Hollywood Domination Chapter 185: “Michael Clayton”

"Michael Clayton." Jenny read, "Is this a biographical movie? Is this a celebrity?"

"It just happens to have the same name, this is a crime thriller." Cesare clicked on the script, "The script is already written, read a few pages, and look at the outline. I think the role of Karen is quite suitable for you .”

"Will this be the movie in our plan that can push me over the peak and create a new peak?" Jenny didn't open it right away, but asked suspiciously, "—Obviously, this is A movie with a male protagonist."

"It's not the magic movie we had planned, but it's better than having no choice at all," Cesare said. "We have to learn to adapt, don't we? After three months of searching, you just You can learn to use the materials you have.”

"Yeah, yeah." Jenny also sighed, and she murmured, "This is a man's world—women can only learn to compromise."

Yes, this is indeed a tricky question. Although in Cesare and her plan, Jenny's next film should be a phenomenal work that proves her strength and even surpasses "The Fifth Sally", and Jenny can now confidently announce that Well, she can be ranked No. 1 in the hearts of major Hollywood film studios. As long as any movie is her favorite, the film studio would rather spend 20 million yuan to hire her than spend much less money to hire someone else. She can cobble together and choose the good cards in her hand at will in the big game of Hollywood-however, the fact is that when their requirements are "higher than the fifth Sally", even Hollywood can provide Not many choices.

So, although the competition for actresses is less than that of male actors, and their achievements are earlier, this does not mean that the rules of the game in Hollywood are in favor of women. In fact, actresses come out early, that's because their predecessors fall quickly, and the reason why their predecessors fall quickly is not because they are not good enough, but objectively speaking, Hollywood provides far fewer good roles for actresses than for male actors. It can be said that 80% of the films are based on male characters, just like "The Departed" and "Blood Diamond". The male stars here are all actors, while the female stars can only serve as foils. If it is not a vase if.

Since Jenny finished filming "Pirates of the Caribbean" and returned to Hollywood, she and Cesare have been choosing her next project from the sea of ​​scripts. It is not an investment, because Da Meng has no extra money to invest in new projects The project is over, and their goal is simple: the plot has depth, and the heroine is of a suitable age for Jenny to play—the plot is centered on the heroine, and the director is reliable.

These four requirements have eliminated almost all the candidate scripts. There are many in-depth scripts, and some directors intend to contribute, and even look forward to cooperating with Jenny. For example, "9" currently operated by Rob Marshall , I intentionally invited Jenny to play the role of the male protagonist Guido's muse, the blonde goddess from the United States. Jenny has a certain interest in this role, not only because the leading actor in this film is Daniel Day-Lewis, a method master in the world today, and the film itself is a remake of a business card, but also because she owes Rob a very huge favor ——But obviously, this kind of famous directors, famous actors (the threshold for Rob to choose the 9 female characters in this movie is to be nominated for an Oscar, and it will be even better if he can win an award), and the big productions of business cards are almost all male. At the core, this kind of film cannot allow her to prove that she is worthy of the honor of Oscar double actress. Even a single mistake would make her nailed more firmly on the 'pillar of shame'.

It's like Going Forward, for which Reese may have won an Oscar, but Jenny promises that if she had been in the film, playing it now in 2006, the best reviews she would have gotten would be Probably just 'mediocre'. It's going to take a lot of hard work and luck to get to where Jenny is now, even if it's just to maintain what she's got, and given the vases she's going to be next, she really, really needs a great movie to do it. Maintain your acting style.

""Life and Death Reading"..." She still didn't give up. "Are they really looking for Nicole?"

"The crew has already signed the contract, Jenny." Cesare simply replied, and he put down the knife and fork, "Besides, we discussed this issue - "Life and Death Reading" is not a character in your age group , aging makeup doesn’t work for actresses either, and we discussed the risks.”

Yes, for actresses, their sense of age is something that everyone is downplaying. Generally speaking, an actress will rarely take on the role of 'mother with teenage children', even on screen There is still a hot mom in the scene, and there will be a love line, but once you take on such a role, it means that you are far away from the starring role of chick-flick. For chick flicks, the heroine’s age cannot exceed 35, and she can’t make the audience feel a generation gap—this is something that countless actresses try to avoid with Botox and micro-plastic surgery, as long as they want to make blockbuster vases , then it can never be associated with 'middle age'. So for actresses, 'playing old' is a performance strategy they rarely adopt.

Christopher can turn into Roger, a middle-aged doctor in his 40s or 50s, but that's because middle-aged men of this age still often have **** with young beauties on the screen, but once Jenny turns into "Life and Death" Mature Hannah in "Read Aloud," and if the film hits a wide swath -- who knows what's going to happen, will her box-office appeal wane? In people's impression, will she be a 25-year-old girl who has entered middle age? Do people think it's very strange for her to act with male stars of the same age? No one will know the answer, because before this, there were really no young movie stars wearing old makeup, starting from the age of 30 or 40, acting all the way to old age, and Cesare thinks this is a very uneconomical attempt , Not only is the risk too great, but the possibility of failure is also extremely high.

"You're only 25 years old, Jennifer, and you're going to play that part forever," he said when he threw the script back into the 'elimination' pile. "You may be a very good actor, but you Are you sure you can challenge a gray-haired old woman at the age of 25?"

Jenny is sure—she has Goldfinger, but she is not so sure, because her impression of "Life and Death Reading" is only vague enough to remember that this movie appeared in the Oscars in which year, but there is no such thing in the performing arts space. This film, so it may be difficult for her to find a suitable role to empathize with. In addition, she was also afraid that she would act too well, and the audience would recognize her as a mature female star who was almost 40 years old, so she could only give up "Life and Death Reading" resentfully, and then she searched for it again in the script pile. Not another screenplay that evokes 'gut feeling'.

"Okay, once again, forget about this movie." Jenny exhaled, gathered her energy and began to read the script of "Michael Clayton", and her eyebrows twitched when she saw the initial introduction Jumped, "Ah, is this a George Clooney movie?"

"Yeah, he's going to finance the production -- and Soderbergh and Sidney Pollack, he's also the producer of "Life and Death Readings," and I think if you like "Life and Death Readings," yes It will also look at it differently." Cesare rarely admits that he would speculate on Jenny's preferences, and his confession caused Jenny to look at him differently, "Both scripts are very sharp. If you are 35 years old, I would recommend "Life and Death Reading" , now, "Michael Clayton" is also good, "Life and Death Reading" explores the shame and humbleness of human nature, "Michael Clayton" talks about the old three favorites of the Oscar judges, the dirty power , glitz, alienation and return of human nature - of course, Karen cannot compare with Hannah, Hannah has more room to play, but it can be said that Karen is an immature version of Hannah, she is aware of her weakness and powerlessness , but they are not ready to deal with it yet. They are all helpers of the evil system, part of the evil. They are not fanatical about evil, but they don’t dislike it. I think this kind of slightly ruthless image is very suitable for you. Critics bought into this stronger image, and they were more tolerant of the martial arts lines you find in commercials, rather than overreacting like they did this time."

Cesare's analysis is very reasonable. Judging from Karen's page count and her biography, and her role in the overall story outline, he has also accurately grasped Karen's character traits, which is exactly The role they need now—although Karen's role can only be regarded as a supporting role, it can be seen that Cesare has tried his best to find the most suitable script for her under the current situation of "a smart woman can't cook without rice", but But Jenny is not very excited. She has never watched "Michael Clayton", and she doesn't know what the film has achieved in the end, and she doesn't know how she should play Karen. Do you empathize? Or on your own? She originally planned to reduce her reliance on Goldfinger step by step, but this time the bad reviews of "Pirates of the Caribbean 2" made her a little bit hesitant. Yes, she won an award, but it wasn't real. She, what if her performance in "Michael Clayton" also gets bad reviews? Also, she doesn't really want to work with George Clooney, to be honest, she hates this man...

"Of course." She closed the script and sighed, "If you think it's good, then we'll take it. After all, we can't leave the entire second half of the year empty and do nothing."

Cesare was not overjoyed, he leaned back, bit his cheeks thoughtfully, squinted his eyes to look at Jenny, and scratched the porcelain plate thoughtfully with a fork, making some harsh friction Voice.

"What are you doing?" Jenny narrowed her eyes warily, "—and besides, this plate is very expensive, so don't destroy it."

"I feel a familiar low tide coming." Cesare dropped his fork on the plate. A small setback, and you just suddenly seem to lose interest and enthusiasm for everything."

3 years ago, the clip of her and Cesare smoking and talking at the premiere party of "Pirates 1" suddenly emerged, and Jenny couldn't help smiling, she relaxed a little, "Yeah... this is me It’s an old problem, isn’t it? Mood swings—I’ll admit, I’m an emotional animal, and that’s probably not a shortcoming that can be fixed in a conversation or two.”

"For the vast majority of women, this is not a shortcoming." Cesare said, he took out his usual leather cigarette case from the inner pocket, smoked a cigar for himself, and shook the cigarette case Throw it to Jenny, "Want to talk?"

Jenny shrugged, "About what? I don't know - I can't stand those comments, but you all think I shouldn't be bothered by them, and the conversation is over, and I'm still in a bad mood."

There was something complaining in her tone, and Cesare's blue eyes narrowed.

"With all due respect," he struck a match, "you really shouldn't be bothered by these reviews—you've never been scolded, Jefferson, for any of your films. , and "Pirates 2" is by no means without good reviews. Normally, you just laugh at the reviews, and the good reviews are hard to please you, and the bad reviews don't make you any more depressed. Suddenly, you are now like a Newcomer out there, hypersensitive to every unsatisfying comment - and to me, there were a lot of comments that weren't even bad, saying 'you shouldn't have picked this movie, the director used you wrong' , they don't deny your talent, Jenny, they just don't like your choices. Why do these comments suddenly matter so much? I don't know, and I don't think Mary knows either - we just can't understand why you suddenly changed yours Style."

Jenny opened her mouth, and then closed it again—this is the shortcoming of talking to Cesare, this man is so sensitive that it makes people upset, he doesn't even need to raise an eyebrow, just use the change of tone to succeed Let her admit how ridiculous her changes are, at least in the eyes of outsiders, how unreasonable they are.

How can she explain why she cares? Jenny didn't know where to start without revealing the secret, but she didn't want to lie either.

"...you can simply say 'Jenny, you did a good job, don't care what anyone says, I know this, you know this'." Finally, she complained and lit her cigar to vent her anger. took a deep breath. "Why don't you always choose the easy answer, Chesa? You always like to make yourself look like a bad guy."

Cesare stared at Jenny for a while, but he didn't smoke the cigar in his hand.

"Because it's your partner, your family's responsibility to support you unprincipled." He said in a strange tone, "As your manager, I think it's my responsibility to make you understand your How immature you are in this, Jefferson, it's a cold world, if you want warmth and comfort, you can retreat into your warm luxurious shell, you have money, you have honor, you You can never make a movie again, and spend the rest of your life luxuriously on your copyright fees—"

He seemed to want to press the cigar on the table - this is a very unusual move for Cesare, usually he is a very polite cigar enjoyr - but he changed his mind halfway. Having made up his mind, he put down the brown tobacco restraintly. "But if you still want to play, and you want to continue to gamble in this game, then you have only two choices-take out your problems, Jefferson--"

He leaned forward and emphatically took the lead, "Stop covering it up with frivolous complaints and teasing, name your problem and let us fix it, or—"

Jennie shrank her shoulders instinctively, and Cesare spread her hands, "Or solve your problem yourself, stop acting like a child: this is your movie, your script, whether you act or not is up to you Decide, Jefferson, that this is your career—stop relying endlessly on others.”

He stood up, snatched the script from Jenny, and looked down at her condescendingly, "Now, tell me you will read this script carefully."

Jenny nodded hesitantly, and Cesare narrowed his eyes.

"I will read this script carefully!" Jenny exclaimed, she was also a little angry, "ok? Now give me the **** script."

"After reading the script," Cesare returned the folder to her, but his indifferent expression seemed to imply that the temper had not passed, "then call me again."

He picked up the briefcase and walked straight to the garage. Jenny stared at the folder, then turned back to stare at Cesare, back and forth several times before she was sure what happened just now—her, Oscar The double actress, the box office superstar, is the perfect client in the dreams of countless managers no matter from which point of view - she was just bullied by her manager for no reason.

Seriously, did she have more than fifteen complaints? More than ten sentences? Five sentences?

"You are simply incomprehensible!" She stood up and shouted at Cesare's back, "you're impossible!"

Cesare raised his hand and waved it calmly, and turned the corner. Jenny stared at the empty lawn, unable to believe what happened just now.

——Is this the first time (or is it the second time?) that they have had a fight?