The Charm Offensive

by Alison Cochrun

Dev can really relate. When they’re filming, Dev can throw himself into it completely, feeding off the energy of it all, giving his busy brain the perfect outlet for all its extra. For nine weeks, he flies through twelve-hour days on a steady diet of coffee and cookies and feels no need to ever stop moving. But invariably, after they film the Final Tiara Ceremony, he crashes. The energy bottoms out, creating a vacuum inside his head. He climbs into bed and stays there for a week until he can recalibrate. It’s how he’s always worked. In college, it would come in huge bursts of creative energy. He would spend two weeks writing a script—open up his heart and pour it all onto the page—and then, out of nowhere, he would sort of wake up, realize every word was shit, climb into bed, and watch The Office until he could face the real world again.