HENRIK: What are we doing here?
CHANNING: I'm going to teach you how to write a play, big man.
HENRIK: I am of average size.
CHANNING: It's a joke.
(A moment.)
HENRIK: I fail to find the humor in that.
CHANNING: That's because you don't know funny.
HENRIK: Or it was a poor joke. Much like most of your career.
CHANNING: See, now THAT was funny!
HENRIK: I was being serious.
CHANNING: Man, you're hard to read! Luckily, I don't read good, so we don't have to worry too much.
HENRIK: Did you bring me here to kill me?
CHANNING: Dude, it's Crossfit gym.
HENRIK: I assume this is where Americans go to die?
CHANNING: Well, yeah, but--
HENRIK: I thought you were going to help me with my writing?
CHANNING: I am! And writing is like dancing, and I know dancing. Take your pants off.
HENRIK: Excuse me?
CHANNING: You can't move well the way you're dressed. We do this in our underwear.
HENRIK: Must we?
CHANNING: Yeah, we must, dude.
HENRIK: What sort of sinful waltz are you going to teach me?
CHANNING: Yo, one of my straight-to-videos was called 'Sinful Waltz.' You can't even get that shit on eBay anymore.
HENRIK: I'm leaving my pants off.
CHANNING: Suit yourself.
(CHANNING takes his pants off. HENRIK is mortified.)
HENRIK: Have you ever written anything?
CHANNING: Uh, YEAH. The first three drafts of Magic Mike and, like, two scenes in The Vow that I improvised on the spot.
HENRIK: Were those performed by professionals?
CHANNING: Professional badasses? Yeah, they were.
HENRIK: You speak like a Norwegian gutter girl.
CHANNING: Yo, what kinda kinky shit you into, Henny Penny?
HENRIK: Let us please begin.
CHANNING: In order to write, you have to think about where you're going, where you want to go, whose face you're going to put your junk in.
HENRIK: I shall not smear my garbage onto the countenance of another.
CHANNING: That's what theater is, Hen! It's getting in people's faces! Putting your lone wolf right where they can see it and being like 'This is my art, bitch!'
HENRIK: I fear you have no soul.
CHANNING: Writing's gotta be spontaneous, free-flowing, rhythmic--
(CHANNING grabs HENRIK and the two begin to dance. HENRIK resists at first, but CHANNING seduces him into a slow, sensual tango.)
HENRIK: Never speak about this.
CHANNING: About what?
HENRIK: Talk on my work. Criticize it. Rip it apart. I am in your hands and I shall stay there for as long as you'll have me.
CHANNING: All your plays have sad endings.
HENRIK: Life's endings are often sad.
CHANNING: Dude, not all the time. Look at us! You're a famous playwright and I'm AWESOME. Put the sad stuff in the beginning and then make the ending fun and happy! Unless you want like a twisty play where, like, Hedda Gabler can die in the first five minutes and everybody's like 'Whoa! This play's called 'Hedda Gabler' and now Hedda's dead! What the fuck?'
HENRIK: Go on.
CHANNING: Doll House? Lame House. Give Nora a gun and start shooting shit up. Then you'll have a play on your hands.
HENRIK: Perhaps I could give Nora Hedda's gun?
CHANNING: Yeah, whatever. You know these people aren't real, right?
HENRIK: In my mind's eye--
CHANNING: Oh! Wild Duck? Two words for you: The first one is Tobey. And the second one is Maguire. That dude can save almost anything.
HENRIK: What else?
CHANNING: Peer Gynt. I don't know what it's about, and I don't know want to know what it's about. And that's because you don't know how to come up with a good title. Call it Car Chase.
HENRIK: But there isn't a car chase in it. There isn't even a car.
CHANNING: Yeah and there isn't a John in Dear John but so what?
HENRIK: Could it not be that your character's name was John?
CHANNING: ...Ohhhhhhh...right.
HENRIK: It doesn't matter. None of it matters. All that matters is the dance.
(CHANNING dips HENRIK. When they came up, something has changed. They separate.)
CHANNING: Goddammit, Henrik.
HENRIK: What? What have I done?
CHANNING: I can't help you if you make me fall in love with you.
HENRIK: You...you love me?
CHANNING: No, dude! That shit's dialogue right there! You can use that. Free of charge.
HENRIK: Oh...I see.
CHANNING: Now--you want to hear my theory on the fourth wall?
HENRIK: You mean bridging the distance between yourself and the audience?
CHANNING: Nah, like how if you have a theater you have to have a fourth wall or you'll be cold all the time.
HENRIK: Something about you screams genius. Perhaps it's the beauty in your eyes. But I can't help but feel that you're incredibly intelligent.
CHANNING: You know what, Henrik? I get that a lot.
(CHANNING laughs as HENRIK slowly begins to fall in love.)
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