(2005 – Early Fall, Los Angeles)
Ethan had learned to recognise silence.
Not the peaceful kind that comes from a quiet morning before sunrise, but the hollow kind that follows after you've been quietly removed from a room without anyone saying it out loud. It had been months since the Victor Dane incident — months since Ethan had refused him, months since Dane decided to "make him invisible" in the industry.
And Ethan felt it every day.
Calls stopped coming.
Auditions dried up.
His agent — who once sounded excited — now spoke with polite distance.
"Nothing fits you right now," she would say, far too often.
Ethan knew what that meant:
I'm scared of Victor Dane, too.
There were weeks where Ethan stared at his phone waiting for it to buzz. It never did.
There were mornings when he woke up and wondered if he'd just imagined the momentum he'd gained from Lost in Translation and The Village.
There were nights when he asked himself if he had already peaked — at 22 — and whether the rest of the industry had quietly decided he wasn't worth fighting for.
Scarlett noticed, of course.
She noticed everything.
"You're still one of the most talented people I know," she told him constantly.
But even she couldn't change the bitterness that slowly crept into him as he faced closed doors that had once been open.
So when his agent left a voicemail saying, "There's an audition for a small supporting role… Scorsese film… yes, THE Scorsese," Ethan nearly dropped his phone.
He replayed the message twice.
Then a third time, just to be sure he wasn't hallucinating.
Scorsese.
Martin Scorsese.
This was more than an audition.
It was an escape route — a chance to claw his way back into an industry that had quietly tried to erase him.
He didn't waste a second.
The casting office was packed — young actors, older character actors, familiar faces from television. Everyone wanted in. And why wouldn't they? It was The Departed, a Boston crime thriller with Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, and Jack Nicholson — giants.
Ethan tightened his grip on the sides.
His palms were sweating.
He hadn't been in a real audition room for months.
Not since Victor had whispered:
"You'll regret this."
The words stayed in his head like a stain he couldn't scrub off.
A casting assistant stepped out with a clipboard.
"Role: Officer Jennings. We'll take three at a time."
A few guys next to Ethan chuckled nervously.
"Officer Jennings has like… three lines, right?"
"Yeah, but Scorsese can turn three lines into a whole career."
"That or nothing," one joked.
Ethan smiled politely but said nothing.
He wasn't here for three lines.
He was here to reclaim his dignity.
Scarlett texted him just then:
"You'll crush this. Just breathe."
He exhaled slowly.
He needed that.
Two more groups were called in.
Actors walked out looking exhausted, some annoyed, some defeated.
Ethan felt the old anxiety rising — the kind he thought he'd left behind when he was reborn into this younger body. But fears from his first life had a way of lingering.
He closed his eyes.
Remember who you are now.
Remember why you're here.
He repeated it like a mantra.
When his group was called, he stood before his knees could wobble.
Inside the room
It was smaller than he expected.
A single camera.
Two readers.
A table where the casting director sat with a stack of headshots.
No Scorsese — which was normal — but the weight of his shadow filled the room anyway.
The casting director looked up.
"Ethan Hale, correct?"
"Yes. Thank you for seeing me," he said, voice steady.
"We liked your tape from Lost in Translation. Let's see what you do with this."
She handed him sides.
A short interrogation exchange.
A moment of quiet suspicion — classic Scorsese tension.
"Whenever you're ready."
The other two actors stood beside him, ready to take turns.
But before calling the first, the casting director said:
"Actually… Ethan, you go first."
Ethan felt his pulse jump.
He nodded.
He took a breath and dropped into the moment.
"Jennings" wasn't a major character. But he felt important. Someone caught between fear and duty. Someone who sensed danger beneath the surface of a routine conversation.
Ethan imagined himself as a cop who understood more than he dared to say.
He imagined the years of tension, the moral ambiguity of Boston's criminal undercurrent, the weight of knowing something he couldn't prove.
And he delivered the lines not loudly — but precisely, with a quiet authority that suggested a whole internal world.
When he finished, the room didn't move.
Then the casting director leaned forward.
"…Do it again. But try it as you've just realised the man across from you might be a killer."
Ethan nodded.
A spark lit behind his eyes.
This time, he gave the lines a subtle tremble — not weakness, but calculation. A shift of breath here, a narrowing of the eyes there.
Fear mixed with professionalism.
A cop who knew he might be in danger but kept his ground.
When he was done, the casting director whispered:
"…Well damn."
One of the readers smiled.
"Yeah. That was something."
The casting director scribbled something on his resume.
"You free for callbacks tomorrow morning?"
Ethan almost staggered.
"Yes. Absolutely."
"Good. We'll see you then."
His heart hammered against his ribs as he stepped out.
Once the door shut behind him, he let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.
He walked past other waiting actors, past the receptionist, down the hall — and only when he stepped outside in the sunlight did he press his hands to his face and let out a soft laugh.
A genuine one.
It wasn't just a good audition.
It was the first time since the Victor Dane incident that someone in Hollywood had looked at him and seen worth instead of liability.
His phone buzzed.
Scarlett:
"How'd it go?"
Ethan typed with shaking fingers:
"I think… I'm back."
Two hours later, he was halfway home when his agent called.
Her voice was breathless.
"Ethan? Casting just phoned me. Scorsese liked your tape. You're on the shortlist. They want you to come to Boston for the chemistry read next month."
Ethan stopped walking.
Traffic roared around him, the world spinning — but all he felt was a quiet relief flooding through him.
"Really?"
His voice cracked.
"Really. Congratulations, Ethan. This could be big."
He leaned against a bus stop pole, eyes closed.
He had fought through Victor Dane's sabotage.
He had survived months of silence.
He had refused to give up, even when everything told him to.
And now — Scorsese wanted him.
That night, Ethan went home and stared at himself in the bathroom mirror — at the younger face still carrying the memories of an older man. For the first time in months, he felt like he deserved this body again. This chance.
He whispered to his reflection:
"You didn't break me, Victor. Not this time."
Tomorrow, the fight would continue.
Tomorrow, the work will begin.
But tonight, he allowed himself a quiet victory.
Because sometimes, all a fallen actor needs…
…is one yes.