At first glance he’s a slightly built guy, but he dresses to give that effect. There’s steel beneath the double-breasted blazer, be in no doubt of that. He has a Jamaican father and a Welsh mother, a degree in geology from Leeds University, he likes Van Morrison, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Bryn Terfel, three of my in-car favourites, and best of all he’s a four-handicap golfer, a status to which I’ve aspired all my life, but never yet attained. When Jay put him forward on a list of three, that was the deciding factor in his favour.
An added bonus lay in the fact that he came as a matched pair. He’s married to a lady called Audrey: she was an army clerk. . that’s where they met. . so she has good typing and IT skills. She didn’t ask for a job, but as soon as we’d had a chance to size her up, Susie and I knew that there was one there for her: thus, she became our secretary.
If I’d expected Roscoe to be a red-eyed mess when he got in from LA, I’d have been disappointed. He looked as if he’d been picked up off the Edinburgh train, not a connecting flight from Heathrow. I’ve never been able to sleep on any part of an aircraft, not even on the long haul to Australia.
My agent has that gift: he’d flown across America and then the Atlantic, stretched out flat in first class.
‘Hi, Oz,’ he greeted me, snappily, as he stepped into the conservatory that serves as our office, his shiny skin so black that he made Conrad look pale. ‘You ready to get down to business?’
I’d just come out of a hard work-out in the gym, plus wee Jonathan was cutting teeth and had kept us up for half the night: the guy was fresher than me. We must have made some contrast, me in tracksuit bottoms, a sweaty T-shirt and trainers, Roscoe in a sharp Italian suit. We must have, because Susie laughed out loud.
‘You wouldn’t thank him if he did,’ she said. ‘Oz, go and shower, before the ventilation system breaks down.’
So I did as I was told. When I returned, my agent was sitting in one of our big guest chairs. He had wee Jonathan perched on his knee, and he was looking as awkward as anyone I’ve ever seen, and terrified too, in case the kid drooled on the Armani cashmere. I picked him up and returned him to his mum.
Our latest office toy at the time was a big Gaggia coffee machine. I fixed Roscoe a nice latte (isn’t it funny how coffee with milk sounds more inviting in Italian?) and sat down behind my side of the huge partner desk set-up that Susie and I share. I nodded towards Roscoe’s hand-tooled Zero Halliburton briefcase. ‘So what’s in there?’ I asked him.
‘Some very interesting propositions, my friend,’ he replied, opening his seriously expensive executive’s accessory, and taking out a folder of papers.
I held up a hand. ‘Before we get into them, make me understand one thing. Why are we doing this face to face and not by e-mail or even over a video-conference link? I don’t want to project a classic Scots stereotype here, but I don’t reckon for a minute that you’ll be picking up the tab for your travel expenses.’
He gave me one of those big Denzel ivory grins. ‘If I’d thought that would worry you, I’d have travelled coach. Oz, we’re discussing multi-million-dollar business here, stuff that’s highly sensitive commercially. New-age communications may be slick, but they are way too easy to spy on. If one studio gets wind of another’s project, it’s not unknown for them to try to beat them to the punch with something similar. Remember a few years back when we had a spate of volcano movies?’
‘Could I ever forget? They were bloody awful.’
‘That’s what happens when you rush things. They made money, though. Top-class marketing covers up a multitude of stuff. Look at The Blair Witch Project.’
‘I’d rather not,’ I told him. ‘Once was enough. I sat through it waiting for the scary stuff that never happened. The hype had me believing I was going to piss my pants, but all I did was yawn.’
Roscoe laid his folder on the desk. ‘None of these will make anyone do that,’ he said.
‘Let’s hear about them, then.’
‘I’ve got five here,’ he said. ‘Two are no-goes. .’
‘Why?’
‘They’re not worthy of a star of your importance.’
‘Aw, come on!’ I heard myself laugh, but it sounded strained. Actually, what he had said had unnerved me. No, it was more than that: the whole situation, me on top of the pile, red carpets everywhere I went, Roscoe and everyone else coming to me, it was all beginning to get to me.
I never set out to become an actor. I was a guy enjoying an easy life, until someone thought that ‘Private Enquiry Agent’, which I was, meant ‘Private Detective’, which I wasn’t, and I found myself involved in a piece of work that led to me role-playing on camera. It turned out that I was good at it, and the whole thing just took off after that. I hadn’t started out with stars in my eyes, and while I had enjoyed the ride, I hadn’t prepared myself mentally for the level I had reached. I wasn’t sure I could handle it. I wasn’t sure I wanted to handle it.
Roscoe made it worse. ‘I’m serious, Oz,’ he insisted. ‘Some of the projects that have been put to us might have borne consideration a couple of years back, but not any more.’
I looked across the desk. Susie and Audrey were sitting on the other side. ‘What if I’d rather be back where I was two years ago?’
His eyes tightened, just a little, but I caught it. ‘That’s not an option, Oz,’ he said quietly. ‘You’re not being offered second or third billing any more.’
‘What if I turn them all down?’
He frowned. ‘Why would you want to do that?’
‘Maybe I’d like a break.’
‘Give it another two years: till then, build on what you’ve achieved. Hollywood has been looking for a new Sean Connery for years. That’s why they’re so excited about you.’
I felt my eyebrows shoot up. ‘Sherioushly?’ I exclaimed: that drew a laugh. ‘Listen, Roscoe,’ I went on, ‘that’s hugely flattering, but it’s not me. I’m an accidental hero.’
‘So was Sir Sean. He was a promising young actor, then Bond happened. The rest is legend. Red Leather is your Doctor No.’
‘And what if I say just that, “No”? Look around you, man. I’m filthy rich already, I have an amazing wife I’m crazy about, I have two kids I’m crazy about. I don’t have to do any more of this. I can walk away now and devote the rest of my life to them, and frankly, even after you’ve told me what’s in that pile of papers, however much money it means, that’s the most attractive option open to me.’
Roscoe sagged a little in his chair: for a moment I thought that the jet-lag had finally hit him. And then he drew a breath. ‘You think so?’ he asked coolly. ‘Mr Blackstone, let me explain some stuff. You seem to think that this business is some sort of a game that you can play for a while and then give up. Well, sorry, sir, but it isn’t. It is a very serious enterprise, one that employs tens and hundreds of thousands of people around the globe. Rightly or wrongly, it is built around people like you. Stars, each one of them, are industries in themselves, providing livelihoods for a hell of a lot of people, from the directors at the top of the off-camera creative team, through the writers, cameramen, focus pullers, grips, dolly drivers, the makeup people. Did you take time to watch the end credits of Red Leather? Did you count the number of names there? All those people. . including you. . were employed because of one man, Miles Grayson. His presence secured the money that underwrote the project.’
‘A lot of it was his own,’ I pointed out.
‘Not all of it, but so what? Where did he acquire the personal finance to invest in his own project? From other projects funded by other people, cinematic icebergs of which he was just the tip. That’s where you are now, sir: you’re up there, clear of the water, with a hell of a lot of other people below the surface who are depending on you. You get self-indulgent and walk away, they will suffer.’