Owen drove to Santa Monica.
Five minutes before nine in the morning, he arrived at Bleak House.
The moment he slowed down in front of the property, he realized the photographs didn't quite do it justice. It was enormous. From the street, it almost looked as though it occupied the space of three neighboring properties, with a wide facade and a strange presence that was difficult to mistake for a conventional house.
He parked in front of the entrance and turned off the engine. After getting out of the car, he remained still for a few seconds, observing the property.
There was something particular about seeing it in person. The architecture and the details of the facade.
'It's better than in the photos...' Owen thought, and that was only the exterior.
The real thing was inside.
From what he knew, the place was a mixture of library, personal museum, film archive, and workspace. It wasn't simply Guillermo del Toro's home decorated with a few mementos from his movies.
Books, paintings, sculptures, props, creatures, concept art, movie artifacts, and decades of material accumulated around the things that interested him.
Owen understood what it meant to have been invited there.
They hadn't asked him to come to Netflix's offices.
Nor to a restaurant or some impersonal meeting room where producers, agents, and executives could sit around a table.
Guillermo del Toro had invited him directly into his personal and creative space to talk about Frankenstein.
That gave this meeting a different kind of weight.
'They really want to convince me,' Owen thought with a small smile on his face.
The initial offer was already on the table. There was no audition pending, nor were there other actors competing for the role. If both sides reached a creative and financial agreement, the Creature was his.
And the simple fact that he was there already said quite a lot.
He had agreed to the meeting because Frankenstein genuinely interested him.
Something similar had happened with Babygirl. They had sent an initial offer and, if the project had sparked his interest, the next step would have been a conversation with the director.
Owen had simply read the script and diplomatically turned down the proposal.
There had been nothing else to discuss.
In this case, he had agreed to meet with the director.
That meant Netflix and Guillermo had already overcome the first obstacle: they had gotten Owen to want to listen.
The choice of location didn't seem accidental.
There wouldn't be agents sitting on opposite sides of a table talking about contracts, dates, and numbers. It didn't even feel like a conventional meeting between a director and an actor.
Guillermo was inviting him directly into his sanctuary.
It was difficult to imagine a more personal way to sell him on a movie, and Owen understood perfectly well why.
He didn't need the job.
Accepting Frankenstein meant giving three or four months of his schedule to someone else's production.
Months he could spend developing one of his own films, writing, producing, or financing something he would have complete control over and, most likely, make considerably more money from if it succeeded.
He hadn't gotten this far looking for someone to give him an opportunity.
That completely changed the dynamic.
Netflix could put several million dollars on the table, but money alone was hardly going to make the decision for him.
They had to sell him on the film and make him want to be part of it.
Bringing him directly to Bleak House, sitting him down alone with Guillermo del Toro, and letting the director himself explain why he had wanted to make Frankenstein for so many years was, Owen had to admit, a pretty effective way to start.
'A good move,' Owen thought as he walked toward the main gate.
Although he also knew it wasn't all strategy.
The Creature was far too important to Guillermo for that conversation to be reduced to a negotiation.
Owen had read the script.
He knew how much rested on that character.
If Guillermo truly wanted him for the role, he surely had a lot to tell him about how he saw the Creature.
Owen climbed the few steps leading to the entrance and pressed the doorbell.
Not even two seconds passed before a voice came through the intercom.
"Owen, come in. The door's open."
Owen raised his eyebrows slightly. He had probably seen him arrive through one of the cameras.
He pushed open the outer door and stepped inside.
A small path crossed the front garden toward the house. Owen walked slowly, still looking around as he approached the main entrance.
He didn't even get the chance to knock. The door opened first.
Guillermo del Toro appeared on the other side.
He wore simple, dark clothing, with a black jacket over a shirt of the same color. His gray hair, still thick, was brushed back in a somewhat messy way, with a few strands falling over his forehead. He wore thick black glasses framing light-colored eyes, and had a short, graying beard.
"Hello, Mr. del Toro," Owen replied as he accepted the handshake. "Am I late? Because I could've sworn my watch still worked."
Guillermo laughed.
"Guillermo. Call me Guillermo. And no, you're right on time. I've just been waiting for you for a while."
"Ah. Good. For a second there, I thought I was going to have to buy another watch," Owen commented lightly.
That was considering he was wearing a Rolex worth more than fifteen thousand dollars.
Guillermo laughed again. "Come in, come in," he said.
He placed a hand on Owen's shoulder and gave him a couple of friendly pats as he ushered him inside.
Owen nodded and crossed the threshold. He noticed that the director's enthusiasm was genuine.
Not the kind of professional hospitality you learned to recognize after enough meetings. Not a rehearsed smile because he had an actor standing in front of him whom he wanted to hire.
Owen found that considerably more pleasant.
Then he looked up and stopped.
The first thing he saw was a wide hallway with deep red walls, almost completely covered in paintings and frames of different sizes. Dark wood dominated much of the space: the floor, the moldings, the shelves, and an upper gallery that ran along part of the room.
But it was impossible for his eyes to remain on any one thing for long.
In the center, suspended above the hallway as though it were perfectly normal, was an enormous Frankenstein head.
Owen slowly raised his gaze toward it.
The face was gigantic. Pale, rigid, with the scars, the heavy brow, and that unmistakable expression of the classic monster.
Below it, several yards farther ahead, a nearly human-sized creature occupied the center of the corridor, surrounded by books, small sculptures, and objects Owen couldn't even identify yet.
To the left were enormous paintings framed in gold-colored wood.
To the right, a library opened behind a structure of carved wood, its shelves completely packed, and beyond that there was still more.
"Wow..." Owen murmured.
Guillermo, who had just closed the door behind them, watched him with a slightly amused expression at his reaction, "And you haven't seen anything yet. Follow me."
Owen didn't need to be told twice.
He followed him with growing curiosity, eager to discover what else a property like that could possibly be hiding.
For the next ten minutes, Guillermo led him through different rooms of the house, constantly stopping to point out a particular piece, explain where it came from, or tell him why it was there. It didn't feel like a tour prepared for an important visitor. He simply enjoyed talking about those things.
It didn't take Owen long to realize something.
Guillermo del Toro was extraordinarily nerdy.
Not simply a horror film enthusiast. His knowledge seemed encyclopedic. He could start by talking about a monster movie from the 1930s, move on to a Victorian illustration, connect it to a ghost story, mention European folklore, and end up explaining how all of that had influenced a comic decades later.
Far from getting bored, Owen ended up listening to him like a completely focused student.
At first, he had followed the tour out of politeness. Then he started asking questions.
"Is that original?"
"No. That one is a reproduction. The original is in a private collection," Guillermo replied.
A few minutes later, "And that drawing?"
Guillermo immediately changed direction to walk over to it.
"That one actually has an interesting story," he said, before launching into another explanation.
At some point, Owen even stopped thinking about the reason he was there.
He was no longer touring del Toro's house because Netflix wanted to hire him for a movie. He was simply following an extraordinarily enthusiastic man around as he showed him a collection he had spent years building.
Until Guillermo stopped in front of a door.
This time, he didn't say anything immediately.
He opened it and stepped slightly to the side.
"Welcome to the Living Room, as I like to call it."
Owen crossed the threshold and stared.
The room was practically a shrine dedicated to Frankenstein.
Bookshelves covered much of the walls, packed with books, old editions, figures, and small collectibles. There were framed illustrations, photographs, sculptures of different sizes, and versions of the Creature from different eras and adaptations.
High up on one of the walls was that enormous head of the Creature Owen had seen when he first entered the house.
This time, he only gave it a few seconds of attention.
There was far too much else to look at.
He began walking slowly around the room, leaning here and there to examine a figure or read the title of a book. He kept his hands close to his body out of caution and, whenever he wanted a better look at something, he leaned in until he was almost touching it without actually doing so.
Everything was connected to Mary Shelley's work.
But Owen noticed something else.
There was an enormous amount devoted to the Creature.
Victor Frankenstein was there, naturally.
But that room seemed to belong above all to his creation.
To the Creature.
To the character Guillermo wanted Owen to play.
"What do you think?" Guillermo asked from behind him.
Owen took a few seconds to answer. He was still looking at one of the display cases, "It's... incredible. It must have taken you forever to put all of this together."
Guillermo let out a small laugh and nodded, "Yeah. I've been obsessed with Frankenstein for quite a long time."
"No, seriously," Owen insisted. "It's really impressive. I'd always heard stories about Bleak House, I'd seen some pictures, and I know you've talked about the collection in interviews, but it's not the same. It's so much better seeing it in person."
Guillermo smiled and lightly scratched his head, "Heh, thanks."
Owen had already turned his attention back to one of the shelves, so he didn't fully notice the reaction.
If he had, he probably would have found it curious to see such an acclaimed director look almost shy at a compliment directed toward his collection. Not uncomfortable, exactly. More genuinely pleased that someone appreciated it with the same enthusiasm with which he had built it.
Owen continued slowly through the room.
Then he stopped in front of a row of books and murmured, almost to himself, "Jenna would love this place."
"Jenna?" Guillermo repeated.
"My girlfriend. I'm guessing you know her by name," Owen replied.
"Of course. Jenna Ortega. You two are a pretty well-known couple..." Guillermo said.
Owen smiled faintly. "She's a big fan of all this: monsters, horror, old books, things that are a little macabre..." he said, gesturing with one hand as he searched for the right way to explain it.
"We moved recently, and she uses one room to keep her books, figures, and all the things she collects. Although..." He looked around the room again and let out a brief laugh. "It's definitely nowhere near this. Much less the entire house."
Guillermo smiled. Then he thought for a few seconds before asking, "Her last name is Ortega... is she Mexican?"
The question didn't surprise Owen too much.
Guillermo obviously knew Jenna as an actress, but that didn't mean he had read her biography online or personally researched her.
"Not exactly," Owen replied. "She was born in California, but her parents have Mexican ancestry. So she identifies pretty strongly with that side of her family. But she didn't grow up in Mexico or anything like that."
Guillermo nodded slowly. "I see."
"And her Spanish..." Owen continued, the corner of his mouth beginning to lift. "Let's just say it's not exactly at your level."
Guillermo burst out laughing.
Jenna didn't speak Spanish badly.
She understood it fairly well and could hold a conversation much better than someone like Owen. But it also wasn't difficult to notice that she hadn't grown up speaking it on a daily basis.
Some words made her think a little longer than usual, and certain pronunciations, especially her rolled r's, could give her away immediately.
Owen took advantage of that every now and then.
Not because he genuinely thought she spoke badly, but because he knew exactly how much it could annoy her when he imitated her pronunciation.
That conversation didn't last much longer.
Guillermo let the subject drop and walked toward the center of the room.
His attention shifted upward.
Toward the enormous head of the Creature dominating one of the walls. The same image Owen had seen shortly after entering the house.
"Do you recognize it?" Guillermo asked.
His tone had changed slightly.
Owen noticed immediately.
For some reason, it was beginning to feel less like a guided tour and more like a teacher asking a student a question.
He raised his eyes toward the enormous face again.
"Yes. It's the Creature from Frankenstein, the 1931 film directed by James Whale," he replied without much hesitation. "Boris Karloff played the monster."
Guillermo turned his head toward him in surprise.
Not because the answer was particularly difficult for someone who worked in film, but because of how quickly Owen had given it.
Owen was twenty-one.
It wasn't exactly common for someone his age to immediately identify a horror movie from 1931 and, on top of that, name both the director and the actor without stopping to think about it.
Owen caught his expression, "I did my homework before coming," he said.
"I can see that," Guillermo said with a laugh. "And what did you think of the movie?"
Owen exhaled softly through his nose. This time, he needed to think a little longer.
Not because he didn't have an answer, but because he had several.
"For its time, I completely understand why it was such a huge success," he began. "The Creature's design alone ended up defining how millions of people imagine Frankenstein even now."
He gestured vaguely toward the head.
"The forehead, the scars, the bolts... you can show that silhouette without saying a single thing and anyone knows what they're looking at. That's difficult to achieve."
Guillermo remained silent, listening to him.
"And it has scenes that are already part of popular culture," Owen continued. "Victor... well, Henry Frankenstein in this version, shouting 'It's alive!', the entire laboratory sequence, the Creature's first appearance..."
'He even remembers that his name is Henry in that movie...' Guillermo thought, still slightly surprised.
That settled it for him.
Owen really had watched the movie.
He hadn't simply read a summary before coming or memorized a couple of names to make a good impression. He had paid enough attention to remember one of those differences that could easily go unnoticed by someone who knew Frankenstein only through cultural references.
Guillermo found that pleasantly unexpected.
He had met enormously talented young performers who simply didn't have much interest in film history.
Some barely watched anything outside contemporary cinema, while others could spend years working in the industry without ever feeling curious enough to sit down and watch an old black-and-white production from an era completely different from their own.
Owen, completely unaware of the little test he was passing, kept talking. "Besides, it would be pretty unfair for me to sit here almost a hundred years later and criticize the effects, the pacing, or certain choices as if it had been filmed yesterday. You have to watch it understanding when it was made."
Guillermo nodded slowly. That answer seemed to interest him more than a simple list of facts.
"But..." Owen added.
"But?" Guillermo repeated, raising an eyebrow.
"I don't like it at all as an adaptation," Owen said, shaking his head.
"Why?" Guillermo asked.
There was no offense in his voice. On the contrary, he seemed genuinely interested in hearing the answer.
Owen began with what, to him, was the most important difference: the Creature itself.
The novel presented a being who, after being abandoned and learning on his own, demonstrated extraordinary intellectual ability.
He was sensitive and reflective.
His violence didn't come from being a stupid creature incapable of understanding the world, but precisely the opposite.
He understood perfectly well what was happening.
He understood that others considered him repulsive before they even knew him. And over time, all that sensitivity ended up being twisted under the weight of abandonment, humiliation, and hatred.
In the 1931 film, however, much of that disappeared.
Karloff's Creature was presented as a far more primitive being. He could barely communicate, didn't articulate words, and expressed himself through grunts, gestures, and clumsy movements.
The result had been so visually powerful that it practically created an entirely new image of the character.
An image that many later adaptations would end up copying.
To Owen, that was practically the opposite of the character Shelley had written, and it wasn't the only difference.
There was Victor as well.
The novel didn't exactly present him as that classic mad scientist locked away in a Gothic castle while a storm lit up the sky and impossible machines sent electricity crackling across the room.
The film, on the other hand, helped create precisely that archetype.
Even Fritz, the hunchbacked assistant who accompanied Frankenstein, was an invention of the adaptation. In the novel, Victor carried out his work alone. But that character would eventually become, indirectly, the precursor to another figure inseparable from Frankenstein in popular culture: Igor.
Finally, there was the ending.
The novel carried the tragedy through to its ultimate consequences.
The film did not.
Elizabeth survived. The Creature ended up cornered by a mob inside the windmill and apparently died when it was set on fire. Henry survived and returned home to recover.
It was a much more conventional ending.
"But that doesn't mean I don't like the movie," Owen clarified. "If I completely forget about the book and just watch it as a 1931 horror movie, I like it a lot. It's a classic for a reason."
Guillermo looked at him without saying anything. Then he nodded slowly, "I feel the same way."
He raised a hand and pointed toward the enormous head on the wall.
"I love this movie. I have two giant Karloff heads in my house. I think that makes it pretty clear how much I like it. But loving what James Whale did as a film is one thing. Believing that this is Mary Shelley's Creature is something else entirely."
"Exactly," Owen said.
After everything they had talked about over the past few minutes, it was becoming obvious that the two of them shared a fairly similar view of the work.
Guillermo remained looking at the head for a few more seconds before turning back toward him.
"But you've already read my script," he said. "And it isn't an exact, word-for-word copy of the novel either. Do you still like it?"
By that point, he had already realized that Owen was far more of a fan of the book than he had initially imagined, so he was genuinely curious to know how he had reacted to all the changes in his version.
"I loved it. Although I'll admit that when I first saw that Victor was once again a man in his forties, I was a little disappointed," Owen replied. "I wanted to see an adaptation that finally showed him as the brilliant young student he is in the novel. And not because I wanted to play him myself. It's just that almost every movie makes him much older."
Guillermo smiled slightly at the clarification.
Owen explained that this had probably been his first objection while reading. He had also quickly noticed that the family structure was different, that several relationships had been altered, and that the story departed from Shelley in quite a few places.
However, by the time he reached the end, those differences had stopped mattering very much to him.
"I think that, out of every version of Frankenstein I've seen, this one captures the soul of the Creature better than any of them."
The statement immediately caught Guillermo's full attention.
He walked over to one of the red sofas and sat down before motioning for Owen to do the same across from him.
"Why do you think that about my script?"
Owen sat down.
The question carried more weight than it seemed to.
There had been far too many adaptations of Frankenstein for that comparison to be a small one, and Guillermo wanted to hear how Owen had reached that conclusion. Especially because, after talking with him for a while, he no longer had the impression that Owen was simply trying to please him.
The role was already Owen's if everything went well. There was no need for empty praise.
Owen began by explaining one of the few things about the novel that had never completely convinced him.
The Creature began as innocent, sensitive, and extraordinarily intelligent. He discovered the world practically from scratch, learned by observing human beings, and suffered constant rejection.
But eventually, that victim also became a victimizer.
His hatred for Victor grew to the point where he deliberately began destroying everything his creator loved. It was no longer simply about confronting the man responsible for his suffering. He murdered people who had played no part in his abandonment simply because he knew their deaths would hurt Victor.
Innocent people used as instruments of revenge.
Owen understood perfectly well what Shelley intended with that. The Creature was not a flawless hero, and the novel was not trying to present a simple divide between an evil creator and a completely good creation. In the end, both of them destroyed each other.
But precisely because of that, at a certain point, Owen found it difficult to continue seeing the Creature solely as the tragic, misunderstood figure he had been at the beginning.
Something different happened in Guillermo's script.
His Creature retained much more of his purity.
He could feel anger. He could react violently when attacked. He could hate Victor for giving him life only to immediately reject him.
But he did not begin methodically murdering the people close to Victor simply to punish him.
Fundamentally, he remained a victim.
And to Owen, that reinforced much more strongly one of the ideas he had always found most powerful in Frankenstein: the possibility that the true monster had never been the Creature at all.
From the moment of his birth, the world decided what he was based solely on his appearance.
In Guillermo's version, something noble remained within him.
That was what Owen found especially compelling, and why he wanted to play him.
Then there was the ending.
The Creature forgiving Victor.
To Owen, that decision probably summarized the entire philosophy of the script better than anything else.
Owen saw it as a clear departure from the novel, but also as a choice deeply respectful of the spirit he had always found in the character.
The Creature could have every reason in the world to become a monster and chose not to.
Just imagining himself performing that final part of the story, covered in prosthetics and costume, facing Victor in those last moments, stirred an emotion in Owen that was difficult to ignore.
It was one of those scenes an actor could almost feel before filming it.
He could imagine the audience's silence, their reaction after seeing it and, yes, also the kind of conversation a performance like that could generate during awards season.
Guillermo remained looking at him for several seconds.
His expression had changed.
Not because Owen had just offered him some unexpectedly brilliant interpretation of his own script, but because he had arrived exactly at the heart of something Guillermo had been trying to build for years.
Guillermo had always felt a particular connection to monsters. He did not see them merely as things meant to provoke fear.
That was also why he had never been completely satisfied with the path the Creature took in Shelley's novel.
He understood the transformation perfectly and recognized the power of that tragedy, but that wasn't the Creature he wanted to bring to the screen.
Then Guillermo smiled and extended a hand toward him. "That's exactly what I think the Creature should represent."
Owen lowered his gaze to the offered hand, slightly surprised by the gesture, before shaking it and feeling a small surge of pride.
Receiving that reaction felt almost like earning Guillermo's personal approval.
"Then I understood the script correctly," Owen said with a smile.
"Perfectly," Guillermo replied.
He squeezed Owen's hand enthusiastically before letting go.
"And let me tell you something," he added then. "I want to make something clear, because I wouldn't want you sitting here thinking you're the guy we called because someone else said no."
"Garfield?" Owen said.
Guillermo nodded. "We were talking to him about the role. Pretty seriously, actually. But when those conversations with Andrew started, I still hadn't seen your movie. Then I saw it, and it annoyed the hell out of me."
Owen let out a brief laugh. "Is that a good thing?"
"A very good thing. Because I already had a pretty clear idea of how I wanted to do this, and then suddenly you show up playing Will Hunting," Guillermo said, shaking his head while still smiling.
"I watched the whole movie. Loved it, by the way. But then I thought: shit," he added.
"Why?" Owen asked, amused.
"Not because of how you look. Not because of your age. It was what you did with Will. That way he's always ready to attack someone before they can get too close. The anger and the intelligence. The arrogance that's really fear, and then those moments when all of that disappears for a second and you see the kid underneath. That's exactly what I need here."
Owen looked down for a few seconds, processing it. "But you were still negotiating with Garfield, right?"
Guillermo exhaled slowly and nodded. "Yes. I couldn't suddenly say: I found someone I like better, cancel everything with Andrew."
That would have been unfair.
Guillermo had spoken with Garfield several times during the process. He liked him, considered him an excellent actor, and Andrew had also read the script under the appropriate confidentiality agreements. They had talked about the Creature, the tone of the film, and what Guillermo was looking for in the character.
Garfield understood it.
Just not in quite the same way.
With Owen, Guillermo had found a stronger alignment with his vision of the character.
And from an acting standpoint, he wasn't betting on some unknown promise either.
Owen had far less experience than Garfield, of course, but he had won Best Actor at Cannes as the second-youngest winner in history and had publicly said that he wanted to become one of the greatest actors of all time.
"But anyway, as you already know, the talks ended up going nowhere," Guillermo continued. "And if I'm going to be completely honest with you..."
A small smile appeared on his face.
"I was a little happy about it, because I already had my eye on you. So you're not here simply because Andrew walked away. If you were here as an emergency replacement, I'd tell you. I wouldn't have a problem with that."
Owen definitely liked hearing that.
There was an important difference between being the next available name after a negotiation fell apart and knowing that the director himself had already been considering him as an alternative he might even prefer.
"Thanks. I'll try to do the best I can when the time comes," Owen said.
Guillermo narrowed his eyes slightly. His smile turned more knowing, "When the time comes? That sounds like you're going to sign."
Owen let out a small laugh. "At this point, it would be pretty strange if I came all the way here, spent an hour talking to you about Frankenstein, and then said no."
"So that's a yes," Guillermo said.
"It's a yes to the project," Owen corrected him. "That doesn't mean I'm going to accept the first number Netflix put on the table. I have a manager and agents who would probably kill me if I walked out of here saying I agreed to everything without negotiating."
Guillermo raised both hands, completely in agreement. "Negotiate all you want. It's not my money."
Owen burst out laughing.
"Just don't end up backing out like Garfield," Guillermo added, this time in a slightly more serious tone.
"Don't worry. I'm not going to let them turn this into an endless negotiation just to squeeze out every last dollar," Owen said.
Guillermo nodded, satisfied.
With that small matter practically settled, the conversation returned to Frankenstein.
Now Owen had much more specific questions about what playing the Creature would actually involve.
One of his main concerns was the makeup.
The script described his appearance, but it didn't specify how much of him would be covered in prosthetics or how recognizable his face would remain. As an actor, that concerned him considerably more than it might seem.
He didn't mind spending hours in a makeup chair or completely transforming his body if the character required it.
What he didn't want was to be buried beneath a rigid mask.
If his eyebrows, cheeks, mouth, and especially his eyes lost their expressiveness, a large part of the performance would disappear along with them.
Guillermo reassured him quickly.
He didn't want to hide Owen.
He wanted to transform him.
There was a difference.
The prosthetics would be extensive, and the Creature would have an unmistakably artificial appearance, constructed from different bodies, but the design had to allow Owen to act.
That put Owen much more at ease.
Then there was the physical aspect.
Guillermo imagined the Creature as tall, lean, and powerful, but not with the physique of a bodybuilder.
Owen was already in good shape, but he would probably need to gain some weight and build a slightly more imposing physique. Nothing crazy, though. He didn't have to become Captain America or anything like that.
The conversation ended up lasting much longer than expected.
When Owen looked at the time again, they had been talking for nearly three hours.
Eventually, there wasn't much left to discuss.
They said goodbye with a very different feeling from the one they had when Owen first arrived.
They were no longer trying to figure out whether they wanted to work together.
That had been decided.
Now there were only details left.
The money would probably be the easiest part.
Owen knew Larry and CAA would try to improve Netflix's offer, but he also had no intention of allowing an overly aggressive negotiation to jeopardize a movie he genuinely wanted to make.
The schedule, on the other hand, could prove considerably more complicated.
Because the commitment to Frankenstein wouldn't begin on the first day of filming.
Before that, there would be makeup tests, molds of his face and body, costume fittings, and rehearsals.
All of that would take time, and Owen already had other projects to arrange around it.
But when he got into his car and drove away from Bleak House, he already knew one thing with absolute certainty.
He would play that role.
No matter what.
It was almost one in the afternoon when he headed toward the offices of his production company.
In theory, by then they should already have finished the auditions for the three finalists to star in Curve. Curry and the rest of the small team had handled that final stage.
When he arrived, he made his way through the offices to the common room.
It was a fairly informal space, with a few tables for eating, couches, a television, and a couple of things to pass the time.
There he found Curry sitting with Matt and Cooper, Curry's best friend.
The three of them were eating while talking animatedly.
Owen slowed his pace slightly when he saw them.
'How does this guy manage to make friends with everyone?' he thought, looking at Matt.
Matt had a real gift for that.
Not necessarily for instantly turning anyone into a friend, but for walking into a room, finding something to talk about, and making it seem ten minutes later as though he had known the other person for months.
Owen walked over to the table.
Curry was the first to see him. A smile immediately appeared on his face.
"Owen, we have our lead!"
"Oh, yeah? Which one?" Owen asked.
There wasn't even any need for a formal greeting.
By that point, there was already enough familiarity between them to skip that sort of thing.
Curry and Cooper had also changed quite a bit since their first meetings with Owen.
At first, there had still been a certain distance.
After all, they knew perfectly well who he was before they ever met him personally.
Initially, they saw him through the image of the great indie-film prodigy. But spending time around him had destroyed that impression fairly quickly.
Not because he wasn't a prodigy. But because of Owen's personality, and also thanks to Matt, who had a particular talent for turning almost any professional environment into something considerably more relaxed.
"Inde Navarrette," Cooper replied, raising one finger.
"Hey! I wanted to say it," Curry protested, turning toward his friend.
Cooper simply kept eating.
Curry shook his head before turning back to Owen, "Well, technically it's not finalized yet. You still have to approve it, decide how much we're going to pay her, send the contract, officially let her know, and all that."
Owen nodded as he pulled out an empty chair and sat down.
'Inde Navarrette...' he thought.
The name sounded familiar.
It took him a few seconds before he finally managed to connect it to a face.
Owen hadn't been present during the casting process.
In fact, from the beginning, he had put Curve's team together specifically so the project could move forward without constantly depending on him. He had hired Curry as director, chosen the cinematographer, assembled the rest of the crew, and left the actor selection process in the hands of the casting team.
Once that entire structure was functioning, he had stepped back considerably from that stage.
He hadn't completely disengaged.
He still received updates, had read profiles, seen some photographs, and knew the names of the three actresses who had reached the final round.
But he hadn't been present for the in-person auditions or directly participated in the final tests.
"If that's your choice, that's fine," he finally said. "It'll be Inde. I'll have them prepare the offer, let her know, and send the contract."
Curry blinked. "That easy?"
Owen looked at him. "Yeah."
"Great," Curry murmured.
It still felt a little strange to him to have that much creative freedom.
He was the director, naturally, and Owen had hired him precisely because he trusted his judgment. Even so, part of him had expected Owen to want to personally review every important detail before approving it.
Owen, however, saw it much more simply.
They had gone through a serious casting process.
They hadn't picked three random names.
All three finalists had shown that they were good enough to lead the short. If Curry, after seeing them perform in person and working through the scenes with them, thought Inde was the best choice, Owen saw no reason to impose a different decision from above.
Maybe one had a little more experience. Another might be slightly cheaper.
But they were talking about relatively small differences.
A thousand dollars, two thousand, maybe three thousand more.
Owen had far too much financial flexibility to sacrifice his director's creative choice over a difference like that.
And so the day went on.
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