Birth of an actor

New Jersey, Princeton University.

Although the school was founded 100 years later than Harvard, Princeton's campus looks older than Harvard's campus. Harvard's architectural styles are diverse, Georgian style and classical Roman style coexist, and there are many modern buildings built in the past 50 years. The Princeton campus is a very well-preserved ancient building. The architectural style is Gothic and Adamic, but there are very few modern buildings.

Albert Einstein once described Princeton as "an elegant and formal village," and apparently, more than 70 years later, nothing has changed here.

The restaurant in Princeton is also completely Gothic style, with a soaring roof, and huge stained glass windows are very eye-catching. There are also many employees and students who are dining, and they basically sit together with the same skin color as Harvard, although the people at each table are sitting together. Conversation, but the overall environment is not noisy.

"Would you like coffee or tea?"

William withdrew his eyes from looking at the decoration of the restaurant, and cast his eyes on the old man standing by the buffet counter, who was holding a plate with only one sandwich on it with some difficulty with his left hand.

The old man is tall, but very thin. His white shirt and beige windbreaker look like they have been taken care of before going out. He has a stooped back, his hair is almost silvery white, and the top of his left hair is a little thinner. He has big ears and a straight nose. There are deep grooves brought by the years on both sides, the eye sockets are sunken, and the eyes are not very bright, but from the facial features, it can still be seen that he must have been an extremely handsome man when he was young.

This old man is John Forbes Nash Jr., a famous mathematician, the founder of game theory, and the winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize in Economics.

It is also the protagonist prototype of William's upcoming biographical adaptation film "A Beautiful Mind".

"Tea is fine, thank you." After saying this, William realized that what he just said was not Nash was asking himself, but a soliloquy.

John Nash took things very slowly. Taking a sandwich, it took him almost 10 minutes to choose his favorite from beef sandwich, chicken sandwich and salmon sandwich, and then put it on the plate. He stood by the dining table with Picking food at a very slow speed, the students who are eating come and go from him, most of them will glance at him and then pass by normally, no one said anything, maybe because they recognized that he was a professor at the school, maybe because Princeton’s Students are used to having all sorts of weird people in school all the time.

William didn't appear to be helping Nash, he just chose a sandwich and salad, got a cup of tea, went to the nearest table, sat down and waited.

For a mathematician who is a lonely genius who is still working tirelessly after winning the Nobel, even if he is over [-] years old, he probably doesn't want others to take care of him when he eats.

But even though he had already imagined what John Nash would look like, seeing the real person now was still more difficult to describe than William had imagined.

William couldn't help thinking about the first time he heard that he had the opportunity to play John Nash.

That happened after Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston's wedding.

……

"I hold seven or eight A-lister brokerage contracts. I make friends with them and promise everyone that they will definitely become Oscar winners or actresses in the future."

"But none of that is true," Armon Goffman said at William's Malibu mansion after the wedding.

"None of them are my real friends, only you. I don't care too much about whether they can win the Oscar, except you."

The "you" in the mouth of the Jewish broker refers to William.

"If my humanity is only ten points, seven points will be given to you, and it has nothing to do with your current status, it's just because of you, even if you are dead now—just for example—I will still work hard Helping you get back on your feet. You are the only one in the entire IAA cast that is the most special to me, we are friends, maybe more like brothers, everything else is business."

William has never heard such emotional words from his agent, not only him, I am afraid that no one in Hollywood would have thought that these words could really come out of the mouth of "that Amon", even if they heard it, I am afraid they would Immediately it's a fake, or "Ha, Goffman's faking it again".

But William can feel it from his agent's emotions, it's all true, the relationship between him and Amon is not just an agent and an actor, they met each other at the lowest point of their respective careers, they have similar personalities, They have similar tastes, so they are friends, but they are much closer than ordinary friends, and are already close to relatives.

William also pays attention to IAA. He knows that this firm, which has become a star in the Hollywood brokerage industry, now has many stars to vote for, actors, singers, hosts, athletes, etc. Amon Goffman is now directly running several A-list The careers of celebrities, including many actors who have already won Oscars, but he is only responsible for managing the other party's star career in an orderly manner. In terms of life, other managers or assistants are responsible, not like William, even now There is no shortage of manager assistants or even bodyguards in William's life. Jewish managers are still used to asking about William's life through various channels.

Because of such a rare and special affection, it is impossible for William not to listen to Amon Goffman's words, and it is impossible not to think about them.

From "Titanic" to "Shakespeare in Love" to last year's awards season, William has been in full swing in the past few years, but he has failed to win Oscars several times. Amon Goffman suspected that William was heartbroken by Oscar, so he chose the film Taste has been inclined to commercial productions that can achieve good results without too much effort, and I am more worried that he enjoys the pleasure of making money too much and neglects to be an actor. Romance was inundated, so Armon Goffman decided to put some oomph on it.

He contacted the producer Brian Grazer, persuaded the original author Sylvia Nassar with eloquence, and even persuaded DreamWorks to regard William as the No. 1 choice, and then put the script in front of William ——Actually, it’s not too difficult to do this. DreamWorks is worried about budget overruns. After the news that William Bradley’s agent is very interested in the script, the number of co-investors who came to the door with a check Rapidly increasing, even the number of actors auditioning several other supporting roles has exploded.

That script was A Beautiful Mind.

As for whether William is interested in the script, Armon Goffman is not worried about it at all. This is the best biographical film script he has encountered in five years, comparable to Rembrandt's portrait, as long as William still has interest in the award ceremony. If you try, you will not let go of this script.

Amon Goffman guessed right, William just read ten pages of the script, and couldn't wait to say to the Jewish agent: "I want this script!"

"It's already yours." Amon Goffman's expression looked calm, but it was still unavoidable to reveal a bit of 'Look, I just have the foresight! 'The tone comes from: "The biopic, the background of the Cold War, the protagonist is the lonely genius mathematician John Nash, who was born in the same era as Einstein, von Neumann, and Turing, and created the game theory , suffering from schizophrenia for 30 years, has undergone two painful psychiatric treatments, and finally healed schizophrenia by willpower, won the Nobel Prize in Economics, and had a great love in the eyes of the outside world—— I can't even count how many things there are in this that are enough to excite the group of white old judges!"

Amon Goffman took a deep breath: "And John Nash was very handsome when he was young. Although he was arrogant and withdrawn, he still attracted many girls. Even his wife Alicia married him because of admiration for Nash. If Nash was a handsome man when he was young, you are even more handsome like a god. He is a mathematical genius from Princeton, and you also graduated from Harvard. Look, does this seem like a script tailored for you?"

When he heard that he was almost blushing, William couldn't help touching his forehead: "Please, Ami, there are only two of us here, so you don't need to talk about those good words about selling actors in 360 degrees."

Amon Goffman choked for a moment, and then realized that what he had just said to William was indeed similar to what he had persuaded DreamWorks and Universal executives. He coughed a few times as if his throat was very uncomfortable, very Quickly forget the previous conversation.

William continued to read the script, and his expression gradually became more thoughtful and cautious: "Need to act from the age of 20 to the age of 66?"

"A Beautiful Mind" is adapted from the biography of the same name written by New York Times economic reporter Sylvia Nassar for John Nash.

The life of John Forbes Nash Jr. can be divided into three acts: genius, madness, and reawakening.

Nash was born in an upper-middle-class family in Bloomfield, West Virginia in 1928. Although he was smart when he was a child, he was naturally withdrawn and introverted. His genius was not discovered until he was studying at Carnegie Institute of Technology. Showcasing his talent in mathematics, Nash was admitted to the Princeton Department of Mathematics in 1947. Three years later, he used a 27-page dissertation as his doctoral dissertation. In this dissertation, he proposed an important concept—— —"Game Theory" is also the "Nash Equilibrium" that laid the foundation for Nash to win the Nobel Prize in the future.

Because of "game theory", Nash was elected as the most outstanding figure among the new generation of genius mathematicians who were active in the two fields of pure mathematics and applied mathematics before the age of 30. He traveled around, gave speeches, and met the most famous contemporaries A mathematician, accepted a teaching position at MIT, where he met a young and beautiful physics student who adored him, married Nash in 1957, and bore him a son, she is Nash's wife Alicia.

So far, this is the most perfect life that a genius can have, but this perfection quickly slides into the abyss after reaching the peak.

In 1958, a year after his marriage, John Nash suddenly suffered a catastrophic nervous breakdown. He began to experience hallucinations, auditory hallucinations and delirium, always claiming that he had received messages from aliens, or that the Soviets were The United States is about to attack and he is the key to saving the world. Later, Nash was diagnosed with delusional schizophrenia, and was sent to a private psychiatric hospital twice to receive electroshock therapy and insulin injection coma treatment that were popular at the time.

Because of mental illness, Nash lost his teaching position at MIT. With the help of his friends, he returned to Princeton as a researcher. Wandering on the campus and known as the "Ghost of Princeton", during the 30 years of suffering from mental illness, Nash's condition was up and down, his willpower was almost completely destroyed, and his body was under Alicia's care. Fairly healthy, but almost forgotten by the world.

From the 80s to the [-]s, the game theory created by Nash has been widely used in many fields. His name and the theories such as "Nash Equilibrium" and "Nash Negotiation Solution" created by him have also begun to appear in more and more textbooks, but At that time, many young mathematicians and economists who used Nash's theory did not know that Nash was still alive, and they thought he had passed away.

Until the end of the 80s, Nash gradually recovered from his madness. In the early 90s, when Nash was walking on the Princeton campus, he gradually behaved like a normal person. Many people who lived in Princeton at the same time as him regarded him as "" A walking miracle alive." Then, one weekend in October 1994, Nash was informed by the Swedish Academy of Sciences that he had won the Nobel Prize in Economics.

The timeline of the play begins with John Nash's first year at Princeton University, in 1947, when Nash was less than 20 years old, and the last scene ends in 1994, when Nash was 66 years old.In other words, if William takes over the film, he will act from Nash's youth, middle age to old age, spanning nearly 47 years.

And William has never played a role with such a wide time span, nor has he played an old man. He is much more uncertain about whether he can play John Nash well.

Amon Goffman naturally also saw William's concerns. William has played middle school students, young people and middle-aged people. The roles of these three age groups will not be a problem for him, but his acting skills are no longer a problem. Mature, playing the role of an old man in his 20s in his 60s is a bit exaggerated, and there will be negative emotions for sure.

But since the Jewish manager put the script in front of William, it means that he must have a way to deal with it, but before he could show off the results of his hard work, William's expression changed again, and the other party suddenly thought After seeing something, his expression has changed from annoyed to as if he has infinite motivation.

"The screenplay is adapted from Sylvia Nassar's biographical novel of the same name, right? "A Beautiful Mind The Biography of John Forbes Nash Jr."-yes, it's the same as the working title of the movie. I remember this book, It was on the New York Times bestseller list the year before, and I needed this book."

"By the way, please help me meet with Ms. Nasha, who can write a biography for Nash. She must have collected a lot of information. I want to know what she thinks of John Nash."

"Are there any hospitals in the United States that still use electroshock therapy, or insulin-induced coma therapy, to treat schizophrenic patients? If so, make an appointment for me, and if not, find a patient or two who have been treated this way That's fine too."

"If possible, I would also like to visit John Nash himself in Princeton."

Amon Goffman kept receiving requests from William, especially the second and third ones were the most special, but as long as he thought about it for a while, he knew what William's purpose was - he was not intimidated by the difficulty of the script On the contrary, with great interest, he regarded playing John Nash as a challenge, and acted immediately.

His judgment and choice were not wrong, and "A Beautiful Mind" is indeed a script that can ignite William's passion.

I have to say that when the "Soul of Drama" was burning, William looked far more dazzling and vivid than at other times.

Even though more and more Americans believe that William Bradley can also develop in other industries and achieve glory and victory besides Hollywood, Amon Goffman always believes that Hollywood is the best place to be compared to other places. For William, only film film can completely retain William's most shining, dazzling and beautiful moments.

"It should be no problem to meet Sylvia Nassar. She was originally a reporter for the economics section of the New York Times and also worked for Fortune magazine. It is impossible for reporters from these two media to reject you now. , John Nash, you probably want to visit in private? I need to contact Princeton first."

After saying this, Amon Goffman said what he wanted to say just now: "You don't have to worry too much about John Nash's old age. I have communicated with the screenwriter. The script mainly traces back to the fact that Nash was in his 30s. His previous life and achievements, of course, the process of his illness is also the focus of the story, the whole old age, the content of the period will not exceed one-tenth of the whole script."

William sat on the sofa, looked at his manager's face in a daze for a few seconds, then stood up, opened a bottle of Kendall Jackson's [-] soft stopper that he treasured, took out two wine glasses, Infused with a blood-red liquid, the aroma of berries and woods gradually drifts into the air, and it seems to incorporate a hint of laurel and pepper spice.

Amon Goffman immediately turned around from the sofa, his nose moved slightly, and his expression became eager to try: "Is it the thing I thought?" The Jewish agent had known for a long time that William had gradually developed a I have a small interest in collecting fine wines, including wines produced in 1865, a good year with plenty of sunshine and rain, as well as precious cellars like the Louie wine produced in the year Lincoln was shot ([-]).As a wine lover, he has long been salivating and can't wait.

"Oh, Amy, your nose is sharper than I thought." William came over and handed a glass of wine to the agent: "Yes, this is the bottle of Kendall Jackson that you have been thinking about for a long time."

"It's a little earlier than I expected to drink."

William raised his glass to his agent: "I think this is more sincere than saying thank you dryly, and then a hug."

"Ha, I like this way of thanking you!" Amon Goffman also raised his glass to William, and after taking a sip, he quickly said, "I will take the rest of the wine away."

"Give you."

"And that bottle of 1990 Latour."

"Give you all."

"And the bottle of Chateau Mouton—"

"Ami, are you going to empty out my wine cellar?"

Amon Goffman quickly changed his tune: "Save it for when we celebrate."

what to celebrateEven if the manager didn't say anything, William understood. He took a sip of his wine and said with a smile, "It's a deal."

……

Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, Dining Room.

"You're William Bradley . . . aren't you?"

The sudden greeting pulled William's thoughts back. He first glanced at John Nash, who was sitting across from him with his eyes down.

It was a tall, nervous-looking young man with the familiar gleam William so often sees in fans' eyes, and a blue ribbon around his neck, the end of which was hidden by his coat. , with a small digital camera on his chest, William guessed that the other party was probably a member of a newspaper on the Princeton campus.

Seeing William looking at him, the tall Princeton student asked his question again excitedly.

"No." William answered him very simply: "I am not William Bradley, I am Leonardo DiCaprio."

The tall man was a little confused when he heard this answer.

The Princeton student glanced away from William's face, then back again, and then to the opposite side, and exclaimed again: "Professor John Nash?"

Hearing that someone recognized him, John Nash stopped to eat. He raised his head and looked at the tall man. His eyes were a little brighter than before, and his voice was a little louder than when he was talking to William before: "Are you from the mathematics department?"

John Nash's expression seemed to be looking forward to that he was a graduate student in the Department of Mathematics, and that the other party was going to ask him for advice on a math problem that he had solved for a long time.

"I, no...I'm not, I'm a student of economics." The tall man waved his hand quickly, glanced at William inadvertently, and suddenly remembered his euphemistic rejection of "I'm Leonardo DiCaprio" , From the neck to the face turned red instantly, left the sentence "I won't bother you anymore", turned around and ran away immediately.

William saw with his own eyes that the light in John Nash's eyes suddenly went out like a flame, and the old man returned to his previous motionless and silent appearance, as if lost in his own thoughts.

Glancing at the empty plate in front of the other party, William proposed: "Professor Nash, shall I take you back to the library?"

John Nash nodded slowly and silently to William, stood up, and staggered towards the outside of the restaurant.

……

Mathematician Paul Halmos once said: "There are two types of geniuses, those who are like all of us, only superior, and those who manifestly possess an aura of extraordinary intelligence. We can all run, some of them can run a 5K in five minutes, but the vast majority of us simply cannot achieve anything close to Bach's great fret in G minor."

John Nash's genius undoubtedly belonged to the latter, and was of the most mysterious and eccentric type.

William and the other party were walking on the Princeton campus. Not many people dared to say hello to Nash. Even if someone recognized them, they would look at them with respect and walk away.

This is different from the situation on the Harvard campus. Harvard also has many professors who are Nobel, Pritzker, Fields or Turing Award winners. They are undoubtedly geniuses, while Harvard students are on campus or in the library. When seeing these professors, they would always greet them respectfully before walking away.

But when William saw those students who did not greet Nash but greeted other professors in a very polite tone, he understood that this is not a difference between Princeton and Harvard, but a difference between Nash and others .

Perhaps this is the difference between artistically processed biographical literature and real life. In the biography, John Nash, who cured schizophrenia and won the Nobel Prize with his willpower, is an ultimate victor. It is very legendary, but standing in front of William at this moment is more like a lonely old man who has survived 30 years of mental torture and hard life, and still has not shaken off the shadows.

Alicia, who accompanied Nash through mental illness, actually divorced him long ago. Nash has been under the care of the other party as his ex-husband. The son born by the two also inherited Nash's schizophrenia, and his condition is very unstable.

In John Nash, William really experienced for the first time what is called "the loneliness of genius."

The world seemed to accept him again, but in fact they didn't accept much.

Will Nash care about these?

From John Nash's expression, William couldn't see it, but from Sylvia Nassar's description "Nash's ideal is to stand out and become a respected and important person.", and Nash's illusion after illness Look-people who don't desire to be valued by others will not imagine themselves as superheroes who save the world-William boldly guessed that for decades, Nash has never stopped his desire for fame and status.

Otherwise, Nash would not agree to Sylvia Nassar writing a biography for him, would not agree to the filming of a biographical film, and would not agree to William's visit today.

We were almost at the library, and William's visit had lasted more than four hours, and the two of them spent most of the time in silence, just as the Princeton principal who introduced William to Nash said before: "Professor Nash Only when discussing the Riemann Hypothesis with others will you talk a little more, but unfortunately you are not a graduate student in mathematics, Mr. Bradley, please forgive me if you are neglected."

William didn't feel slighted at all. Although John Nash was indeed different from what he had imagined before meeting, William had been observing Nash in the time when he didn't talk, trying to find the appearance of the other party when he was young from the current weather-beaten.

Just when they were about to reach their destination, William suddenly found a person not far behind them, who was the tall Princeton student whom he had seen in the cafeteria of the Institute for Advanced Study before.

William stood still: "Professor Nash, can I take a photo with you?" After getting a slow nod of agreement from the other party, William turned and waved to the tall young man.

The tall Princeton student was startled at first, and after observing that William didn't seem to want to blame him for following, he walked over slowly.

"Can you take a photo for us?" William looked at the digital camera on the other's chest and the press card of the Princeton school newspaper and said, "Besides selling it to gossip magazines, you can use the photo for other purposes, but please wash it out and send it to us separately. Give one to me and Professor Nash."

The tall man didn't expect that there would be such a good thing as a pie in the sky, so he readily and excitedly agreed.

John Nash very rarely offered to take a group photo in front of the Fan Building where the Department of Mathematics is located. The tower of the neo-Gothic castle made of red bricks and stone slabs stands tall. The people in the tower once, or still represent The pinnacle of human intelligence.

After William kept smiling and John Nash gradually curved the corners of his mouth into a smile, the "click" sound after the shutter was pressed freezes the moment into eternity.

……

"The whole conversation did not exceed fifty sentences. I thought you would think this was a failed visit."

"I think it's a success." William said: "The meeting with John Nash gave me a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of his character, which helped me interpret the script, but I hope that Professor Nash can also get it. There are other things outside of the group photo."

"There will definitely be. At least, after the photo with you is published in the Princeton school newspaper, Professor Nash's fashion value in the eyes of Princeton students will definitely increase a lot."

"Ha, Lance, you are so narrow." William stood in the kitchen fiddling with a low ball glass that had already been filled with ice cubes, waited for another minute, and shouted impatiently to his friend who had been standing in front of the wine cabinet for 1 minutes : "Have you chosen yet? The ice cubes are melting fast."

"What about the bottle of Mouton 86 that I put here with you last month, the one with the Bernard Serune label?"

Amon must have secretly taken it while he was away!William gritted his teeth in his heart, but the surface was calm: "It seems that the last time I cleaned up the wine cabinet, I took it to the wine cellar and put it away. The ice cubes are all put away, how about drinking bourbon?"

Walking to the wine cabinet, William chose a bottle of wine according to Lance's taste, opened it and poured it into two wine glasses. The amount of wine did not cover the ice on the top layer, and William raised another glass while handing it to Lance: "Thank you He is so helpful, my friend, and is willing to temporarily share Willot's affairs for me, so that I can go to New Jersey to film with peace of mind."

Sure enough, Lance didn't ask about the red wine again: "Just a glass of whiskey can't get me away." Even though he said that, he still drank the wine right away to save William.

William had no choice but to sign a compensation clause such as "accompanying the dinner party and charity auction next year in the social season". After thinking about it, he temporarily put down the idea of ​​continuing to discuss the script of "A Beautiful Mind" with Lance, although he really wanted to know, How did Lance feel when he heard that John Nash actually had homosexual behavior as a young man.