Versatile Superstar: Rise In Hollywood

Chapter 32

Rosie Gallagher was a college girl in Trenton, New Jersey, and she has been a fan of X-Star since the show’s inaugural season. She had not missed even a single episode of the popular show.

She had her favourite contestants for whom she rooted and wished that they would win the show every season. This season was the same with many interesting contestants whose voices she enjoyed.

But throughout the show, there was only one contestant who had made her a fan, Aiden Silvereye.

From the start, she had loved his original song and then the second round performance. But it was the third round that had truly enamoured her.

She still remembered the day she had seen the performance. Coincidentally, it was the day that she had broken up with her boyfriend and doubted many of her life’s decisions. Then, she heard the song ‘Life is a story’.

Just hearing it once had made her feel a bit better, and from that day, she had become Aiden’s number one fan (self-proclaimed).

She had decided to support him no matter what because his songs would always make her feel better. So when she heard the band’s performance, she was blown away by it but was kind of disappointed when she saw Aiden was playing a supporting role.

But when she saw the clip of him acting as a leader and assigning roles in the band, she realised that he wasn’t someone who would care about being in the limelight. Instead, he focused more on the performance.

At that moment, she had decided that she would support him throughout his journey in X-Star, but currently, she was seeing the headline of a bizarre article.

[Latest leak from X-Star Season 3: Aiden Silvereye WILL get eliminated in the next round!]

“What the fuck?”

Rosie couldn’t help but swear when she saw the article. She quickly read through it and realised that the report was all about an interview with a staff member who said that Aiden would get eliminated in the next round after facing off against Rachel.

Even if she had read it twice, she couldn’t believe it. Closing the article, she quickly opened up a forum about X-Star and saw that there was already a post about it, and people were discussing it.

[Aiden’s wife: WTF was that article? Please tell me it’s wrong?! He can’t get eliminated! They literally hyped him like he would be the winner in the last episode.]

[Dao of snu snu: Gossip Tribunal is a solid blog site. I don’t doubt the credibility, and they will surely delete the post in a few hours when the X-Star team gets to know about it.]

[Guy with a long gun: If it’s true, boy, X-Star will get a massive outrage. I kind of wish it is, just for free entertainment.]

[Struggle is struggling: Hey, look what I got. Aiden posted this on his social media accounts just a minute ago. I think it’s his new song! Check para comments!]

Rosie saw the link on the post and immediately clicked on it. It opened up MeTube and got her to a video of a bar where Aiden was singing.

‘Lonely? Is it his new song? Does that mean he’s really eliminated?’

She thought as the song began. And by the end of it, she had become Aiden’s first subscriber. Even if he was not on X-Star, his journey would keep going on, and Rosie was always going to support him.

***

As the leak about him being eliminated was making rounds on social media, Aiden was well aware of it. After all, he had already received many DMs, asking if he was really eliminated.

He had not replied to them as it was best for him to stay silent and let the next episode reveal everything.

In the next few days, his life was like a busy cycle. In the morning, he would enact famous movie roles for the upcoming audition and try to prepare himself for it while recording his other songs most of the time.

And at night, he would sing in the bar to earn some money.

Compared to the show, his lifestyle was pretty relaxed, with him not overthinking about getting eliminated. But, at least facing failure had made him tougher against them.

Like this, he spent most of his days and finally, on Sunday, the day of the audition came.

Currently, Aiden was in a taxi, going towards the location of his audition. For the audition, he had tried to look his best, but more or less, he had tried to keep his appearance casual.

To pass the time in the taxi, he had started going through the contract that he had received last night on his phone, and he had really found the contents very problematic.

‘They take a percentage in everything: record sales, streams, merchandise, concerts. Record sales alone get 85 percent of the profit, and the contract is even for seven years. Now I can understand why record labels get sued often.’

He thought after reading through a section of the contract.

It was not like he didn’t know how shady record labels were. He had even heard of singers whose contract contained that they can’t retire and how one big record label had forced a singer to pay back all the investments they had spent on him, even when he had made them a big profit.

Cases like these were pretty common in Hollywood, and he felt like the contract Amy had given him was more or less the same.

‘It seems like I have made my decision.’

Aiden thought and took a deep breath. Then, closing the contract, he opened up the MeTube Creator page and saw that Lonely had already gotten 20k views in just a week.

Even the songs like ‘I can’t seem to forget’ and ‘Life is a story which he had uploaded later, had gotten more than 10k views.

It was a very good number considering he was new in all this. Other than that, the controversy about him getting eliminated has also given him more views.

In a way, he was fortunate.

“We’re here.” The taxi driver said, stopping the taxi in front of the theatre where the audition would take place.

Turning his phone off, Aiden paid the taxi driver and got out of the taxi before heading inside the theatre. Although it was an audition, he didn’t see a lot of people outside the theatre.

‘It seems like it’s true that only some people have been called to this audition.’

Unlike other auditions he had attended, which were more open where anyone registered with the actor’s union could come, this was more closed.

Abraham had told him that it was because the movie he was auditioning for had already been shot for the most part, and the director was just looking for a South Asian actor to play a certain character.

‘Let’s hope it goes well.’

He thought, trying to calm himself down. Then, walking inside the theatre, he saw some staff members standing by the door.

“Excuse me, can you tell me where the audition is?”

“You are?”

A brown-haired sharp-faced guy asked as he scanned him from head to toe.

“I’m here to audition for a role. I was told they were looking for a South Asian actor.” He said, and the guy took out a tab and started going through a list on it.

“Name?”

“Aiden, Aiden Silvereye.”

Hearing that, the brown-haired guy nodded and suddenly found his name on the list. Then, raising his head from the screen, he said.

“Come with me.”

Aiden followed the guy, and while walking, he revealed his name and job.

“I’m Leo Shaw, the assistant director. Some guys are already here, so you need to wait for your turn. By then, I will give you the script you need to perform.”

Leo said, and Aiden quickly asked, knowing that it was a chance for him to get some information about the movie.

“Script? And can you tell me a bit more about the movie and the director?”

“The director of the movie is Lincoln Bradley. Maybe you have heard of him, but he’s making a comeback after five years. And the movie is called [Shadows of War]. That’s all I can tell you, and as for the script I’m talking about, every actor here to audition is getting one, and they need to perform it.”

Aiden silently nodded his head but couldn’t help but ask.

“I don’t think it will give me enough time to prepare for it.”

“That’s what Lincoln wants to see. He’s eccentric, so he feels like this is the best way to get a good actor. To see who can perform the best in minimal time.”

Aiden didn’t mind it as he had heard of how weird some directors are. As for Lincoln Bradley, he had heard of his name as he was someone who had made a lot of good movies since his career began in the early 2000s.

If he could get a role, then maybe his acting career would begin for real.

…

//DreamNote//

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