Rami glanced over at me. “All of that makes sense, man. But a contract relationship?”

“You know it’s part of our industry.” I shrugged like it was no big deal, but we both knew it was. Lots of things were part of our industry that we promised ourselves we’d never resort to.

“Why don’t we just go back to the studio and insist they hire her as a consultant?”

“They’re already getting cold feet about casting me. I can read the room. If I all but tell them I suck so bad that I need full time professional help for the next month, I’m not positive they won’t find a way to recast it.”

He said, “You don’t need this role, Alex. They haven’t announced it yet. You can back out if the only other options are making yourself a joke or pretending to date the most infamous dominatrix on the internet.”

I needed this part. I was going to suffocate if I didn’t break out of the typecasting box I’d been shoved in. He was so different from anyone I'd ever played before. I didn’t know how to embrace that side of myself after being the “nice guy" for so long, but I couldn’t back down from the challenge of figuring it out.

Lucas Steel spoke to something visceral in me, but I didn’t know how to turn that gut feeling into a performance that would do him justice. I’d been absolutely convinced I could play him like no one else could. I’d been fired up enough to get through a screen-test and convince them to cast me. Then I’d started to overthink it. As I dug into the script, I discovered I didn’t really know how to embody a murderous psychopath in a way that was also charismatic. That both scared and thrilled me.

My path to stardom had been unexpected. In high school, I’d been the jock who also did theatre. Everyone thought sports would be my ticket to a successful future and just assumed theatre was a quirky hobby I’d eventually outgrow. I didn’t get nervous before sporting events, but the nervous rush I felt performing was a high I’d been chasing ever since I’d taken that first elective theatre class on a whim as a freshman. I loved entertaining people, becoming someone else, and telling a story through the subtle subtext of my actions.

When I was offered full-ride scholarships all over the country for tennis, no one thought anything of it when I chose a school in LA. I wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone, but deep down, I thought if I came out here, I’d be able to give acting a shot without having to go all in. No one needed to know if I went to a few auditions or something.

But I quickly realized no one without a Hollywood pedigree made it without going all in. So I changed my major to film. It was still a degree, and I was still playing tennis, so no one questioned it too much.