The Influencer Trap.
Format
9:16 vertical
Genre
Psychological thriller
Season
30 episodes
Location
Fayetteville, GA
The story
The Influencer Trap
LOGLINE
SYNOPSIS
NIA CALLOWAY, 23, is a home-health aide in East Point carrying her mother’s mortgage and her sixteen-year-old brother’s future on a $17-an-hour check. She doesn’t post. She thinks influencers are a joke. One night, after a client’s family accuses her of stealing, she sits in her car and records ninety seconds of raw truth. By morning it has 4.1 million views.
Within days APEX HOUSE comes calling — Atlanta’s most powerful creator agency, part talent management, part content factory, part gilded dormitory in a Buckhead mansion where twelve creators live, film and quietly compete for the same brands. Its founder, DEVRA KINGSLEY, was a creator herself until the internet dismantled her in nine days in 2016. Now she builds stars so she will never again be the one nobody is watching. She offers Nia everything. All Nia has to do is keep being real.
The trap is that Apex sells authenticity by the pound. Every opportunity — a bank campaign, a supplement deal, a family series, a scripted romance, a podcast with her best friend SASHA — is genuinely good and genuinely poisonous at once, and each asks Nia to convert something private into something postable in increments small enough to justify. Beside her stands MARCUS ODUM, a woodworker-creator with his phone in a drawer by 6 p.m. — proof there is another way, and proof of what that way costs the people who need him.
Season One runs from Nia’s first viral video to her first cancellation — and the sickening discovery that the crash is the most profitable content she has ever made. The platform is not the villain. The trade is.
Casting List
The characters.
Age: 23
NIA CALLOWAY
Role: SERIES LEAD
Age: 47
DEVRA KINGSLEY
Role: FOUNDER & CEO, APEX HOUSE — THE ANTAGONIST
Age: 25
SASHA BOONE
Role: NIA'S BEST FRIEND — THE AUDIENCE SURROGATE
Age: 30
MARCUS ODUM
Role: THE SUSTAINABLE CREATOR — LOVE INTEREST
Age: 26
SLOANE MERCER
Role: APEX'S REIGNING #1
Age: 28
BODE ANSAH
Role: TALENT MANAGER, APEX HOUSE
Age: 51
RENATA CALLOWAY
Role: NIA'S MOTHER
Age: 16
ELIAS CALLOWAY
Role: NIA'S BROTHER — THE COST
Age: 33
PRIYA NANDAKUMAR
Role: "THE LEDGER" — CREATOR-ACCOUNTABILITY CHANNEL
Age: 26
DARIUS
Role: NIA'S BOYFRIEND
Age: 30
RENEE
Role: SASHA'S SISTER
Age: 50
MARIE
Role: STAFFING MANAGER (DAY PLAYER)
Featured role · SERIES LEAD
NIA CALLOWAY
CHARACTER PROFILE
Black female, 23. Home-health aide from East Point, Atlanta. Raised by a mother whose affection was always a payment for performance; her father left when she was nine, and she has quietly believed ever since that people stay only as long as you’re worth watching. Warm, funny, loud in a good room, and openly contemptuous of influencers when we meet her — by the end of the season she is everything she despised.
Arc: invisible → seen → performing → fused → destroyed → rewarded for being destroyed. Her handle @niaofftheclock becomes @NIA. She cannot bear to be unwitnessed; solitude reads to her as abandonment. The role carries almost every episode and requires an actress who can play the same face at four million views (euphoria) and thirty million (a shrug), and who can hold an extreme close-up alone with a ring light for the finale.
Signature line: “Girl, eat the damn cupcake.”
SIDES
Audition sides
EPISODE 22 — "SHIP"
Read for the role of NIA CALLOWAY. Target: 90 seconds · Betrayal cliff
See The Character Script
The Influencer Trap
Season One ·EPISODE 22 — "SHIP"
EPISODE 22 — “SHIP”
Target: 90 seconds · Betrayal cliff
INT. APEX HOUSE — CONFERENCE ROOM — DAY
Hard in on a mood board. Two faces side by side. Nia’s and a boy’s.
BODE
Koa Reyes. Six million. Six weeks.
Beach content, one fight, one reconcile.
NIA
Reconcile.
BODE
The reconcile’s the money.
NIA
And people know it’s—
BODE
(not unkindly)
Nobody knows anything, Nia.
INT. DARIUS’S APARTMENT — NIGHT
Darius on the couch, phone in his hand. Nia still standing.
DARIUS
Six weeks.
NIA
It’s a campaign. It’s like an ad.
DARIUS
It’s you on a beach holding a man.
NIA
D.
He sets the phone face-down on the arm of the couch — a small, deliberate thing.
DARIUS
When I met you, you didn’t have any of this.
NIA
I know.
DARIUS
That wasn’t a complaint. I liked it.
Beat.
DARIUS (CONT’D)
I’m not gonna be the thing you have to explain.
He picks up her keys off the table and holds them out.
She takes them.
INT. APEX HOUSE — NIA’S ROOM — NIGHT
Ring light. She’s cried, and she’s fixed it, and you can just barely tell.
BODE (V.O.)
(phone, speaker)
—and it doesn’t have to be tonight—
NIA
It’s fine.
BODE (V.O.)
Nia, it does not have to be tonight.
NIA
Bode. It’s fine.
She checks the frame. Adjusts it a half-inch.
RECORD.
NIA (CONT’D)
(to lens, soft, perfect)
Hey y’all. I wasn’t gonna talk bout this…
INT. RENATA’S HOUSE — KITCHEN — DAY (NEXT)
Elias at the table. Nia setting her phone against the napkin holder, angling it toward the two of them.
ELIAS
Hey.
NIA
One second, baby—
ELIAS
Nia.
She looks up.
ELIAS (CONT’D)
Can you stop putting me in stuff?
Beat.
NIA
…Yeah.
ELIAS
For real?
NIA
For real. I promise.
He nods. Gets his bag. Goes.
Nia sits alone at the table.
Reaches over.
Turns the phone a half-inch back toward the door he just
walked out of.
CUT.
Featured role · FOUNDER & CEO, APEX HOUSE — THE ANTAGONIST
DEVRA KINGSLEY
CHARACTER PROFILE
Female, 47. First-wave lifestyle creator with six million followers in 2015, destroyed publicly in nine days in 2016 — lost her deals, her partner, her marriage, her name — and never got a redemption arc. She built Apex House so she would never again be outside the room where the decision gets made. Never a cartoon villain: elegant, generous, right far more often than she is wrong, and most frightening when she genuinely saves Nia (she does it three times).
She can only feel safe by making people dependent. Every real kindness comes with a hook she cannot stop herself from setting. Likely breakout role.
Signature line: “I’m not buying your videos, baby. I’m buying your nerve.”
SIDES
Audition sides
Episode 9 — "EIGHT THOUSAND DOLLARS"
Read for the role of DEVRA KINGSLEY. Target: 86 seconds · DEVRA SAVE #1 · Opportunity cliff
See The Character Script
The Influencer Trap
Season One ·Episode 9 — "EIGHT THOUSAND DOLLARS"
EPISODE 9 — “EIGHT THOUSAND DOLLARS”
Target: 86 seconds · DEVRA SAVE #1 · Opportunity cliff
INT. APEX HOUSE — DEVRA’S OFFICE — DAY
Hard in on a phone being set on a desk, screen up, in front
of Nia.
DEVRA
Read it out loud.
NIA
(reading her own DM)
“Yes absolutely I’m interested,
sounds amazing, thank you so much.”
DEVRA
And what were you agreeing to.
NIA
Eight thousand dollars. For a
partnership.
DEVRA
Bode.
BODE
(reading from a laptop)
Perpetual, worldwide, irrevocable
license to her name, likeness,
voice and image. All media now
known or hereafter devised.
Nia doesn’t fully understand it. She understands enough.
NIA
Is that bad?
DEVRA
It’s permanent.
Devra picks up her own phone. Dials. Doesn’t leave the room.
DEVRA (CONT’D)
(into phone)
It’s Devra Kingsley. You sent a
term sheet to a
twenty-three-year-old on Instagram.
Pause.
DEVRA (CONT’D)
No, I’m not asking you to withdraw
- I’m telling you what happens
Thursday if you don’t.
She hangs up. Puts the phone down. That’s the whole rescue.
Ninety seconds.
DEVRA (CONT’D)
It’s gone.
Nia stares at her.
DEVRA (CONT’D)
That’s the job. You don’t have to
know things. You have to call me
before you know things.
She slides a folder across.
DEVRA (CONT’D)
Now. Southline Bank wants you.
NIA
For what?
DEVRA
A campaign about women who work.
Nia opens the folder. Finds the number.
She looks up.
NIA
How fast can they pay?
CUT.
Episode 20 — “BY FRIDAY”
EPISODE 20 — “BY FRIDAY”
Target: 88 seconds · DEVRA SAVE #2 · Betrayal cliff
INT. APEX HOUSE — DEVRA’S OFFICE — DAY
Hard in on a monitor: a young man mid-rant, freeze-framed,
mouth open.
BODE
Two million. He’s done four videos
on her in three days.
DEVRA
Saying what.
BODE
That she sold out her friend for a
bit.
Devra watches ten seconds of it. Doesn’t blink.
DEVRA
Who reps him.
BODE
Nobody.
DEVRA
Who pays him.
BODE
Two brands. One’s Halvorsen.
Devra picks up the phone.
DEVRA
(into it)
Marguerite. It’s Devra. Are you
aware of what your talent’s been
doing this week?
She turns her chair to the window.
DEVRA (CONT’D)
Mm. Well. I’ve got nine people on
my roster who’d be uncomfortable in
a room with him now, so.
Beat.
DEVRA (CONT’D)
Take your time. Friday’s fine.
She hangs up.
Nia is standing in the doorway. She’s heard all of it.
NIA
You didn’t have to do that.
DEVRA
(already back on her
laptop)
Somebody comes for mine, they don’t
work.
She looks up.
DEVRA (CONT’D)
Go fix your friend.
INT. APEX HOUSE — CORRIDOR — CONTINUOUS
Nia walking with Bode. They pass an open door — a bedroom,
stripped, someone re-taping foam to the wall. A rolling rack
of clothes going out.
NIA
Whose room was that?
BODE
Dessa’s.
NIA
She left?
BODE
She graduated.
He keeps walking.
INT. APEX HOUSE — PODCAST ROOM — CONTINUOUS
Sasha’s already there, standing, coat still on.
SASHA
You didn’t call me back.
NIA
I know.
SASHA
Nia, three people at my sister’s
job—
NIA
I know. I’m sorry. I am so sorry.
And she is. That’s the thing — she absolutely is.
Sasha waits for the rest.
Nia sits down on the desk. Softens her voice. It’s a
register we have not heard from her before, and we heard it
ninety seconds ago from someone else.
NIA (CONT’D)
Can I say something? And then you
can be mad the whole rest of the
day.
SASHA
…Okay.
NIA
Sixty-forty.
Beat.
SASHA
What?
NIA
The split. I’m changing it.
Sixty-forty, starting this month.
Sasha stands there with her coat on.
She wanted an apology. She got a number.
And she can feel herself taking it.
SASHA
…Okay.
CUT.
Featured role · NIA'S BEST FRIEND — THE AUDIENCE SURROGATE
SASHA BOONE
CHARACTER PROFILE
Female, 25. Baker, @sashaproofs, 11,000 followers after four years. Nia’s best friend since eighth grade. From a stable Riverdale home, but a middle school that froze her out so completely she ate lunch in a stairwell. Genuinely talented and cares about the craft more than fame — which is exactly what makes her vulnerable. Loves Nia unconditionally and inconveniently, and wants her numbers, and hates herself for it.
She believes willpower is the answer: sets the screen-time lock, then types the passcode anyway. She betrays Nia first (Ep 15), small and understandable, and posts something cruel at 3:11 a.m. (Ep 23). She survives the season — by outside intervention, not strength.
SIDES
Audition sides
Episode 17 — "TECHNICALLY"
Read for the role of SASHA BOONE. Target: 76 seconds · Betrayal cliff
See The Character Script
The Influencer Trap
Season One ·Episode 17 — "TECHNICALLY"
EPISODE 17 — “TECHNICALLY”
Target: 76 seconds · Betrayal cliff
INT. APEX HOUSE — PODCAST ROOM — DAY
Hard in on Bode in the doorway with a laptop.
BODE
They want four a week.
SASHA
Four?
BODE
Four.
He leaves. The two of them look at each other.
SASHA
We don’t have four a week.
NIA
We’ll have four a week.
INT. APEX HOUSE — PODCAST ROOM — LATER — RECORDING
Mid-episode. They’re loose, it’s good.
SASHA
—so he texts me at eleven at night—
NIA
This is Trey?
SASHA
This is Trey.
NIA
Trey who posted the whole thing
about the apartment.
Sasha’s face — a flicker. Very fast.
SASHA
…Yeah.
NIA
‘Cause that’s public, everybody saw
that. He put it up himself. With
the pictures.
SASHA
(recovering, laughing)
He did put it up himself.
NIA
He PUT IT UP HIMSELF—
They’re both laughing. It plays great.
INT. APEX HOUSE — CORRIDOR — LATER
Walking out. Sasha’s a half-step behind.
SASHA
Hey — the Trey thing.
NIA
I checked. Before I said it. I
actually went and looked.
SASHA
I know.
NIA
It was already up. It’s public.
It’s technically—
SASHA
I know.
Beat. Sasha smiles at her.
SASHA (CONT’D)
It was funny.
Nia goes ahead down the hall.
Hold on Sasha, standing still.
CUT.
Episode 20 — “BY FRIDAY”
EPISODE 20 — “BY FRIDAY”
Target: 88 seconds · DEVRA SAVE #2 · Betrayal cliff
INT. APEX HOUSE — DEVRA’S OFFICE — DAY
Hard in on a monitor: a young man mid-rant, freeze-framed,
mouth open.
BODE
Two million. He’s done four videos
on her in three days.
DEVRA
Saying what.
BODE
That she sold out her friend for a
bit.
Devra watches ten seconds of it. Doesn’t blink.
DEVRA
Who reps him.
BODE
Nobody.
DEVRA
Who pays him.
BODE
Two brands. One’s Halvorsen.
Devra picks up the phone.
DEVRA
(into it)
Marguerite. It’s Devra. Are you
aware of what your talent’s been
doing this week?
She turns her chair to the window.
DEVRA (CONT’D)
Mm. Well. I’ve got nine people on
my roster who’d be uncomfortable in
a room with him now, so.
Beat.
DEVRA (CONT’D)
Take your time. Friday’s fine.
She hangs up.
Nia is standing in the doorway. She’s heard all of it.
NIA
You didn’t have to do that.
DEVRA
(already back on her
laptop)
Somebody comes for mine, they don’t
work.
She looks up.
DEVRA (CONT’D)
Go fix your friend.
INT. APEX HOUSE — CORRIDOR — CONTINUOUS
Nia walking with Bode. They pass an open door — a bedroom,
stripped, someone re-taping foam to the wall. A rolling rack
of clothes going out.
NIA
Whose room was that?
BODE
Dessa’s.
NIA
She left?
BODE
She graduated.
He keeps walking.
INT. APEX HOUSE — PODCAST ROOM — CONTINUOUS
Sasha’s already there, standing, coat still on.
SASHA
You didn’t call me back.
NIA
I know.
SASHA
Nia, three people at my sister’s
job—
NIA
I know. I’m sorry. I am so sorry.
And she is. That’s the thing — she absolutely is.
Sasha waits for the rest.
Nia sits down on the desk. Softens her voice. It’s a
register we have not heard from her before, and we heard it
ninety seconds ago from someone else.
NIA (CONT’D)
Can I say something? And then you
can be mad the whole rest of the
day.
SASHA
…Okay.
NIA
Sixty-forty.
Beat.
SASHA
What?
NIA
The split. I’m changing it.
Sixty-forty, starting this month.
Sasha stands there with her coat on.
She wanted an apology. She got a number.
And she can feel herself taking it.
SASHA
…Okay.
CUT.
Featured role · THE SUSTAINABLE CREATOR — LOVE INTEREST
MARCUS ODUM
CHARACTER PROFILE
Black male, 30. Carpenter first, creator second — @buildwithodum, 900K subscribers, woodworking and working-class financial literacy. Grew up in Decatur with a union-electrician father who came home at 5:30 and never discussed work at the table. Phone in a drawer by 6 p.m. Warm, grounded, slightly smug, a little lonely. He should be a touch infuriating; if the audience finds him both admirable and hard to reach, he’s calibrated right.
The wall works and it doesn’t come down for anyone: he states the truth once, kindly, then protects his peace and lets Nia fall. Ep 27 — the 2:14 a.m. call he turns face-down — is his defining beat.
Signature line: “You didn’t ask because you already know I’d say no. You just wanted the shot more than you wanted me.”
SIDES
Audition sides
Episode 21 — "THE SHOT"
Read for the role of MARCUS ODUM. Target: 86 seconds · Betrayal cliff
See The Character Script
THE INFLUENCER TRAP
Season One ·Episode 21 — "THE SHOT"
EPISODE 21 — “THE SHOT”
Target: 86 seconds · Betrayal cliff
INT. MARCUS’S WORKSHOP — DUSK
Hard in on Nia in the doorway. No producer, no crew, no
pitch. She’s just there.
MARCUS
Huh.
NIA
My grandmother died.
He sets the sander down.
LATER. Two stools. Two beers. The warmest scene in the
block, and the last warm thing in the season.
NIA
She used to make these little peach
pies. Hand pies. And they were not
good.
MARCUS
No?
NIA
They were terrible. Crust like a
shoe.
Marcus laughs.
NIA (CONT’D)
I ate maybe six hundred of them.
Beat.
NIA (CONT’D)
I didn’t go see her. Since March. I
had — there was a shoot, and then—
MARCUS
Yeah.
NIA
You’re supposed to say it’s fine.
MARCUS
It’s not fine. It’s just normal.
She looks at him.
NIA
That’s worse.
MARCUS
I know.
A long, comfortable silence. He goes back to the joint in
his hands. She watches him work.
Then — casually, the way you’d set down a cup — she props
her phone against the tool chest.
Screen up. Recording.
She doesn’t sneak it. She doesn’t think about it at all.
NIA
Keep going, this is nice.
Marcus looks at the phone.
Looks at her.
He puts the sander down and turns it off at the wall, which
takes a while, and neither of them says anything the whole
time.
MARCUS
You didn’t ask.
NIA
It’s just for me—
MARCUS
You didn’t ask because you already
know I’d say no.
Beat.
MARCUS (CONT’D)
You just wanted the shot more than
you wanted me.
Nia opens her mouth.
MARCUS (CONT’D)
Go on home, Nia.
He holds the door.
She goes.
Hold on the shop from outside as the light in it goes off.
CUT.
Featured role · APEX'S REIGNING #1
SLOANE MERCER
CHARACTER PROFILE
Female, 26. Lifestyle creator, @sloane, 8.4 million followers. Buckhead money, three generations of it — the one thing she’ll never disclose on camera, because her entire brand is self-made. Polished, disciplined, patient about everything except rank. Welcomes Nia warmly and clocks her as a threat in forty seconds.
The reveal: Sloane already knows Apex destroys its stars. She has watched it happen four times and understands there is exactly one protected position in the House. Her cruelty is survival. She tries to warn Nia twice (Ep 13, Ep 29) and both times Nia hears manipulation. The most clear-eyed person in the show, and she loses to her own timing.
Signature line: “Nobody found you. Somebody picked you.”
SIDES
Audition sides
Episode 13 — "NOTHING"
Read for the role of SLOANE MERCER. Target: 88 seconds · Opportunity cliff
See The Character Script
THE INFLUENCER TRAP
Season One ·Episode 13 — "NOTHING"
EPISODE 13 — “NOTHING”
Target: 88 seconds · Opportunity cliff
INT. APEX HOUSE — KITCHEN — DAY
Hard in on Sloane and Nia mid-shoot, both laughing hard,
genuinely — Sloane has flour on her face and Nia can’t get a sentence out.
SLOANE
(to camera, wheezing)
She has never — she has NEVER made
a pancake—
NIA
I made the pancake!
SLOANE
That is a crepe and it is a crime.
They’re good together. That’s the point. Play twenty full
seconds of two women having an actual good time.
BODE (O.S.)
And cut. That’s the spot.
High five. Real one.
INT. APEX HOUSE — SLOANE’S ROOM — CONTINUOUS
Door closed. Sloane wipes the flour off with a towel, phone
already to her ear. Her voice is a completely different instrument.
SLOANE
(into phone)
It’s me. Yeah, it went great, she’s
lovely.
Pause.
SLOANE (CONT’D)
Listen. On the fall campaign. I’d
hold.
Pause.
SLOANE (CONT’D)
Because she’s four weeks old and
I’ve got eight million people and a
nine-year track record, and you
don’t put a new account on a
national buy in October.
Pause. She examines her nails.
SLOANE (CONT’D)
No, don’t tell them that. Tell them scheduling.
She hangs up.
INT. APEX HOUSE — CORRIDOR — LATER
Nia coming down the hall, still buzzing. Sloane passing the other way.
NIA
Hey — that was so fun. Seriously.
Thank you.
SLOANE
Anytime.
They’re past each other. Then Sloane stops.
SLOANE (CONT’D)
Can I ask you something?
NIA
Yeah.
SLOANE
You still think they found you?
Nia’s smile falters — not from fear. From not understanding.
NIA
What does that mean?
Sloane smiles at her. Warmly. Almost kindly.
SLOANE
Nothing.
CUT.
Featured role · TALENT MANAGER, APEX HOUSE
BODE ANSAH
CHARACTER PROFILE
Male, 28. First-generation, immigrant family in Stone Mountain; first in his family to work a job without a uniform. Wanted to be a creative producer, took the agency job at 24 to pay a loan, and is now four years into a career he can’t explain at Thanksgiving. Likes Nia, genuinely. Cannot say no to Devra. He warns Nia in a hallway at 1 a.m., then walks into the room and executes the thing he warned her about.
The complicit one — most harmful systems run on decent people with mortgages. He finally says no to Devra one episode too late (Ep 29). It costs him his job and changes nothing.
SIDES
Audition sides
Episode 20 — "BY FRIDAY"
Read for the role of BODE ANSAH. Target: 88 seconds · DEVRA SAVE #2 · Betrayal cliff
See The Character Script
THE INFLUENCER TRAP
Season One ·Episode 20 — "BY FRIDAY"
EPISODE 20 — “BY FRIDAY”
Target: 88 seconds · DEVRA SAVE #2 · Betrayal cliff
INT. APEX HOUSE — DEVRA’S OFFICE — DAY
Hard in on a monitor: a young man mid-rant, freeze-framed,
mouth open.
BODE
Two million. He’s done four videos
on her in three days.
DEVRA
Saying what.
BODE
That she sold out her friend for a
bit.
Devra watches ten seconds of it. Doesn’t blink.
DEVRA
Who reps him.
BODE
Nobody.
DEVRA
Who pays him.
BODE
Two brands. One’s Halvorsen.
Devra picks up the phone.
DEVRA
(into it)
Marguerite. It’s Devra. Are you
aware of what your talent’s been
doing this week?
She turns her chair to the window.
DEVRA (CONT’D)
Mm. Well. I’ve got nine people on
my roster who’d be uncomfortable in
a room with him now, so.
Beat.
DEVRA (CONT’D)
Take your time. Friday’s fine.
She hangs up.
Nia is standing in the doorway. She’s heard all of it.
NIA
You didn’t have to do that.
DEVRA
(already back on her
laptop)
Somebody comes for mine, they don’t
work.
She looks up.
DEVRA (CONT’D)
Go fix your friend.
INT. APEX HOUSE — CORRIDOR — CONTINUOUS
Nia walking with Bode. They pass an open door — a bedroom,
stripped, someone re-taping foam to the wall. A rolling rack
of clothes going out.
NIA
Whose room was that?
BODE
Dessa’s.
NIA
She left?
BODE
She graduated.
He keeps walking.
INT. APEX HOUSE — PODCAST ROOM — CONTINUOUS
Sasha’s already there, standing, coat still on.
SASHA
You didn’t call me back.
NIA
I know.
SASHA
Nia, three people at my sister’s
job—
NIA
I know. I’m sorry. I am so sorry.
And she is. That’s the thing — she absolutely is.
Sasha waits for the rest.
Nia sits down on the desk. Softens her voice. It’s a register we have not heard from her before, and we heard it ninety seconds ago from someone else.
NIA (CONT’D)
Can I say something? And then you
can be mad the whole rest of the
day.
SASHA
…Okay.
NIA
Sixty-forty.
Beat.
SASHA
What?
NIA
The split. I’m changing it.
Sixty-forty, starting this month.
Sasha stands there with her coat on.
She wanted an apology. She got a number.
And she can feel herself taking it.
SASHA
…Okay.
CUT.
Featured role · NIA'S MOTHER
RENATA CALLOWAY
CHARACTER PROFILE
Black female, 51. Church, order, respectability. Wants Nia safe, and her only vocabulary for that is criticism. She cannot give unconditional approval — Ep 10, when Nia clears the mortgage arrears and Renata says “Baby… you did this?” and hugs her, is the closest she ever gets, and she never manages it again.
Dislikes being helped, being pitied, and cameras. Later in the season, offered the chance to say the right thing, she says something almost right. Almost is the whole tragedy.
SIDES
Audition sides
Episode 6 — "YOUR MOTHER'S RIGHT"
Read for the role of RENATA CALLOWAY. Target: 84 seconds · Discovery cliff
See The Character Script
THE INFLUENCER TRAP
Season One ·Episode 6 — "YOUR MOTHER'S RIGHT"
EPISODE 6 — “YOUR MOTHER’S RIGHT”
Target: 84 seconds · Discovery cliff
INT. RENATA’S KITCHEN — EVENING
Hard in. RENATA CALLOWAY, 51, at the stove, back to the
room.
RENATA
It’s a scam.
NIA
You haven’t even read it.
RENATA
Somebody sends a girl a message
about money, it’s a scam.
ELIAS, 16, at the table, doing math homework, not looking
up.
ELIAS
Apex is real. Sloane Mercer’s with
Apex.
RENATA
Who is Sloane Mercer.
ELIAS
Eight million people, Ma.
RENATA
(stirring)
Eight million people can be wrong.
Nia takes her plate to the sink. Renata doesn’t turn around.
RENATA (CONT’D)
You had a job Monday.
That lands. Nia doesn’t answer it.
INT. NIA’S OLD BEDROOM — LATER
She’s on her bed. Opens the DM.
SCREEN — DM THREAD:
BODE ANSAH · APEX HOUSE
Nia — I’ve watched your video about
forty times. So has my boss. Can we talk
this week?
Nia types. Deletes. Types.
SCREEN:
my mom says you’re a scam lol
Sent.
Three dots. Immediately.
SCREEN:
BODE: Your mother’s right to be careful.
Nia’s thumb stops moving.
She scrolls up. Reads her own message again. Reads his.
She never said it was her mother.
Half a second. Maybe less.
Then the dots come back.
SCREEN:
BODE: 3400 Kestrel Ridge. Thursday, 2pm.
Bring her if you want.
Nia looks at the address.
CUT.
Episode 10 — “CURRENT”
EPISODE 10 — “CURRENT”
Target: 78 seconds · No cliff. This one lands.
Direction: play this completely straight. No score under it, no
cutaway, no irony, no shot of a phone. The audience needs to walk
out of this episode understanding exactly why Nia says yes to
everything that comes after. A trap that gives you nothing is
stupidity. A trap that saves your mother’s house is almost
impossible to leave.
INT. RENATA’S KITCHEN — DAY
Hard in on Renata at the table with a stack of mail and a
calculator, doing what she does the first Saturday of every
month.
Nia comes in. Stands in the doorway a second.
NIA
Ma. Log into the mortgage thing.
RENATA
I know what it says.
NIA
Log into it.
Renata sighs. Puts on her glasses. Opens the laptop. Types
slowly, the way she does.
The page loads.
She doesn’t move.
She takes off her glasses. Puts them back on. Looks again.
INSERT — SCREEN:
ACCOUNT STATUS: CURRENT
Past due balance: $0.00
Renata sits back in the chair.
Long silence. Longer than is comfortable. Let it run.
RENATA
Baby.
Nia says nothing.
RENATA (CONT’D)
Baby, you did this?
Nia nods.
Renata stands up — and it takes her a second, because she is
not a woman who does this — and she puts her arms around her
daughter.
Nia breaks. Completely. Twenty-three years of it.
ELIAS appears in the doorway with his headphones half off.
He doesn’t ask. He just comes over and puts his arms around
both of them.
Hold wide. All three of them in the kitchen.
Then push slowly to Nia’s face over her mother’s shoulder.
Her eyes are open.
She’s memorizing it.
CUT TO BLACK.
Featured role · NIA'S BROTHER — THE COST
ELIAS CALLOWAY
CHARACTER PROFILE
Black male, 16 (to play 16). Smart, funny, quietly gifted at math. Adores his sister at Ep 1; by Ep 22 he is recognized at school as a character from her content and asks her to stop posting him. She agrees, and then doesn’t. His weakness: he keeps forgiving her. Every time.
SIDES
Audition sides
Episode 22 — "SHIP"
Read for the role of ELIAS CALLOWAY. Target: 90 seconds · Betrayal cliff
See The Character Script
THE INFLUENCER TRAP
Season One ·Episode 22 — "SHIP"
EPISODE 22 — “SHIP”
Target: 90 seconds · Betrayal cliff
INT. APEX HOUSE — CONFERENCE ROOM — DAY
Hard in on a mood board. Two faces side by side. Nia’s and a
boy’s.
BODE
Koa Reyes. Six million. Six weeks.
Beach content, one fight, one
reconcile.
NIA
Reconcile.
BODE
The reconcile’s the money.
NIA
And people know it’s—
BODE
(not unkindly)
Nobody knows anything, Nia.
INT. DARIUS’S APARTMENT — NIGHT
Darius on the couch, phone in his hand. Nia still standing.
DARIUS
Six weeks.
NIA
It’s a campaign. It’s like an ad.
DARIUS
It’s you on a beach holding a man.
NIA
D.
He sets the phone face-down on the arm of the couch — a
small, deliberate thing.
DARIUS
When I met you, you didn’t have any
of this.
NIA
I know.
DARIUS
That wasn’t a complaint. I liked
it.
Beat.
DARIUS (CONT’D)
I’m not gonna be the thing you have
to explain.
He picks up her keys off the table and holds them out.
She takes them.
INT. APEX HOUSE — NIA’S ROOM — NIGHT
Ring light. She’s cried, and she’s fixed it, and you can
just barely tell.
BODE (V.O.)
(phone, speaker)
—and it doesn’t have to be tonight—
NIA
It’s fine.
BODE (V.O.)
Nia, it does not have to be
tonight.
NIA
Bode. It’s fine.
She checks the frame. Adjusts it a half-inch.
RECORD.
NIA (CONT’D)
(to lens, soft, perfect)
Hey y’all. I wasn’t gonna talk
about this…
INT. RENATA’S HOUSE — KITCHEN — DAY (NEXT)
Elias at the table. Nia setting her phone against the napkin
holder, angling it toward the two of them.
ELIAS
Hey.
NIA
One second, baby—
ELIAS
Nia.
She looks up.
ELIAS (CONT’D)
Can you stop putting me in stuff?
Beat.
NIA
…Yeah.
ELIAS
For real?
NIA
For real. I promise.
He nods. Gets his bag. Goes.
Nia sits alone at the table.
Reaches over.
Turns the phone a half-inch back toward the door he just
walked out of.
CUT.
Featured role · "THE LEDGER" — CREATOR-ACCOUNTABILITY CHANNEL
PRIYA NANDAKUMAR
CHARACTER PROFILE
Female, 33, South Asian. Former local-news producer laid off in 2021; now runs the internet’s most feared creator-accountability channel, 2.1 million subscribers. Rigorous, articulate, and genuinely destructive. She believes she is a journalist standing outside the machine and cannot see that her business model requires exactly the collapses she reports on. Clips Nia inside four hours in Ep 26 with one caption: unhinged. The only character who could stop the finale, and the one who monetizes it.
SIDES
Audition sides
Episode 26 — "THE LEDGER"
Read for the role of PRIYA NANDAKUMAR. Target: 84 seconds · Survival cliff
See The Character Script
THE INFLUENCER TRAP
Season One ·Episode 26 — "THE LEDGER"
EPISODE 26 — “THE LEDGER”
Target: 84 seconds · Survival cliff
INT. APEX HOUSE — NIA’S ROOM — NIGHT (DAY 5)
Hard in. Live. Hour four. She’s hollow.
Comments scroll up the side of frame. Most are kind. One
isn’t, particularly — it isn’t even cruel.
COMMENT:
@dnb_marie · you’re not the same as you
were tho
Nia stops mid-sentence.
NIA
Say that again?
Beat. She leans in. Too close to the lens.
NIA (CONT’D)
No — Marie. Marie. You want the
same? The same was me making
seventeen dollars an hour wiping a
woman who accused me of stealing.
(faster)
NIA (CONT’D)
Y’all want me the same so bad.
Y’all want me poor and grateful.
That’s the same you want. Say it.
She’s breathing hard.
The comments have stopped scrolling.
NIA (CONT’D)
(quieter, worse)
I gave you everything I had.
She ends the live.
INT. THE LEDGER — EDIT BAY — 90 MINUTES LATER
A room with two monitors and a whiteboard. PRIYA NANDAKUMAR,
33, headphones on, scrubbing the clip. An ASSISTANT behind
her.
ASSISTANT
It’s already up on three
aggregators.
PRIYA
Then we’re not first, we’re right.
Pull the original stream.
She watches the full four hours at 3x. Actually watches it.
PRIYA (CONT’D)
Who’s Marie.
ASSISTANT
Nobody. Account’s four years old,
three hundred followers.
PRIYA
Then she’s not the story.
She scrubs back. Watches Nia lean into the lens again.
Priya sits back.
One beat where she is a person and not a channel.
ASSISTANT
Do we run it?
Priya reaches over and types the title herself.
INSERT — SCREEN:
UNHINGED: What Happened To Nia Calloway
Publish · 1.2K queued
She hits it.
PRIYA
(putting her headphones
back on)
Book the follow-up for Thursday.
CUT.
Featured role · NIA'S BOYFRIEND
DARIUS
CHARACTER PROFILE
Black male, 26. Works at a tire shop; shows up to Nia’s launch party still in coveralls with a cooler because “y’all threw a party with no drinks.” Plain-spoken, steady, never learned to perform and doesn’t want to. His phone goes face-down when he talks to someone. He is the real relationship Nia ends — and then posts — when Apex hands her a scripted summer romance (Ep 22).
SIDES
Audition sides
Episode 22 — "SHIP"
Read for the role of DARIUS. Target: 90 seconds · Betrayal cliff
See The Character Script
THE INFLUENCER TRAP
Season One ·Episode 22 — "SHIP"
EPISODE 22 — “SHIP”
Target: 90 seconds · Betrayal cliff
INT. APEX HOUSE — CONFERENCE ROOM — DAY
Hard in on a mood board. Two faces side by side. Nia’s and a
boy’s.
BODE
Koa Reyes. Six million. Six weeks.
Beach content, one fight, one
reconcile.
NIA
Reconcile.
BODE
The reconcile’s the money.
NIA
And people know it’s—
BODE
(not unkindly)
Nobody knows anything, Nia.
INT. DARIUS’S APARTMENT — NIGHT
Darius on the couch, phone in his hand. Nia still standing.
DARIUS
Six weeks.
NIA
It’s a campaign. It’s like an ad.
DARIUS
It’s you on a beach holding a man.
NIA
D.
He sets the phone face-down on the arm of the couch — a
small, deliberate thing.
DARIUS
When I met you, you didn’t have any
of this.
NIA
I know.
DARIUS
That wasn’t a complaint. I liked
it.
Beat.
DARIUS (CONT’D)
I’m not gonna be the thing you have
to explain.
He picks up her keys off the table and holds them out.
She takes them.
INT. APEX HOUSE — NIA’S ROOM — NIGHT
Ring light. She’s cried, and she’s fixed it, and you can
just barely tell.
BODE (V.O.)
(phone, speaker)
—and it doesn’t have to be tonight—
NIA
It’s fine.
BODE (V.O.)
Nia, it does not have to be
tonight.
NIA
Bode. It’s fine.
She checks the frame. Adjusts it a half-inch.
RECORD.
NIA (CONT’D)
(to lens, soft, perfect)
Hey y’all. I wasn’t gonna talk
about this…
INT. RENATA’S HOUSE — KITCHEN — DAY (NEXT)
Elias at the table. Nia setting her phone against the napkin
holder, angling it toward the two of them.
ELIAS
Hey.
NIA
One second, baby—
ELIAS
Nia.
She looks up.
ELIAS (CONT’D)
Can you stop putting me in stuff?
Beat.
NIA
…Yeah.
ELIAS
For real?
NIA
For real. I promise.
He nods. Gets his bag. Goes.
Nia sits alone at the table.
Reaches over.
Turns the phone a half-inch back toward the door he just
walked out of.
CUT.
Featured role · SASHA'S SISTER
RENEE
CHARACTER PROFILE
Female, 30. A nurse; arrives straight from a shift in scrubs. Sits down on the bathroom floor next to Sasha without being asked and, in Ep 28, becomes the outside intervention that saves her — she takes the phone and changes the passwords. Two to three scenes; requires warmth and authority with almost no dialogue.
SIDES
Audition sides
Episode 28 — "THE SCREENSHOT"
Read for the role of RENEE. Target: 82 seconds · Survival cliff
See The Character Script
THE INFLUENCER TRAP
Season One ·Episode 28 — "THE SCREENSHOT"
EPISODE 28 — “THE SCREENSHOT”
Target: 82 seconds · Survival cliff
INT. SASHA’S APARTMENT — DAY (DAY 7)
Hard in on a phone. A repost, climbing.
SCREEN:
found this. she deleted it in like 4
mins [skull emoji]
[SCREENSHOT — @sashaproofs, 3:11 AM]
“…and half of you have no idea what
that girl is actually like.”
2.9M views
Sasha stands in her kitchen with flour on her hands, reading
her own sentence.
Her phone starts to go off and does not stop.
SCREEN:
snake
the FAKE best friend arc
she was jealous the whole time
[snake emoji][snake emoji][snake emoji]
She sets the phone down.
Picks it up.
Sets it down.
INT. SASHA’S APARTMENT — BATHROOM — 4:00 AM (DAY 8)
Floor. Back against the tub. Phone in both hands. She hasn’t
slept.
She’s typing a reply. Deleting it. Typing it again.
Her thumb is shaking the same way Nia’s did in 24.
A key in the door.
RENEE (O.S.)
Sash?
RENEE, 30, Sasha’s sister. Work scrubs, came straight from a
shift. She sits down on the bathroom floor next to her
without being asked.
Long silence.
SASHA
I’m not — I’m okay. I’m just—
RENEE
Okay.
SASHA
I keep — I set the thing, and then
I just—
She can’t finish it.
Renee doesn’t say anything wise. She doesn’t diagnose her.
She just holds out her hand, palm up.
Sasha looks at it.
Twenty seconds. Let it be hard.
Then she puts the phone in her sister’s hand.
SASHA (CONT’D)
Change the passwords.
RENEE
All of them?
SASHA
All of them. And don’t tell me.
Even if I ask you. Even if I’m mean
about it.
Renee nods. Puts the phone in her scrub pocket.
They sit on the floor together.
CUT.
Featured role · STAFFING MANAGER (DAY PLAYER)
MARIE
CHARACTER PROFILE
Female, 50s. The home-health agency’s staffing manager. Tired, not cruel. One scene (Ep 3): she disciplines and then fires Nia for naming a client detail in the viral video. Should read as someone doing a procedure, not enjoying it.
SIDES
Audition sides
Episode 3 — "PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT"
Read for the role of MARIE. Target: 79 seconds · Discovery cliff
See The Character Script
THE INFLUENCER TRAP
Season One ·Episode 3 — "PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT"
EPISODE 3 — “PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT”
Target: 79 seconds · Discovery cliff
INT. PIEDMONT HOME CARE — SMALL OFFICE — DAY
Hard in on a laptop being turned around to face her. Her own
face on the screen, paused mid-sentence.
MARIE, 50s, staffing manager. Tired. Not cruel.
MARIE
You said “her mother.” You said the
street.
NIA
I didn’t say a name.
MARIE
You said enough that four million
people could find her.
Nia opens her mouth. Closes it.
MARIE (CONT’D)
The family’s attorney called at
seven this morning.
NIA
She accused me of stealing. In her
house. In front of her mother.
MARIE
I believe you.
NIA
Then—
MARIE
I believe you, and you’re done
here.
Silence. Nia doesn’t argue. She’s not built to argue with a
manager.
She stands. Picks up her bag — the same bag she opened in
Episode 1.
INT. PIEDMONT HOME CARE — HALLWAY — CONTINUOUS
Marie walks her out. Neither of them says anything for a
while.
At the door, Marie stops.
MARIE
For what it’s worth.
NIA
It’s not worth anything.
MARIE
My sister sent me that video.
Nia looks at her.
NIA
So?
Beat.
MARIE
So she’s never sent me anything.
Marie holds the door. Nia walks through it.
Wide: Nia alone in a parking lot in the middle of a Tuesday,
no job, holding a phone that will not stop.
She looks at it.
CUT.