Birth of an actor

William frowned: "I know that in the eyes of many adults, youth love movies are synonymous with childishness and boredom, but really good youth movies can radiate all age groups, and what we are going to do is exactly this Movie isn't it? Please tell me how you really feel about the script, Lance, if it's really bad, we need to rewrite the script."

Lance looked extremely reluctant.

William instantly understood: "Oh, I see, the script is actually not bad at all, right? But you insist on belittling it, why, my friend?"

"Yes, it's not bad at all." Under William's continuous urging, Lance finally spoke with his reluctant look: "The main characters are all very good and have their own personalities, and the occurrence of love is not It has no rules but has logic to follow. The story is much better than many other movies of the same theme in my impression, whether it is a vampire movie or a romance movie. It can be said to be very novel, but—”

"But?" Since Lance's judgment was the same as William's own, he was even more curious why Lance showed such strong hatred for the script just now.

"Is Melissa Rosenberg really a professional screenwriter? I can't see it, she's just crazy about you." Lance opened the first page of the script, pointed to it and said, "She will The protagonist's eyes are called 'Emerald Eyes', his lips are described as 'redder than rose petals', his voice is compared to 'the cello with the most perfect tone', his hair is 'the color of midnight', and his body is described as ' The best painter in the world cannot describe the grace and slenderness of the lines when those muscles burst out with incomparable strength'."

"God, uh, Melissa she..."

"Yes, she's totally out to fuck you, Will."

William couldn't refute this statement, because no one knew better than himself that when he initially discussed the script with Melissa Rosenberg, he just told the story again, and then talked with Melissa Rosenberg The main characters and the plot were discussed. As for the appearance of the characters, it can’t be said that they didn’t mention it at all, but only a few parts were mentioned—for example, he mentioned that the hero should be very handsome and attractive. It is better for the heroine’s appearance to be ordinary, she can be pretty, but she must not be glamorous, and she should have dark hair such as brown, because most American girls look like this, such a design It is definitely more conducive for most audiences to assume roles.

And William didn't mention the appearance characteristics of the hero at all, only mentioned the identity setting - born in a European noble family, lived in most European countries, but lived in the United States for nearly a hundred years - such a setting is actually The choice of male lead is very wide. After all, the legend of vampires originated in Europe. If he is a Romanian vampire, then he can choose a black-haired actor, a Swedish vampire with blond hair and pale skin, an Italian vampire with black hair and Honey-toned skin, a Scottish vampire, and even a redhead!

But now looking at Melissa Rosenberg's descriptions of the appearance of the male lead, the first thought that pops up in everyone's mind is that she is simply using William as a template.

William's complexion suddenly turned subtle: Did Melissa Rosenberg write this script as if it was written by his colleagues?

"Maybe we can fire Melissa Rosenberg and find a better one," Lance suggested suddenly and enthusiastically.

"Maybe the next one we find is worse than her." William rubbed his brows: "Although it feels a bit strange, it must be admitted that Melissa Rosenberg has portrayed the leading actor very well, excluding those The exaggeration of appearance, almost all important plots are highlighting the mysterious, powerful, dangerous but fatally attractive image of the male protagonist, which can almost satisfy all women’s fantasies, and girls will love this story to death. If again If you find a reliable director and good actors, maybe it will be a very successful movie, at least at the box office."

"Okay." Lance seemed to have completely surrendered: "If you are going to act in the end, I will call you Narcissus."

Narcissus, a beautiful boy who fell in love with his own reflection in the water in Greek mythology.

"I'll try not to give you that chance," William said, laughing.

……

At the New York premiere of Gattaca, William ended up being accompanied only by men.

When William, Amon Goffman, and Danny Byrne, three bachelors wearing the same expensive custom-made suits, stepped off the stretched Lincoln, William bet he saw a huge Disappointed - it seems the media are disappointed that he doesn't have a female companion tonight, and the media are determined not to let go of someone who prevents them from capturing the breaking news.

Although it was only tens of meters from the entrance of the red carpet to the cinema, William couldn't move an inch. He was constantly stopped by reporters on both sides and asked various questions.

"Will, why don't you have a girlfriend?"

William glanced at the ID on the reporter's chest. It was a reporter from The Hollywood Reporter: "Who knows, maybe the girls are not interested in me." He shrugged and replied casually.

The reporter of "The Hollywood Reporter" put on an expression of obvious disbelief: "Is that the man who was photographed having dinner with Uma Thurman last weekend? She just walked the red carpet alone. Are you guys You're dating, so you didn't walk the red carpet together to avoid suspicion?"

"Whoever the lucky man Uma is dating is not me." William raised his eyebrows and said into the microphone held in front of him: "As for why Uma would rather walk the red carpet alone than with me , I guess it's all about you for making me a playboy and making ladies shun me like the plague. God, I'm so wronged."

"Haha." The reporter of "Hollywood Report" showed an embarrassed expression, laughed dryly twice, and stopped asking questions.

Of course, William’s statement is an exaggerated version—it’s true that the media almost portrayed him as a playboy, but because the “ex-girlfriends” are almost all unilateral statements, there is no credible evidence to show them , so the vast majority of the public does not believe those gossip tabloids; and ladies avoiding him is like avoiding the plague, which is also a lie. In fact, there are many women who want to walk the premiere red carpet with William. William participated in one At the party, there were no less than ten actors, supermodels and reality TV stars who came to him to strike up a conversation, but those women were too purposeful, and they almost had money in their eyes, so William didn't respond to any of them .

As for Uma Thurman, William actually invited him, but he was rejected on the phone.

Amon Goffman's comment on this is: "Uma Thurman is dating Quentin Tarantino, considering her boyfriend's feelings, of course she will not walk the red carpet with you, otherwise the next day the newspaper The news will be full of you dating Uma Thurman, and Quentin Tarantino will be mad with jealousy."

And Danny Bourne said: "Uma Thurman is getting back at you, Will, for ignoring her during the months you were making the film."

"I ignored Uma Thurman?" For Danny Byrne's accusation, William was very surprised: "Is there such a thing?"

Danny Bourne nodded solemnly: "I heard with my own ears what Uma Thurman said to her assistant, it cannot be false." As he spoke, he also imitated Uma Thurman's tone of voice: "'No matter how much I flirt with Bradley in private, he always looks puzzled, and seems to be happier talking to Jude Law than talking to me, God, I It's a wink for a blind man, isn't it?'—now I quite agree with her words, Will, and God knows how long I've put up with them."

——To sum up, in fact, Uma Thurman's refusal to accept William's invitation is actually a good thing for William now, otherwise he will definitely be very, very embarrassed.

Although many reporters are very concerned about William's private life, there are also quite a few media who are very interested in movies. William also tries his best to make his interviews revolve around movies, and avoids many traps set by reporters with ulterior motives:

"The premiere of Gattaca will exceed 2000 theaters. Do you think the box office will be 3000 million or [-] million during the opening weekend?"

"Toronto's Audience Choice Awards are off to a good start for the film, do you think Gatta will get an Oscar nomination by the end of the year?"

William did not choose to answer these questions directly, but chose "Of course I hope the box office will be higher, the better, but the specific figures will probably not be known until next week." and "If you can get an Oscar nomination, everyone Everyone will be very happy." Answers like this will not be taken by some interested reporters to make a big fuss.

The premiere of "Cattaca" was not a big one, and William asked the reporters on both sides to pester him. When he got away, the others had already entered the movie theater. Several movie fans signed their signatures, and William also walked quickly into the theater. After entering, before William took the initiative to say hello, others, whether it was director Andrew Nicol, Jude Law, producer Amy Pascal, all of them took the initiative to come over to chat with William, their expressions were much more affectionate than when they were filming, and even Uma Thurman came over and handed him a glass of champagne, with no embarrassment or discomfort in their expressions .

William understands that this is because his fame and status have risen more than before. Although he has not yet been recognized by important award ceremonies, William is recognized as a talented Hollywood upstart among the new generation of actors. Popularity has money, and recently I heard that I have established my own independent production company. The production company will never let go of the opportunity to build a good relationship with such a promising future star. The director wants to maintain his goodwill. It is beneficial to continue to cooperate in the future. What the actors think is that maybe they will act in William's film in the future?

The same as the distribution of seats for the premiere of most other films, all the main creators of "Gatta" and the New York media and well-known film critics accounted for about 20% of the seats in the theater, and the other 10%-15% of the seats were relationship tickets. Some of them are used to give away to investors, and the rest are ordinary audiences who normally buy tickets.

In the past few film premieres, although William’s attention was on the film itself at the beginning, he couldn’t stick to it until the end. He was always worried that his performance was not good enough, so when the film reached the climax, his gaze was always I can't help wandering on the faces of those media, film critics and audiences, wanting to know their scores in advance, but now, I don't know whether it is because I have accumulated more experience or I am more and more confident in myself. The opening title appeared on the big screen, and when the ending song sounded, William didn't even lose his mind for a minute.

……

The lights were turned on, but A.O. Scott, the chief columnist film critic of The New York Times, was still sitting in his seat, his mind still immersed in the film and he did not leave.

"Gattaca" is a weird title. There is no such word in Encyclopedia Britannica. It is conceivable that this word was definitely created by the director Andrew Nicol to name the film, but it still gives people a sense of ostentation. , there is a poster of the fusion of human cells and the earth that is quite innovative, but other movie posters are not surprising. In the several posters that have been released, the three protagonists either appear in turn or together, although William Brown The faces of Landry and Jude Law already mean everything to many female movie fans, but male movie fans still pay more attention to the plot, because there is nothing particularly profound in the poster, so when they walk into the movie theater Before, A.0. Scott didn't have much expectation for the film.

A.0. Scott also knows that many of his peers praised the film at the few screenings he was unable to attend, but the reason why film critics become famous film critics is because of them A.0. Scott does not follow the trend, and has his own unique method and point of view of film evaluation. Therefore, A.[-]. Scott will never be influenced by anyone before watching the whole film.

But I didn't expect the movie to be far more profound and exciting than A.0. Scott imagined.

The first scene of the movie has already been announced through the subtitles: "This is a story that takes place in the near future."

What makes AO Scott more novel is that the film chooses a flashback mode at the beginning: it first describes how harshly the chief astronaut "Jerome" of the Gattaca Space Center cleans his body before going to work every day. How well he performed in the company, he was favored by the supervisor, and was selected as an astronaut who flew into space to go to Saturn’s No. Vincent, a little boy who was educated but had a genetic defect and was not liked by his parents.

In the future, because genetic medicine is very developed, doctors can even pair and screen the sperm and eggs of a couple in advance to pick out the one with the best genes, so new lives will generally adopt this way of birth. On the contrary, those children born through natural childbirth are mostly flawed because their genes have not been screened out, so they are called "natural person" or "flawed person". Vincent is a "natural person". At first, he was expected by his parents, but when the doctor detected that he had a 99% chance of suffering from heart disease in adulthood, and his life expectancy was likely to be only 30 years old, his parents were disappointed in him, and his father even gave him the name Anton to my younger brother who was born later.

Vincent's genes are not outstanding, although he is a few years older than his younger brother Anton, regardless of his height.His eyesight and grades were not as good as the opponent's, and he was even rejected by the school. However, Vincent did not want to succumb to fate. He never stopped competing with his younger brother. Finally, he not only defeated Anton in a test of courage in sea swimming, but also rescued Anton. The other party's life - Through this competition, Vincent thought that as long as he worked hard, he would not lose to anyone, so he ran away from home to pursue his space dream.

Now, as long as you are not a fool, you can discover the fact that the chief astronaut "Jerome" of the space center is actually Vincent many years later from the director's deliberate camera hints, so the first suspense of the movie arises So—how did Vincent, who was in poor physical condition and genetically disabled, become "Jerome"?

It has only been more than ten minutes since the movie started, and AO Scott has already produced this is definitely a good movie—whether it is the use of the camera, switching, shooting angles, techniques, or the entire movie is cool The choice of color tone shows the uniqueness of director Andrew Nicole, not to mention that he tells the story so smoothly, and the flashback technique is even more unique. The protagonist Vincent's scenes from birth, growth to running away from home are actually It’s quite long. If it’s told sequentially, let the audience spend 10 minutes to see how a little boy with a genetic defect was born and grew up with setbacks. It would make people feel that the foreshadowing is too long and too boring. The success of Senter, showing his weak childhood all at once, whetted the audience's appetite and made them have patience and curiosity to wait for the mystery to be solved, and to think about this suspense.

What's more, Andrew Nicholl also made William Bradley so charming.

Even the sloppiest look of Vincent when he left home to work as a cleaner did not block the figure in the eyes behind the glasses, not to mention the elite look of suits and leather shoes and those shots without a shirt, it is simply to show Vincent While the extremely unyielding and confident soul is brilliant, it also announces to the world majestically that there is also an incomparable body here.

There was no messy buzzing sound in the cinema, but the sudden rise in temperature and hormonal smell in the surrounding air let AO Scott know that no matter how the film's final box office reputation is, the topic will definitely not be bad.