Managing Stardom

• Rose Kavanagh, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2016

MANAGING STARDOM by Rose Kavanagh

“I don't care about acting, I just care about the fame” she said to me a few weeks ago. Great, I was only managing one actress and she was a stubborn, vain grump.

That's what made me think. What sort of film star just acts for the fame? I've always been into acting myself. Always wanting to strut the red carpet at my big premiere, but I know this may never happen. Get this - I do it for the passion.

I was a manager, that's as close as I got to acting. I would secretly look at the scripts that were left lying on the floor, and imagine being the star, the hero. To be honest, I thought being a manager would be fun and exciting, but really, it's just chasing and looking for auditions and sorting scripts for an actress who shouts at me every time I do something wrong, (in fact, even when I do something right!) I really wanted her to have a taste of her own medicine. And that's what she eventually got.

I ran away from managing and started up my own business, well when I say 'business' I mean that I tried to. It was going to be called 'Rose's guide to fame' but as no one knew who I was and I wasn't an actor, it failed miserably. But I didn’t give up hope. This is what I wanted more than anything and I was going to get it. Because I was a manager myself, I could organise my own auditions. If anything backfired, I had a lot of friends who could help. So, I was an independent woman going to auditions, failing, going to more, then failing again. Something popped into my head telling me to stop my dream, but I continued on.

After failing more auditions, I collapsed into a heap on the floor. I was a mess. Was it that I needed to change my look? My voice? My style? I didn't know what to do. I looked like one of those people in a reality show having a total melt down.

But one day I received a phone call from a director that was looking for a particular actor. It sounded like my dream part and I told them I could act. So they gave me a chance. I was super nervous when I had to audition AGAIN for a role. But there was something that told me that I was going to get it by the smile on the director’s face when it was my turn. And the funniest thing was, I bumped into the same actress I used to manage. Sadly for her, she didn’t get the job. But that made my day because then I knew she was hopeless without me.

So now, I’m a film star. And my manager, well she's just a stubborn former actress, who had trouble finding a job.