Chapter 264: Directing the Acting

Among the roles in *Inception*, the male lead Cobb's wife, Mal, although her role in the film is not as significant as the "Architect" Ariadne (played by Fatty Bing), she still has quite a few scenes.

Moreover, because almost all her scenes are opposite Depp, for an actress, such a role is very good and easy to get attention.

Cao Yang's initial plan was to have Anne Hathaway play it.

But for Dong Xuan's Best Actress award, he reached an agreement with Claire Danes of the Venice Film Festival jury: Claire Danes would support Dong Xuan, and she would get this role.

For Claire Danes, this was completely a surprise.

She only needed to be the first to speak up in support of Dong Xuan within the jury, without having to pound the table and insist; after speaking up, she didn't need to worry about subsequent matters.

A matter of one sentence could be exchanged for an important role in a super-large project with a budget of 180 million US dollars, and it was opposite Depp, and she could also befriend Cao Yang...

It was simply killing multiple birds with one stone.

What's more, after seeing Dong Xuan's performance in *Black Swan*, she had originally intended to support Dong Xuan for the Venice Best Actress award.

She even felt that among so many nominated films, Dong Xuan's acting was definitely the best by a wide margin.

Therefore, in the internal meeting of the jury, she not only proposed Dong Xuan for Best Actress first, but was also prepared to pound the table and insist.

However, in the end, she didn't pound the table. After her proposal, there were successive secondings.

Out of the seven jurors, plus the five she supported, Dong Xuan won the Best Actress award without any suspense.

This made Claire Danes feel a bit relieved. Although she had made a decision that went against professional ethics, using her status as a jury member to make a deal with someone, fortunately, the choice was right.

She felt that this was not going against professional ethics; this was respecting the profession and having a bottom line. If it were replaced by someone with poor acting skills, she would firmly disagree.

Well, anyway, this "money" was earned too easily, so much so that Claire Danes felt a bit embarrassed at the beginning.

Then came the exclamation: Director Cao Yang is indeed powerful.

She even felt that, let alone Dong Xuan, a small supporting role in *Black Swan*, such as the former lead dancer, had much better acting skills than herself.

This made her think more. If Director Cao Yang was willing to cultivate her, it seemed that the Oscar for Best Actress could also be imagined.

After the Venice Film Festival ended, she came to China according to the agreement.

According to her agent, coming to China this time was to participate in a "training" before filming the movie.

She actually knew about this and had heard many rumors in the film circle.

Director Cao Yang is famous for being good at training actors. Currently, the consensus of most industry insiders is that the secret to Director Cao Yang's ability to make actors perform extraordinarily lies in the "training" before filming.

This has led many directors in the world who aspire to do so to imitate him.

As for the effect, according to these directors, it still exists.

To summarize, as long as the director seriously conducts "training" before taking the post, at least the actors understand what kind of movie this is, what the story the movie wants to tell is, and what kind of person your role is...

There are also many directors at famous or unknown film festivals around the world who claim that their films were filmed according to Director Cao Yang's method, which is why they were selected for the film festival.

Fine, Claire Danes didn't know if these people were hyping it up or if it was true.

She went to Yale University and majored in psychology. Although she dropped out in her sophomore year, she was not a naive little white flower who was easy to fool.

She always firmly believed that there is only one Cao Yang in this world.

Director Cao Yang's method doesn't seem to have anything unusual. Many directors will also conduct rehearsals and read the script before the movie starts filming. This is actually not essentially different from Director Cao Yang's method.

However, only Director Cao Yang is the most successful.

Therefore, she believes that Director Cao Yang is the "special" one, and she came this time with curiosity to find out.

She really wanted to know if Director Cao Yang had hidden tips, or if he had unique speech charm.

However, what made Claire Danes a bit disappointed was that after arriving in Beijing, she didn't see Director Cao Yang for the first time.

The one who gave "training" to these actors was a director named Ning Hao.

The news Claire Danes got was that Director Cao Yang had gone to Canada, which was one of the exterior locations for *Inception*.

Moreover, Director Cao Yang was hired by the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee as the chief consultant. Even if he returned from Canada, he would have to go to select the Olympic director first. This time added up to about ten days.

In other words, it would be more than ten days before Director Cao Yang could come to direct their acting.

Claire Danes was a bit disappointed. She didn't pay attention to this person named Ning Hao at first, just thinking he was an ordinary assistant to Director Cao Yang.

Until the agent told her that this young director was also very powerful. He hadn't graduated from the Film Academy yet, but he was valued by Director Cao Yang and kept by his side to cultivate.

He had already served as the assistant director for several of Director Cao Yang's films. He was the assistant director for *Black Swan*, and also the assistant director for *Inception*.

Moreover, just this year, a movie tailored for him by Director Cao Yang had been released, which had grossed 20 million US dollars in China, and the foreign copyright had also sold for nearly 10 million US dollars.

Claire Danes heard these box office figures and just felt that as a newcomer director, being able to get these was still pretty good.

However, the agent told her that the investment for this movie, including promotion and distribution, was only more than 3 million US dollars, which surprised her.

Even if placed in Hollywood, such a return ratio is astonishing. Such a director can already be called a "future star."

However, in Claire Danes's view, Ning Hao's directing was not much different from the teachers on the podium. He was just trying his best to let everyone understand what the movie wanted to tell.

Actually, at first, Claire Danes was confused and couldn't understand at all. "Planting" dreams in people?

What is that?

During the day, she listened to Ning Hao talk about the movie, and at night, she went back to read the novel of this movie given by her agent.

Slowly, she finally understood a little.

Precisely because she understood a little, she felt that the novel written by Director Cao Yang was amazing. It was really too creative and had too many ideas.

This movie, once filmed, would definitely subvert cognition.

It turned out that the novels written by Director Cao Yang were also so good.

Hearing from the agent, Director Cao Yang's *Cao Yang's Fantasy Journey* had already reached "six." She decided to buy all six books when she went back, believing that Director Cao Yang's other short stories must also be good.

Just as she was amazed, a person she didn't want to see came to the crew.

Little Li Zi had work to do, so he delayed reporting for a week.

Claire Danes was not familiar with the others in the crew, including Depp. Because of the relationship of opposite scenes, she had just become familiar.

However, Little Li Zi was different.

The two had collaborated on *Romeo and Zhu Liye* released in 1996, and the collaboration was quite unpleasant!

In short, her impression of Little Li Zi at that time was simply terrible.

When filming this movie, Claire Danes was not yet sixteen years old, and in the movie, she and Little Li Zi played Romeo and Zhu Liye respectively.

It was fine to play lovers in the play, but Little Li Zi also pursued her outside the play.

She knew that Little Li Zi had a girlfriend at the time, who was a model and often came to visit the set.

This is the hateful part of Little Li Zi. You clearly have a girlfriend, why do you still do this?

So, Claire Danes, who was not yet sixteen and whose thoughts were still a bit childish, didn't like to pay attention to Little Li Zi when filming.

The more she didn't pay attention to Little Li Zi, the more energetic Little Li Zi became. Every day after filming, he would pester her and tell her some very low-level jokes.

So, she wanted to ignore Little Li Zi even more.

As a result, after filming *Romeo and Zhu Liye*, Cameron wanted to film *Titanic* and invited her to be the female lead, intending to hype her collaboration with Little Li Zi again, and also wanted to hype the scandal between the two.

She was extremely annoyed at the time, feeling that the story theme of *Titanic* was exactly the same as *Romeo and Zhu Liye*, both were tragic love stories, and she didn't want to collaborate with the fickle Little Li Zi.

So, she made a decision that she would regret for the rest of her life—she rejected Cameron.

She still hates Little Li Zi very much now. If it weren't for this fickle guy pursuing her at the beginning, how could she have been hot-headed and rejected *Titanic*?

So, after Little Li Zi came to the crew and greeted her, she responded very coldly.

Claire Danes originally thought about whether Little Li Zi would still have ideas about her, but then she thought, based on her understanding of Little Li Zi, this fickle man only likes young girls in their teens and twenties.

Sure enough, Little Li Zi only treated her as an ordinary friend and didn't pester her.

Heh, sure enough, he is a fickle man!

Pfft!

Cao Yang didn't have time until September 25th. He first invited several actors of the crew to have a meal, and then directed their acting.

Ning Hao had actually laid a foundation, using more than ten days to let these actors familiarize themselves with and understand the movie content and characters.

Cao Yang let them write their understanding of the characters, writing a little every day, without word limit.

For those with deviations in their understanding of the characters, Cao Yang corrected them.

Especially Fatty Bing, whose understanding of the "Architect" Ariadne had a large deviation, so Cao Yang left her behind at night to tutor her alone.

However, Fatty Bing didn't think she was wrong, was very unconvinced, and even dared to ride on Cao Yang to act bossy.

This, of course, could not be tolerated. As a director, authority definitely could not be provoked.

Cao Yang punished her. If she didn't understand well, he would spank her, making her scream.

In the end, under Cao Yang's careful tutoring, Fatty Bing finally understood the connotation of the role, and even praised Director Cao for being powerful, indeed good at training actresses.

Just like this, until October 10th, Cao Yang felt it was almost enough, mainly because the preparation work for the movie was completed, all the props were made, and the built studio was also good.

Then film it.

So, taking the actors, they set off to Ludong Island first. The scenes related to the seaside in the movie were all chosen to be filmed on Ludong Island.

He was very familiar with Ludong Island. Several movies were filmed here. The local government was also very welcoming and supportive. That intensity was not much worse than the places with tax rebates chosen by Columbia.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 265 =====