Burt Reynolds is Blade. Burt Reynolds is also Whistler. This feels more fitting for him—the aging sidekick, doomed to die a dramatic death at the midpoint of the film. But he won’t tell Stephen, the casting director. He won’t tell him that, at sixty-two, he worries he doesn’t have the gumption to pull off the role of powerful, notorious, and, most concerning, young half-vampire. Burt won’t tell him how he worries that, when Stephen offered him the part, he and the crew were expecting the rugged character from Deliverance, or the taut, charming man from a nearly three-decades old issue of Cosmopolitan.

Burt Reynolds is also Frost, the powerful underground vampire with an evil plan and a penchant for world domination. Frost isn’t a pureblood, wasn’t born a vampire. He was turned. He has scars. This is a key aspect of the film Blade, the difference between pure and turned, half and whole. Burt Reynolds was not born a vampire, either. Burt Reynolds was born in Michigan in the 30’s, was born Burton Leon Reynolds, Jr. Burton has scars and stunt injuries from some bad movies. He won’t tell Stephen, the casting director, that this—the immutable evidence of injury—is as far as he can relate to the character Frost. He won’t tell him that Burton is the least vampire-like name anyone has ever heard.

Burt Reynolds is Blade, and Whistler, and Frost, and also Dragonetti and Quinn. Dragonetti he can empathize with; an aging man being overtaken by the younger pack. Quinn he feels would be better suited for someone like Chris Pratt. Someone goofy, but a little intimidating if they really try to be. Someone meant to be stepped on by the main characters, someone the audience roots against. Someone meant to have their arms chopped off via sword. Then Burt Reynolds remembers that nobody knows who Chris Pratt is yet. He hasn’t yet entered his breakout role of Andy on Parks and Recreation, a show which won’t air for several more years. He hasn’t even gone on an intense diet and workout regimen for his role in Guardians of the Galaxy yet. Chris is only nineteen now, waiting tables at a Tom-Hanks-film inspired restaurant. Waiting for a big break.

He wonders whether someone should try to reach out to Chris, offer him the role of Quinn. Burt wants to help. He knows what it’s like to try to find a foothold in this world. But Burt is also motivated by selfishness, a desire to ease his own workload. He is growing concerned about the number of roles he’s being asked to take on, worries that Stephen, the casting director, is trying to capitalize on a trend perpetuated by movies like Austin Powers and The Nutty Professor. How forced it felt, watching Eddie Murphy in stereo around a dinner table, passing gas, calling on the most base of human experience in order to generate a sense of communal existence. Of shared human suffering. Burt worries that, through this gritty dystopian vampire tale, he won’t get any closer to delivering a performance of true magnitude, that he won’t receive the coveted praise of the Academy.

That he too will be made into a caricature of himself.

Burt Reynolds is also Karen, and Mercury, and even Racquel. He doesn’t understand why he has to play the female characters. Mercury’s wardrobe demands curves he doesn’t possess. He isn’t even sure what Racquel’s involvement in the narrative is. In the back of his mind, again the thought of ridicule tickles him. Stephen, the casting director, reminds him that in traditional Japanese theater, all of the roles were played by men. Stephen, the casting director, reminds Burt that he is a real actor, the genuine affair. That this is the challenge of his career. That he must play Racquel. That no one else could do it.

Reluctantly, Burt agrees.

What exhausts and perplexes Burt the most is playing all of the side characters. Why must it be he who plays all the henchmen and street pedestrians? Why him as officer Curtis Webb, who tries to kill Karen on behalf of Frost, both of whom are also being played by Burt? What continuity would allow Burt Reynolds to try to kill Burt Reynolds? How can Burt play the character who brands and also the character who is branded? And the young child character, also played by Burt, that Frost throws through a popcorn machine to distract Blade (who, we know, is played by Burt)—how will viewers handle this? Burt doesn’t understand in the slightest. And the list of roles goes on: Pearl, the giant, gelatinous creature reminiscent of Jabba the Hutt; the anonymous Japanese performers in the nightclub, dressed in skimpy outfits inspired by school uniforms; every member of the crowd watching the performers; every ranking vampire sacrificed to summon La Magra, the Blood God, who Frost becomes through his master plan, who is of course just Burt with some cinematic aftereffects; he is even Vanessa, the thought-to-be-dead mother of Blade, who is, who could forget, also played by Burt.

But as much as Burt struggles, he will not tell Stephen, the casting director, that he doesn’t want all of these roles, that he doesn’t understand the reasoning for playing each and every one of them. That every night, when he lies his head down, he wrestles to try to understand the man who is Stephen, the casting director—wrestles to understand his vision, to understand how, even in the gleaming world of film, as advanced in the nineties as it has ever been, someone can give themselves their own brand, how someone can be their own vicious mother.

A Prevett (they/them) is a human from Atlanta writing poetry and prose. Their recent fiction is forthcoming from Pithead Chapel, and their recent poems have been featured in Hobart, Redivider, and others. They are pursuing an MFA from Georgia State University.