Leia by Julia Boyd

A woman has an encounter with an actress on a day-long shoot.

I’m sweating by the time I reach the front door. The street was too narrow and restricted by city parking signs for me to park my Subaru any closer. These streets are the impossibly tight and winding ones common to the canyons of Los Angeles, the roads that cause my lungs to constrict and my pulse to quicken. Roads that are legally two way but physically one way. How long would it take for an ambulance to reach you up here? 

 My camera bag was slung over one shoulder and I just barely gripped my tripod with my opposite hand. I trekked up the steep sidewalk to reach the shoot location. My jeans felt hot with the friction of moving uphill, and I tried not to sweat through my t-shirt before even stepping foot through the door.

I’d saved babysitting money over the course of two summers to buy this camera, an investment that was supposed to kickstart my career. And it had, to an extent. Well, kickstart may be a bit too strong. But it had given me the ability to take on freelance video gigs whenever I could snatch them up. There was an endless pursuit of the next job that I already seemed to be behind at. Boys with carabiners clipped to their jeans and thick-framed glasses were outpacing me. They spoke the same language to each other and every time I tried to wade into their easy camaraderie, I walked away feeling self-conscious and questioning how much of a try hard I appeared to be. How much of an imposter I am, a little girl who shouldn’t be here, despite being taller than a lot of these guys.  

Catching my breath, I stare at the house before me. Winding wooden steps lead my eye to a rustic treehouse shrouded in ferns. The weathered exterior belies the price tag that surely accompanied any home in this neighborhood. What looks like a modest house in any rural area would be a three million dollar home in Laurel Canyon. 

The Canyon house is a far cry from my apartment in East Hollywood. Here, the trees and sprawling vegetation shield residents from the bright California sun. Birds chirp and somewhere nearby, wind chimes collide in pleasant song. Forest covers the land far as the eye can see in either direction. 

I can see why the area attracts great artists. With none of the usual Hollywood landmarks or modern architecture in sight, I feel a bit like I have time traveled out of the city. The wind brushes my cheeks as I collect myself.  

The cabin is today’s shoot location. I didn’t receive the address until after midnight last night, when a call sheet from someone named Hilary arrived in my inbox.  I’d been connected to this gig based on a referral from my old boss in Nashville, where I worked before moving to Los Angeles. He was an alarmingly quiet man, and I could never tell how he felt about me or my work. But I guess he was fine with it, because he’d made an effort to connect me to his network out here which thus far consisted of a man named Mark, who I’d never met. He was the Charlie to my Angel, except without any of the witty banter and martial arts ability, and he would occasionally call me to do a one day video gig.

A woman jostles my shoulder as she walks past me, carrying loads of makeup cases.

“Excuse,” she says, without turning around to look at me.

This brand of ambiguous brevity was common on every set I’d worked on. “Excuse” was actually more than I usually got. It was as if every crew member was overpowered by the same urgent internal clock the moment they stepped on location. I didn’t have the clock yet, or the natural rhythm that seemed to dictate those around me. I still felt awkward, like I was always in the way, stumbling around. I could fake the urgency, but I didn’t really have the confidence to fake the rhythm. I wasn’t “in” anywhere yet. I couldn’t quite kick the air of desperation that enveloped me, because well, I really was desperate. I was scrapping. Fortunately, I was inoffensive and polite enough to make up for it. 

My preferred position, and the one I held today, was as the behind-the-scenes videographer. This was more creative and involved less subjugation than being a production assistant, though I couldn’t afford to turn down anything. 

I follow in the tailwinds of the makeup artist, darting my eyes and tuning my ears to pick up on any sign of the elusive Hilary. 

There was a fairly small crew. They’re shooting album artwork for Leia Mills, an up-and-coming singer-songwriter. My job is essentially to trail Leia all day long, capturing behind-the-scenes footage that will be cut up to support whatever public image of her needs supporting. These videos will most likely consist of slow motion shots of Leia posing and looking ethereal, mixed with makeup artists and hair stylists making infinitesimal changes to her face. 

I’d looked Leia up on Instagram yesterday. The face staring back at me through my phone screen was delicate and seemingly untouched by Hollywood’s cosmetic arm. Her brunette hair framed her face in a subtle shag, and she had the carefree vibe of someone who woke up with it perfectly smooth and straight. Leia didn’t seem like she had ever encountered frizz. She was thin and wore mostly flowy, bohemian, prairie blouses and dresses. I knew her name from hearing her song “Unknown to You” as it prolifically took over cyberspace. 

Leia had been volunteering at an after-school music program in Missouri when a video of her singing ‘Wonderwall’ with a group of 10-year-olds went viral. She looked remarkably happy in the video, riffing on melodies as the children beamed at her. What followed seems, at least to me, like a true Hollywood dream come true. 

Signing with a major label, endorsements, and high fashion appearances. Her song was inescapable on social media. I didn’t know too much about how things worked for the rich and famous, the chosen ones that were catapulted into their dream life. But I knew enough to know that a team of industry pros must have assembled behind her after that viral video, and quickly, to make her happen. To make “her” a thing. 

My online sleuthing indicated that she had transformed from private citizen-recent graduate-children’s music teacher to global-artist-trending-audio-hot-commodity in a matter of months. I was struck by the jarring shift in her social media, the posts jumping from regular girl to rising star, not yet archived by whatever agency would surely be taking over her public platforms.

April 17, 2023: Leia poses in a selfie with her face smushed next to a sweet-faced boxer puppy. “I’m an auntie!” She captions the image. No hashtags. There is a recliner in the background with a crochet quilt draped over the back. It reminded me of my grandmother’s living room. 

 July 4, 2023: Leia sits on top of a picnic table wearing denim cut-offs, a white tank top, and Converse high tops. She and a group of very normal looking friends are holding hot dogs and smiling. The photo is tagged in Booneville, Missouri. 

I clicked the tag of one of the friends: Annaliese Danner. Her profile is private. She has 800 followers and her bio says “RN, dog mom and coffee lover” with a twinkly star emoji. Normal human, private citizen. 

November 11, 2023: A series of film photos shows Leia getting ready for a Spotify event. In the first photo, her eyes are cast down, one wisp of hair blowing improbably neatly in the wind. Her thick, perfectly groomed brows anchor the architecture of her face. She captions the photo “dreamy” and tags @chanelofficial who must have dressed her for the evening. The photo needs no location tag for those in the know, as telltale signs indicate she’s getting ready in a Chateau Marmont suite. 

I always feel the need to research the artists I’ll be capturing. It does place me in a uniquely odd dynamic where I know a lot about them, but I pretend like I don’t. Their names would live forever on my resume. “I worked with so and so before they were big,” “I did a shoot with blah blah during their first album cycle.” 

Meanwhile, they may not even remember my presence on set. My very existence might be erased by the frailty of memory. The volume of their life, if I’m being really honest with myself, is bigger than mine.

And all day long, my job was to watch them closely. To follow them. To capture the most flattering angles and engaging moments, all while being as inconspicuous as possible. My job was to know them and make sure they did not know me. 

I would inevitably capture more than any editor or label would ever want to use. I might film a wedgie picking by accident, or a nose-scratch that looked like a nose-pick. That moment would be cut, of course. Perhaps there would be a blooper or two included, but the blooper must be something sanitized, like a fully made up young starlet in hair rollers sticking her tongue out at the camera. 

I would see more than the public would ever see. After today’s shoot, I’d hand off the footage to an editor and most of what I’d shot would never see the light of day. My 8, sometimes 12 hour work day would become a 2-minute highlight reel. 

I follow the makeup artist inside the house,  where I am immediately struck by the floor to ceiling bookshelf that takes up the entirety of the wall to my left. A rolling ladder invites guests to explore even the highest shelves, which were jam-packed with records, magazines, and novels. 

The tall ceilings meet in a peak above exposed wooden beams. Sunlight pours in from every window, illuminating the wood’s richness and raw texture. Colorful, geometrically patterned rugs overlap each other, providing sporadic retreats from the hard wood flooring. 

To my right, sitting at a circular mahogany table, three people seem to make up the shoot’s command center. One man, short in stature, wearing a worn Iron Maiden baseball tee, speaks harsh tones into his iPhone as he tugs on his thick brown beard. A woman with a blunt red bob taps away on her laptop with laser-focus, her arm decorated by a smattering of tiny tattoos, like the doodles you might make in the margins of a spiral notebook. Another woman is just standing up from the table, wearing a houndstooth blazer that somehow doesn’t make her look like a linebacker, which is how I feel every time I put on a structured jacket. This lady pulls it off, possibly because she is about 5’1”. Her wavy blonde hair swings to the side as she turns her head, her eyes catching me behind her large frameless eyeglasses. I wonder if they’re prescription. 

“BTS?” she asks.

“You must be Hilary?” I offer as a half statement, half question. 

“Nice to meet you.” She shakes my hand with a firm grip and flash of a red manicure.

I note that she didn’t actually confirm that she is Hilary but what choice do I have other than to follow her?

“Leia’s going to be shooting about 5 looks today. She’s already started hair and makeup so she should be presentable enough for you to start filming whenever.  The BTS will mostly live on socials, so keep that in mind when you’re framing your shots. You’ll be handing off footage to Michael, yes?”

“Yes,” I nod. I have no idea who Michael is. Why did I agree so quickly? My willing compliance remains a mystery to me, a problem to solve later.

“Cool. There are a few spare outlets if you need to charge batteries. I’ll show you around the property,” Hilary says as she turns around to begin her tour. 

I quickly unzip my bag to grab my camera and set my equipment down, feeling that it is likely in the way. I suppose I’ll return to organize it later, and scurry off to follow Hilary’s predictably speedy pace. 

She gives me a tour of the house, noting that the owner had been collecting records for over 50 years and the shelves didn’t even house the entire archive, with the overflow records living in storage. She shows me a glowing solarium off the living room. The glass ceiling is supported by the same wooden beams as inside, where sun streaks warm a menagerie of plants and collection of squishy mismatched furniture. Further on is the kitchen, with eclectic tea cups adorning exposed shelves and a Smeg refrigerator hinting at the true luxury of the property. The backyard is a winding maze of terraced land that leads to a detached unit, a miniature almost-duplicate of the larger house. 

We walk past a rattan swing hanging from a tree toward the back house, leaves crunching beneath my feet. 

“We’ve turned this space into hair, makeup and wardrobe,” Hilary says.  “I’ll introduce you to Leia and then you can get rolling.”

As we step inside the cabin, we enter a kaleidoscope as the sun filters through a colorful stained glass window. Leia is sitting in a makeup chair, facing away from the rainbow of light and toward a regular picture window. Better for doing makeup, I suppose. But the stained glass creates a patchwork design across her brunette waves and I make a mental note to try to get some shots of that later. She wears a forest green silk robe with elaborate lace trim, her bare legs crossed as she taps her toes to some silent rhythm.

The makeup artist who I’d followed in earlier is carefully applying eyeshadow to Leia, while the hair dresser uses a curling iron on what already looks like a perfectly messy hairdo. The wardrobe stylist buzzes around a clothing rack with a steamer.  

“Leia,” Hilary calls out, in a noticeably warmer tone than she was using in the main house. “This is our videographer for the day, she’ll be shooting some behind the scenes.”

Leia turns around, her mouth fixed in a pleasant smile, her eyes tracking until she finds the source of the introduction. 

“Hi, I’m Leia,” she says, her eyes brightening when she lands on me, hand outstretched to shake mine. “Thanks so much for doing this today!”

“Of course. I’m excited to get started.” It’s a funny thing, for her to thank me. She didn’t hire me and she probably didn’t even know I would be here. But I appreciate the courtesy nonetheless, even if it is a sort of strange theater.

My mom would say Leia “still has the light in her eyes.” She looks at me warmly, perhaps relieved to see a young woman would be tracking her all day and not a skinny jean wearing man. I can tell she cares, at least a little bit, about whether or not I like her, despite the fact that she has no idea who I am or where I came from. Which in my mind confirms that she hasn’t been in the industry very long. There’s still an eagerness I can feel that is rarely present in more established stars. 

“Leia, eyes forward,” the makeup artist prompts.

“Oh, sure.” Leia turns back around, her waterfall of hair swishing as she moves. Already I feel mesmerized by her. It’s always hard to determine if this is a genuine reaction to my subject’s charisma, or if I’m just buying into the hype and ceremony that surrounds these shoots. Everyone, from the stylists to the label to the agents to the managers, has bought into the project. THE project. The shoot. Today, now. This is amazing, this is remarkable. Maybe I’m just mesmerized because I know that I have to be in order to do my job well.

I often find myself caught in the wake of their energy, a cult-like mindset taking over. Suddenly I too am rabidly team-whoever, even if the end result of the album/photo shoot/music video is sure to be perfectly mediocre.

“I’ll be inside if you need anything!” Hilary’s fleeting chipperness is already fading as she walks away.

As I turn on my camera and start adjusting the settings, I am struck by the ephemeral nature of what we’re all doing here, how more money than I’ve probably made all year is paying for today. I know from experience that when I leave here this evening, when everything is cleaned up and tidied and now living as digital files on a hard drive, it will feel like none of this ever happened. 

I zoom in on Leia’s profile as the makeup artist applies lip liner to her cupid’s bow. The sunlight illuminates the finest layer of hair on the side of her cheek. 

I shift my focus down to her hands, her nails painted an olive green, her fingers adorned with stacks of silver rings. 

With slow and deliberate footsteps, I go about my job, making a semi-circle behind the makeup chair as I capture the process from every conceivable angle. Leia and the hair stylist chat about how her current promotional cycle has been going. She’s tired, but she’s excited. She’s surprised how demanding the schedule is, but it’s all worth it. I absorb their conversation as I melt into the background, becoming as ambient a presence as the percolating steamer in the corner. 

By noon, Leia’s hair and makeup is complete. She stands in front of a mirror while the wardrobe stylist who’s name I’ve determined to be Cat adjusts the hem of her flowing white skirt. Leia is dressed in a puff sleeve blouse that I can’t help but think would make me look like the marshmallow man monster from Ghost Busters. But on her it looks ethereal. She walks to the corner of her room where her iPhone is plugged in. She picks it up, tapping and swiping. I notice where she’s picked at the cuticles on her thumb, rough skin framing her precise manicure. 

The rainbow from the stained glass dances across her face as the canopy of trees outside blow in the breeze. I’m still filming. I roll on almost everything that’s appropriate to roll on, just in case. I’m partially fueled by the anxiety that I might miss a key moment. The skinny jean boys don’t seem to roll as much as I do.

I zoom in on Leia’s face, which has become one with the kaleidoscope. I adjust the focus ring so that her eyes remain sharp as the background blurs into a dusty haze of rose and mahogany. A rogue curl blows in the gentle breeze, getting caught in her eyelashes. 

Suddenly, she frowns. A storm rolls into her hazel eyes. She begins typing more intently. I wait a few seconds to see if this is a blip, but her brow remains furrowed. I stop recording, feeling like I’ve intruded on a private moment. I turn to face the corner, pretending to fiddle with the settings on my camera. Really I’m just clicking through the menu repeatedly to make it look like I’m busy. 

I glance over my shoulder in time to catch Leia pause her typing. She chews her lip, her mind clearly elsewhere beyond the confines of the bohemian guest house. She looks up, her eyes catching mine. I smile quickly, to overcompensate for the fact that I feel like I’ve been spying on her. Which is technically my job, but the line between observation, documentation, and intrusion blurs so rapidly that I have to be nimble to avoid a misstep. 

She gives me a small smile in return, unable to cover up the anxiety on her face. She looks at me longer than I’m expecting. 

“Where are you from?” she asks.

“Raleigh. Down south,” I respond, a bit surprised by the question.  

“How long have you lived in LA?”

“Just about 3 years. I moved here right out of school.”

“You’ve got me beat. 3 months. I don’t even have a real apartment yet,” Leia says with a small laugh. “I haven’t figured out, like, my grocery store. Or my gas station. You know?”

“It’s gotta be weird,” I respond.

“What part?”

All of it, I think. The whole thing. Being snatched from obscurity, pitched into a dream. 

Before I can answer, Hilary clacks into the room. 

“Leia, can I speak with you?” she peers over her glasses, glancing at me briefly in a way that suggests I should make myself scarce. 

“Excuse me.” I offer a smile, and slide past Hilary into the backyard. I busy myself shooting b-roll. Glamor shots of leaves, the rattan nest swinging in the breeze. 

I steal a glance through the stained glass window. Leia’s sitting down now, and Hilary is talking over her, gesticulating in a way that seems both authoritative but soothing. A lot of “gentle parenting” type hand gestures, which I believe to be common among the artist management crowd. They treat their clients with kid gloves, while they bulldoze over everyone else. 

Around 2pm, Leia moves on to her second look, a pair of improbably well-fitting overalls and a delicate lace bralette. She’s barefoot, sitting cross legged on the velvet sofa and plucking away at her guitar, the wall of records dominating the background. I film the photos as they filter into the monitor, a couple of seconds after the shutter clicks. On close ups, the impressive record wall melts into a soft focus sea of color, an indistinguishable blur that obscures the scale of the collection. 

The photographer looks like he was pulled from central casting. His left arm is covered in tattoos, his gauzy shirt unbuttoned a few down from the top. He wears combat boots that make a soft and satisfying thud when he changes position. He looks like he could be European, but I overhear him saying he’s from the Bay Area. He’s been sipping what appears to be iced coffee out of a mason jar that I assume he brought from home. 

The pictures are lovely, and his direction has been… fine. He tends to cut himself off mid-sentence, requiring Leia to prompt him when she doesn’t understand the ask. But I’ve been around much worse. 

On my last shoot, the male director fist bumped every man on the crew but then pulled me in for a hug. As if my fists don’t work because I’m a woman? He had ignored me all day until the uncomfortably tight hug. I’ll take a frenetic Northern Californian who can’t finish a sentence over a rogue hugger any day. 

“Oh these are gorgeous, Lei,” Hilary gushes. 

“So good,” says the Iron Maiden t-shirt man. “Very Stevie.”

“You’re gonna die,” the red bob woman says, with somewhat alarming sincerity. 

The photographer pauses, pulling back from the camera to glance at the monitor. 

“Alright kids, I’m happy with these. Everyone happy? Can we move on to the sunroom?”

Leia’s team murmurs approval. 

“I feel good,” Leia says politely. 

They break to set up the next look, and I start to lose myself in thought wondering what would happen if I called everyone in the room “kids.” 

The hair and makeup ladies swoop in to powder Leia’s face. Hilary hands Leia her phone, and Leia casts only her eyes downward so as not to disturb the team hard at work pressing and buffing. 

“Um, Hilary? Can you…?” Leia holds her phone out to Hilary.

Hilary grabs the phone with her usual urgency. 

“Mmhmm. You just focus on the next look,” she says, before quickly turning and walking out the front door. 

I film Leia while her makeup is touched up, the sun streaming in from the front door that Hilary left open. While I roll, I look out to see Hilary intercepting a lanky man at the end of the foot path. She hugs him, and I hear her greeting him with the same forced warmth that she used with me. Parting from the hug, Hilary crosses her arms, an armor for her petite frame, and speaks to the man in a hushed tone. More gentle parenting. 

On the couch, the hair stylist adjusts a headpiece on Leia’s curls. It’s a halo crown affixed to a headband, gold spikes pointing out beautifully, dangerously. I film the women as they hide bobby pins in her hair to keep the crown in place. Leia’s eyes are cast toward the ground.  

I check back outside. The man is nodding, and as he and Hilary turn to ascend the winding front steps, I quickly turn back to my camera.

Hilary steps around him to enter first.

“Leia, Trevor’s here.”

Trevor is the tallest person in the room, wearing Carhartt pants and a black t-shirt. His baseball cap looks honest to goodness worn in, not LA-thrift store-worn in. Messy brown waves poke out through the back of the cap, and I notice his wide mouth, how it stretches across his whole face when he smiles at Leia. His shoulders hunch forward a bit, perhaps in reaction to changing the relative scale of the room. I wonder if he could touch the top of the bookshelf without the ladder. 

I think back to her Instagram. Did I see him in any of her photos? 

“Hey babe,” he says as he makes his way to her. 

“Hi. You make it ok?” Leia stands up slowly, so as not to disrupt the tiny orchestra of preparation going on around her. She gives him a careful kiss on the cheek, keeping her head on one plane at the risk of impaling Trevor. 

He wraps his arm around Leia and strokes her arm. Something about his fingers on her skin makes me look away. 

“You don’t need to film any of this.” Hilary appears next to me, speaking quietly into my ear. I jump, having forgotten I was even rolling.  “Just get the next looks, we’re good on the in-between stuff.”

“Copy,” I say, my cheeks starting to burn like I’ve done something wrong. 

I collapse my monopod and hold my camera so the lens faces downward, lest there be any doubt about whether I’m filming or not. I retreat to the kitchen island where I grab a bottle of water. 

Trevor still has his arm around Leia, pulling her in to whisper into her ear. Her hands are pressed against his back and stomach. Affectionate, I think, like a prom pose. But also quite effective at managing his position. Keeping him in place. 

She pulls away, telling him she needs to get into her next look. He takes a few steps after her as she crosses into the kitchen, heading for the back door.

“You can hang in here, babe, make yourself at home. I’ll only be a minute.” She smiles and leaves before he can answer. 

He sucks in a breath and shifts his glance to me. Again I smile stupidly, hoping in vain that I can diffuse any awkwardness by simply looking friendly. He blinks, before sitting down on the couch where Leia was just playing. 

We’re nearing the end of the day. It’s golden hour, and there’s just one more look to shoot in the backyard. I’ve been filming a lot less, partially due to end of day fatigue but mostly due to fear of Hilary’s ire. As Leia went to change, the rest of the team scattered for snacks, bathroom breaks, emails and phone calls. Cat crouches down, texting on her phone plugged into an extension cord that trailed into the back house. 

The battery icon blinks at me, finally empty after lasting a couple hours. I walk towards the house, where I plug my spares into the front bedroom. Somewhere behind me, a wind chime sings. 

The floor creaks as I make my way through the hall, stopping to admire a framed photo of an anonymous family on a lake. Lake Arrowhead maybe, but I’ve never been. I continue on, hearing a murmur coming from the bedroom. Slowing my pace, I already know whether I get my batteries in this moment will depend on who is speaking, and about what. 

A male voice. Not Iron Maiden. Leia’s voice. I think there are just two. I hear Leia’s gentle tone interrupted by the male one. I stop, afraid now that I’ve trapped myself in the hallway between a private moment and a very squeaky floor. 

“What more do you want me to give up?” It has to be Trevor. He’s speaking too loudly.

“Nothing, please I—”

“I’m just stuck, spinning my wheels waiting for you.”

“I have not asked anything of you,” Leia says more quietly. 

“Yeah. Don’t I know it.”

He starts walking faster than I can connect my mind to my body. I take a step forward, trying to summon enough momentum to seem convincingly like I have only just walked up. He brushes past me, turning around to look in my direction. He shakes his head. I’ve just happened to be in his path, in his slipstream of frustration. 

Against all logic, I walk into the bedroom. Leia stands facing the bed, arms crossed. Her mouth twists as she chews the inside of her mouth. 

“Sorry, I’m just grabbing batteries.” I point to the batteries as if the redundancy somehow makes my presence less obtrusive. 

“It’s fine.” Leia offers a small smile. 

I quickly grab my batteries and start to walk out. Before I can stop myself, the words escape me. 

“Are you ok?”

Leia laughs, not unkindly. She looks at me for a moment, her mouth starting to form words but stopping herself. She lifts up her arms to gesture around her.

“How can I not be?” 

Twilight has only just begun when the shoot wraps. A flurry of cord wrapping, kit packing, and tidying ensues. I’m kneeling beside the record wall, rearranging my backpack when Hilary, Leia and Trevor walk past. I watch them out the window. Leia and Trevor load into a black Suburban, Hilary shutting the door behind them. 

I load up. In the last 45 minutes, I managed to determine who Michael was and get his email address. I’ll send him all the footage from today. I don’t know when they’ll edit it. The raw files will stay on my hard drive too, just in case. Hours of today’s moments will return to my apartment, to live only with me. 

I walk back down the hill.