryan paused for four long seconds, holding the quiet until the air grew thin. The assistant stopped typing. Susan closed her eyes, looking as though she wanted to cross the room and hug him.
"This is all I've ever wanted to do," Ryan whispered.
It was Seth Bregman's line. But standing in that room, reborn with all the grief of a second chance, had he ever said anything truer?
The room went dead silent.