Chapter 529: Great minds think alike? No, it

Lu Yan He was lost in thought.

Wang Biao certainly had a big heart. Having followed him to so many places and so many occasions, he had never once seen him get stage fright.

Chen Ziyan smiled.

"This point is very important, especially in the entertainment industry," Chen Ziyan said. "Sometimes, one could even say this: don't fear being overly proud, fear being timid and afraid to do anything. Song Jiang and Wan Qingqing actually had this problem before. Coming out of school, whenever something happened or an opportunity arose, their first reaction was always 'Can I do it?' instead of 'Why can't I do it?' Wang Biao has this quality, which allows his eagerness to learn and his diligence to be put to good use. Otherwise, just the internal friction over this issue alone would consume a third of your life."

Chen Ziyan's words left Lu Yan He thoroughly convinced.

Because he immediately thought of Xiao Yun and Su Xiao. The difference between the two of them was, in fact, exactly what Chen Ziyan had described. Xiao Yun never questioned "Can I do it?"; what she struggled with was always why she wasn't as good as others, and then she would work herself to the bone to improve. Su Xiao, on the other hand, had a mindset of "Everyone is better than me, can I really do it?" Even on the program *Young Days*, she always kept herself in the background—

Everyone had actually noticed this, but standing in their respective positions, it wasn't easy to speak up and say, "Don't put yourself so far in the background."

They could only push her to the front more in practical terms.

And the process of pushing her actually said a lot in itself.

Indeed, for someone who needs to charge forward, a so-called "big heart" is more important than effort, diligence, eagerness to learn, or even talent and intelligence.

Lu Yan He felt this deeply.

It wasn't a case of "the peddler praising his own melons"—

Lu Yan He laughed: "Sister Ziyan, I don't remember if I told you this, but back then, when Zhou Ping'an wanted to sabotage my appearance in *Golden Age* by deliberately quoting a price the production team couldn't accept, Luo Dao was very angry. At the time, I felt I was quite socially anxious, but I took the initiative to send Luo Dao a message, clarifying what had actually happened, and fought for *Golden Age* again. I actually didn't hold out any hope, but I didn't expect Luo Dao to really give me another chance."

Chen Ziyan also smiled.

"The first film is always the hardest."

"Yeah," Lu Yan He said. "Actually, it seems like none of my films after that were as difficult. Just the first one. Even *Phoenix Terrace* back then, I didn't encounter any difficulty in landing that role, let alone the ones after that. The only time I really went from auditioning and almost not being able to act to finally succeeding was *Golden Age*."

Chen Ziyan said: "We must admit that you are actually very lucky when it comes to acting."

Lu Yan He nodded.

He himself admitted this point; it was true.

Chen Ziyan said: "After you finish filming the second season of *Seventeen Layers*, I plan to get you a film."

"What film?" Lu Yan He asked curiously.

"The new film by Malaysian Chinese director Huang Tianlin," Chen Ziyan asked. "Do you know him?"

Lu Yan He shook his head. "I don't know him."

Chen Ziyan: "He has only directed one film, and that film was shortlisted for the Toronto International Film Festival that year. Although it is not one of the four major international film festivals, it had quite a lot of influence in Europe and America. At that time, the film received very good word-of-mouth from audiences in Toronto, but it didn't win any awards in the end. His second film tells the story of Malaysian Chinese. I contacted his producer to see if there was a role suitable for you. Seeing that I was interested, he chatted with me very enthusiastically about the script. However, the protagonist of this script is a twelve-year-old boy. The only role suitable for you is his jerk of an older brother. The screen time isn't much, five or six scenes. Every time he appears, he's a total jerk, with no redemption arc, the kind who is a jerk from beginning to end. The good thing is, he isn't exactly evil, just reckless and sloppy."

"Sister Ziyan, do you think I can play this role?"

"To be honest, I didn't set my sights on this role; I set my sights on Huang Tianlin," Chen Ziyan said. "This is also something I wanted to talk to you about. Yan He, during this time, I have been seriously thinking about your future career planning. I've thought about it for a long time and made many comparisons. I have an idea now, and I want to discuss it with you."

Upon hearing this, Lu Yan He sat up straight.

"Sister Ziyan, go ahead."

Chen Ziyan: "I hope you can cooperate with great directors and famous directors from all countries and regions in the world, but I hope your cooperation with them will be the kind of project that only takes one or two months to shoot, projects that won't affect your filming focus. This idea is very utilitarian, and I won't hide it from you. I want to shape an image of you in the world film scene. In the next three to five years, when you have many commercial films and genre films coming out, it won't make people feel that you don't want to make artistic or serious films anymore. And I hope you are not limited to cooperating with these domestic directors. I want you to expand your territory in the world as much as possible. If one day, the projects you participate in cover more than a dozen countries and regions, your influence in the international film scene will definitely reach a special height."

Lu Yan He listened to Chen Ziyan's words and fell into deep thought.

A special height?

"What do you mean by a special height?" Lu Yan He asked.

Chen Ziyan said: "No one has a wider range and a larger number of international collaborations than you. I have seriously calculated that, on a global scale, very few actors have the experience of participating in more than ten projects from different countries. I must admit, this is very utilitarian, but I think it is feasible."

Lu Yan He suddenly understood.

He carefully calculated it.

"Sister Ziyan, do you have a goal you want to complete?" he asked.

"No," Chen Ziyan shook her head. "The premise of this must be high quality. Huang Tianlin has one successful work, which is why I took the initiative to contact him. As for whether you are willing to act in this script and role, I won't judge; you look at it yourself."

Lu Yan He said: "Actually, letting me play a role with little screen time and an image that isn't exactly positive is fine, but my premise is that the film itself is a good film. I am willing to play such a role for a good film and to work with a director I like. But if the premise is gone, I don't think it's necessary."

"Then you accept my idea?" Chen Ziyan asked.

"Yeah," Lu Yan He nodded. "It's quite good. Actually, you said your idea is very utilitarian, but hearing it, I am actually very willing to cooperate, because I really want to cooperate with directors from different countries, regions, and cultural backgrounds. Look at how I shot a horror film with Director Mukan; I had many new feelings. I need some fresh stimulation—Sister Ziyan, although I am still very passionate about the acting career, I must also say that it actually started from the film *Burning Fire*. I began to have a sense of neglect for some roles. I didn't do it on purpose; I only realized it later. In my mind, thoughts like 'this kind of role has no difficulty for me anymore' would appear. You must not say that having confidence is a good thing; this is not the same thing."

Chen Ziyan: "Then we are of the same mind?"

She smiled very happily.

Lu Yan He: "It's resonance on the same frequency."

Over the next two weeks, Lu Yan He had dinner with Director Chen Lingling twice to discuss the program *Birth of an Actor* and the script for the second season of *Silent River*.

Director Chen Lingling hinted in her words that she disliked him finding outside help to act as a lobbyist.

Lu Yan He had thick skin and pretended not to understand.

Anyway, Chen Lingling had this temperament, muttering and not looking favorably upon anyone.

All her professionalism, calmness, and restraint (of course, once she couldn't restrain herself, she would explode even more) were reserved only for the set.

Lu Yan He actually really liked this director. Among so many directors, she was one of the few whose emotions were so exposed; she wore her likes and dislikes on her face.

During the meal, Chen Lingling also received a call from He Yingzi. He Yingzi seemed to have set her sights on the second season of *Silent River* and wanted to find a role for Lang Xia in the second season.

Chen Lingling said very bluntly: "The script hasn't even been written yet. I've told you three times, wait until the script is out before talking."

Lu Yan He didn't know what was said on He Yingzi's end, but he immediately saw Chen Lingling raise her eyebrows and say sarcastically: "Should I tailor a role for him? Fine, sure, I can tailor one. I'll arrange a corpse for him, you tell him to come and play it!"

Chen Lingling hung up the phone with a snap.

"Fucking annoying!" This director with a lot of temper and personality rolled her eyes and then looked at Lu Yan He. "If you can't find a role suitable for Lang Xia in the second season's script, I'll treat you to dinner."

Lu Yan He: "... Don't set me up. I don't want to be annoyed by He Yingzi. You're just shifting the conflict."

Chen Lingling rolled her eyes again.

This time, she rolled them at Lu Yan He.

Besides Chen Lingling, Lu Yan He also met with Jia Long, whom he hadn't seen for a long time.

Lu Yan He had already submitted the script for *Lost in Thailand*, and this time he emphasized again: "Mr. Jia, if you still want to make a third or fourth installment of the *Lost in* series, I really won't participate in the script. I've already written down all my ideas for this series and can't think of anything new. You'll have to find another director to see if you can come up with good ideas."

Mainly because Lu Yan He really had no interest in replicating the third film—

Although *Lost in Hong Kong* also sold over a billion in box office, Lu Yan He felt it really wasn't good. He didn't want to ruin his own reputation.

Jia Long said to Lu Yan He: "When will you shoot a comedy film with me? Not *Lost in*."

Lu Yan He was a little surprised and said: "Sure, but, Brother Long, do you have a suitable script?"

Jia Long shook his head. "No, I was just suddenly thinking that you yourself don't seem to have acted in a comedy yet, if you don't count *Friends*."

Lu Yan He said: "I don't think I have acted in a comedy film."

"At first, I thought you were too serious and not suitable for comedy, but after seeing your state in *Young Days*, I found that you actually have a comedic performance flair in front of the camera. The rhythm of your reactions and the timing of your delivery are too accurate. It's self-taught. A comedy actor without this talent would need to struggle on stage for more than ten years to practice such reactions," Jia Long said.

"Ah? Is it because of *Young Days* that you think I can act in comedy?" Lu Yan He said immediately. "Then that's bad."

"Bad? What's bad?"

"The reason I was able to perform like that in *Young Days* is because I'm too familiar with those people, so I know very well what kind of things they will say. Basically, before they open their mouths, my words are already waiting in my mouth, which is why you think my timing and rhythm are good," Lu Yan He said with a wave of his hand. "If it were acting, it would definitely be a different rhythm."

Hearing this, Jia Long was a little surprised. "Is that so?"

"Yeah," Lu Yan He nodded.

Jia Long: "It's okay. If I really come across a role suitable for you, I'll show it to you first. We can try acting it out to see the effect. If it really doesn't work, then forget it."

"Sure," Lu Yan He nodded.

Jia Long was truly the top dog of comedy performance.

The so-called top dog of comedy performance basically means he doesn't even need to speak or make any expressions; just standing there makes you unable to help but laugh.

Such skill doesn't appear more than a few times in an era.

For someone without that skill, even if you were Daniel Day-Lewis, who had acting skills good enough to win three Oscars for Best Actor, you wouldn't be able to act out that feeling.

Comedy isn't something you can act just because your acting skills are good.

It is too dependent on the actor's own intuition.

It was for this reason that Lu Yan He actually hadn't tried this genre much—

Otherwise, comedy itself is one of the easiest genres to replicate; why wouldn't he replicate it?

*Goodbye Mr. Loser*, what a classic film, but if you ask those who haven't time-traveled to think about it, who can replace Shen Teng and Ma Li? Their irreplaceability is much stronger than many Best Actors and Best Actresses. If you swap in two other people to act it, with the same script and the same lines, who could act as brilliantly as them?

Lu Yan He had self-awareness.

Some plays can be replicated, and some cannot.

He knew what he could act, what he couldn't, what he could challenge, and what he couldn't challenge; he actually had a clear idea in his heart.

But trying is still possible.

Maybe it could work.

After resting for two months like this, Lu Yan He joined the crew of *Seventeen Layers* Season 2 and began filming the show.

Like the first season, this season was still a closed-off challenge site, but this time it changed from a building to a cruise ship.

It was still a script written by Teacher Feng Qiyue, and it was still in the level-clearing mode.

Of course, this season added a few more main characters.

Because this season changed to a two-team confrontation mode.

Two teams compete, and only the winners can walk off the cruise ship alive.

"This entry point is good," Lu Yan He said very directly during the script reading. "At first, I was worried that the story of the second season would directly become about resisting the organizers behind this life-and-death game, losing the level-clearing feeling of the first season. But if it were exactly the same as the first season, always clearing levels, it would be repetitive, and the audience would suffer from aesthetic fatigue. Adding this two-team confrontation mode not only retains the level-clearing mode but also makes the second season more exciting, especially the final reversal, which leads to a counterattack against the organizers behind the scenes—"

Lu Yan He clicked his tongue in wonder. "In this way, the third season can follow this plot line and logically become a counterattack against the organizers behind the scenes. The main plot is very clear and smooth. This script really taught me a lot."

Feng Qiyue smiled and said: "You, a winner of the Lingyun Award for Best Screenplay, saying you learned a lot from me, someone who has never won a Lingyun Award for Best Screenplay, I'm a bit flattered."

Lu Yan He: "Teacher Feng, I've only won one Best Screenplay award. If I remember correctly, you've won fifteen or sixteen Best Screenplay and Best Writer awards combined? I remember I read an interview article about you that mentioned it."

Everyone else let out a "wow" of exclamation.

Chen Bige nodded and said: "I also like this script by Teacher Feng very much. I couldn't stop after opening the first page, just kept reading to the end, wanting to see what the ending was like. Just as Yan He said, the final reversal is too amazing. After this show airs and reaches this point, it will definitely explode."

The final reversal is that they actually knew about the two-team life-and-death competition mode on the cruise ship long ago. The reason this team, which had escaped death in the first season, was caught and brought to the cruise ship again in the second season, forcing them to play the life-and-death game again, was that they had deliberately allowed themselves to be caught.

That team competing against them was also a group of companions with the same goal—to ferret out the organizers behind this game and wipe them all out.

During the early level-clearing process, every person who died on both sides was actually faking their death, just to deceive the live broadcast cameras, so that when the organizers sent people to secretly "collect" their "corpses," they could counterattack, disguise themselves as their people, and infiltrate them.

By the last episode, all the organizers behind the scenes on the cruise ship were killed by them, and they successfully found clues about the organizers, thus bringing out the theme of the third season.

A very smooth main plot design.

Only Jiang Lan raised an objection, worrying that the counterattack scenes were too exaggerated and not suitable for broadcast on television.

Lian Bei said directly: "Just delete all the bloody and terrifying scenes. It won't affect the plot anyway, just a little less of the thrill of the counterattack. Just broadcast the full version on Maxine."

Upon hearing this, Jiang Lan didn't object anymore.

And Maxine was also very satisfied with such a story.

Zhong Benshuo was very excited. After seeing the story outline, he felt half relieved.

Many sequels are just "dog's tail after a sable," but *Seventeen Layers* had the original cast return, both in front of and behind the camera, keeping the original flavor of the first season as much as possible. Now it seems it was all worth it.

It's just a pity that *Seventeen Layers* didn't become a global hit like *Squid Game*.

Zhong Benshuo was also thinking, maybe the results of the second season would be even better?

When the first season of *Seventeen Layers* aired, Lu Yan He didn't have as much international influence as he does now, and *Squid Game* hadn't made Jiang Jun famous yet.

Now, the lineup for the second season of *Seventeen Layers* was a completely different situation.

Zhong Benshuo calculated how much promotional budget would be appropriate for this show.

After the great success of *Squid Game*, Zhong Benshuo was even more looking forward to the second season of *Seventeen Layers*, which had the same theme. After all, the first season was also very successful, and the audience word-of-mouth was particularly good.

After the opening ceremony, everyone shot the first scene of the season, which was the scene of boarding the cruise ship.

How "rich" was the production of the second season?

Jingtai really found them a real cruise ship so they could shoot the exterior scenes.

Of course, the indoor scenes were still shot in a studio.

Two years later, they returned to the worldview and characters of *Seventeen Layers*, but they didn't feel rusty at all.

Lu Yan He originally thought he would need to find the feeling, but he didn't expect that once the character styling was done, the feeling came directly.

The first scene was a big scene, and it was a group scene.

Three cameras were shooting at the same time, and it passed in two takes.

Everyone's state was incredibly good.

Even Lian Bei was shocked.

"Are you all so well prepared?"

Lu Yan He smiled and said: "Director, we couldn't wait to return to *Seventeen Layers*. Once we started filming, everyone was energized."

Laughing aside, Lu Yan He was actually incredibly shocked inside. It was truly unbelievable—

This was his first time playing the same character again after two years. This feeling was surprisingly not unfamiliar, yet it also carried an inexplicable sense of excitement. In front of the camera, he was at ease and confident, knowing very clearly what he was doing.

Is acting in a sequel this satisfying?

Lu Yan He was astonished.

Because the first scene went too smoothly, the crew released them for a meal early.

Their meals as actors were prepared separately. In this film, no one's condition could look "too well-nourished," so their meals were low in oil, salt, and fat. It wasn't that they were inedible, but they definitely couldn't be called delicious.

There was no other way.

A group of people living on the edge of life and death every day would make the audience lose immersion if they looked too well-fed.

They couldn't stand the director and the others eating such fragrant food, so they went to the other side to eat, huddling together for warmth and not allowing anyone eating a normal lunch to come near them.

The temptation was too great.

Li Yuefeng said, "I can already foresee how thin I'll be after filming this."

Filming every day was intense exercise, and they were eating so little; it would be strange if they didn't lose weight.

Lu Yan He laughed and said, "Isn't that a bit of an exaggeration? Today is only the first day of filming."

Li Yuefeng: "But I've been eating chicken breast for a month already. I started training my physique for this film a month ago."

"Oh, right, you're playing a sports student, haha." Lu Yan He realized. Li Yuefeng's physique requirements were different from theirs; they were higher.

"Both brothers are sports students, tsk tsk." Chen Bige said, "This alternative way of returning is lacking in sincerity. At least make some difference in appearance from your character in the first season."

"That won't do." Lu Yan He laughed, "In this show, look at us: I'm a high-IQ, antisocial genius, Teacher Jiang is a middle-aged man, and although Yan Zhimeng looks handsome, his character in the show is also a weirdo. It has to be Li Yuefeng who takes on the role of a normal, mainstream handsome man."

Li Yuefeng raised the corner of his mouth, "Why do I love hearing that so much?"