<p>EXT. TRAVELLING CARNIVAL, 1946</p><p>CLASSIC-STYLE HOBO BRADLEY COOPER arrives at a CARNIVAL and meets RINGLEADER WILLEM DAFOE.</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>Excuse me sir, I was wondering if there was any age limit on running away from home to join the circus?</p><p>WILLEM DAFOE</p><p>Sure, we’re taking on staff, but I’m sure you’re aware that as a fictional old-timey travelling show we have a very strict “fleeing from troubled backstory only” hiring policy.</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>No problem, gotcha covered! In the opening scene I was shown fastidiously trussing up a corpse, then laboriously prying up the floorboards to make a hollow in the floor in which to conceal said corpse.</p><p>(pause)</p><p>Then burning the entire building to the ground, which kinda made the first two steps a massive fucking waste of time.</p><p>WILLEM DAFOE</p><p>Great! Let me introduce you to the usual carny types we got around here.</p><p>RON PERLMAN</p><p>I’m the strong man, as well as a convenient excuse for Guillermo Del Toro to trot out his favorite weirdo yet again!</p><p>MARK POVINELLI</p><p>I’m the dwarf, because it was less than a century ago when it was considered sporting to plonk a dwarf on a stage and say, “Come on everybody, come pay good money to stare at the freak!”</p><p>(sighs deeply)</p><p>DAVID STRATHAIRN</p><p>I’m the phony psychic!</p><p>TONI COLLETTE</p><p>I’m the spare phony psychic for whenever David’s too drunk to perform, which is always!</p><p>ROONEY MARA</p><p>And I’m the lady who runs tens of thousands of volts of electricity through my body, shooting brilliant strands of lightning from my fingertips like fucking Thor.</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>Wait wait, that last one seemed like a billion levels more advanced than-</p><p>WILLEM DAFOE</p><p>And of course there’s our geek! Come see the geek show, it’s very foreshadowing-y.</p><p>BRADLEY goes to watch WILLEM show a GAWKING CROWD a FILTHY TRANSIENT tearing the throat out of a LIVE CHICKEN in a PIT.</p><p>GEEK</p><p>OM NOM NOM STILL A BETTER DINING EXPERIENCE THAN TACO BELL</p><p>WILLEM DAFOE</p><p>Behold, ladies and gentlemen! What you see before you is nothing more than the most twisted, shocking, animalistic excuse for a human being ever witnessed! Note the gangly, emaciated physique! The shaggy, matted hair! The sunken, skull-like, grimacing face! Why, he’s more beast than man!</p><p>AUDIENCE</p><p>(looks at geek)</p><p>(looks at Willem)</p><p>(looks back at geek)</p><p>(looks back at Willem)</p><p>(shifts gaze rapid-fire between the two of them)</p><p>WILLEM DAFOE</p><p>Oh fuck you guys.</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>Say Willem, how do you convince somebody to take the chicken-throat-eating gig anyway?</p><p>WILLEM DAFOE</p><p>Welll, I COULD tell you all about the horrible process by which we grab a random hobo off the streets and use booze and drugs and starvation to reduce him to a desperate feral husk, then once he’s completely used up toss him onto the street to die, but that seems like the kind of thing we wouldn’t mention unless it was eventually going to happen to SOMEBODY around here, if you catch my drift...</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>Bah, I’m resigned to getting the shitty ending, with how heavy-handedly I’m playing out the “own worst enemy” character arc. Basically there is no point in this movie where I get a chance to choose a course of action, and don’t make the obviously worst choice possible.</p><p>(sees delicious steak sitting on plate)</p><p>(eats plate)</p><p>EXT. PSYCHIC STAGE</p><p>PHONY-BALONEY TONI is doing her PSYCHIC ACT.</p><p>TONI COLLETTE</p><p>Ladies and gentlemen, if you have any questions for like the spirits or whatever, you can now ask them! Not aloud, which would be the quick easy way, but the showoffy way, where you write down your questions then I burn them then the spirits tell me what the questions were AND the answers. The spirits do love them some convoluted bullshit.</p><p>(burns fake questions)</p><p>So, spirits, what’ve we got?</p><p>DAVID STRATHAIRN</p><p>(under the stage)</p><p>IRONICALLY THE SPIRITS HAVE HAD TOO MUCH SPIRITS HIC</p><p>BRADLEY rushes in and does DAVID’S JOB for him!</p><p>DAVID STRATHAIRN</p><p>(after much sobering up)</p><p>You’ve saved the day, kid! Out of gratitude I will teach you how to do this pretend mentalist scam!</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>Gratitude? My duties here are to generally help out around the carnival, so I’m pretty sure I was just doing my job. Also, cards on the table, I’ve kind of been banging Toni behind your back.</p><p>DAVID STRATHAIRN</p><p>Eh, I’ll teach you anyway, because if there’s one thing this carnival is desperately short on it’s fake psychics.</p><p>DAVID turns his back while BRADLEY hands TONI his watch.</p><p>TONI COLLETTE</p><p>All right David, why don’t you WATCH for a sign of what Bradley just handed me.</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>Code words? But the person could hand you pretty much anything, right? Do you have separate code words for locket, pencil, cufflink, compass, army medal, pocket knife, pince-nez, hair clip, notebook, heart medication, opera glasses, slide rule, lucky coin, marble-</p><p>DAVID STRATHAIRN</p><p>YES THERE ARE EIGHT HUNDRED CODE WORDS AND WE CAN KEEP THEM ALL STRAIGHT AND ALL OF THEM CAN BE EASILY SLIPPED INTO CONVERSATION, SHUT UP.</p><p>(looks at watch)</p><p>Now, my further deduction is that this old, heirloom-looking man’s watch came from... your father! And that you, a street bum who doesn’t discuss his past, had a complicated relationship with said father! Actual, real people fall for this kind of crap!</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>Ah, so we’re realistically showing the super-vague and bet-hedging drivel that mentalists use to trick people, huh? Cool, cool.</p><p>(twiddles thumbs)</p><p>...Buuut, we can also throw in a little of that dumb Sherlock Holmes hyper-accurate guesswork bullshit too, right?</p><p>DAVID STRATHAIRN</p><p>Eh, do whatever you want, I’ll be dead in two scenes anyway.</p><p>(leaves)</p><p>EXT. ELECTRO-ZAPPITY STAGE</p><p>BRADLEY shows off a revised version of ROONEY’S ACT.</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>I thought your whole Nikola Tesla act would be more spectacular if it featured you getting strapped into an electric chair. So instead of moving around the stage juggling lightning bolts like a wizard, you’ll be sitting still in a chair. Way cooler, huh?</p><p>ROONEY MARA</p><p>Huh, the fact that you think the idea of me as a godlike figure who commands the elements is less appealing than the idea of me strapped down and getting tortured is a pretty major red flag that I should probably take note of.</p><p>(looks around at elaborate set)</p><p>By the way, you had the electrical engineering and set design skills to completely redesign all this? What other extremely valuable abilities are you gonna pull out of your ass?</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>Sorry, what was that? I was busy sketching this stunning professional-quality portrait of you.</p><p>ROONEY MARA</p><p>Why exactly were you a hobo again?</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>BoJack Horseman-level decision-making skills, remember?</p><p>(meets President Truman)</p><p>(dumps bucket of live bait on his head)</p><p>Then in storms the local SHERIFF.</p><p>SHERIFF</p><p>BOO! I’m here to shut you all down for the vague criminal things you do! Like, look at Rooney there, with her shoulders and belly button visible for all the world to see! We're honestly more shocked by that than the homeless guy you torture in a pit. Everybody's under arrest!</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>Whuh-oh! This looks like a chance for me to try out some of those psychic tricks that David taught me.</p><p>(scans sheriff)</p><p>Oh hey, a crucifix! So, what’s a pretty basic Christian name I could say, uh - Maria?</p><p>SHERIFF</p><p>(breaks down sobbing)</p><p>THAT’S THE NAME OF MY DEAD MOTHER WHO IS THE MOST IMPORTANT AND BELOVED FIGURE OF MY LIFE AHHHH WHY DID YOU SAY THAT NAAAME</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>Oh wow, that was absurdly easy. Okay well, she says she loves you and is proud of you, especially for all the not arresting carnies you do.</p><p>SHERIFF</p><p>OF COURSE OF COURSE YOU’RE ALL FREE TO GO</p><p>(leaves, wailing)</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>Hooray, I did it! Say Rooney, I’m a fully-qualified psychic now, what say we blow this popsicle stand and start our own act, with blackjack and hookers?</p><p>ROONEY MARA</p><p>Really? Based on the fact that you pulled David’s schtick off exactly one time, through a random lucky guess? That’s what we should hinge our livelihood on, not my spectacular electro-magic routine?</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>Yep, that’s my decision and I’m sure it’s a good one!</p><p>(wins lottery)</p><p>(shoves ticket in ear and lights it on fire)</p><p>INT. SWANKY NIGHTCLUB</p><p>Two years later, BRADLEY and ROONEY are now performing a SUPER FANCY version of the PSYCHIC ACT in front of a bunch of RICH SWELLS.</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>And now, for like the ninth time in a row, I will correctly identify what thing one of you handed my assistant! This is all I do apparently, I sure hope it never gets old!</p><p>But then femme fatale CATE BLANCHETT inserts herself into the story.</p><p>CATE BLANCHETT</p><p>Not so fast! I want you to identify what I have in my purse, WITHOUT Rooney touching it! I think the two of you are using TRICKERY to TRICK the audience!</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>...I mean, yeah. This is essentially a magic act, lady. Are you really gonna be the one stick-in-the-mud heckler who tries to ruin the show for everybody by getting the magician to turn out his sleeves?</p><p>CATE BLANCHETT</p><p>Absolutely yes!</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>Well fine then, it just so happens that I can tell from the way the pinky finger on your left hand is curled in that you have a nickel-plated pearl-handled pistol in your purse, with a slight nick on the trigger guard, that was last oiled... nine days ago?</p><p>CATE BLANCHETT</p><p>Oh well la-de-da, Mr. Smartypants, you win this-</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>BUT WAIT, the spirits also have other information to impart!</p><p>(closes eyes, concentrates)</p><p>They tell me... that you have bad breath and you snore like a wild pig... and your skull is a little too big for your face and your American accent is always just a tad over-ripe, and your performance in Crystal Skull was hammy as fuck... and, what else? There’s something more...</p><p>(puts fingers to temple, tilts head)</p><p>Oh yes: they tell me you can go fuck a cactus.</p><p>CATE BLANCHETT</p><p>Wow, all this because I dared call your hocum act a hocum act? How insecure are you?</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>I’m not insecure!! I’M THE GREAT PSYCHIC BRADLEY COOPER, NOBODY CALLS ME INSECURE!!!</p><p>(grabs other patron)</p><p>HEY YOU! YOUR DEAD SON JUST TOLD ME TO SAY HI! SEE HOW POWERFUL I AM, NOW NOBODY CAN HURT ME AND MY STUPID DEAD BOOZEHOUND FATHER HAS TO LOVE MEEEEE</p><p>ROONEY MARA</p><p>...Can’t believe I’m saying this, but maybe I should have stuck with the traveling freak show.</p><p> </p><p>INT. CATE’S OFFICE</p><p>Later, CATE invites BRADLEY to a private meeting.</p><p>CATE BLANCHETT</p><p>Despite our rocky beginning, which I’m totally over and did not at all inspire an over-elaborate revenge plot in me, I like your little scam and think together we can turn it into a BIG scam. I’m a psychiatrist to the rich and stupid, I can tell you all their secrets and then you can use that to act all psychic at them and bleed them dry!</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>Oh! So I’m done with the cold readings then? From now on I just get fed all the information I need, and don’t really have to do anything clever or talented ever again?</p><p>CATE BLANCHETT</p><p>Yep! For starters we can talk to the dead-son guy from the club, he wants to hear his son say that he’s happy and being dead is just the tops, or something.</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>Great! Oh, and by any chance is random sex part of this arrangement?</p><p>CATE BLANCHETT</p><p>(disrobing)</p><p>I mean, I am a forties-style femme fatale after all.</p><p>INT. DEAD-SON RESIDENCE</p><p>BRADLEY goes to do a reading for the DEAD-SON GUY and his wife, MARY STEENBURGEN.</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>Mary Steenburgen? Huh, we really overcast this five-line role for some reason.</p><p>MARY STEENBURGEN</p><p>I just thought I’d pop in to give this movie a single named female character you don’t wind up having sex with.</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>(halting mid-application of cologne)</p><p>...Oh? Okay, whatever.</p><p>(assumes psychic pose)</p><p>So yeah, your son says hi, he’s very dead but it’s fine, heaven’s great and he can’t wait to see you, et cetera.</p><p>MARY STEENBURGEN</p><p>Oh wonderful! I can’t wait for us to be reunited in death!</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>I mean, you’ll have to, so-</p><p>MARY STEENBURGEN</p><p>Says who? Come on husband, let’s go find my gun.</p><p>(leaves)</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>Ah. Well. Could have gone better. Eh, fuck it, I got paid.</p><p>He goes and brings the big WAD OF CASH to CATE.</p><p>CATE BLANCHETT</p><p>Well done! Say, instead of taking my cut, why don’t I hold onto, say, allll of it?</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>Why? That seems like a suspicious thing for you to suggest, and not at all anything a cagey and untrusting guy like me would agree to...</p><p>CATE BLANCHETT</p><p>Aw, you don’t have to be cagey or careful or smart anymore. Look how powerful and in control you’ve become!</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>You’re right! In fact, I don’t even have to stringently avoid alcohol to avoid becoming a drunk like my dad anymore, nothing can harm me now!</p><p>(takes sip of whiskey)</p><p>See? I can-</p><p>(takes eight thousand sips of whiskey)</p><p>Uh oh.</p><p>INT. RICHARD JENKINS’ COLD FOREBODING MANSION</p><p>A now always-somewhat-blitzed BRADLEY comes to see potential new mark RICHARD JENKINS, who has him strapped into a LIE DETECTOR.</p><p>RICHARD JENKINS</p><p>I’m not as easy to fool as your usual schmucks, Bradley! I’m going to test you to see if you’re a scammy scammer!</p><p>MACHINE OPERATOR</p><p>Question one: are your psychic powers, in fact, bullshit?</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>Uh, th-that depends on what your definition of “psychic powers” and “bullshit” are...</p><p>MACHINE OPERATOR</p><p>Question two: is this in fact all a great big fucking scam?</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>Ummmmmm-</p><p>(looks directly at Richard)</p><p>You forced your wife to get an abortion then she died! You once kicked a puppy off a cliff! You find the smell of elevator farts erotic!</p><p>RICHARD JENKINS</p><p>Gasp! When you started to fail the lie detector test you stopped answering the questions altogether, and desperately changed the subject to true things about me which I never told ANYBODY, except of course for my psychiatrist, the person who put me onto you in the first place! Now I trust you completely!</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>Wow, so much for “not easy to fool”.</p><p>RICHARD JENKINS</p><p>I want you to contact that dead abortion wife for me. And I don’t want no lame half-assed game-of-telephone spirit medium bullshit, I want to see my dead wife in the flesh!</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>Uh, what? That’s not how ghosts-</p><p>RICHARD JENKINS</p><p>I will pay you umpteen bajillion dollars.</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>What I was GOING to say was, tell me about this dead wife of yours! What did she look like? Somewhat generic, would you say? Like if you saw her from half a football field away, would you necessarily be able to tell her from a random body double playing dressup, do you think?</p><p>RICHARD JENKINS</p><p>Well she had dark hair, and she was small and skinny, kinda like a little skeleton with resting bored-and-disapproving face. Also I don’t know if this helps, but she had a distinctive dragon tattoo.</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>...I think I can provide.</p><p>INT. BRADLEY AND ROONEY’S PLACE</p><p>BRADLEY comes home to ROONEY, stinking of booze and with CATE’S LINGERIE dangling from his sleeve.</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>Say honey, feel like dressing up as a ghost to con a bunch of dough out of some rich weirdo with me?</p><p>ROONEY MARA</p><p>(crams all her belongings into a trunk)</p><p>(bolts for the door)</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>(intercepts her)</p><p>Now, now, I know what you’re thinking. Every moment since you ran off with me has been miserable and all I seem to do is reveal lower and lower depths of depravity every time I say or do anything. On the other hand...</p><p>(pause)</p><p>(scratches head)</p><p>...I don’t know. Pretty please, I guess?</p><p>ROONEY MARA</p><p>UGH FINE.</p><p>EXT. SNOWY GARDEN</p><p>BRADLEY waits with RICHARD for FAKE-GHOST ROONEY.</p><p>RICHARD JENKINS</p><p>Geez, I can’t believe I’m going to see her again... hopefully she can forgive me... also hopefully she can forgive me by proxy on behalf of all the other women I sexually assaulted and murdered over the years...</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>Wait, what the fuck did you just-</p><p>RICHARD JENKINS</p><p>(freaks out)</p><p>Forget it, I changed my mind! I’ll give you the umpteen bajillion dollars, I don’t need to see her, we can end things right now without anybody having to take any more risks at all!</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>...Shit. Say, on a scale of one to ten, just how suspicious would you find it if I suddenly started yelling “ABORT! ABORT!” at the top of my lungs?</p><p>But it’s too late, and ROONEY arrives on cue.</p><p>RICHARD JENKINS</p><p>It’s you! Just with a different face! ...Waaaiiit a minute. Seriously, guys? I was married to this woman and I’ve been obsessing about her ever since, you really thought a random skinny white girl would do the trick? Oh well, DIE IMPOSTER!!</p><p>But BRADLEY manages to BEAT HIM TO DEATH with his BARE FISTS, then he piles ROONEY into the car and speeds off, DELIBERATELY RAMMING AND KILLING RICHARD’S BODYGUARD on the way out.</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>(covered in gore)</p><p>Erm. I don’t suppose another “pretty please” could make you overlook all that?</p><p>ROONEY MARA</p><p>BYE FOREVER, FUCKWAD</p><p>(leaps out of moving vehicle, sprints over the horizon)</p><p>INT. CATE'S OFFICE</p><p>BRADLEY runs up to see CATE.</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>Well, I’ve finally inevitably fucked everything up. Sorry to bail baby, I’ll just grab all that cash you’ve been trustworthily holding for me and get the fuck out of dodge.</p><p>CATE BLANCHETT</p><p>BWA HA HA, you can’t have the cash, for you see I’ve been plotting your destruction this whole time! Because you said some mean things to me that one time months ago, I put into motion an elaborate scheme to con you into ruining your life!</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>Oh like it takes much planning to get me to ruin my life. You mostly just sat back and let my do my thing, I figure at best you pushed all this up by like a week.</p><p>CATE BLANCHETT</p><p>Oh yeah? Well did you not notice that THE PINKY FINGER OF MY LEFT HAND IS CURLED IN?!</p><p>She pulls her GUN out of her PURSE and shoots BRADLEY’S EAR OFF. He flees into the night.</p><p>EXT. ANOTHER TRAVELING CARNIVAL</p><p>BRADLEY is a HOBO again, this time the DRUNKEN EXTRA-BEARDY variety. He goes to visit carnival owner TIM BLAKE NELSON.</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>Welp, I’m back at square one, or really like square negative eight, so I’d like to get a job as a circus psychic. Cause that all worked out so well for me last time.</p><p>TIM BLAKE NELSON</p><p>We don’t really go in for hokey outdated acts like mentalists, I’m afraid. We only want the more modern, cutting-edge acts that today’s more sophisticated audiences crave.</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>(sighs deeply)</p><p>...Like crazy derelicts who bite off chicken heads in a pit?</p><p>TIM BLAKE NELSON</p><p>How’d you guess? So, do you want the worst job in the entire world or what?</p><p>BRADLEY COOPER</p><p>Let’s see. I could take the job that I know for a fact will end with me as an emaciated half-feral drug addict dying in a gutter. Or I could try mentioning any of my engineering or set design skills which might be useful to an outfit like this. Or I could go looking for any other job, anywhere at all, in hopes of not being dead in three months. What will I do?</p><p>(makes wrong decision)</p><p>Big fucking surprise.</p><p>END.</p>
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