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Acting role Supporting

KEVIN RUSH

Melanated Christmas · Film

Casting requirements

Age range 30–39

Gender Male

Ethnicity African American

Openings 1 slot

About the role

A handsome, easygoing brother who notices Mia's guarded warmth and gently tries to connect.

Core traits: former intimate, disappointing, emotionally significant
Voice: unspecified
Performance range: brief dramatic backstory presence
Required abilities: none if mentioned only
Preferred abilities: grounded warmth that can plausibly mask unreliability
Physical performance: none
Accent: unspecified
Language: English
Comparable performances: dependable-looking ex with subtle emotional absence
Audition sides: none unless expanded
Casting notes: Should feel believable as someone Mia once planned a future with, without pulling focus from Montez.

📋 View character outline

The character breakdown from the writers, so you know who you'd be playing.

Audition sides

🎥 Self-tape optional Scene 19 · Melanated ChristmasYour lines are highlighted

Scene 19 INT. BALLROOM VENUE - DAY

The ballroom is deeper into pre-event strain now. Half-built centerpieces. Open folders. Garment bags. A ladder near the stage. On Mia's command table: revised budgets, sponsor printouts, entertainment contacts, and a legal pad with RECOVERY PLAN written across the top in firm block letters.

MIA BROOKS stands at the table, phone pinned to one ear, scanning an invoice while marking notes with clipped urgency. She is polished, but barely. Tension sits visibly in her shoulders.

MIA BROOKS

(into phone)

Yes, I understand it's last minute. I'm asking whether they're available, not whether they prefer advance notice.

She listens, unimpressed.

MIA BROOKS

(tight)

Fine. Thank you.

She hangs up, immediately dials another number, flips a page, finds a note, crosses something out hard.

A shadow falls across the edge of the table.

KEVIN RUSH

(easy)

Still doing that thing where you look beautiful and one inconvenience away from firing the whole room?

Mia freezes. Looks up. KEVIN RUSH stands there in a polished coat, familiar smile already halfway deployed like it still belongs.

MIA BROOKS

(flat)

Absolutely not.

KEVIN RUSH

That's how you saying hello now?

MIA BROOKS

Kevin, what are you doing here?

KEVIN RUSH

(looking around)

Heard you were producing the Ball. Thought I'd come by, congratulate you, see if you needed anything.

MIA BROOKS

I do not.

Mia gathers a stack of sponsor papers and shifts around him, trying to keep the interaction moving and brief. Kevin follows just enough to stay in her space.

KEVIN RUSH

Mia, come on. We don't have to do all this.

MIA BROOKS

(not looking up)

You're right. We don't. Which is why you should leave.

KEVIN RUSH

I called. You never called me back.

MIA BROOKS

That was also communication.

Kevin exhales, trying to stay charming through a door that is clearly closed.

KEVIN RUSH

(lower)

I know I mishandled things.

MIA BROOKS

That is a gentle word for it.

KEVIN RUSH

I was immature.

MIA BROOKS

You were inconsistent. And selfish. And very comfortable asking me to understand things you never bothered to repair.

That lands. Kevin nods like he expected the hit and still thinks he can outlast it.

KEVIN RUSH

(softly)

I deserved that.

MIA BROOKS

This is not the place.

KEVIN RUSH

Maybe not. But you don't give me another place.

MIA BROOKS

Because I do not want one.

Her phone buzzes again. She ignores it this time. Kevin notices the papers, the stress, the visible fatigue under all that control.

KEVIN RUSH

(gentler)

You look tired, Mia.

MIA BROOKS

Then imagine how little energy I have for this.

KEVIN RUSH

I'm serious. You don't have to carry everything by yourself.

MIA BROOKS

(a look)

That line would mean more from somebody who didn't help teach me that.

Kevin steps closer. Not aggressive. Familiar in the way only history can be. Mia holds her ground, but the stress of the room and the week is all over her now.

KEVIN RUSH

I know I hurt you.

KEVIN RUSH

(earnest)

But I came because I heard things were getting shaky over here, and I thought maybe I could show up better this time.

MIA BROOKS

Kevin--

KEVIN RUSH

Just hear me out. One minute.

He reaches for her hands. Mia pulls them back immediately, but he shifts, touching lightly at her waist as if appealing to an old intimacy he has no right to.

FROM THE BALLROOM DOORWAY -- MONTEZ CARTER enters carrying a folder and two coffee cups. He stops cold.

HIS POV -- Kevin standing too close in front of Mia, hands at her waist, Mia backed against the edge of the command table, the image reading more intimate than it is.

Something closes across Montez's face. Hurt first. Then pride. Then withdrawal.

He sets one coffee cup down silently on a side table near the entrance, turns, and walks back out before Mia can see him.

MIA BROOKS

(sharply)

Do not touch me.

Mia shoves Kevin's hands off her and steps away fast, breathing harder now -- not from emotion for him, but from anger, humiliation, and the sickening sense that something just went wrong beyond this moment. Janessa looks up and sees the whole situation.

KEVIN RUSH

Mia, come on--

MIA BROOKS

No. You do not get to show up uninvited at my job, put your hands on me, and talk like access is the same thing as remorse.

KEVIN RUSH

(pleading)

I was trying to help.

MIA BROOKS

Then help by leaving.

KEVIN RUSH

Mia, please. I know I messed up. I know I took you for granted. But I have been thinking about us for a long time--

MIA BROOKS

(cutting him off)

There is no us.

KEVIN RUSH

You don't mean that.

MIA BROOKS

I absolutely do.

A beat. Kevin sees there is no softness for him here. No opening to perform, filling a little embarrassed as people look on, he turns and walks out of the room.

CUT TO:

Record yourself, upload it to YouTube (unlisted is fine), Google Drive, Vimeo or Dropbox, and paste the link with your application. Make sure the link can be viewed by anyone who has it.

Skills required

none if mentioned only
grounded warmth that can plausibly mask unreliability
none

About the project

Mia Brooks is a gifted, tightly controlled event planner who creates warmth and elegance for everyone but herself. As Christmas lights and community traditions fill the Eastside, Mia’s own apartment remains bare, reflecting how emotionally closed off she has become. In client meetings she is sharp, funny, and impeccably professional, but she shuts down even harmless flirtation and keeps real connection at arm’s length. At her office, her loyal friend Tiffany Hall notices the cracks beneath Mia’s polish, especially when Mia reacts to a call from Kevin Rush, a man who seems to represent an old pattern of disappointment and inconsistency. Tiffany also shares a rumor that the Eastside’s prestigious Melanated Christmas Ball may need a new planner. Though Mia is clearly intrigued, she doubts that talent alone is enough to gain entry into such a legacy event and worries she will never truly be trusted in those circles. Later, at her parents’ Christmas-filled home, Mia is surrounded by easy family love, ritual, and partnership. Watching her parents and her sister Nadia move through their relationships with comfort and familiarity forces Mia to confront what is missing in her own life. In a quiet kitchen conversation, she admits that despite her success, she expected to have built a fuller life by now, not just a flawless schedule. The excerpt ends with Mia exposed in her loneliness, setting up a story about ambition, belonging, and the possibility of love.