A day in the life of Alfred Molina

A warm afternoon. The skyscrapers of LA turned red in the sun. Alfred Molina was just returning to his hotel in the suburbs of the city, watching through the cab’s windows the beautiful sunbeams falling down on the pavement. His life was like a big journey, a journey of failure. Sitting uncomfortably in the cab, he was holding those files he had shown to Steve Coogan.
Molina without future, Molina without good ideas for the next production, Molina without a cousin – he saw these headlines in the newspaper of his life. People made him feel lonely. In his old-fashioned clothes, not an artist but a pathetic actor. Another traffic jam. More time to think about his life, full of accidents and mistakes. He just made another mistake, meeting Steve Coogan. In a tiny café, over English tea, he paid him compliments, did everything to make friends. Perhaps he exaggerated with his pompous speech, but … he tried so much to sound real. The documents … Molina drew that stupid family tree the whole evening, investigating Coogan’s family. The fear of being rejected triumphed again. “I will never trust people,” he thought. It was his new resolution.

He wasn’t jealous of Steve. They were a family. They were … People did not admire him but his cousin, elegant, intelligent and self-confident. Over-confident. It was not anger but sadness that he felt when people turned their backs on him. What did he do wrong? Why even this cab driver did not recognize him? Maybe there were some signs telling him to go back to Britain and change a profession, from an actor to, for example, gardener. He could cut hedges without quarreling with people. A peaceful, quiet job for Alfred Molina. The world cannot hurt him. It was only a flock of yelling people. They were with him in the cab too, in his thoughts, his free time, on this warm afternoon. Alfred Molina hated them all.
The journey to his cheap hotel for paltry producers and hopeless actors cost him 20 dollars. In the street, in this part of town, down-and-outs begged for money, for bread. The poor and the rich. Controversial Hollywood, full of happy stories, happy endings in soap operas, but not for them. LA is a big jungle in which Molina got lost.
The way to his room. The way to nowhere. The way to the end of a senseless day, like most of them. The dark corridor, then the big staircase to the end of his “brilliant” career. He realized that the door to his room was open. Another surprise, some kind of mystery in Hollywood, good material for an uninteresting story.
The whole room was full of cigarette smoke. Steve Coogan was sitting in the big armchair. On the table there was a small kettle and two cups of real English tea. Molina could recognize it at the end of the world.
– Hello, Alfred!
– Hello, Ste …
– Can we talk for a while? Can we talk about … about trees?