Chapter 174: The Dark Knight

Chen Nuo regretted it.

He shouldn't have asked so much.

One person is just one person, what's the big deal?

Would those media outlets eat him alive?

Running around, no matter how bitter or tiring, just treat it as joining a 15-day backpacking tour.

Why feel guilty, why shoot his mouth off?

Why, as a dignified reborn person, did he give others the chance to show off?

Caught off guard, Chen Nuo was hit hard by the blonde Barbie, Luo Rui Aisina, and for a moment, it felt worse than eating shit.

"What star needs you? You don't need stars."

This is only because the current Chinese film market is worth nothing, leading Hollywood to look down on Chinese stars.

When, in a dozen years, the title of the world's number one film market shifts from the United States to China, let's see if you dare to say that again.

Bah!

Chen Nuo waited for a good while before his embarrassed and angry mood calmed down.

Luo Rui Aisina then smiled and said, "Mr. Chen, besides this, do you have any other requests? For example, do you need... when the time comes, for us to arrange a few women for you in Japan and South Korea?"

Chen Nuo felt he had seen it all today.

Seeing Luo Rui Aisina's natural expression, he wondered if he had misheard. "Women? What women?"

Luo Rui Aisina said nonchalantly, "Of course, women to sleep with. Mr. Chen, you are working for Warner now. I said, we will try our best to satisfy any of your reasonable requests."

"So, if you have any favorite female stars or anyone else, you can tell me, and I will try my best to arrange it for you. Of course, this must be kept absolutely confidential for both parties."

Damn.

What do you take me for? You scum of the capitalist world. Do you think that because Warner is powerful and can do whatever it wants in puppet states like Japan and South Korea, you're something special?

You look so pretty, I didn't expect you to be a bad person who objectifies women!

Besides, I have a girlfriend. Hehe, sorry, I don't buy that.

Chen Nuo pondered for a while, feeling many faces flash through his mind, such as Jun Ji-hyun, Son Ye-jin, Aragaki Yui, Ishihara Satomi, and the like...

"We'll talk about it when the time comes."

The car was now driving on the city roads, and Chen Nuo had already seen many posters for "Batman 2: The Dark Knight."

To his surprise, there were actually two types of posters.

Both had a dark, cloudy background.

One had a skyscraper in the background, with the top floors emitting crimson flames, as if just destroyed by a bomb, and the shape of the flames looked exactly like a bat spreading its wings.

In the foreground of the image, Batman Christian Bale, wearing a mask, stood proudly as if ruling the world.

Below were the words "Batman: The Dark Knight."

The other had a similar color tone, but the background was a shattered city, with sparks falling from the sky, as if immersed in smoke and war.

The foreground was changed from Christian Bale to him in the Joker's appearance.

He was wearing a purple trench coat, a green suit inside, and a tie, holding a gun in his right hand. The entire tone was gloomy and dark, looking somewhat fierce.

Chen Nuo remembered this photo was the makeup test he had taken at the time.

"Do you like it? This is a poster our colleagues specially produced for the Asian region." Noticing Chen Nuo's gaze, Luo Rui Aisina introduced it.

Luo Rui Aisina kept the second half of the sentence to herself, hoping it would have the desired effect.

In the afternoon, Chen Nuo's busy work began.

First was a magazine interview.

The location was a studio found by the film weekly "Look at Movies."

Chen Nuo was wearing the original costume specially brought from LA by Luo Rui Aisina's promotional team—the green Joker suit.

First, they took some photos, and then he was taken to a lounge to start the interview.

The entire exclusive interview process lasted about 15 minutes, and Chen Nuo had only answered five or six questions before Luo Rui Aisina called a halt.

The blonde woman politely but firmly told the translator from the magazine that the interview was over, and according to the promotional schedule, they had to head to the next stop.

As for the time lost in the middle, well, sorry, you can only blame your photographer for taking photos for too long.

Seeing the pretty female reporter in her 20s looking aggrieved and hesitant in the face of this group of unreasonable foreigners from Warner, Chen Nuo couldn't bear it and said, "If you don't mind, come with us to the parking lot, and you can ask me some questions on the way."

It is no exaggeration to say that Zheng Qiuwen was really about to cry.

She was a graduate student from the Communication University of China, and after a lot of trouble, she finally succeeded in joining this film magazine, which currently had the best sales in China.

This opportunity to interview Chen Nuo was one she had fought hard to get.

The editor-in-chief's requirement for her was to prepare more than 10 questions, ask as many as possible, and finally strive to write at least four pages of content.

But how much could she write with just those few questions?

It was all that damn photographer's fault, screaming and shooting non-stop, not stopping for a long time, and finally squeezing her interview time to almost nothing.

The key was that this jerk kept saying it wasn't his fault, mainly because Chen Nuo was so good at posing that it triggered his addiction as a photographic artist, saying that this magazine cover would definitely be awesome and sales would certainly be high.

Zheng Qiuwen was so angry she couldn't speak.

The cover might be awesome, but she was likely to lose her job.

Everyone knew this was Chen Nuo's first interview with print media.

When the news was released, print media across the country went crazy, desperately contacting Warner.

Everyone not only didn't want an appearance fee but also said they could pay for their own travel, and anywhere in the country was fine; they would bring their own interview and photography teams.

In the end, Warner Bros. chose their "Look at Movies" from at least dozens of magazines, and later chose one from local newspaper media, "Southern Weekly."

This shows how hard-won this opportunity was.

Zheng Qiuwen felt that if she dared to go back with such a small amount of interview content, the editor-in-chief certainly wouldn't blame the photographer, but would only tell her to get out.

But she really didn't expect that these Americans from Warner would be so serious, saying one hour meant one hour, and they wouldn't give her a minute more.

Just when she was about to cry, Chen Nuo's words simply pulled her from hell to heaven.

At that moment, Zheng Qiuwen found the most suitable ending for her article.

In the 31st issue of "Look at Movies" magazine published later in 2007, the four-page interview article signed by "Zheng Qiuwen" wrote:

"... When the staff asked me to leave, Chen Nuo said this to me. Afterwards, I was finally fortunate enough to continue the questions I hadn't finished while following him to the parking lot."

"I asked: Have you seen the movie 'Batman 2: The Dark Knight'?"

"Chen Nuo: I haven't seen it yet. Tomorrow night, I will go to the cinema to watch the final cut by Director Nolan with everyone. Personally, I am also very much looking forward to it."

"After he finished answering, we had already walked to the elevator entrance, and I quickly asked: Then, without seeing the movie, how do you evaluate your performance in it?"

"At this time, Chen Nuo didn't answer for a moment. I saw the expression on his face seemed a bit melancholy, and his eyes were covered with a faint layer of gray. I don't know what he was recalling at that moment."

Finally, he answered like this: "This is an experience I will never look back on. It took up so much time in my life, and I used all my strength to play this character. Compared to the movies I performed in before, there is no doubt it was the most difficult. In the end, I don't know how the effect will be. However, I hope that after you see it, you won't be startled."

"... On the way to the parking lot, I could see that Chen Nuo seemed to deliberately slow down his pace, wanting me to ask a few more questions. Finally, when he got into the car and left, I stood where I was, watching him leave, and didn't move for a long time. At this moment, I suddenly remembered that there was one question I really should have asked him at the last opportunity."

"That is, in the movie 'Perhaps Love,' he once played an angel, and this time, he will play a clown, a devil. Between these two extraordinary, completely different characters, which one is more like the real him?"

"But the author immediately felt that the answer to this question was too obvious. So much so that the question itself had no value."

"Because everything he did just now made me feel that he himself was in heaven, and he was willing to reach out and hold onto everyone about to fall into the abyss."

After "Look at Movies," it was "Southern Weekly."

This newspaper from the south didn't need to take any photos, and the reporter wasn't a pretty girl in her 20s, but a middle-aged man in his 40s, who was the executive deputy editor-in-chief of this media, Xiang Xi.

This media still had some loyal readers at this time.

Just like the author of the 1999 Southern Weekly New Year's message, the touching "There is always a force that makes us burst into tears," a poet and man of letters who graduated from Peking University, had not yet gone to jail for extortion.

Although "Southern Weekly" had not yet been completely corrupted by color at this time.

However, due to some prejudices from his previous life, Chen Nuo still didn't have a good impression of it. Especially Xiang Xi's first question immediately made Chen Nuo feel that this reporter was targeting him.

"Chen Nuo, what is it that made you choose to play a character like the Joker? Because as far as I know, this character is actually somewhat antisocial. Can I understand it this way, that there is something in you that makes you want to accept such a character?"

Chen Nuo shook his head and said: "Teacher Xiang, as an actor, I only consider the character itself, not whether I match the character. If I follow your logic, actors in this world can no longer play villains. Does playing a murderer mean you are a murderer? This logic is wrong, isn't it?"

When Xiang Xi watched Chen Nuo's interviews on TV in the past, he had a feeling that this boy reacted very quickly. Now this answer confirmed it even more. However, he didn't come here this time to get along peacefully with Chen Nuo.

His daughter, a 13-year-old girl, was chasing stars so much that her grades plummeted. If he educated her a little, she would cry, make a scene, and hang herself. As an only daughter he had in his 30s, he couldn't hit or scold her, so he had to vent his anger on the star she was chasing.

He continued to ask: "But we all know that you are an actor who likes to immerse yourself. When you are immersed, when you feel the character's evil and antisocial emotions, won't you be affected? If so, can you get out of the character? How much time does it take?"

Chen Nuo felt the targeting becoming more and more obvious, and subconsciously denied it: "No, actually, no matter what kind of acting, it's just acting, it won't affect the person himself."

Xiang Xi was secretly happy.

Chen Nuo really lied under his guidance.

He was completely prepared today.

Before doing this interview, he had asked some professionals and conducted very detailed research.

Chen Nuo, such a famous immersive actor in the current circle, has been studied in depth by many performance theorists in the circle.

They told Xiang Xi that Chen Nuo's way of acting, after getting into the role, is almost impossible not to be affected by the character.

Especially since he is so young.

His inner world can be said to be 90% likely not yet formed.

Especially when playing some characters with strong emotional impact, such as the mute, he will definitely take a considerable amount of time to get out of the character.

If Chen Nuo denies this, then he must be lying.

Therefore, Xiang Xi asked these questions one by one from the beginning, actually just wanting Chen Nuo to deny it.

Moreover, he wouldn't deny Chen Nuo on the spot. He would only let him say more, and when the interview was published in the newspaper, he only needed to put the experts' views at the end, which would naturally prove that what Chen Nuo said was false.

In this way, everyone can imagine why Chen Nuo dare not tell the truth, so does this person have some unspeakable secrets?

When intellectuals want to harm people, they are so insidious.

Ordinary people can't detect the problem at all, and when they discover it later, it's often too late.

However, Xiang Xi didn't think there was anything wrong with him doing this, laying these psychological traps.

In his view, Chen Nuo was originally such a hypocritical idol, and he was just trying to find a way to expose this person's true face to everyone.

What acting school, what integrity and kindness, what calm facing of feelings, are all disguises used to deceive little girls.

Exposing this man's true face is the righteous act that their "Southern Weekly," a mouthpiece media that speaks for the people, should do.

Xiang Xi watched the prey step into the trap step by step, suppressing the joy in his heart, and decided to add another nail to the coffin lid.

"Chen Nuo, are you sure? Because it seems your statement is different from our usual understanding. Of course, you should have some of your own unique understanding, can you talk about your specific views?"

At this time, Xiang Xi wanted Chen Nuo to continue lying, the more the better. In this way, when he was exposed later, everyone's resentment towards him would become greater and greater.

But at this time, Chen Nuo was sure that this person was here to find fault.

Because he was indeed lying.

Could he not know it himself?

Similarly, he didn't think that the middle-aged reporter in front of him kept asking this question was really that ignorant.

And he had to keep asking this question.

His personality was originally suspicious, and he had been pitted by reporters when he went to the Film Academy for exams before, and he suddenly had a stress reaction.

The next second, he stood up directly and said to Luo Rui Aisina next to him in English: "I won't do this interview, let's go."

No wonder people say Warner is professional. Although Luo Rui Aisina couldn't understand Chinese, she didn't have a single question.

She immediately said to the translator from Southern Weekly: "Our interview ends here, this interview activity is cancelled, and we will not authorize you to publish everything you recorded just now. If you dare to publish it without permission, our Warner will spare no cost to pursue your legal responsibility."

Xiang Xi was stunned.

In the end, he was just an executive deputy editor-in-chief, and above him were the editor-in-chief, the chief editor, the president, and the secretary.

Just like the leaders of "Look at Movies" magazine, everyone at Southern Weekly was very concerned about this interview.

How should this report on Chen Nuo be written? In which direction should it be written?

As the interviewing reporter, he might have the decision-making power.

But if the agreed interview was cancelled, it would be strange if the people above him didn't peel his skin and eat him.

This consequence was something he couldn't afford even if he had reached the position of executive deputy editor-in-chief.

After all, in this era, print media had already declined somewhat, and the sales of each issue might be the key to life and death.

He shouted in a panic: "Chen Nuo, what do you mean by this?"

Intellectuals, they are good at playing mind games, but their ability to adapt to changes is poor, and they don't know how to cover up at all.

Chen Nuo determined at a glance that there must be something wrong with this person.

As an actor, simulating reactions is a basic skill, and Xiang Xi's reaction was not a normal reaction.

If he had a clear conscience, he should be confused at this time no matter what. How could he be so panicked, as if something had been exposed.

Determined that he hadn't wronged anyone, Chen Nuo didn't hesitate anymore and stood up and walked out.

Warner's staff all moved.

Several employees of Southern Weekly who came with Xiang Xi were cursing in their hearts, what exactly do you want to do? What do you mean by those questions? Now it's good, people are leaving, let's see what you do?

These people were all old newsmen, and they could naturally hear that the questions Xiang Xi just asked were clearly buried with traps. As long as Chen Nuo was slightly careless, there would be a big article to write when he went back.

Seeing that the situation was not good, Xiang Xi was anxious and panicked, and for a moment he actually said loudly with a threat: "Chen Nuo, you can't do this! You have to think clearly, we are 'Southern Weekly,' if you leave today, don't even think about us doing any publicity for you in the future."

Chen Nuo stopped his steps. Beside him stood Luo Rui Aisina, who had blonde hair and a serious face, and all around him were foreign staff from Warner Bros. Asia Pacific.

Surrounded by eleven or twelve people, he turned his head in the middle, expressionless, and said in an icy tone: "Then have you, 'Southern Weekly,' thought clearly, who exactly am I? Do I need your publicity?"

Chen Nuo's words were like a bucket of ice water mixed with ice dregs, splashing onto Xiang Xi's face, making him shiver instantly.

Xiang Xi was like waking up from a dream.

Since the boy entered the door, he had been gentle to others, like an ordinary young man, making him seem to have forgotten his identity for a moment.

In a trance, he seemed to hear his daughter shouting again: "I'm not wrong! What's the problem with me chasing stars? I'm chasing Chen Nuo, not someone else. I'm a fan of Chen Nuo, and many people in our class are. I don't want to listen to you, you only know how to talk nonsense, he relies on his works to speak, not like other stars who have to rely on your hype!"

Xiang Xi's face turned blue and white for a while, and there was only one sentence rolling back and forth in his heart.

Yes, it is the media that needs him, not him that needs the media.

Hasn't it been like this since he debuted?

What was he thinking? How could he think he could deal with him as a media person?

Seeing Chen Nuo enter the elevator surrounded by a group of people, Xiang Xi's face turned pale, knowing that it was already irreparable.

What should he do now?

If the editor-in-chief knew he had offended Chen Nuo, what would he do?

Xiang Xi looked back and saw that the surrounding colleagues were all looking at him with gloating eyes.

It seemed that they all knew the answer to the question in his heart very well.

It's over.

Xiang Xi's heart sank instantly, as if falling from heaven a quarter of an hour ago into the abyss.

Luo Rui Aisina accompanied Chen Nuo downstairs, and during the period, she heard the questions Xiang Xi asked from the translator, and her expression became even colder.

"Chen, this should be a conspiracy by our competitors against our movie. I suggest cancelling all subsequent interviews."

Chen Nuo nodded and said: "It should be 'Spider-Man' and the others playing tricks."

Luo Rui Aisina was noncommittal and said: "Whoever it is, we'll talk about it later. Go back to the hotel first, we'll attend the premiere tomorrow!"

PS:

Friendly reminder:

For the next four chapters of the release plot, friends who have seen the movie can skip them at their discretion.

(End of this chapter) ===== CHAPTER 175 =====