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“We have a clip of that audition. Let’s take a look,” Mr. Bloodworth said.

There was a big screen behind us on which they could display pictures or video. I turned and watched myself. It seemed like forever ago that I’d done that audition. I remembered pulling out all my modeling tricks to look sexy as I stalked Bree Steno because the scene called for me to seduce her. When it ended, there were some whoops from the females in the audience, and Kitty had raised eyebrows. I guess she didn’t realize I could do ‘sexy.’

“In the end, you didn’t get the part, did you?” he asked.

“No, Ben Doman was picked to play Roman. I was given the role of Stryker.”

Mr. Bloodworth proceeded to explain what a commercial success the film was and then ran through the other movies and TV shows I’d been in. He asked how I got each role and a little about each experience. Then they opened it up to questions from the audience.

“Hi, I’m Alec West and a sophomore acting student at UCLA. I was wondering if you’d ever been turned down for a role?”

That got a good laugh because of my ridiculous string of movies. They seemed to forget that if you made money at the box office, studios wanted you to be a part of their project in the hope your success would continue.

“Well, Laurent Vance didn’t want me in The Royal Palm, and I didn’t get Solo: A Star Wars Movie.”

“That’s not quite accurate,” Mr. Bloodworth said. “You, in fact, won the lead role in the Star Wars movie but turned it down.”

“I didn’t realize that was public knowledge,” I said.

The Star Wars people were a secretive bunch, and I’d never told anyone that I’d actually won the role because of that.

“Why did you turn it down?” he asked.

“The filming schedule would have taken up my senior year of high school. I would have had to drop out and go full-time into acting. It was one of the hardest decisions of my life.”

By the murmurs from the crowd, it seemed they thought I’d made a mistake. If word on the street was right, I might have unwittingly made the right choice.

“I understand that you flew to London to break the news to them. Why didn’t you just call?”

“I wanted to be there to explain my reasons in person. I respect what they are doing with that franchise and all the other movies they’re involved with. In light of that, I felt they deserved a face-to-face,” I explained.

Mr. Bloodworth turned to the audience.

“They’ve done some of the biggest movies in history, including the Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park franchises. I think David made the right call. He even did a spoof video with their help.”

I smiled when he showed Dad and me stealing the Millennium Falcon, the iconic spaceship Hans Solo flew in the movies.

“That caused a stir when it was ‘leaked.’ We had fans and the press storming us. We even had people try to break into my barn to get a peek at it,” I explained.

“Teri Kanas, out-of-work actress,” she announced and got a hearty response from the audience. “Why didn’t they want you for The Royal Palm? I thought you did a terrific job.”

“I’ll take this one,” Kitty interjected. “The studio picked David. After the commercial success of Star Academy, they wanted to add some box-office power to the film. Laurent Vance had someone else in mind for the role and made David’s life miserable on set. My hat’s off to David for remaining professional. I think he only offered to kick Laurent’s butt a couple of times. I don’t believe anyone else would have put up with it like he did.”

“What Kitty doesn’t know is that I play football and baseball. Those coaches can get on you much harder than Laurent ever did. That, and I was there to do a job. That job did not allow for Laurent to get under my skin,” I said.

I thought the show went well. At least I hadn’t talked any politics today.

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On the way out of the theater, I was stopped by several people to sign autographs. I smiled when I noticed the skunky smell of marijuana in the lobby. Leave it to a group of actors to get high at something like this. One cute girl stopped me.

“I was wondering if you would go with us to get some … uh … coffee,” she said as she tilted her head towards two other girls.

Lexi appeared out of nowhere and hooked my arm.

“We have to get going,” she announced loudly.

“I was just getting to know my fans,” I teased her.

I guess it was in her job description to save me from myself. Not that I planned to do anything untoward. Believe me, a girl who could make you feel like Brook did at night could get away with pretty much anything in the daylight. There was no way I would ever jeopardize that, so I let Lexi drag me to the car.

“I could use some coffee,” Manaia casually mentioned.

“Both of you behave!” Lexi scolded us.

We high-fived behind her back and became little angels when she spun around to glare at us. Do all women have eyes in the backs of their heads?

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