“Fine, where are they?” he conceded.
“I was really hoping you’d take the deal today,” Tameka smiled wryly. “I have no idea how you work these hours, let alone pump iron for four hours some days to prep. I could never do that even without poisoning my lungs.” Felipe glared at her. “Right, right, I’m Rahim’s mom, not yours. You’ve said it enough times. The reporter’s in your trailer.”
Felipe walked outside to the largest trailer on set, then asked the svelte blonde inside to give him a minute to change. He then invited her back in and propped open the door, noting the flicker of disappointment that dashed across her face.
“So, Carter Amos,” she addressed him as she crossed her miniskirt-clad legs. “I have to say you look bigger in person.” Her eyes moved from his goatee to his shredded arms, to his washboard stomach. It didn’t seem to matter he was wearing a shirt.
“Okay,” he smiled politely, ruing for the millionth time the stage name his first agent had dreamed up for him. He’d just been thankful back in his early 20s to be a working actor, which led him to overlook his agent’s wildly racist notion that ‘Felipe Cifuentes’ was too ‘ethnic.’
But perhaps it held some weight since now he was an A-list action star instead of typecast in stereotypical roles for Latino men. Maybe that’s why the woman in his trailer–not to mention scores of others he’d rebuffed over the years–was obviously coming onto him, he considered as she uncrossed and crossed her legs yet again.
“I’m going to ask you about End Code,” she referenced the film he was promoting for release in less than a month, “as well as the movie you have coming out next Spring.”
“Right, Calderon,” he reminded her. “That one is about a drug heist.” Keep it all about the projects, Felipe, he told himself, hoping she wouldn’t ask him about his personal life.
“But first…”
Aw, shit, here it comes.
“… it was a huge surprise all across LA and maybe the world when you and Chelsea Tenaglia decided to part ways earlier this year.”
“Okay,” he said with a neutral expression plastered on his face. It was the one he practiced in the mirror countless times in the days after he’d moved out of the $4.2 million mansion he’d once shared with his ex-wife and 5-year-old son.
“You’re not going answer the question?” the reporter asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I don’t believe I heard a question,” he replied briskly, taking a sip from his water bottle. He knew he would probably come off as rude–despite the fact this woman was terrible at her job and made statements where she should have been asking questions–but he was running on three hours of sleep and desperately craved a smoke.
“Right,” the reporter responded, looking a touch embarrassed. “You two were considered to be as solid a couple as it gets in this town. What do you say about the rumours that there was some distance between you because you were becoming increasingly anti-social?”
“Anti-social?” Felipe repeated, arching an eyebrow. This woman really didn’t know what she was doing if she was going to come at him guns blazing instead of wording such a personal question more tactfully.
“Well, you, yourself, just mentioned I have two films being released just eight months apart,” he said aloud. “When you work 16-hour days, all you really want to do is reset at home with your family. I think that just makes me human, not anti-social.
“Chelsea is also busy with her acting career and her clothing line,” he went on. “It’s unfortunate that we decided to go our separate ways, but we’re committed to being active co-parents for Nico.”
“How much do you think you’ll get to see Nico, seeing that you’ve moved back to Canada?”
“First of all,” Felipe said, hoping she would not pursue a line of questioning that focused on his little boy, “I didn’t move back to Canada; I’ve always lived in Canada for at least part of the year and traveled to LA for work.
“Secondly, Nico has also spent months with me on my farm east of Toronto when his mother was occupied with her projects. The arrangement Chelsea and I will now have won’t be much different.”
“Yes, your farm. That’s unusual for an actor who makes blockbuster action films.”
Felipe remained silent, taking another sip of water.
“Uh, I mean, why did you decide to start a farm of all things in your spare time?”
“I hate to correct you again,” Felipe started with a sheepish smile as he started to feel bad for the reporter. Maybe it was her first day or something. “But the farm is really half of what I do in terms of work, not something I do in my spare time.
“It’s just unpaid work so I understand how some people see it as a hobby.” He set down his water bottle, making sure to keep his gaze on his interviewer’s face as she stretched out her legs.
“It’s 100 acres and part of the land serves as a vegetable farm,” Felipe explained. “It’s almost September now so I’m actually going back in a few days to oversee our harvest. Every year, we donate thousands of kilograms of produce to three dozen soup kitchens and homeless shelters in the Greater Toronto Area. We’re also building greenhouses on site so we can continue our work through the winter.
“A much smaller part of the land is paved,” he continued, “and it’s a free place for those who are living out of their cars to park overnight or indefinitely. I make no secret of the fact that that’s the position I was in when I started my career.” He paused as the perfect segue appeared in his head. “Poverty is also a main theme in End Code, if you want to talk about that now.”