Chapter 2

Lowering his voice, Lou says, “Look, kid. It doesn’t matter to me who you sleep with. I’ve been in this business long enough to have seen it all. But you’re not trying to sell yourself to me.”

“I’m not selling myself to anyone,” Johnny mutters. He picks at a loose thread in the seam of his jeans and refuses to meet the manager’s gaze. “I want to act again. On the big screen, this time. I want—”

“Johnny.”

His name in that stern voice, so quiet, so commanding, makes Johnny’s words dry up. His mouth snaps shut and he pouts again, harder this time. He feels twelve years old, sitting here in Lou’s office waiting for an angry lecture on why he shouldn’t cuss on the set. Maybe he should’ve picked a different manager this go ‘round, someone who doesn’t know him so well, doesn’t know which buttons to push or how to bring him down with just a word, a look, a tone of voice.

When it becomes evident Lou isn’t going to say anything else, Johnny says, “What.”

“Listen,” Lou sighs. “Ninety-three percent of moviegoers in this country are women between the ages of twenty-five and forty. That’s your market base. That’s your audience. All those girls who grew up swooning over your pictures in Bopand Teen Beatare graduating from college now, getting married, having babies. They’re getting jobs and raising families, and finally beginning to realize maybe they aren’t going to snag the celebrity they used to fantasize about growing up. So they’re perfectfor you. They’re poised, ready and waitingto fall in love with you all over again. With your persona. With who they want you to be.”

Grudgingly, Johnny nods. Women love him; he’s always known this.

Lou continues. “The gay market is growing, don’t get me wrong. But it’s still very marginalized. Brokebackaside, America wants traditional romances. Women want to be able to imagine they’re Kate Winslet, promising they’ll never let go. They want to be Romeo’s Juliet, Sid’s Nancy, Jack’s Sally. Movies are an escape—from chores, from kids, from everyday life. And if their leading man’s kissing on another dude, what’s in it for them? Where do theysee themselves in that picture, hmm?”

“I don’t want to do gay films,” Johnny mutters. “I want to do blockbusters—”

“Exactly.” Lou sits back, the leather chair creaking beneath his weight, a smug smile on his face as if he’s just made his point.

Johnny frowns, unsure of what that might be.

Rolling his eyes, Lou sighs. “Fame isn’t how many films you’ve done—look at what’s his face, that guy in Amistad.The man’s been in just about every movie that’s come out of Hollywood since 1970. But who knows his name? Who cares? The media sure doesn’t. And without news articles or headlines, or candid pics, he’s nobody. See what I mean?”

The frown on Johnny’s face deepens—he has no clue who Lou’s talking about. He doesn’t watch foreign films. “Who—”

Lou cuts off his question with another sigh. “It’s the papers you have to cater to, Johnny. The tabloids you have to woo. Rachael Ray was a bubbly little girl working at HoJo’s a few years ago and now you can’t turn without seeing her face somewhere—on the TV, in the magazines, on a set of steak knives. That’s what’s called publicity. That’s what’s called kissing ass when you have to, smiling pretty for the camera, and letting the media have its day. You want the paparazzi to follow you around, I’m telling you. Sure, Britney’s not churning out hit songs anymore, but everyone still knows who she is. You get me?”

Johnny nods, dubious, then thinks better of it and shakes his head. “Not really.”

“How does the public get to know you?” Lou asks. “Not Johnny on the big screen but Johnny the actor? The face behind the movie? Because believe me, they want more than just headshots anymore. They want intimate details of every little aspect of your life. Go to the supermarket—half the magazines and newspapers on the stands are candid photos off the streets of Hollywood. Christina shopping for baby clothes, Hilary having her latté at Starbucks, Puff Daddy or P. Diddy or whatever the hell he’s calling himself these days playing in the park with his kids. Housewives eat that shit up. They want to know you, the realyou.” He gives Johnny an arched look. “For that, they turn to the tabloids.”

Johnny hasn’t thought of it that way. When he was in the business earlier, he had a modest security force who would go in ahead of him, clear out a McDonald’s, and lead him through a crowd of screaming, crying girls just so he could order a Big Mac. But the only photographers taking his picture were hired to do so. The paparazzi he’s seen on the streets of LA just weren’t there then.