Stealing My Lead Role? Say Goodbye to Yours

Nikita Ragland is a young actress who has only recently made her debut. After starring in a few romance short series, she starts to believe she's a real-life princess. After another argument with her boyfriend, Dwayne Ferguson, Nikita doesn't hesitate to abandon a production crew of more than 500 people and catch a flight in the middle of the night just to appease her beloved boyfriend. When filming starts the next day, Nikita is nowhere to be found, and her hotel room is empty. Dozens of messages are sent to her, but none receive a response. It isn't until that evening that she finally calls on video, completely unbothered. "Mr. Casson, I went to pacify my boyfriend. Let's put filming on hold for now." The director, Walter Casson, is livid. "Are you kidding me? The locations are already booked, and the rest of the cast has their schedules set. How can we just stop production?" Nikita puts on an innocent expression, but her tone is unmistakably condescending. "Well, what do you want me to do? My boyfriend won't let me film kissing scenes with other men. I'll come back if you make Dwayne the male lead. He has never acted before, but we're a couple. He and I will be the perfect onscreen pairing." After saying this, Nikita pauses and glances at me as I stand beside Walter. "As for the current male lead, he can just be Dwayne's sidekick." Walter trembles with rage. "Absolutely not! Jeremiah hasn't done anything wrong. How can I replace him just like that?" Nikita flashes Walter a lazy smile. "If you won't agree, then I'm not acting. You can figure things out yourself." Chapter 1 "Are you threatening me?" Walter Casson, the director, roared, his voice shaking. His grip on the phone was so tight he nearly crushed it. On the other end of the video call, Nikita Ragland, an actress, leaned languidly against the couch in her hotel suite, posture utterly relaxed. "No, Mr. Casson." She let out a light chuckle before going on to say, "I'm simply making my stance clear." Walter drew a deep breath, forcing down his anger. "Nikita, we sent you this script a month in advance. If you weren't okay with it, you could have turned it down back then. You had a whole month to go through the script, and you couldn't tell how many kissing scenes there were?" Nikita shrugged. "I don't read scripts ahead of time. I only look at my lines on the day of filming. That's on you. You knew I had a boyfriend, yet you cast me for a romance series." Walter was momentarily speechless. "Nikita, you're an actress. Isn't this literally your job? Besides, am I supposed to know whether or not you have a boyfriend?" He had poured two years of painstaking effort into preparing for this series. The locations, the lighting, and the schedules of all the other cast members—everything had been locked in tightly. If the female lead walked out now, the whole production would have to be scrapped and started over. Nikita said nothing, merely raising an eyebrow. Walter was silent for a long time before finally speaking. "Look, we're already halfway through filming. What will people say if you just walk out now? Besides, the cast has already been publicly announced. "What do you say if we work with camera angles for all the intimate scenes? I guarantee you won't have any physical contact with the male lead at all. Will that work? Nikita frowned. "No," she said, a hint of helplessness creeping into her voice. "My boyfriend keeps a tight rein on me. It won't work even if we fake the intimate scenes with camera angles. He said he won't accept me doing any intimate scenes with another man, even if they're fake." Walter was at his wit's end. "Then what the hell will it take for you to come back?" Nikita sat up a little straighter, finally adopting a more businesslike demeanor. "I told you. Either we pause production for a month while I smooth things over with my boyfriend, and once he's happy again, maybe he'll let me do the fake scenes. Or… you replace the male lead with my boyfriend." Chapter 2 Walter slumped in complete defeat. After a long silence, he struggled to speak again. "Is there a third option?" He looked up at Nikita on the screen, his eyes red-rimmed. "I put serious effort into casting Jeremiah. His acting and image fit this series better than anyone else's. And he hasn't done a single thing wrong! I can't just replace him for no reason! Also, there's absolutely no way I can pause production." Nikita's expression shifted, and she took on an impatient tone. "Mr. Casson, I'm not negotiating with you. I'm simply informing you of your options." She said each word clearly, "If I go back now, my boyfriend will break up with me. And if I lose my boyfriend, will you take responsibility for that?" I had been standing to the side watching the entire exchange, and finally, I couldn't hold back any longer. "Do you mind if I talk to her for a bit?" I asked. Walter looked at me, hesitated for a moment, then handed me the phone. I took it. When Nikita saw me, she raised an eyebrow and shot me a look of utter disdain. I ignored it and kept my voice calm. "How about this—both you and your boyfriend can come back together. Let him join the filming as my stand-in. For intimate scenes, the two of you can shoot them together. "I promise you, I won't have any physical contact with you at all. That way he can keep an eye on you on set, and you won't have to worry about him breaking up with you." Walter looked at me with gratitude written all over his face. This was indeed the most viable compromise anyone could come up with at the moment. But Nikita let out a soft laugh. She looked me up and down, her gaze sweeping over my face, then drawled slowly, "You? My boyfriend as your stand-in?" She leaned forward a little, as if confirming something amusing. "Don't you think you should take a look in the mirror and see if you even deserve that?" Then, she leaned back against the couch, her tone dripping with condescending pity. "You're nowhere near as handsome as my boyfriend. I won't agree to it. He will only take on the role as the male lead. There's no way I'm letting him be anyone's stand-in." My grip on the phone tightened. Then she shifted her gaze past me to Walter and raised her voice. "Mr. Casson, if you won't replace him, then I won't be filming anymore! Go find yourself another female lead. With everything that'll go to waste, you'll be losing a lot more than just a month!" Walter shot to his feet, snatched the phone back in fury, and roared, "No way! We signed a contract!" Nikita laughed with an arrogant look in her eyes. "A contract? What does it even matter? Don't you forget, I'm a trending actress with half a million followers across all platforms. This production is banking on me to bring in the views. What are the rest of you even worth without me?" With that, the screen went black. She had hung up. When Walter tried calling again, her phone was already off. Walter hurled his phone to the floor in rage, the screen shattering into a spiderweb of cracks. "How arrogant!" He paced the room, grinding his teeth in rage. "If you don't want the role, then screw it—we're not filming!" he shouted at the empty air, then collapsed back into his chair in defeat. The room fell silent for a long time. More than ten minutes later, Walter looked up at me. His eyes were bloodshot, but he had calmed down. When he spoke again, his voice was hoarse. "Jeremiah, since Nikita's not coming back, we need a new female lead. Do you know anyone? Or do you have any recommendations?" I was taken aback for a moment. Then, a face flashed through my mind. "Mr. Casson, I know an actress. She's not well-known, but her acting is excellent." Chapter 3 Walter's eyes lit up when he heard my words. "Who is it?" "Sonia Turner." Walter frowned, thinking for a long moment. "Never heard of her." "She mostly does films and rarely gives interviews, but her acting is genuinely excellent. Her image also suits this role better than Nikita's." Walter pondered for a moment. "Do you have her contact information?" I nodded and made a call, which was promptly answered. After giving Sonia a brief rundown of the situation, she went silent for two seconds to consider things before agreeing to it. "Okay." Sonia flew in to join the production that very afternoon. She arrived at 7:00 pm, dropped off her luggage, and went straight to the set. Walter had her test two scenes. After watching her, he was completely mesmerized. He muttered under his breath, "Her acting… It's miles ahead of Nikita's." I stood by without saying a word. Nikita was a product of the influencer machine. Whatever role she took on, she was always just herself. But Sonia was different. She was the kind of actress who could fully inhabit a role. With the same lines and the same camera angles, Sonia could transform the entire scene the moment she stepped into frame. Walter made the call on the spot. "She's the one." The production had already shot a week's worth of footage with Nikita, and every one of her scenes had to be reshot. That meant a full week's progress had been wiped clean, and everyone would have to work overtime to make up for lost time. We usually wrapped up after ten hours of shooting, but that day, we shot a full 16 hours. However, not a single person complained. This series was Walter's life's work, and everyone else's as well. Nikita might not have cared, but the rest of us did. At 2:00 am, I finally made it back to my hotel room. I was so exhausted I barely had the energy to clean myself up. I collapsed onto the bed and stared blankly at the ceiling. All of a sudden, my phone buzzed, so I picked it up and saw a text message. "Well, how's it going? Without my permission, your little show's not going anywhere." The sender was Dwayne Ferguson—Nikita's boyfriend and my sworn rival back in high school. Back then, Dwayne's grades had always ranked steadily below mine. He was perpetually in second place, and I was perpetually first. So when I got into Northbridge Academy of Performing Arts, he didn't. However, he never accepted defeat. Determined to make it in the same industry as me, riding the wave of online fame, he became a thirst-trap influencer. Eventually, Nikita took a liking to him, and the two started dating. Staring at that message, I suddenly felt energized. I texted him back. "Yeah, you're something else. You can't beat me on merit, so you ride a woman's coattails instead." He replied instantly, "What are you so smug about? Don't think that I'm not aware you're secretly crushing on my girlfriend. But you're just not as good-looking as me, so you have no choice but to admit defeat." I nearly laughed out loud. Me? Crushing on Nikita? My standards weren't that low. I didn't fall for just any woman who came along. "Some people accept everything that comes their way. Make sure you don't end up with the wrong person." Dwayne was furious. "Don't get cocky! I know you've been prepping for this series for six months, and now it's shut down, so you're not shooting either. My girlfriend is a top-tier celebrity. Do you really think Walter will give her up? We'll just leave him hanging for a month, and he'll come crawling back begging for mercy!" I stared at the screen for a few seconds and was thoroughly amused. Dwayne considered Nikita a top-tier celebrity with just half a million followers across all platforms? She was nothing but a student with such poor grades that she couldn't even get into college. Then, she lucked out, got scouted for her looks, and landed a couple of roles in some short-form dramas. Did Dwayne really consider her a big shot after just a few months of filming? She had essentially no acting skills and no proper education. He was the only one who saw her as a prize. I yawned and replied, "Is that so? Hope it works out for you." After sending that final reply, I closed my eyes and fell asleep immediately. Chapter 4 Over the next month, the entire production team operated almost like a closed set. Everyone threw themselves into it, filming from morning until late into the night every day, as if trying to stretch every minute into two. Not a single piece of news leaked out. There were no behind-the-scenes footage, no set photos, and no updates of any kind. To the outside world, it looked as if the series had already halted production. Nikita apparently thought so too, so she and Dwayne went all out. In their social media posts, it would show they were in Marivelle one day, Evermont the next, and Ravensleigh the day after. There were check-ins, couple photos, and captions dripping with all sorts of flirtatious undertones. I grew sick of seeing those updates every day and ended up blocking both of them. … A month later, filming wrapped. After the final scene was done, Walter stood behind the monitor, his eyes red-rimmed. His voice cracked slightly as he said, "Thank you, everyone. Thank you for seeing this through with me." A week after the wrap, I received an invitation to a high school reunion. I hadn't planned on going, but our class representative, Maxwell Berner, called personally, saying this was a rare opportunity to get everyone together and that everyone really wanted to see me there. After giving it some thought, I decided to go after all. The venue was a hotel downtown. By the time I arrived, the private room was already packed. A few people stood up to greet me as I walked in. "Jeremiah's here! Our very own celebrity!" I laughed it off, exchanged a few pleasantries, and found a seat in the corner. I'd barely sat down when the door swung open again. Dwayne walked in with Nikita on his arm. She was wearing a red off-shoulder top, her makeup meticulously done, and her heels clicked sharply with every step. The moment they entered, people swarmed around them. "Hey, Dwayne! It's been a while, hasn't it?" "Is this your girlfriend? Wow, she's gorgeous!" "I heard she's an actress? What has she been in?" Dwayne lifted his chin proudly, still holding Nikita's arm, and said, "Oh, she's been in tons of series. They're all pretty good productions." Someone asked, "How come I haven't seen any of them?" Nikita smiled lightly, her tone casual. "I do short-form dramas. The longer series hasn't aired yet." "Oh, short-form dramas…" the person echoed, nodding. After a slight pause, he added, "But short-form is great too! Oh, speaking of which, Jeremiah does short-form too! I heard his latest one, 'The Captain's First Love', is gaining a lot of attention. They're having a press conference tomorrow, actually. We should all go check it out!" Nikita froze. She glanced at Dwayne, then chuckled. "I'm part of that series. It hasn't finished filming yet." Everyone exchanged puzzled looks. Nikita patted Dwayne's hand and said with full confidence, "They must have heard we're back and specially arranged the press conference for us. After over a month of cooling their heels, they've finally come to their senses." Dwayne's eyes lit up. "Really? Then I'll get to go on stage tomorrow too?" "Of course." Nikita slipped an arm around his waist. "With how handsome you are, I'm sure you'll impress everyone with your first acting gig! You'll be way more popular than some other people." Someone nearby asked, "Dwayne has a role in it too?" Dwayne nodded. "Yeah, I'm replacing the male lead in this series. I've never acted before, but Nikita says I've got potential." "Wow, a real-life couple on screen—that's going to be amazing!" "How sweet!" Everyone chimed in with praise. I sat in the corner, eating my meal quietly, not saying a word. … The next day, the press conference was set for 2:00 pm at the Crownmere International Conference Center. The Captain's First Love had been online for three days and was already sitting at the top of the popularity rankings by a landslide. Chapter 5 By the time I arrived, the entrance was already teeming with media and fans. I had just stepped out of the car when reporters surged forward. "Jeremiah! 'The Captain's First Love' hit over a hundred million views on its first day of release! What do you have to say about that?" "Jeremiah! How does it feel to blow up like this?" "Jeremiah! Any insights from the filming process this time?" Before I even had a chance to answer, a familiar voice suddenly rang out from behind me. "We're the leads here. Are you guys interviewing the wrong person?" I turned around and saw Nikita and Dwayne getting out of their car and walking over. Nikita was wearing a custom deep-blue evening gown and four-inch stilettos. Dwayne had his arm looped around her waist, a victorious smile plastered across his face. Nikita faced the cameras, beaming with composure. "Hello, everyone. I'm Nikita Ragland, the female lead of this series." She paused, then pulled Dwayne closer. "And this is my boyfriend, Dwayne Ferguson, who is also the male lead of the series. We're thrilled to be here for this press conference." The crowd fell silent for a beat. The media exchanged puzzled looks, unsure what was going on. Someone whispered, "Is there another version?" Nikita froze briefly, as if something had occurred to her, then she smiled and explained, "Some scenes were shot before, but all of that will be replaced. The final version will only feature the two of us as the leads." She looked at me with a hint of mockery in her eyes, as if waiting to see me make a fool of myself. I stood where I was, not moving. A reporter held a microphone toward Dwayne. "Mr. Ferguson, could you tell us what projects you've appeared in before?" Dwayne swept his bangs aside with a flourish and flashed the reporters a bright smile. "I've never acted before, but I don't think it's that hard. Besides, I've trained in dance for six years. I'm certain I can carry myself better than some professionally trained actors." He paused, shooting a glance at me with an unreadable expression in his eyes. "Besides, some people have trained for years and still end up as extras, don't they?" A few light laughs rose from the crowd. Dwayne curved his lips in satisfaction and continued, "Honestly, I think that in the acting industry, natural talent and charisma matter way more than hard work. "Some people grind for ten years and still fall short of the innate chemistry that Nikita and I have. We're a real couple, so the emotions we bring on screen are something others can never replicate." Nikita nodded beside him, looking at Dwayne as if he were a rare treasure. She took over the conversation, turning her gaze toward me. "That's right. The real deal is right here. Some people need to face reality and know their place. They should really just stick to playing sidekicks and background extras instead of thinking that they can ride the series to fame. Without me, this series is nothing." All eyes turned to me. Nikita was looking at me too, a glint of amusement in her eyes, as if waiting for my reaction. I put on an amicable smile. "Ms. Ragland, I think you're mistaken." She froze, looking slightly confused. "What?" I glanced at Dwayne, then back at her. "We finished filming this series a long time ago, and it's already been released. Right now, it's sitting at number one in the popularity rankings by a landslide. The series has already become a massive hit without you." I paused, tilting my head as if recalling something. "As for you, Nikita, do you know that you've already been blacklisted by directors in the industry?"