Chapter Text
“Welcome to the set of ‘Forbidden Lessons’, Mr. Teller!” The PA greeted, shaking his hand with fervor, “We’re all so excited to welcome you onto this project.”
“I’m glad to be here,” Miles smiled, bright and maybe a little childish. Sue him, he was excited. Ever since Whiplash and Divergent, he’d been getting calls left and right. Suddenly, he was able to be more choosy with his work than before. He was still working damn near day and night, he’d been bouncing from set to set for nearly two years straight.
They’d just wrapped on filming for Insurgent, and before that, it had been Fantastic Four. He was already being prepped for a role in War Dogs, but they weren’t ready to start filming for that for another few months. That left him open for another project and his agent was eager to keep his career moving along at a steady pace. She’d said that the more his face appeared, even if the work he was in wasn’t the top tier of scripts, the more opportunities he would gain. And she’d been the one to lead him to Whiplash, which was arguably the most success he’d garnered since he’d stepped onto the scene, so he trusted her judgement.
She hadn’t briefed him on anything when she called him about this script, she’d just told him it was a romance movie and he’d been requested specifically for an audition. So he showed up to the casting call, where he’d seen a line up of similarly lesser known men of a similar appearance to his own. The audition was the first time he got a glimpse at the script and that was when he realized it was not only a romance, but a gay romance.
To be perfectly transparent, he’d freaked out a little. After all, he wasn’t out, not even to his agent, so it was a little panic inducing to be tossed into a project he knew would be controversial in the public eye after so much success, let alone how close it dug to home.
But his agent assured him, telling him that the big names associated with the project would settle some discourse. That didn’t settle the pit in his stomach, but she convinced him that he needed to showcase some range before he was railroaded into being typecast. She’d been fighting that for years on it’s own, ever since he was cast as Willard, and playing Andrew was the first time he’d been able to properly break free of the ‘funny, dumb friend’ archetype. Peter had cemented it, and she wanted to keep that momentum moving. So he went through with the audition.
Afterwards, the casting director told him that, to be perfectly honest, the audition in and of itself had been little more than a formality and the moment he’d walked through the door, he’d all but secured the part for himself.
So two weeks later, he flew to Vancouver. On the flight, he finally read the full script and had a momentary panic at realizing, once more, that not only was it a gay romance but it was a taboo romance between a student and a teacher. Legal, since his character was a year behind and nineteen, and not entirely morally reprehensible, since the teacher was new to the school by the beginning of the movie, but not very ethical and certainly not very kosher. He had a feeling this was going to be a very niche film, but it would broaden his horizons and keep him busy until War Dogs was prepared to start filming, so he settled in for a long ride.
Stepping onto set, he’d had a moment of realization that there were really only two sets, with four locations in total for the setting. It was a bit of a stark contrast after Insurgent’s constant and varied sci-fi setting, but he never minded a change of pace all that much.
The PA led him on a tour of the set, not that there was much to see. There was the classroom set, which led out into a hallway for one or two scenes that would continue beyond the class. There was the teacher’s house, a living room set, a kitchen set, a bathroom set, and a bedroom set. The only other locations for filming would be in a car, so there was no designated set for such. The PA showed him to the green room, showed him every bathroom in the set, and then to the craft service truck who would supply them with food for the next few weeks. Lastly, he was shown to Unit Base, and specifically, to his trailer.
Once all of that was finished, the PA informed him that there would be a round table read in the green room come morning, where he would meet his fellow cast, the director, the producers, and the other crew he’d be working with, as well as where the director would set the scene for the vision he had in mind, which would set the tone for filming all across the board.
He fell into bed, a little jet lagged, and woke with the sun come morning. For a while, he lounged, but when his alarm went off, he was up and dressed in record time. He headed out to the crafties for a quick breakfast before the table read and that’s when he saw him.
Stepping out of the trailer across from him was none other than Tom Cruise.
Nobody had bothered to inform him that one of his castmates was Hollywood royalty.
It stole his breath, really, to realize that that ‘big names’ everyone had been alluding to were of such a magnitude. Sure, he’d heard that before when J.K. Simmons and Kate Winslet were cast. Hell, his very first film ever had placed him working across from Nicole Kidman. He was no stranger to working with actors in the A-list. But to be working across from Tom Cruise himself? ‘Hollywood’s Last Real Movie Star?’ That was a little startling. Especially to learn that straight-laced romance and action star Tom Cruise, who had been fighting rumors about his sexuality for nearly as long as he’d been in the spotlight, was apparently connected to a project so heavily focused on a gay romance plot-line. It shocked him.
It didn’t help that he knowingly had always carried a sort of affection for the man because watching the Mission Impossible series growing up had forged a puppy crush from a young age that hadn’t ever truly faded the way most of his others had.
Tom noticed him across the way and raised a hand in a quick wave, a flicker of a smile coming to his face, before he descended the remainder of the stairs and was off in a flash. Jogging off towards the lot. Miles watched him go, too stunned to return the niceties.
Out of a curiosity that came about suddenly, Miles descended his own set of stairs and climbed the trailer across from him, coming face to face with the door. His eyes scanned over the piece of paper tacked to it’s surface, reading the words printed in bold, black letters.
TOM CRUISE — executive producer and 'Micheal “Mickey” Terry'
Miles thought back to the script and nearly passed out when he realized Tom Cruise was playing his love interest.
He would have to play the part of Alex Peterson, nineteen year old boy who fucked around and fell in love with his teacher, across from Tom Cruise himself.
This was gonna be a disaster.