“I lost consciousness because I panicked and couldn’t breathe and that’s when I hit my head,” I tell him. “I’m okay now. Really. We need to work. That’s what we’re here for, and we’ve wasted enough time.”
Sud reluctantly releases my arm.
In the common room, P’Arm is waiting for us.
Giving him the wai, I say, “I’m sorry, P’Arm, for causing so much trouble.”
P’Arm looks back and forth between me and Sud. “I take it you’re not angry with each other anymore?”
“We’re good,” Sud says. “And I’m sorry, too, P’Arm.” He gives the wai.
“Things like this happen when two people work closely with each other. It’s best to get things out in the open before they fester and affect your work. Okay, if Mee Noi feels better, let’s talk about scene thirteen, love scene number one. Your first intense kissing scene.”
He talks us through the scene. I’m nervous, mainly because this scene could make or break us. Sud and I may have been able to manage a simple kiss during the audition, but something more passionate? I’m not sure if I can do it, and the reason isn’t because it’s Sud I have to kiss or even that he’s a man—It’s something else entirely.
“Nong Mee Noi?”
I turn my attention to P’Arm, who is watching me.
“Is something wrong?”
I glance at Sud.
I have two choices: admit my fears or try to fake it.
This is too important to Sud to try to fake your way through.
My cheeks heat as I look down at the floor rather than at P’Arm and stammer out, “I’m not…I mean, I don’t…I don’t exactly have any experience with, uh, with passion.”
When I drum up the courage to peer up at P’Arm, he’s smiling kindly.
“Believe it or not, most young actors I work with don’t. Consider this, though: your character doesn’t have experience, either. That means you’ve already got a leg up. I’ll tell you a secret.” He moves closer to me with a conspiratorial air. “Your lack of experience is one of the things that impressed the execs when they viewed your audition video. Your innocence in that first kiss. It was like it was your first.”
If he only knew.
P’Arm pats my back, and then his kind tone changes to all business. “All right. You two have a seat on the floor, and I’ll go over there and sit while you go through the scene.” P’Arm walks over to the sofa and sits.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Sud asks me. “What about your head?”
“I’m fine.”
Sud looks like he wants to argue, but since he just promised he’s going to treat me like an adult, he has to stay quiet.
Late at night, after I’ve finished studying for school, I’ve been reading about acting and systematically taking notes on how I want to approach certain scenes.
I’ve decided to use aspects of method acting—the technique P’Prapha taught me the day I broke down in the workshop—essentially tapping into my own emotion and experience. Despite Sud telling me that I didn’t have to do something that drastic to prepare for a scene, I found the technique worked well, and I plan to practice and use it for the moment when Train breaks down as well as for any time my character needs to become particularly emotional about something.
I’ve also noted different ways that actors relax and prepare for scenes. My hope is that by the time we begin filming, I’ll have a technique down that works for me.
Since my character is a lot like me, in that he’s a relatively shy student at university with a best friend he’s very close to, I find it relatively easy to sink into the character. I do think that Train is braver than I am, and I find it kind of fun to play out scenarios where he reacts much more boldly than I would dare to act.
Sud grabs a couple of pillows off the couch and tosses them to the floor. Scripts in hand, we lower ourselves to sit on them, facing one another. In the scene, Sound and Train are in Train’s dorm room. It begins with us standing, and, eventually, we wind up on the bed. From reading the novel as well as the script, I feel that at this point, my character is longing for Sound. Although they’ve admitted their feelings, they’ve been dancing around getting physical for a long time at this point in their story, and I imagine there is a lot of sexual tension built up.
We run through our lines several times before P’Arm announces we’re going onto one of the sets with a bed to block out the scene.
I thought we’d run through the movements a few times before trying it with dialogue, but it’s more like a dozen. When we finally do add the dialogue, I see why: it’s a hundred times more difficult. Without being comfortable getting from one place to another, it would be impossible to concentrate on our lines.
P’Arm moves around us, giving us pointers as we go. There are snags to work out and then more practicing.