Directors cut, p.1
Director's Cut, page 1
Praise for Carlyn Greenwald’s
DIRECTOR’S CUT
“With Greenwald in the director’s chair, one-of-a-kind voice and sharp Hollywood detail light up this fun and passionate romance. Val and Maeve’s relationship is at once resonant with meaningful questions and utterly charming. Vivid, steamy, and smart, Director’s Cut is a rom-com to remember.”
—Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka,
authors of The Breakup Tour
“Carlyn Greenwald has done it again! With glossy prose and shining voice, Greenwald has crafted a captivating love letter to both the power of film as well as our most transformative relationships. Driven by a sweeping, swoony (and steamy!) romance, and decorated with enough film references to delight any cinephile, Director’s Cut will have you glued to your seat. Pass the popcorn.”
—Becky Chalsen, author of Kismet
“Witty, horny, and told with poignant authenticity, Director’s Cut puts queer love center frame. The vulnerability of Val’s experience is delivered through a thoughtful lens, and Greenwald manages to blend the larger-than-life Hollywood setting with a beautifully grounded and relatable love story. I cried, laughed, and yearned—this book has it all.” —Rebekah Faubion, author
“Greenwald’s sophomore novel explores the complexities of celebrity and the challenges that being in the public eye can have on being one’s true authentic self. The relationship between Maeve and Val is equal parts scorching hot and achingly vulnerable, while the story’s blending of Hollywood and academia offer a fun take on the workplace romance! Director’s Cut will have readers clamoring for a sequel!”
—Jenny L. Howe, author of On the Plus Side
“Carlyn Greenwald’s voice is pitch-perfect in Director’s Cut—from her hilarious commentary on Hollywood and celebrity to her honest portrayal of mental health struggles. I couldn’t put this down!”
—Erin La Rosa, author of For Butter or Worse
“With a gripping and passionate sapphic love story and an authentic, honest behind-the-scenes look at the life of a Hollywood starlet, Director’s Cut is a showstopper of a romance. Crafted with a deep love for film and storytelling, Val and Maeve’s academic rivals-to-lovers relationship will have readers swooning and glad they have a front-row seat to watch them fall in love.”
—Mallory Marlowe, author
Carlyn Greenwald
DIRECTOR’S CUT
Carlyn Greenwald writes romantic and thrilling page-turners for teens and adults. A film school graduate and former Hollywood lackey, she now works in publishing. She resides in Los Angeles, mourning ArcLight Cinemas and soaking in the sun with her dogs.
Also by Carlyn Greenwald
Sizzle Reel
A VINTAGE BOOKS ORIGINAL 2024
Copyright © 2024 by Carlyn Greenwald
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.
Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Greenwald, Carlyn, [date] author.
Title: Director’s Cut : a novel / Carlyn Greenwald.
Description: First edition. | New York : Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, 2024.
Identifiers: LCCN 2023048822 (print) | LCCN 2023048823 (ebook)
Subjects: GSAFD: Novels.
Classification: LCC PS3607.R46813 D57 2024 (print) | LCC PS3607.R46813 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023048822
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023048823
Vintage Books Trade Paperback ISBN 9780593468227
Ebook ISBN 9780593468210
Book design by Steven Walker, adapted for ebook
Cover design by Madeline Partner
Cover illustrations: (front) Leni Kauffman; (back) palm tree © jan stopka/AdobeStock; pen and pencil © Tatiana Ol'shevskaya/AdobeStock; flame © Comauthora/AdobeStock
vintagebooks.com
ep_prh_7.0_147247672_c0_r0
Contents
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Acknowledgments
_147247672_
To Introverts with Hip Problems. Kate, Taylor, and Will, wouldn’t have gotten here without you.
CHAPTER ONE
I need a drink.
A Pellegrino sweats on my makeup artist June’s vanity. It falls somewhere in the corner of my vision; June and the understood Stay still form a brick wall between me and even pretending to placate the dryness in my mouth. They’d offered me a laundry list of nonalcoholic drinks when my manager, Trish, and I first walked into the Late Late Show with Winston Gray, everything but what I need. I consider asking the intern with the infected nose ring for a glass of wine, to see if she’d bend the rules, but I don’t. I sit, and the wisps of June’s eyeshadow brush ghost featherlight across my skin.
I’ve never needed alcohol to get through an interview before. I’ve certainly enjoyed it, maybe even used it as a crutch once everyone got talking, but it’s never been on my mind like this before. That said, I’ve never done an interview where I’ve talked about my directing before. It’s never mattered like this.
June pulls away. “Gonna set you and you’re good to go.” She glances down at her phone. “And right on time.”
In other words, T minus five before I’m on with Winston.
“You’re promoting TV today, right?” June asks, her back facing the mirror.
“Yeah, Strange Prey’s second-season opener.”
It was one of the first things Trish booked me when I signed with her, one of those pick any random thing you’d love to do bucket list items. An experiment. What Trish calls an excuse to own my narrative. I thought being out would be no big deal, that that was going to be me owning my narrative. When I reshuffled my team, that I’d get more opportunities that aligned with my values, my creativity and passions. A few new types of opportunities and I truly thought everything would change for the better. But then the media branded me as only one thing. I tried to deal for a while, but I could handle being taken even less seriously than before I came out for only so long. I disappeared from the public eye not even a month after throwing myself into the spotlight. Focused on the work. No press. I acted and directed and ended up finishing my PhD all while sustaining myself off delivery groceries and forcing my friends to meet at someone’s house.
While productive, it wasn’t healthy. Over the past month, I’ve reentered public places for the sake of my social life. Trish insisted press was the next step. I’m back, and the layers of makeup and hair spray feel heavy and unfamiliar on my skin. I haven’t given an interview in front of a camera since the Goodbye, Richard! promo last spring, and something that used to be second nature now feels terrifyingly foreign.
Trish won’t say it, but I can also read between the lines: I’m promoting this episode, but Hollywood is watching me. Gay actress Valeria Sullivan is a commodity worth investing in, but is director Valeria Sullivan? Oakley in Flames, my directorial debut, and its upcoming tour around the festival circuit hinges on how I do tonight.
June sprays my face as my heartbeat picks up. She smiles, gloss shimmering on her lips. “Beautiful.”
Nothing else. June stands up, her fingers ghosting my shoulder in a moment of assurance. Then she disappears, and a curly-haired guy mics me up. Another leads me to the side of the stage. Trish is nowhere in sight. She insisted when we signed that she’d be different from my helicopter parent manager, Steven, that I’d have the freedom to say and do what I wanted. That she trusted me. And, yes, originally I hadn’t felt I needed her here, and she’d come only because we both decided why not, but my skin crawls when I can’t find her. I know all the interview questions, but I can’t shake an almost superstitious dread that I need to see her before I go on. Like I’ve given her the key to my brain and just remembered the lock was there.
But there’s Winston Gray onstage, saying, “Valeria Sullivan!” to a roar of applause.
The mic is attached to the lapel of my blazer, so I can’t give myself a pep talk under my breath. That this will go well and I’ll get my career—the career I want—back on track. Instead, I walk out with my best fake smile and the assurance that none of the bright, grinning faces in the audience or those watching this while falling asleep in their living rooms will be able to see my shaking hands or hear my hammering heart.
Valeria Sullivan, whoever the fuck that is, is back.
Winston is one of those hosts whose best feature is his grin. Nothing else about him is memorable. He’s white, maybe midforties, wears generic suits, has a flat California accent, and can’t even claim an embarrassing laugh as a trademark. We’ve met once before, when I hosted SNL some years back and he was still a cast member.
“Valeria, it’s so good to see you again,” he says, making easy eye contact. His caramel-brown eyes sparkle in the harsh stage lighting; his handshake is firm.
I wish I remembered more about him from our time together in New York. But as a reckless closeted lesbian, I was too busy floating on cloud nine because the writers wrote me sketches where I got to make out with female cast members. As jokes, but sometimes jokes and costumes and wink wink, nudge nudge can be water in an oasis of fame and closeted queerness.
“So great to see you too,” I say, wondering what he remembers about me that I can’t recall.
I take my seat. He’s got a more modern setup than most talk show sets, dark blue leather couches for both of us instead of the host behind a desk. He’s one of those trendy hosts, and he’s given me, Trish, and my publicist, Frankie, a list of bits we could do, ranging from video games to a version of Russian roulette where I take shots of condiments. It all feels a little like I signed up for All That or some shit. I believe my exact words to Trish were I’d gladly live through the homophobia of the nineties if it meant just doing a normal fucking Rosie O’Donnell interview.
So, yeah, I opted for just the interview, and I can see the disappointment in Winston’s eyes as he adjusts his legs before speaking.
“Love the suit, by the way.” He doesn’t sound quite as smarmy as Hannibal Lecter did saying that line, but it’s still an early curveball. It’s too close to the lesbian-fashion comments for my comfort.
“Thank you. I don’t know what my stylist is doing, but she needs a raise. People have been noticing so much more lately.”
Winston gives a polite laugh, but the audience seems to genuinely enjoy that one. I can’t really make out faces given how brightly lit the studio is, but the audience seems to be enjoying themselves. I relax my shoulders, letting that sink in. There aren’t any comments I have to avoid, truths I have to skirt anymore. This should be—and can be—easier than before. I want people like me to feel seen by me.
“So, coming back to the promo circuit, you’re bringing something a little different here, aren’t you?” Winston says. “How has switching hats affected you? Do you think you’re a better director because of your experience acting?”
It’s a standard actor/director question, and one for which I’ve been studying countless answers from actor/directors. “I don’t think I necessarily am, especially when it comes to directing for TV. I have more experience with the ins and outs of features, so I actually had a ton to learn from the actors, who’ve become experts in their own rights about TV as a medium.”
He snakes the ball as I take a breath. “You think it’s that different, even with a streaming show like Stranger Prey?”
I dig my nail into my side, knowing it’s obscured from cameras. Interviewers are just a part of the process. I let my thoughts go and try to answer his question directly. “The scripts and my ultimate vision don’t differ much from what I would do for a feature, which is amazing. I think I just wanted to not feel like I was barging onto Justin and Pete’s scene like I knew everything. I suppose that’s what I took from being an actor, knowing most of us don’t thrive under a patronizing director.”
“Do you see yourself as a natural leader?”
The wording throws me, seconds ticking as I scramble for puzzle pieces, baking in the lights. Then, thank god, I remember. “Somehow, yes.”
“You told me that you’ve almost unwittingly found yourself in a leadership role with your family.”
I take a sip of the water they provide on set before answering. My response is one of those anecdotes that cracked up all my friends, and the moment I told Trish, she said it was time to incorporate it into the late-night circuit.
“Yeah. So I’m Jewish on my mom’s side, and she’s one of five kids, so holidays like Passover were these huge family affairs for me growing up. I’m the second oldest of the cousins and started the, shall we say, rainbow train.”
This gets a laugh from the audience, who must be a little queer if they’re laughing at that.
“I come out to my larger family at twenty, and my mom warns me before Passover, saying, ‘Val, sweetie, you know everyone’s just curious. They’re just gonna be curious.’ Which, if you know, you know.”
The audience laughs as I give a shrug, quick to keep the story focused. It’s not that I’m unwilling to talk about being gay. It’s an integral part of my life. But I want to decide when it comes up.
“And I’m a bookish college student on spring break,” I continue, “that’s the absolute last thing I want to answer, so I decide I’m gonna buy weed to take the edge off.”
The audience rumbles in laughter.
“I’m sitting through Passover, and I’m blazed out of my mind. Definitely took too much. To the point where I don’t even really remember who talked to me or what happened during the seder. Just that maror and haroseth have never tasted that good before.”
Winston, who I think is Jewish, laughs especially hard at that.
“God, that is saying something,” Winston says.
“Yeah.” I sit up straighter, rub my hands together. “So the next year my cousin Eric pulls me aside before seder starts. He’s maybe seventeen at the time. He takes me into our grandma’s bathroom, and goes, ‘Can I have some of your weed?’ And, of course, I’m like ‘Hell no.’ I’m pretty dumb, but I’m not give a minor marijuana dumb. But this kid looks me right in the eye and goes, ‘I’m gay too, and the only way I’m getting through this seder is high.’ And—” I throw up my hands, getting into the dramatics a bit. “I give him one of my edibles, and we have a great time. I have to support the community. A couple more years pass of us secretly doing this. At this point, I’m twenty-five, working in Hollywood, should probably know better. But my teenage cousin Kenny pulls me aside—not Eric, mind you, who’s now twenty-one—and says, ‘Hey I’m gay, can I get the weed?’ And I’m thinking I already gave Eric the edibles, and what kind of cousin would I be if I didn’t also give Kenny some? So the duo became a trio.”
“You became the family drug dealer?” Winston says, holding back a laugh.
I grin and shrug. “I guess I did.”
“So what happened? Did a family member catch you, or how did it stop?”
I smile; now for the punch line. “Oh, no, it’s still going on. I prepared my grandma for this, said I was going to tell this story on the air, and all she said was ‘That’s fine, it’s not like you need your brain for acting.’ ”
The room roars in laughter and OHHHHs.
“Which, usually is pretty fair,” I continue, resisting the urge to bite my newly manicured nails. “But I gotta teach a guest semester at USC in a few weeks, so godspeed to me and the administration.”
