The fans are so supportive. It's amazing when you work on

Host: The rain had just stopped, leaving the streets of London slick and shimmering under the amber glow of lamplight. A faint mist hovered, rising from the cobblestones like the ghost of the day’s rush. Inside a small theatre café, laughter and murmurs mixed with the aroma of coffee and the faint echo of a piano tune drifting from the main hall. Posters of old plays clung to the walls, their edges curling with age.

Jack sat by the window, his grey eyes fixed on the street, his hands wrapped around a cup of cooling espresso. Jeeny arrived moments later, her dark hair still damp from the rain, her smile faint but warm.

The air between them carried the quiet tension of two souls who had been talking, and arguing, for a long time — about art, about life, about why they still cared.

Jeeny: “Did you hear what Colin Morgan said once? ‘The fans are so supportive. It’s amazing when you work on something for so long and find that your fans match your passion — and in many cases exceed it.’ That’s what real connection looks like, Jack. That’s what keeps an artist alive.”

Jack: “Connection?” (He snorts softly, leans back, his expression half amused, half tired.) “You call that connection? I call it projection. People don’t see the artist — they see what they want to see. They fall in love with their own reflection in the work.”

Host: The rainlight outside flickered through the window, cutting across Jack’s sharp features. Jeeny watched him, her fingers tightening around the ceramic of her cup.

Jeeny: “That’s cynical, even for you. You think people can’t genuinely feel something beyond themselves? Those fans — they believe. They share the heartbeat of the person who creates.”

Jack: “Belief doesn’t make it real, Jeeny. It’s like religion — comforting, sure, but still built on illusion. Fans think they know the artist, but they only know fragments — edited moments, filtered interviews, the fantasy of performance.”

Jeeny: “But that illusion inspires. It gives them courage, purpose, sometimes even saves lives. Don’t you remember how people lined up outside the theatre when ‘Les Misérables’ reopened after the pandemic? They weren’t there just for music. They were there because it gave them hope.”

Host: Her voice trembled, not with anger, but with conviction. Outside, a bus rumbled past, spraying water against the curb. Inside, the café light flickered, casting shadows like old film frames.

Jack: “Hope,” he murmured, almost to himself. “A convenient word. You know what else hope does? It blinds people. Makes them worship idols instead of understanding the craft behind them. Fans don’t see the sleepless nights, the rejection letters, the depression that often shadows success.”

Jeeny: “And yet they stay. They don’t need to see the pain to respect it. They see the result — and they honor it. Isn’t that something? Maybe it’s not about seeing the whole truth, Jack, but about feeling its echo.”

Jack: “You think feeling an echo is the same as understanding the source? That’s like loving a painting but refusing to know the painter’s life. You think Van Gogh’s admirers understood him while he was alive? No — they came later, when he was already a myth.”

Host: The silence between them thickened, like fog rolling in from the river. Jeeny’s eyes glistened, but not from tears — from frustration, from that aching space where empathy meets defiance.

Jeeny: “You keep talking about understanding, Jack. But maybe art — and passion — aren’t meant to be understood. Maybe they’re meant to be felt. When people cry watching a scene, or when a fan stays up all night to finish a show — that’s not illusion. That’s love.”

Jack: “Love.” (He laughed, a short, bitter sound.) “No, Jeeny, that’s consumption. People consume art the way they consume everything — fast, hungry, and forgetful. They don’t love the artist; they love the way the artist makes them feel.”

Jeeny: “So what if they do? Isn’t that still real? When an actor spends years on a role, and the audience feels every emotion — that’s not consumption, that’s communion.”

Host: The piano in the next room swelled, a melancholic tune that hung between their words. Jeeny’s breath came slow, measured, but her eyes burned. Jack’s hands tightened around his cup, as though anchoring himself against her fire.

Jack: “Communion?” he repeated. “You think applause is communion? You think fan clubs and online threads are sacred? No — it’s noise. The louder they cheer, the more they need to believe they’re part of something bigger than themselves. It’s psychological self-preservation.”

Jeeny: “You sound like someone who’s forgotten what it feels like to be moved. You used to talk about the magic of storytelling — the way one person’s truth could touch a thousand hearts. When did that die in you?”

Host: Jack’s jaw clenched, a faint shadow crossing his face. The rain had started again — soft, unsteady, tapping against the glass like a nervous heartbeat.

Jack: “It didn’t die,” he said quietly. “It just grew up. When I realized passion isn’t enough. You pour your life into something, and the moment it’s out there — it doesn’t belong to you anymore. It belongs to them. And they can twist it, idolize it, or forget it in a week.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s the beauty of it, Jack. Letting go. Letting it become theirs. Maybe art is supposed to outgrow the artist — just like a child does.”

Host: The words hung in the air, trembling, delicate, like the final note of a song. Jack looked at her then, not as an opponent, but as someone who had seen the same wounds, only from a different angle.

Jack: “And when the fans love it more than you do?” he asked, almost whispering. “When they carry it further than you ever could — does that make you proud or obsolete?”

Jeeny: “It makes you human. It means your work touched something larger than yourself. You didn’t just create — you connected.”

Host: The light from the streetlamp caught the moisture in her eyes, turning them into tiny mirrors. Jack’s shoulders softened. The piano faded, leaving a quiet hum of conversation around them.

Jack: “You always have a way of making the intangible sound noble.”

Jeeny: “Maybe because I still believe in it. In people. In the ones who stand in the rain outside a stage door just to say thank you. That gratitude — that’s real.”

Jack: “Gratitude,” he repeated, as if tasting the word. “You know, maybe you’re right. Maybe I’ve been too focused on the transaction and not the tribute.”

Jeeny: “It’s not about worship, Jack. It’s about reflection. Fans aren’t mirrors — they’re messengers. They remind the artist why they began in the first place.”

Host: The rain slowed, thinning into a gentle mist that blurred the streetlights into gold halos. Jack stood, pulled his coat tighter, and smiled — faintly, genuinely.

Jack: “You know, Colin Morgan might’ve been onto something. Maybe passion, when shared, doesn’t divide — it multiplies.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. It’s the only kind of math that makes the soul richer.”

Host: They stepped out into the night, their footsteps echoing softly on the wet pavement. The city breathed around them — alive with stories, with people who believed, loved, and kept going.

The camera would have pulled back then — the two of them walking under the glow of a streetlamp, the rainlight glistening around their silhouettes.

A quiet truth had settled between them — that passion, once shared, becomes something both fragile and eternal.

And somewhere, in the distance, the faint sound of applause — not for victory, but for connection — lingered in the mist.