“I’ve played villains and best friends to much acclaim,” Sophia admitted, as if the idea bored her. “I get recognised on the street almost daily back in LA, which is a good first step.”

“Is it?” The thought made her palms sweat. “I most often strive not to be recognised in public.”

Sophia raised an eyebrow. “How does that work for you?”

“My face is vaguely familiar to a lot of people.” She shrugged, not wanting to let herself dwell on that idea too long. “But if I move quickly, with a sense of purpose, and avoid eye contact, away from the castle most people’s brains don’t work fast enough to put together where they know me from.”

“Then we’re in the same boat, but rowing in different directions,” Sophia said. “For me to do the kind of work I got into this business to do, I need to become a household name, not ‘Hey there’s the woman from that one movie with Cobie Galloway.’”

“And Emma’s movie can give you that sort of star power?”

“Emma’s movie,” Sophia echoed the phrase as if she found it amusing, “is my first chance to carry a narrative almost alone, and it’s a period piece, which breaks the moulds people typecast me into. No slinky costumes, no action scenes, or even any overly graphic sex scenes, just me and every ounce of nuance I can squeeze out of a strong, multifaceted female lead.”

“You seem to relish the challenge.”

“There’s nothing I relish more than a challenge.” Sophia delivered the line with enough bravado to send a little shiver along Vic’s skin.

“I harbour no illusions about being an Oscar contender here,” Sophia continued. “It’s not the most earth-shattering story, and it’s got some sappy romantic moments that will likely be written off as too feminised for serious filmmaking.”

Vic felt a little prick of indignance that someone would write off Emma’s story for having a romance amid a sweeping saga about class, power, and the constraints society places on women of marrying age. Still, she had no desire to interrupt Sophia, who had grown more animated, going as far as to gesture with her wineglass so emphatically a little drop spilled down over the rim and onto the white tablecloth.

“The sentimentality is a small price to pay for finally getting to play someone so far out of my own experiences that the critics won’t be able to write off a compelling portrayal as being too close to who I am as a person.”

“Have people really done so in the past?”

Sophia’s jaw tightened, and Vic flashed back to Emma’s comments about Sophia’s last role as a sexually and morally ambiguous villain.

Her stomach tightened at the comparison. “I’m sorry.”