The Best Movie Actor In Hollywood! Chapter 61

"What's the proposal?" Matthew asked first.

"Yeah, James," another actor chimed in. "What kind of proposal is going to be the death of us?"

James McAvoy answered with an exaggerated expression, "Tom thinks we're slacking off in our training."

"What?" Michael Cudlitz cut in indignantly. "My bones feel like they're about to fall apart after every single one of his damn workouts."

"Don't interrupt. Let James finish," Michael Fassbender said.

Cudlitz shut his mouth, and James McAvoy continued. "The bastard said our current training doesn't meet his standards, that it needs to be intensified. He wants us to move out of the hotel and into the old barracks at the airfield, eating nothing but canned rations for every meal. He said we'd have to practice crawling through the mud and even sleep on the cold, filthy ground sometimes."

Many of the actors' faces paled at James's words. This was London in November. If things really went that way...

James wasn't finished. "He also wants to increase the weight for our runs from thirty pounds to forty, and up the distance from three miles to five. On top of that, he said that to get us into a soldier's mindset, he's going to have us billeted next to the pyrotechnics team's test site, where they've been testing explosives for the past ten days. And we'll only be allowed to sleep three hours a night."

A stunned silence fell over the locker room at his words. Even Matthew felt a chill creep down his spine.

"Oh, that's the worst part." James looked completely exasperated. "Goetzman thinks he's right and told him to draw up a new training plan."

"FUCK!" a loud voice cursed. Then the floodgates opened, and more actors started shouting their opinions.

Matthew leaned back against his locker, a sudden thought striking him: this might have something to do with him.

But then again, Tom couldn't possibly have come up with such a hellish training regimen just for him, right?

Perhaps he really was just a serious and responsible military instructor. Still, the thought of eating canned food, crawling through mud, and even sleeping on the cold, filthy ground in the middle of a British November was enough to make anyone shudder.

"That's inhumane... just inhumane..." Matthew muttered deliberately, seeing the group of actors united in their outrage.

The marching, drilling, weight training, and push-ups were getting harder by the day, yet none of the weapons and tactical training that the actors were actually interested in had even started. It was impossible to claim that the twenty-five men didn't hold a collective opinion about Tom.

In fact, from the behavior of actors like Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, and Michael Cudlitz, it was clear that neither the North American actors nor the British natives were impressed with Tom—much like the soldiers of Easy Company disliked Captain Speirs in the first episode of the script.

It was an almost inevitable consequence for any overly harsh military instructor.

A fresh chorus of curses aimed at Tom erupted in the locker room.

"Keep it down! Keep it down!" Matthew raised a hand, gesturing downward. "Tom's locker room is right next door. We'll be in deep shit if he hears us."

James waved a dismissive hand. "He won't hear. I saw him leave with that lunatic Kate. They're probably on a date."

The two of them often left the airfield together when they were off-duty, and everyone in the cast knew about their relationship.

So far, however, only Matthew had noticed that the pair seemed to have a particular fetish, often slipping away to the warehouse for a rendezvous.

Another British actor, who seemed to have a grudge against the two, said with theatrical flair, "Oh, Jesus Christ, I hope they drop dead on their way to the restaurant or wherever the hell they're going. Amen."

"Amen to that, brother."

Everyone in the locker room knew Matthew had clashed with Kate, and he made no secret of his feelings. "I hope that Land Rover of theirs ends up in a scrap heap, too."

His expression turned serious. "Guys, you'd better prepare yourselves."

Michael Fassbender asked, "Prepare for what?"

"For a world of pain." Matthew shrugged and spread his hands. "Tom's our instructor. What can we do? The good news is, it'll all be over soon."

James shook his head. "Not all of us are in your kind of shape."

Matthew shook his head as well, deliberately stressing the word "instructor." "What can we do? He's the instructor."

Michael Fassbender said suddenly, "It'd be great if he just quit."

Someone else agreed. "It'd be even better if the production replaced him. I have no desire to be rolling around in the mud, especially not in this weather."

"Let me just remind you guys," Matthew said, again putting deliberate emphasis on his words, "Tom is the production's special military instructor."

"So what?" Michael Cudlitz said dismissively. "The army's full of guys like him."

"Of course," Michael Fassbender chimed in, starting to connect the dots. "Plenty of officers get discharged every year, and Tom doesn't have any notable experience as an instructor. I bet he only got this job because of his connection to Kate."

He was voicing what everyone was thinking. "If Tom really implements the training program James described, we have to do something. He can't be allowed to stay."

James nodded vigorously, echoing the sentiment. "If he makes me eat canned shit and sleep in the mud every day, he can go to hell!"

"Calm down, the new plan isn't official yet." Matthew stepped forward, struggling to conceal a satisfied smile. "And even if it is, we can just tough it out for a few weeks."

Several of the men shot him a look. In their eyes, Matthew seemed like a more tolerant person—he'd put up with the arrogance of that psycho Kate, so this little bit of training must be nothing to him.

James shook his head. "You're too patient, man."

Michael Fassbender stood up and clapped Matthew on the shoulder. "It's easy to get sick in this weather. The shoot is about to start. What happens if we come down with pneumonia or something? You think the production is going to wait for us?"

Matthew was left speechless. He realized he hadn't needed to say much at all. These young, cocky actors already had a deep-seated dislike for men like Tom West.

When he thought about it, it made sense. They were actors dreaming of stardom, not soldiers with a military mindset. Most of them had never been subjected to this kind of intense physical hardship; of course they were going to push back.

Masochists, after all, were a minority of a minority.

One by one, the actors left the locker room. As Matthew walked back to the hotel with Michael Cudlitz and Eion Bailey, he deliberately patted the pocket of his coat as they neared the makeshift exit of the airfield.

"Ah, damn," he said with a frown. "I left my phone in my locker. I'll go back and grab it."

Michael Cudlitz stopped. "Should we wait for you?"

Matthew waved him on. "No, you guys go ahead. I'll meet you in the hotel restaurant."

With that, he turned back to the locker room, retrieved the phone he had intentionally left in his locker, and stepped out. He then walked to Tom's adjacent locker room, pulled out a pair of gloves he had prepared earlier, put them on, glanced around to make sure no one was watching, and then opened the door and slipped inside.

Since it was a men's locker room, just like the one the actors used, Tom's wasn't locked.

Matthew opened a few lockers and gave them a cursory glance, not bothering with the contents. When he finally opened the right one, he found a large box of condoms inside. Judging by the manufacturing date on the box, they must have been purchased recently.

Tom was the only person who used this locker room, so Matthew was one hundred percent certain the condoms belonged to him.

After noting the box's position and orientation, he carefully took it out and opened it. Three condoms were missing—exactly the number of times he'd seen Tom disappear into the warehouse with Kate.

Staring at the box of condoms, Matthew suddenly recalled a news story he'd once read on his smartphone and decided to give the idea a try.

If it worked, Tom would be in for a world of hurt. If it didn't, Matthew had lost nothing.

Decision made, he placed the box of condoms back in the locker exactly as he'd found it. After a quick scan of the room turned up nothing else of use, he left, making sure he left no trace of his presence behind.

After dinner back at the hotel, Matthew called a cab and headed into central London. He went to a large supermarket and bought several boxes of condoms identical to Tom's, even making sure to find ones with the exact same manufacturing date. Back in his room, he studied them carefully, confirming that his idea just might be viable.

Over the next few days, in between his training sessions, Matthew continued to watch Kate and Tom. He discovered they had a routine: every other day, like clockwork, they would use their lunch break to slip away to the warehouse.

Meanwhile, James's fears became a reality. At the request of the production team and the producer, all twenty-something actors, Matthew included, were moved into the old barracks on the training base.

The conditions in the old barracks were, unsurprisingly, a far cry from the comfortable hotel. The miserable British weather—damp and bone-chillingly cold—was relentless. To make matters worse, Tom's training load continued to increase, and their meals gradually devolved into army rations that looked decent but tasted awful.

A completely new training program was now underway. According to Tom, the actors were required to give one hundred percent to ensure authenticity on screen. To that end, the crew had reconfigured the training grounds. Right next to the area designated for the actors' team exercises, they began pumping water into a pair of freshly dug pits.

Even though this part of the training hadn't started yet, and despite the production having a medical support team on permanent standby, the actors still thought it was a terrible idea. Their resentment toward Tom, the man who started all this shit, grew by the day.