The casting room on the ground floor of the administrative building was too warm. The air conditioning unit in the window had been rattling an annoying rhythm against the glass since nine o'clock that morning, and it wasn't doing much to cut through the stuffy California heat.
Tom Wiley leaned back in his folding chair, the cheap metal squeaking under his weight. He rubbed a hand over his face and looked to his right.
Daniel was sitting next to him, holding a bottle of water. He was wearing a faded black t-shirt and jeans. For the first time in what felt like six months, the dark, bruised-looking circles under his eyes had faded into something resembling a normal, healthy skin tone. Few days up in the freezing air of Lake Tahoe actually worked; now he wasn't vibrating with caffeine anxiety or checking his watch.
"You look weird," Tom noted, tossing a pen onto the plastic table. " Like, you look kinda rested, you know, ruins the whole tortured artist vibe, in my opinion."
Daniel took a sip of water and set the bottle down. "I slept nine hours straight last night. Never thought I could do that."
"Don't get used to it. We fly to London in five days," Tom reminded him, pulling a stack of headshots closer. "Alright. The principal cast's locked. Lando's done as well. Now we just need to fill out the background guys. Starting with the Empire's middle management."
Daniel pulled the character breakdown sheet toward him. They were casting Admiral Piett. It was a minor role on paper, but in the context of the story, he was crucial. Piett was the guy who had to stand next to Darth Vader and deliver bad news without getting his throat crushed.
"I don't want a name," he said, tapping the paper. " The Empire needs to feel like a massive, faceless military machine. If a famous guy walks on screen in a gray uniform, it breaks the illusion."
"Way ahead of you," Tom said, checking his clipboard. "I brought in some theater guys. Mostly British. Send the first one in, Emma."
A casting assistant poked her head through the door, nodded, and stepped back. A moment later, a man in his late forties walked into the room. He was balding slightly, wearing a neat but inexpensive suit. He carried himself with the rigid, perfectly aligned posture of someone who had spent decades on stage.
"Hi, Zach," Tom greeted him. "Thanks for coming in."
"A pleasure, truly," the actor said, his voice carrying a crisp, clear London accent.
"We're just going to do the bridge scene," Daniel told him, skipping the small talk. "You're talking to Vader. You just lost the Millennium Falcon in an asteroid field. And you are the unfortunate soul who has to tell him they got away."
Zach nodded, looking down at his sides for a brief second before squaring his shoulders.
Tom read the cue lines for Vader, intentionally keeping his voice flat and monotone. Zach responded. He played it like a typical military officer, standing tall while puffing his chest out, and delivered the lines with a harsh, barking authority.
"Stop," Daniel said softly, holding up a hand.
Zach broke character, looking suddenly nervous. "Too loud?"
"No, too brave," Daniel corrected him. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the plastic table. "Zach, you're looking at a guy in a black mask who just choked your predecessor to death five minutes ago. You aren't in charge here. You are terrified of him. But, you're a military man, so you're trying to hide that fear behind protocol. Don't bark the lines. Speak quietly because you're afraid if you breathe too loud, he'll kill you next."
Zach absorbed the direction. He took a slow breath, letting his shoulders drop just a fraction of an inch.
"Whenever you're ready," Daniel said.
Tom read the cue line again.
This time, Zach didn't puff his chest out. He kept his eyes fixed on a spot just above Tom's head. When he spoke, his voice was tight, barely above a whisper, straining to maintain a professional cadence while his underlying tone vibrated with absolute, visceral dread. He looked like a man standing on a trapdoor waiting for the lever to be pulled.
"Thank you, Zach," Daniel said, a small smile breaking across his face. "That was perfect. We'll be in touch."
The actor nodded, looking genuinely relieved, and quietly exited the room.
"Well, that was easy," Tom said, making a quick, sharp checkmark on Zach's headshot. "He's got the job. Now, one more left, the bounty hunter."
Daniel grabbed his water bottle. "Boba Fett."
"Right. So, the character wears a helmet the entire time. And he has what, three or four lines? Do you want me to bring in voice actors? Or Stunt guys?"
"Just bring in the stunt guys," Daniel said. "The voice doesn't matter; we can dub that in post-production if we have to. The character is entirely physical. He has to look menacing just standing in a hallway."
Tom hit the intercom button. "Send in the group for Fett."
The door opened, and five men walked into the small casting room. They were all roughly the same height, all heavily muscled, wearing generic workout clothes. They were professional stuntmen, the kind of guys who spent their days getting thrown through breakaway glass windows or falling off horses.
"Line up against the wall, guys," Tom instructed.
The five men formed a straight line against the blank white wall of the casting room. They all stood at attention, shoulders squared, hands clasped behind their backs or resting on their hips. They looked like bouncers at a nightclub.
Daniel looked at them. He didn't ask them to read anything. He didn't ask for their resumes. He just watched how they held their bodies.
"Okay," Daniel said, leaning back in his squeaky chair. "Imagine you are standing in a room with the most dangerous people in the galaxy. You are waiting for your boss to give you a job. Show me how you wait."
Four of the men immediately shifted into aggressive stances. They crossed their arms over their chests, widened their stances, and tried to look incredibly intimidating. They glared at the camera.
The fifth guy, standing on the far right end of the line, didn't cross his arms.
He just sighed quietly. He took a half-step back, leaned his shoulder casually against the drywall, hooked his thumbs into the front pockets of his jeans, and bent one knee slightly. He didn't glare at the camera. He just looked out the window, looking completely bored.
He wasn't trying to be tough. He looked like a guy who knew he could kill everyone in the room and just couldn't be bothered to exert the energy until he was getting paid for it.
Daniel pointed at the guy on the end.
"You," he said. "What's your name?"
The guy slowly turned his head, not moving his shoulders from the wall. "Jeremy, sir."
"You've got the part, Jeremy," he said, standing up from the table. "Go see the girls at the front desk for your fitting schedule."
Tom stared at Daniel as the stuntmen filed out of the room, looking confused. Jeremy just gave a slow, lazy nod and ambled out the door.
"Wait a minute, did you just cast a major supporting role based entirely on how a guy leaned against a wall?" Tom asked, looking down at the blank audition sheets in front of him.
"He had that swagger," Daniel shrugged, grabbing his empty water bottle. "Boba Fett doesn't try. He just is."
"Lord help me", Tom sighed, gathering up the papers and stuffing them into his leather satchel. "Alright, we're done here. Now go get some lunch, and Dan, do me a favour and please eat a real lunch this time. Florence would slash my tires if I let you eat potato chips from the vending machine again."
"Yeah, yeah, I'm going," Daniel said, walking out into the bright afternoon sun of the studio lot.
Ten minutes later, he was sitting behind the massive desk in his corner office. True to his word, he was eating a turkey and provolone sandwich on wheat bread from the studio commissary. It wasn't gourmet, but the mustard had a decent kick, and it was significantly better than the stale pretzels he usually survived on.
He was halfway through the sandwich, while reading a budget report for the London stage rentals, when his cell phone buzzed on the desk.
He looked at the caller ID. It was Robert Downey Jr.
He wiped his hand on a paper napkin and picked up the phone. "Tell me you didn't blow up the set."
A loud, chaotic clatter of metal dropping on concrete echoed through the phone speaker, followed by someone yelling instructions in the distance.
"Not yet, boss," Robert's voice came through, sounding slightly muffled. "Give me at least a week. Hold on, I'm trying to eat a salad while wearing forty pounds of fibreglass."
He could hear the distinct crunch of lettuce over the line.
"Where are you?" he asked, leaning back in his chair.
"Sitting on an apple box outside Soundstage 4," Robert replied, his voice coming through clearer now. "Just wrapped the morning session. We were shooting the Senate scene earlier. You know, the one where Tony tells the government to fuck off."
Daniel smiled. That was one of his favourite scenes. "How did it go?"
Robert was quiet for a second. The background noise of the busy set continued to hum over the phone.
"I'll be honest with you, Dan," Robert finally said, dropping the usual rapid-fire sarcasm. His tone was surprisingly grounded. "When you called me a few months ago and told me you were handing the sequel over to Jon Favreau, I thought we were cooked."
He swallowed the bite of his sandwich, suddenly feeling a tight spike of anxiety in his chest. "Why?"
"Because in this town, when the original director walks away from a massive hit, it usually means the studio is bringing in a corporate yes-man," Robert explained bluntly. "Someone who just points the camera where the producers tell him to and shoots the script exactly as it's written. Iron Man worked because you let us find the weird, messy humanity in the scenes. I honestly thought Favreau was going to show up with a stopwatch and a rigid shot list, and suck all the air out of the room."
He stared at the budget report on his desk, the numbers blurring slightly. Delegating the Marvel universe had been a massive risk. He knew it. But he couldn't direct every movie in the franchise himself, not if he wanted to build Star Wars and distribute the bullpen's projects.
"And?" he asked quietly. "Were you right?"
Robert let out a sudden, loud laugh on the other end of the line.
"I was one hundred percent wrong," Robert said, the relief evident in his voice. "Jon is a madman, Dan. In the best way possible. We shot the Senate scene this morning, the script you gave us was great, but halfway through the third take, he just yelled 'cut' and walked onto the set. And he was like, "Stop acting like you're giving a speech and start acting like you own the room". He just let me completely derail the dialogue, Dan. We improvised for ten straight minutes while the cameras rolled."
Daniel let out a long, heavy breath, resting his forehead against his hand. The spike of anxiety dissolved instantly.
"He gets it," Robert continued, the excitement bleeding through the phone. "He understands Iron Man. He understands the armour isn't the point, the guy inside is. He's handling the crew, he's dealing with the studio executives who show up to watch, and he's protecting the actors too. The vibe on the set right now... it feels just like the first movie."
"That's really good to hear, Robert," he said, and he meant it. He had bet heavily on Favreau's instincts, and fortunately, it was paying off.
"I just wanted to call and let you know," Robert said, the crunch of a crouton coming through the speaker. "I know it had to be hard handing the keys over to someone else. But you picked the right guy. Jon's got it, boss. "
"Tell him I said keep up the good work," he smiled. "And stop eating salads. Tony Stark eats cheeseburgers."
"I'm trying to fit into a fibreglass corset, Daniel, give me a break," Robert shot back. "I'll see you at the premiere."
The line clicked dead.
Daniel set the phone down on his desk. He looked at the half-eaten turkey sandwich. He suddenly had an appetite again. After finishing his lunch, he felt a profound sense of satisfaction. The machine was finally running on its own tracks.
He tossed the trash into the bin beneath his desk and stood up. He grabbed his keys from the desk drawer. He had one more stop to make before the day was over.
Ten minutes later, Daniel walked into the cavernous, echoing space of the Art Department warehouse on the far side of the lot.
The air in here smelled heavily of ozone, hot metal, and sawdust. The floor was covered in thick black power cables, snaking around massive workbenches covered in tools and scattered pieces of plastic and aluminium.
In the center of the room, standing under a bank of bright industrial halogen lights, was Dante Ferretti. The legendary production designer had a pair of safety glasses pushed up onto his forehead, his arms crossed over his thick sweater.
Next to him was Sam, holding a heavy black remote control attached to a thick bundle of wires.
They were both staring at the structure bolted to a steel platform in the middle of the floor.
It was a leg. Specifically, the rear right leg of an AT-AT walker. It was six feet tall, machined out of raw, unpainted aluminium and heavy-duty steel joints. Thick hydraulic pistons ran down the sides of the calf, and a heavy, braided steel tension cable was bolted securely along the back of the joint, anchoring the knee to the massive, circular footplate.
It was the exact modification Daniel had drawn in red marker on their blueprint a week ago.
"Tell me it doesn't snap," he said as he walked up to join them.
Sam jumped slightly, nearly dropping the remote. He looked over at Daniel, a wide, slightly manic grin on his face. He had grease smudged across his cheek.
"It doesn't snap," Sam said, his voice cracking a little with excitement. "Dante spent three days machining the aluminium plating to mimic the exact weight of the final armor pieces. The tension cable is taking sixty percent of the load off the main hydraulic pivot. It holds."
"Don't just stand there and talk about it, Samuel," Dante grunted, gesturing to the rig. "Show the director what his drawing looks like."
Sam nodded quickly. He looked down at the remote, flicking a series of heavy toggle switches.
A low, mechanical hum filled the warehouse as the power supply kicked on.
"We programmed a standard forward step into the rig," Sam explained, keeping his eyes on the metal structure. "Taking it off standby. Engaging hydraulics."
Daniel watched closely.
The massive aluminium leg shifted. A sharp, pressurized hiss echoed through the room as the main pistons engaged. The knee joint bent smoothly, the heavy tension cable pulling taut in the back, straining under the massive weight of the metal.
The leg lifted off the steel platform. It didn't jerk or stutter like old stop-motion animation. It moved with a terrifying, fluid grace, driven by the computer-controlled rig. But because it was a physical object made of heavy metal, it had real momentum. It didn't float.
The circular footplate swung forward and came down hard onto the platform.
CLANG.
The impact vibrated through the concrete floor, traveling straight up through the soles of Daniel's boots. Sam had placed a thick block of dense packing foam under the foot's trajectory. The aluminum foot crushed the foam flat, instantly turning it into dust.
Daniel stared at the rig, a wide, genuine smile breaking across his face.
It was perfect. It was exactly what he had seen in his head. When they attach four of these legs to the massive armoured body, and film them stomping through fake snow on a miniature stage, the audience are going to feel it in their chests.
"Dante, it's beautiful," he breathed, walking closer to the platform to inspect the tension cable.
"It is structurally sound," Dante agreed, nodding slowly. "Your red marker saved us three weeks. We can begin fabricating the full skeletons tomorrow."
"Do it," he said, clapping Sam on the shoulder. "Get the whole team on it. I want four of them ready to shoot by the time I get back from Europe."
"You got it, boss," Sam grinned, powering down the remote. The rig hissed as the pressure released, the leg locking into place.
The sun was already dipping below the horizon by the time Daniel finally left the studio lot, painting the Los Angeles sky in streaks of vibrant pink and deep orange.
He drove back up into the hills of Bel Air, the gates to the villa swinging open smoothly as he approached.
When he walked through the heavy front doors, he was met with total chaos.
The living room looked like a high-end sporting goods store had exploded. Three large, hard-shell suitcases were lying open on the hardwood floor. Piles of heavy wool sweaters, thermal underwear, thick waterproof pants, and heavy boots were scattered across the expensive white sofas.
Florence was standing in the middle of the room, holding two incredibly thick, dark green scarves, looking deeply conflicted. She was wearing leggings and a baggy sweater, her blonde hair tied up with a velvet scrunchie.
"I don't understand how a person is supposed to wear this many layers and still be able to bend their arms," she announced as he walked into the room. She tossed both scarves into the nearest suitcase.
"You aren't going to need all of that for the first week," he pointed out, walking over and picking a heavy winter boot off the coffee table. "We're shooting in London first. It's indoors. Just the Millennium Falcon cockpit and the Cloud City hallways."
"I know," she sighed, walking over to a pile of thermal socks. "But right after London, we fly straight to Finse. I googled Finse, Dan. It's a glacier in Norway. It doesn't even have a road. You can only get there by train, and it is negative twelve there."
He tossed the boot into a suitcase. "It's Hoth. It's supposed to be cold."
"Yeah, a frozen wasteland," she corrected him, picking up a stack of thermal shirts and trying to shove them into a duffel bag. "And you have me running around in it wearing a white jumpsuit. I'm going to look like a heavily armed marshmallow."
He laughed, walking over and wrapping his arms around her waist from behind, resting his chin on her shoulder.
"You're going to look like a general," he said softly.
She leaned back against him, letting out a quiet, tired breath. The frantic energy of packing seemed to bleed out of her. She looked around the messy living room, taking in the chaotic reality of their lives.
"It's crazy, isn't it?" she murmured, resting her hands over his. "We finally get a few days of peace in this house, and we are packing bags to go freeze on a glacier."
"We could stay," he joked, his voice rumbling against her back. "I could call the studio tomorrow and tell them we're retiring to open a bakery in Malibu."
She snorted, turning around in his arms to face him. She looked up into his eyes, a fond, knowing smile on her face.
"You would lose your mind within two days," she said. "You'd start trying to optimize the muffin production schedule and yell at the ovens for lacking good lighting."
"Probably," he admitted with a grin.
He looked at her, and then he looked at the open suitcases scattered across the floor.
The California pre-production phase was officially over. The casting was done. The scripts were locked. The mechanical rigs were built. The quiet, relatively stable routine of going to the Burbank office every day was finished.
They were about to board a plane and step back into the storm. Months of fourteen-hour days, freezing locations, massive practical stunts, and the crushing pressure of delivering a sequel to the biggest movie in the world.
He reached out and zipped up the heavy duffel bag sitting on the couch. The sharp sound of the zipper echoed in the quiet room.
He looked back at her. The exhaustion was gone. He felt the familiar, addictive pull of the camera waiting for him in the dark.
"Alright," Daniel said, grabbing a stack of sweaters. "Let's finish packing."
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A/N: Read ahead on Patreon: patreon.com/AmaanS