Interview With the Grumpy One

There were fewer and fewer people trying to badger her for answers first thing in the morning. Raina had clearly made her position known on this practice. However, Denis arranged for a reporter to come on set as rumors of Raina's inability to be cheerful started to spread. The woman honed in on the girl, her eyes wide in disbelief as the camera rolled. She was talking to Joseph and practicing her choreography for a scene they were going to film the next day. She, therefore, missed the reporter at first.

"Ms. Rutherford! Hey, Ms. Rutherford!" Raina looked at the camera crew and turned to signal for security. "Please, I'm Lisa Crete from Entertainment Weekly. The director asked me to come on set. He wanted to improve your image to the public." She pulled out the credentials Denis had given her for this surprise interview. After reading them over and getting Wilma to run it by the director for the sake of being thorough, she smiled at the woman. She led the camera crew to her trailer and they settled in for a talk, Paul keeping watch outside in case she was needed for a scene.

"So, what do you want to know?" Lisa took a moment to compose herself. She was expecting an unpleasant woman that she would have to pull and trick information out of. This happy, polite lady was not in her normal wheelhouse. The show that she worked with tended to give her the more difficult interviewees.

"I apologize if I seem a little bit confused, Ms. Rutherford. The media has been going nuts over how mean you are."

"Really?" The girl blinked. "Forgive me, I don't watch TV and haven't really interacted with anyone outside my job in a few weeks. Why would everyone think I'm mean?"

Lisa looked flustered. "Um, well… there's the yelling people out of your way when they try to talk to you in the morning. You don't go out at any other time. Plus there are rumors that you are difficult to work with on set…"

Raina rolled her eyes at that. "First off, how pleasant are you at six in the morning? I don't stay up howling at the moon since I know just how early I've got to be up in the morning. I'm in bed, asleep, by ten every night. That's why no one sees me after dark. And it's still a challenge to get up in the morning. Once I manage to drag myself out of bed, I just want to get ready and get to work so my boss doesn't yell at me. I'm mostly on autopilot. Now imagine just trying to get to your car to drive yourself to work, you're only half awake because of the early hour, and people insist on getting in your way, shoving things in your face, flashing ungodly bright lights in your eyes, and screaming questions at you while they're doing it. I'm a little… It takes about an hour for my brain to wake up to civility and I tend to have a one-track mind in the morning when I've just woken up. 'Get up, shower and dress, do my hair, get breakfast, get to work so the boss doesn't yell at me'. Things that interrupt that plan don't go over well with me."

"Oh, so you're just not a morning person?"

"Unfortunately, no. But I do it because that's the job right now," Raina shrugged. "By the time I get here, I'm ready to deal with everyone and be my best self. Anything before that is just me with a serious case of the 'Morning Grumps'."

"But you drive Mr. Reeves to the set every morning!"

The girl shrugged. "Who can stay grumpy at Keanu Reeves? Besides, he doesn't mind my music first thing in the morning and his bodyguards are hilarious! They really help me wake up in the mornings."

The two women laughed at that. "So… Let's talk about that black eye you came to Montréal with. Who gave it to you? Rumor has it that you are dating someone. Is there something we should know?" Raina groaned, dropping her head into her hands before looking back at the woman.

"Yes, I was punched in the face. No, it wasn't my boyfriend. I'd never stay with a coward that has to beat on women to feel important. No, it was his friend. Former friend. And I took care of it."

"How did you take care of it?"

"Don't worry about it," she grinned. Just as quickly the smile disappeared. "Are people really saying that I'm mean? And who says I'm hard to work with on set?" Again, Lisa fumbled with the honest questions. This wasn't the type of interview she'd imagined at all. "Well, Catherine Dennins has gone on record saying that-"

"Oh, she's just mad because I didn't go along with her plans to shave my head and wear a wig with a relaxed style for the shoot."

"Wait a minute. Is that all your real hair?"

"Well, yeah. I've never cut it or anything. Ain't no extensions, no wig, no somma hair in here."

"Wait, wait, wait. What's 'somma hair'?"

"You know," the girl grinned, waving her hand around to stress her point. "'Some of his hair' and 'some of her hair' and 'some of this hair' and 'some of that-' No, this is all my hair. I've always been a little crazy about it and when Mrs. Dennins threatened to shave it all off at first sight, I was livid. I was willing to put my hair in a wig for her sensibilities, but cut it all off after a lifetime of growing it out? There was no scenario in which that was happening. We argued and… well, I guess it counts as being hard to work with since I don't work with her? I do my own hair every morning."

"It looks great. It reminds me of the 'I Dream of Jeannie' series. All you need is a harem outfit."

"Thanks! That's exactly the look that I was going for," the girl laughed. "Catherine was insistent that Mr. Reeves be able to run his fingers through my hair and push some of it behind my ear. This seems like a good compromise." Her expressive brown eyes took on a thoughtful cast for a moment before clearing. "I think my stunt double Roxy and my understudy Tabitha were still pretty upset with me about the whole situation too. Catherine shaved both of their heads and fitted them with wigs before I got on set. I think they expected me to go along with the program and got upset when I refused. They've since found wigs with long enough extensions to make up for it, but those are the only two other people who might call me 'hard to work with'. I'm polite, I'm on time, I do as I'm told, I work hard to get my choreography down for my action scenes… I've never had anyone say that I'm difficult to work with to my face."

"Well, I'm sure that when this hits the air, people will change their minds about you. There's been very little coverage about you and people are curious. Have you kept in contact with the Nostalgia Critic since that interview?"

"No," Raina shrugged. "There wasn't even supposed to be an interview. I spent months waiting for Mr. Walker to lose interest in my life story. It was interesting to see all the women who came out of the woodwork claiming to be me. Some of them had interesting stories; the one about running a horse ranch was fascinating to me because I'm terrified of horses."

"Really?"

"Uh, yeah! Have you seen the size of their heads? One wrong move and you could lose a hand! They are skittish creatures, but I say they are neurotic, like kids. I'd rather not risk it."

"What is your favorite animal then?" Lisa asked, beginning to enjoy herself.

"Well… You're not going to believe me, but chinchillas are the bomb! They're quiet, they're soft to the touch, and don't require much in the way of upkeep. Not like hamsters," she said forcefully, her eyes narrowed. "Those things are evil, I tell you. With their loud, squeaky wheels and their prima Donna attitudes. They're like the cats of the rodent world, all entitled and jerky. Give me a nice, balanced chinchilla any day. You can stroke them like a Bond villain and they don't care. Chinchillas for the win!"

Lisa chuckled at the enthusiastic recommendation. "So, I guess we know what to get you for Christmas! Besides raising chinchillas, do you have any hobbies?"

"Well, I don't exactly have a chinchilla to raise anymore. Alexis passed away three years ago and I just haven't replaced him. He was a great pet. But yeah, I have hobbies. I read, I crochet… Ooh, check this out." She pulled out her laptop and started playing a very popular video game, advancing quickly through the levels. After a minute or two, she turned it off.

"Why'd you stop?"

"I'm sure you don't want to watch me playing video games all day."

"But… We didn't get the full experience. You weren't even listening to the commentary-"

"Oh, I would never do that. That's practically a hate crime!" Lorraine sighed at the shocked look on the reporter's face. "Look, the game is fun and all. But you get a bunch of unwashed, entitled jerks who have the anonymity of the internet to hide behind like the cowards they are, and you're going to hear the kind of slurs and misinformation that would make a skinhead proud. I'd rather not deal with it. I play the game all the time, but I tune out the negativity."

"I see. Is it really that bad?" Instead of answering, Raina turned on the volume on the game, treating her guests to the kind of racist, homophobic, sexist comments one wouldn't think could exist in this PC world. After less than a minute of it, Lisa insisted that she turn it off. "Wow… I never knew…" Raina smirked at the woman, nodding.

"The fact that most of those idiots live in their parent's basements, wondering why they don't have a girlfriend is… amazing to me. And you wonder why I don't trust children."

"Wait. You don't trust children?"

"I don't know if I'll ever trust children. Those months after Sunshine got dark. This kid called me over. Being all quiet and shy. So I leaned in close to hear what she had to say. Boom! Slur and spit on my upper lip. And she was so proud of herself! Her mother was all like 'that tramp deserved it. She's nothing but a… dot dot dot. Walkers are made to compensate for walking in the elderly. I had people actually risk falling just to hit me with them. But that kid was the worst in my opinion 'cause she lured me in. Being spat on by neighbors and former friends is bad enough, but there's nothing like having a child call you out on something you didn't even do. No, I don't trust children. Probably never will. I doubt I'll trust my own kids once I have them. They'd get me right in their face and then spit out pea soup, like in The Exorcist. No thanks. I've been spat on and sworn at enough to last me a lifetime."

"If you're so afraid of negative publicity and public backlash, why are you working on this project?"

"Pop- I mean, Mr. Esters read the script and recommended it to me. I read it and fell in love with it. Mr. Reeves asked me to do the film with him. All of this seemed to be a good indication of what the Lord had planned for me next."

"Ah, you're a Christian?" Lisa asked politely.

"I couldn't have gotten through the many, many trials of my life without the blood of Jesus on me, covering me. Even in my darkest moments, my God was right beside me. I won't deny the blood that saved me." Raina looked at the woman interviewing her intensely.

The reporter chuckled uncomfortably before changing the subject. "So, what's it like working with Keanu Reeves?"

"I still can't believe that he's willing to work with me on this project! I'm having a blast, everyone is so nice. It's very different from working on Sunshine, but I don't mind. I'm exhausted every night from the sheer amount of stunt work involved, but I love it just the same."

"Why wouldn't Mr. Reeves want to work with you? You know that half of Hollywood is clamoring to share the big screen with you, right?" She laughed at the girl's poleaxed expression. "Oh, yes, my dear. You have people lining up, wanting to work with you. Thanks to your interview with the Nostalgia Critic, actors and actresses are eager to prove that you have a place in this profession."

"I never knew," she said ruefully. "As I said, I'm not a TV watcher and I don't interact with people outside of this shoot."

"So, l guess asking you what it's like to be the most sought-after person in the acting world would be a waste of time?" The panicked look on her face was enough to crack the whole crew up. "You look like a woman who just got hit in the head with a sledgehammer, Raina. Relax." It seemed to take real effort for the twenty-seven-year-old to calm down.

"I'm sorry. I just… I thought that this was a one-off deal. Getting to work with someone so famous was supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime thing. But if people are going to start asking for me to work with them… What about my career?"

"I noticed that you call this shoot your 'job'. What is your career?" Again, that flash of panic made the reporter want to chuckle. She kept her face straight with supreme effort.

"I… I don't want to talk about this. I'm sorry, but the separation of my two worlds has been the only thing keeping me sane. The life I've led these past few years has been wonderful. I've gotten the psychological help I needed. I've found happiness and rediscovered my joy. But lately, this life has been intruding on that one and I'm still not sure how to resolve the issue. I love what I do when I'm not acting, but acting is a lot of fun for me and I didn't realize just how much I missed it. I'm very reluctant to let that life go as those people saved my life in a very real sense. This is going to take some serious thought and prayer to resolve."

"Do the people in that life ever recognize you?"

"Yes," Raina shrugged, "but I'm a very good actress. I can often talk people out of it."

"That really is impressive. Your face is everywhere, especially lately."

"Thank you," she grinned mischievously. "I think the thing most on my side is that no one is expecting me where I work. I'm quite proud to work with the people I do, but it's not intuitive or exactly logical that I would end up where I did."

"I understand," Lisa said quickly, sensing that the girl was about to end the interview. "How are things going with you on set? I remember you once mentioning to the Critic that you were against the usual rivalries and dramatic fights that crop up in a production like this. Any problems so far?"

Raina visibly relaxed at the change of subject. "I'm having an absolute blast with the cast and crew! It's hard physically because the choreography has to be spot on or someone could get hurt. I haven't tapped out to let my stunt double pick up my slack yet, so I'm busting my butt to keep up with the fight scenes. And there are tons of fight scenes in this film. I think that's the best part of this shoot. It's not all 'lovey-dovey'; things are getting accomplished throughout the narrative."

"Given the trauma of your last film, I have to ask. Even though the film isn't 'all lovey-dovey', are there any scenes that you-"

"No," the girl said quickly. "There's one 'fade to black' moment near the end of the film that we haven't done yet, but I'd rather not relive that whole experience."

"It must have been horrible for you. All those people judging you and finding you guilty."

"There's a reason that I came so close to ending my life," Raina said sadly. "Those two months after Sunshine were the worst of my life. Everything just… spiraled out of control so quickly! I came home and suddenly everything in my life was wrong. Thank God for the Esters! They were there right on time for me. And they haven't left me to fend for myself since."

"Is that why you refer to them as your new parents?" Lisa asked slyly. Raina huffed a laugh.

"You heard about that, eh? It's true, Poppi and Mama are a huge influence on my life now."

"Have you gotten back in touch with your real parents at all since-"

"Ralph and Samantha Rutherford are not ones for changing their minds," Raina said firmly. "I'd rather not waste time and effort trying to fix something that is already so broken. Anyway, Poppi is constantly looking out for me and I have Mama to talk to, so I'm not too worried about it. As I said before, I've built a wonderful life since that disastrous ending. I'm happy now and looking forward to not having a repeat of the events leading up to my almost death."

"You sound so casual about your suicide attempt."

"Suicide is a topic that you have to be familiar with in order to-" Lorraine cut herself off before her two worlds collided. "I've had years to come to terms with what I almost did to myself. Years of therapy, years of new experiences to put it in perspective, years of meds, years of tears… It all works together for my good."

"And I'm glad it did. What's the latest estimate on the shoot wrapping up?"

Raina giggled and Lisa couldn't help but join in with the warm woman. "Well, that's above my pay grade, Lisa. I'm just here to work. I can tell you that we are working steadily through the script. We had to start somewhere in the middle, and then move to the end, then back to the middle, and now we're slowly getting back to the beginning… It's a mess. But it's an amazing mess and the essence of acting."

"Well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us."

"Anytime."

"Anytime?"

"Well… Maybe not first thing in the morning," the girl said playfully. She stood up and shook hands with the whole crew before letting them out of her trailer. The girl followed them out with a final wave and went to find the director.