343 - Too Deep

"I need something to drink first..." the shirtless man murmured. The dim room was dressed in deep red, a brilliant shaft of light coming from the wall, while a bluish cast hung over everything.

Before him stood a neat row of milk bottles. Size, packaging, even the amount of milk inside: every bottle was identical.

He stared at them with bloodshot eyes and kept muttering. "Wait. What if the milk's gone bad... The milk's spoiled. I shouldn't pick it up with my right hand..."

Confusion, irritation, and fear passed across his face. He trembled slightly, as though fighting a battle inside himself, trying to regain control and failing. The distinct, still-reddened scars across his upper body made the anxiety almost palpable. Anyone watching felt an urge to fold their arms and rub away the chill.

"Cut!" Scorsese called from his chair. "Five-minute break. Then we'll go again."

The crew relaxed. The oppressive set and Adrian's fiercely unsettling performance had left them on edge too; Scorsese had considered that in calling the break. People began moving, conversation rising around the stage. Adrian, however, stayed where he was. His shoulders rose and fell noticeably.

"Adrian? Are you all right?" An assistant noticed first. The question drew other people's attention.

Still standing shirtless on the set, he made a vague grasping motion in the air. It wasn't clear whether he meant he was fine or wanted them to leave him alone.

People exchanged uncertain looks. Even the assistant who was supposed to bring him a towel hesitated. Scorsese had started talking with the cinematographer as soon as he'd called cut. He hadn't noticed anything wrong until the assistant spoke.

"What's going on?" He raised his eyebrows at the sight of Adrian. He'd directed long enough to have a fair idea.

He turned to the assistant holding the towel. "Go and speak to him. Carefully."

With clear instructions at last, the assistant approached. He'd spent years working on sets. He didn't have Scorsese's experience, but by now he had some sense of what might be happening. He cautiously took Adrian's shoulder and gave it a gentle shake. Adrian waved him off and muttered, "I'm fine."

The assistant, and everyone within earshot, relaxed a little. He draped the towel over Adrian's shoulders. "We're taking a break. We'll come back to it in a few minutes."

Adrian waved again, lifting his head with an irritated look. "I'm fine. I'm staying here. Just give me some quiet."

"Well..." The assistant looked around helplessly. "We should move over there. They need to reset."

"I said leave me alone!" Adrian suddenly roared. His bloodshot eyes fixed on the assistant with a furious glare.

Startled, the assistant took two involuntary steps back. He stood uncertainly while everyone nearby turned to stare.

A few seconds later, Adrian abruptly shook his head, covered his face, and rubbed it hard. "Sorry. I was just... I'm sorry."

Scorsese came over. "Are you all right, Adrian?"

"I'm fine, Martin. I'm fine," he repeated. "I'm just under a little pressure... I lost my temper."

"Are you?" Scorsese studied him seriously. "I think you should rest. We're nearly done for the day, and I want to make some adjustments to what's left. You can head home. Didn't you have something else to deal with?"

"No, Martin." Adrian shook his head emphatically. "This is exactly where I need to be. We've spent days on this. There've been problems, but we've made real progress too. Why not finish while I've still got it? If I let it go now, I might not be able to find the character again."

His exhaustion was obvious. So was his stubbornness.

Scorsese looked at him with mixed feelings, then patted his shoulder. "I know how hard you're working. You've surprised me again and again. You're the reason I moved these scenes up. But you have to look after yourself if you want to give the best performance you can. You're in bad shape right now. I'm not going to pretend otherwise. So I'm telling you to go home and rest."

He knew how to get through to an actor. He could see Adrian's condition and what was driving it. He'd made rest a means of improving the performance, not dismissed the whole effort as something no role could be worth.

In truth, part of him was reluctant to stop. Adrian had given him so much. Beyond the playboy material, the compulsive behavior in the scene with Jude had been extraordinary. Even Scorsese had felt that Hughes must have looked like that when he was struggling. At first, he'd still thought DiCaprio might have done as well. After seeing the range and restraint in Adrian's expressions, he felt he'd made exactly the right choice.

That was why he'd brought forward the sequence that demanded the most agonizing inner struggle from Hughes.

In this part of the film, World War II had ended, and Pan Am wanted control of the international routes. It used the transport aircraft Hughes Aircraft had failed to deliver to the military as a weapon against him, hoping to bring him down.

His fear of contamination and his compulsions had been worsening, particularly after he narrowly survived an aircraft crash. He could barely tolerate appearing in public.

Now a senator with ties to Trippe had launched an investigation and demanded that he appear in person. For Hughes, it was almost unthinkable.

Under that pressure, overwhelmed by fear and insecurity, he shut himself away in a room at the company, refused to see anyone, and stripped off his clothes.

It was essentially a solo performance with very little dialogue. Expression and body language had to carry it. An experienced actor could get through the scene. Finding its essence and making it exceptional was much harder.

Scorsese thought DiCaprio was good, but one habit troubled him: the tendency to express anxiety with a furrowed brow. Once or twice was fine. Relying on it too often could attract criticism and limit the performance.

Adrian had surprised him. In his command of small details, he had surpassed many first-rate actors. So often, a tiny choice brought the whole moment into focus.

What Scorsese didn't know was that Adrian had always loved working out details, including plenty a role didn't need. Minghella had warned him that piling them on could fragment a character. Each detail needed a purpose.

That advice had gradually changed his approach. Role after role, he'd learned how to choose the right detail and give it just enough weight.

He worked hard too. The short film he'd financed himself was only part of it. He'd gone over the Hughes material Scorsese gave him so often that he could recite passages from memory. He'd studied recordings of Hughes's voice and imitated them until his own accent was almost unrecognizable.

That dedication alone deserved respect, even without the ease with which he'd moved from playboy to compulsive recluse, or the intensity of the solo sequence they were shooting now.

It reminded Scorsese of De Niro on Raging Bull. He wanted to protect that kind of talent. Part of him longed to finish the sequence while Adrian was still balanced on that anxious edge, afraid they might never recover the same state. But he could see the strain it was putting on him. In the end, he let it go.

Over the past decade, he'd met plenty of hardworking young actors and plenty with talent. Finding both, along with a willingness to give a role everything, was much rarer.

He stopped filming. They were nearly finished for the day anyway. He did what he could to make Adrian rest. Burning through the man's energy and talent over one part would be a terrible waste. An actor like this would shine on an Oscar stage, even if the Academy never warmed to Scorsese's own films, despite the Best Actor Oscar De Niro had won working with him.

After some rest, perhaps Adrian would find his balance and give an even better account of the feeling he had reached. Scorsese tried to reassure himself with that thought.

Had Adrian understood the care behind the decision, he might have been grateful. But he was still fighting his way out of the character, still trapped in the anxiety. Instinctively, he did know Scorsese was right. He moved slowly and reluctantly toward his chair. Once the assistant helped him sit, his expression finally steadied. Sitting down meant he couldn't immediately go back to work. That alone brought him most of the way out.

It wasn't enough. Sanders was no longer his assistant, but he'd come to the stage on business. When he appeared in front of him, Adrian's first words were, "Got any weed?"