That led to Rory being asked, “How does it feel for a guy like you to kiss the most beautiful woman in the world?”
“It’s a kiss for the ages,” he said. Irene smiled, knowing she’d done her work well. The crammed room remained silent, save the clicking of camera shutters. When the press conference ended, Willa was whisked away as more questions were shouted at her. Irene escorted Rory into a smaller ballroom set up with multiple round tables, each crowded with journalists and their microphones. Rory spent twenty minutes at each table, one after another, with no break, answering versions of the same three questions.
What is it like working with Willa Sax?
What is it like kissing Willa Sax?
Is that really your ass in the hurricane scene?
Irene took him to the Media Center on the eighth floor, to sit through a total of fifty-seven television interviews, lasting no more than six minutes each, all held in the same room, Rory seated in the same chair with a one-sheet of the movie behind him. In the poster, Willa was staring off into space, a look of ferocious concentration on her beautiful face, her torso clad in a tight sweater, a rip exposing her shoulder and the top sphere of her left breast. Behind her was a mosaic of images from the movie—an explosion, dark figures running in a tunnel, a massive, cresting wave, and Rory wearing a headset and looking at a computer, serious as all hell. WILLA SAX IS BACK AS CASSANDRA RAMPART was printed in big letters. Rory’s name was in the cluttered billing block at the bottom of the poster, in typeface the same size as that of the film’s editor. Irene kept him plied with green tea, protein bars, and small bowls of blueberries.
The movie was promoted on CBS This Morning the entire week. Every morning at 7:40 and 8:10, Rory reported the national weather in front of a green-screen map. Willa Sax was a guest host with Kelly Ripa on Live with Kelly. The two women did Pilates on the air.
The premiere of the film was supposed to take place on one of the piers on the Hudson—special facilities had been constructed with seating for five thousand people, but a predicted thunderstorm put the kibosh on that. Instead, cinema screens all over the city were booked for simultaneous digital projections of the movie. Rory and Irene were delivered to every one of them by SUV—a total of twenty-nine personal appearances. Willa Sax attended only the special screening held at the Museum of Natural History to raise money for its Programs for Young Scientists.
At the end of the nine days of the domestic press junket, Rory was exhausted, talked out, dizzy; he had seen little more than cars and rooms and cameras. Worst of all, the questions had been the same for four-hundred-plus interviews.
What is it like working with Willa Sax?
What is it like kissing Willa Sax?
Is that really your butt in the hurricane scene?
Rory now felt that working with Willa Sax was like eating a peanut butter sandwich on a motorcycle, kissing Willa Sax was like Christmas in July, and the butt in the hurricane was that of a talking horse named Britches.
“Welcome to the big leagues, punkin’,” Irene told him. “Tomorrow, Rome.”
Willa Sax flew to Italy on a chartered plane, along with her team, her posse, and her handlers. The studio plane took the other five producers, all the executives, and the marketing heads. With no seats available for either Rory or Irene, they flew business class on TraxJet Airways, changing planes in Frankfurt.
Three days of press were held in Rome, each as busy as those in the U.S. On the last night the teaser was shown outside at the Circo Máximo—where the chariot races were held in ancient times. To Rory it looked like just a big field. Scenes from the movie were projected onto a huge temporary screen, but not until after a local soccer team was presented with the trophy they had won in some championship. The crowd was estimated at 21,000. When Rory appeared onstage to wave to the Romans, nothing happened. When Willa appeared to do the same, fistfights broke out as a tide of fans in soccer jerseys rushed the barricades to get to her. The Italian carabinieri got into a melee with the thugs as Willa was hustled into an armored car and whisked away to the airport. The next morning, Rory and Irene took a commercial flight—Air Flugplatz—to Berlin, where another three days of press were on tap.
In Berlin, Rory’s body clock was so jet-lagged that he found himself flush with energy at 3:00 a.m., so he went out for a run. Leaving the hotel, he was ignored by the dozens of fervent German Cassandra Rampart fans who’d lingered all night and would continue to do so all morning, hoping for a glimpse of her. He jogged along the dark paths of the Tiergarten, stopping to do push-ups on the steps of a monument to the Russian Army, complete with actual tanks, that crushed Berlin in 1945. At noon the next day he was so tired he felt like a sleepwalker. He talked like one, too, telling the entire staff of Bild, the national newspaper, that as both a fan of the movies and the latest costar of Willa Sex (he actually said “Sex” instead of “Sax”), he felt that “Sandra Caspart was the most complimental and sophisticationed of any and all films, for Willa Sex is heroin for our times, and a woman of the four ages.” Then came the questions.
What is it like working with Willa Sex?
What is it like kissing Willa Sex?
Is that really your butt in the hurricane scene?
“Try not to call her Willa Sex,” Irene told him in the car back to the hotel.
“When did I do that?” Rory asked.
“Just now. To Germany’s largest daily newspaper.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m no longer sure what the words are that come out of my mouth.”
The German screening of the teaser took place later that night, projected onto the Brandenburg Gate to six thousand fans. When she appeared at the balcony of the hotel to wave to them, Willa Sax was disappointed there were no fistfights.
“I guess I’m no Willa Sex tonight,” she said at the gala dinner afterward, held in the same museum that displays Nefertiti’s bust.
By the time Rory and Irene had flown to London (CompuAir into Gatwick), the international press junket had turned Rory into blabbering toast.
DAY 2
7:30—Grooming in room
8:00—Transfer by Car to Gare de l’Est
8:10–9:00—Red Carpet Interviews prior to Boarding CASSANDRA EXPRESS
9:05–13:00—Train ride to Aix-en-Provence. En route 15-minute interviews in special Media Car. (Outlet list available on request)
13:00–14:00—Red Carpet interviews upon arrival at Ancient Roman Theater
14:30–16:00—Ancient Roman Theater. Re-creation of Hurricane Scene for Press. (Note: This is broadcast live on RAI-Due TV.)
16:30—Reboard CASSANDRA EXPRESS. Live appearance on “Midi & Madi” TV broadcast from Observation Car.
17:15–21:45—Return to Paris via CASSANDRA EXPRESS. En route 15-minute interviews for non-French media in special Media Car. (Outlet list available on request)
22:00 Transfer by car to Cocktail Reception/Dinner at Hotel Meurice, hosted by Facebook France.
After dinner you are free to stay or return to hotel.
Irene will be provided the ADVANCE SCHEDULE FOR ASIA before arrival in Singapore/Tokyo.