The Best Movie Actor In Hollywood!

Chapter 312

The two dishes they had ordered arrived one after the other.

"My paparazzi have taken a ton of photos of you and Charlize," Ilana remarked, swallowing a piece of diced chicken. "I'm holding onto them for now."

Without looking up from his food, Matthew noted, "That's not your style."

Ilana looked up at him and suddenly smiled. "The photos are too ordinary, not splashy enough to send out. I'm waiting for the day you sleep with Charlize."

"You're overthinking things," Matthew muttered, reaching for a piece of chicken.

As if she hadn't heard him, Ilana let her imagination run wild. "Hollywood's hottest new leading man and this year's Oscar-winning Best Actress... suddenly fall in love. Wow, it's thrilling just to think about."

Matthew reminded her, "Charlize has a boyfriend."

"Is that a problem?" Ilana asked pointedly. "You think anyone here stays faithful? Look around. How many Hollywood celebrity couples aren't cheating on each other?"

She picked up a napkin and dabbed her mouth. "But you have to be careful. If you get caught in bed with a married woman, or one with a boyfriend, the public won't like it."

"I'm not an idiot," Matthew said between bites. "And I have no intention of wrecking someone's relationship."He treated their exchange like a conversation between friends. "But I have to say, catching celebrities cheating seems like a risky business."

"It's risky for an amateur," Ilana countered, pointing to herself. "But you're forgetting you're sitting with an expert at catching cheaters and digging up these kinds of scandals."

Matthew gave Ilana a curious look; after all, in an age of instant information, it was incredibly difficult for celebrities to keep their whereabouts a secret.

He could just imagine it: waiters in the restaurants and hotels frequented by celebrities must be informants for the paparazzi and entertainment reporters. As long as the paparazzi were willing to pay, these people would probably even help them sneak onto the premises to get a photo, to say nothing of just revealing a celebrity's location.

"Tell me how you operate," Matthew prompted.

Ilana considered it for a moment, then replied, "Consider it a professional courtesy."

Matthew nodded. "Sounds like I should be thanking you."

"Don't mention it," Ilana said with a magnanimous wave of her hand.

She began, "Even though Los Angeles is a sprawling concrete jungle, there aren't that many restaurants and hotels private enough for Hollywood's elite. The chances of running into someone who happens to know someone else who knows your secret... they're just too high."

Matthew nodded; that was exactly how most rumors started circulating in the industry.

Ilana's expression was dead serious. "Unless you're willing to meet in some dive bar or a seedy hourly motel in Koreatown. The 'secluded' parks in the San Fernando Valley aren't so secluded anymore, and the bars on the Westside or the diners in Echo Park? Even the nobodies who just arrived in Hollywood wander into those places from time to time."

"Right," Matthew said, curious. "Do you give your people this kind of training?"

"Something like that," Ilana didn't deny it. "We pay off hotel and restaurant staff to be informants, but unfortunately, the stars have gotten smarter. It's not fashionable anymore to have an affair in a fancy hotel like the Peninsula, the Four Seasons, or the Beverly Hills Hilton—the risk of exposure is too high. These days, it's all about private homes, best friends' apartments, short-term rentals, or places you can only get to by plane, like film festivals. That's where they can let loose. But the best place to cheat is still on a film set."

Matthew gave a slight nod; from what he knew, Ilana's words made perfect sense.

"You know it yourself," Ilana said, speaking with the conviction of experience. "The paparazzi team I've been running since the start of the year hasn't gotten a single worthwhile shot at a trendy hotel—unless it was one of those big parties, like where you hit it off with Scarlett Johansson."

"Because with so many people coming and going, it doesn't look suspicious?" Matthew asked.

Ilana agreed. "Exactly. Plus, hotels are full of waiters and receptionists who will sell you out for an information fee."

She suddenly lowered her voice. "I have a few reliable sources who say that the steep rates on Wilshire Avenue make it a favorite spot for certain womanizers. There's also a famous producer who owns a property on Boulder Avenue, and he and his friends often host women there for... entertainment. Sometimes married women."

"Who is it?" Matthew asked, his curiosity piqued.

"That's a secret," Ilana replied. "It's information that TMZ paid a lot of money for. I'd be violating my non-disclosure agreement if I told you his name."

Hearing that, Matthew didn't bother pressing for details.

Matthew himself believed that the vast majority of celebrity affairs happened on film sets.

Film shoots were often like summer camp, where everyone lived together, far away from their normal lives and responsibilities. With everyone so keyed up, what else was there to do but get into some... trouble?

Film festivals were another hotbed, full of horny industry insiders who might manage to avoid affairs in their daily lives, but not at Sundance, Cannes, or the Toronto International Film Festival, where they could live however they pleased.

Matthew hadn't forgotten what one veteran actor had told him: "It's not surprising to suddenly find yourself waking up next to someone late at night after a big party. And the festival provides a ready-made alibi: 'I was at a screening,' 'I got dragged into an eight-hour negotiation,' 'My phone died,' 'I'm at dinner and can't pick up,' and so on."

According to Ilana, in Hollywood, stars—both male and female—always felt like they had a license that read "Do Whatever You Want," and they all believed they were impossible to catch.

Regardless of what Ilana said, Matthew had no intention of making a move on Charlize while she, by her own admission, had a boyfriend.

Unattached male and female celebrities hooking up was just gossip; an affair with a third party was a scandal.

Helen had drilled this point into him. Now that he was an A-lister, his commercial value was soaring, especially with major brands. Tabloid gossip was one thing, but a real scandal would have a definite negative impact.

After dinner, Matthew chatted confidentially with Ilana for another ten minutes before she left.

...

The day after his dinner with Ilana, the film crew traveled to the small town of Valencia to shoot location scenes near a commercial center that was under construction. And sure enough, the paparazzi under Ilana's direction started circling behind Matthew.

As filming entered its final stages, media attention had begun to wane, and the number of reporters following him had decreased significantly.

The crew didn't have many scenes to film here, having scheduled only two days for the shoot. The first day went smoothly. Matthew's scenes were mostly set in front of the half-finished business center, while Charlize filmed her parts in a car with the building in the background.

On the second day of filming in Valencia, Matthew saw a familiar figure: Stuart Townsend had come to visit Charlize again.

But Matthew noticed that the expression on Stuart's face was grim.

Shortly after, he went to the set to continue filming the remaining scenes with Charlize.

Stuart had gone out shopping and returned to stand alone at the edge of the set, watching the proceedings. Since he wasn't very famous himself, the few reporters following the crew seemed to have no interest in him—until two reporters bearing TMZ credentials appeared.

The two reporters, a man and a woman, looked less like paparazzi and more like conventional journalists. The woman held a microphone, and the man carried a small camera.

"Is that him?" the woman asked the cameraman behind her. He studied Stuart for a moment before confirming, "Yeah, that's him."