More than a week passed, and there was still no reply from Lou Ye. Li Tang no longer had any hope.
At this time, the half-month reading of the script was coming to an end. His opponents in the play mainly focused on four people, his fiancée from the underground party, his cousin who runs a small business, his classmate who is a fruit party agent, and the American consul.
Except for Yuan Quan, the people who play the cousin and classmates are all senior actors from the Shanghai Film Studio. They are all familiar faces that can often be seen in movies and TV dramas. The person who plays the American consul is a foreign actor.
The script reading is also a process for the actors to get used to each other before filming begins. Everyone weighs in on each other.
Lines are the soul of performance. By listening to an actor's lines, you can basically judge whether the actor's acting skills are good or bad.
For example, later generations often see on Douyin that a certain empress looked ugly after losing the Magnolia Award. Because the TV series was popular and the character was deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, the audience complained about her and thought there was something shady. In fact, this queen's voice in the TV series is not the original but the dubbing, which greatly affects the evaluation of her acting skills.
After the script reading officially began, as soon as Li Tang opened his mouth, the noise among the crew who doubted him disappeared a lot. Years of training in stage plays have made his line skills far beyond everyone's understanding of young actors.
The dialogue between him and the American consul consisted of large sections of English lines. During the script reading, he no longer showed off his New York accent, replaced by American English with a slight Chinese accent.
The reason is very simple, because the background of the story takes place in the autumn of 1948, during the issuance of gold yuan coupons and Xiao Chiang's "Tiger Hunt" in Shanghai. The character Guo Shaobai is in his mid-twenties. He has classmates and a lover in Shanghai. He most likely immigrated to the United States after World War II, because the transportation lines between China and the United States were cut off by the Japanese army during the entire World War II.
It can be inferred from this that he was educated in China. Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, there were missionary schools founded by Americans in Shanghai, such as the famous St. John's University. His academic qualifications were recognized by the United States, which matched Guo Shaobai's status as an American journalist.
Therefore, it is impossible for such a character to speak with a full New York accent. It is most appropriate to have a Chinese accent.
Accents are important in developing characters. The United States is a country of immigrants, and the characters in the stage play are also diverse. According to the country, there are British accents, Mexican accents, German accents, Russian accents, etc. There are also East Coast New York accents, cowboy Western accents, and rustic Southern accents in China.
Accent is a label that indicates the regionalization of a character. For example, Tom Hanks in "Forrest Gump" has an authentic southern accent.
You can't say that Forrest Gump speaks with a high-class British accent, which is completely inconsistent with the character setting.
In his last life, Li Tang watched a war movie that was said to be very popular in China at the time. The protagonist in it, a veteran from Shandong, actually talked about authentic Beijing movies, which made him drunk just thinking about it.
In the final analysis, if you want to create a successful character, it is often determined by these details.
In comparison, Yuan Quan's lines appear much childish. But it's understandable, after all, he's just a sophomore. Moreover, the little girl worked very hard. When she came to Shanghai, she didn't just go shopping everywhere. On the contrary, after the reading meeting every day, she stayed in the guest house and studied hard.
The reading meeting ended that afternoon, and Yuan Quan approached Li Tang again holding the script.
"Brother Li, I don't quite understand Li Huirong's psychology here..."
Apart from the director, Li Tang was the first person she got to know well in the crew. In addition, the two of them were about the same age, making it easier to communicate. The little girl would often go to him to ask him questions.
The man is handsome and the woman is beautiful. They play a pair of lovers in the play, and they are the only young actors in the crew who have not yet married. Everyone often smiles knowingly every time they see this scene.
Today, the senior actor who played the role of the Kuomintang agent who was six years ahead of Li Tang made a point of patting him on the shoulder before leaving, winking, and looking like he was "seizing the opportunity."
Li Tang was helpless. Although the beautiful girl was admirable, she was far from that level. In his previous life, he had read countless people. What kind of white, yellow, and black things have he not tried?
It's not like he thinks about a pretty girl when he sees her.
Yuan Quan seems to be very slow to react to everything around him and is full of curiosity.
Li Tang had no choice but to take the script and ask: "Where is it? Let me take a look..."
The character of Li Huirong is actually not difficult to understand. As he told Yuan Quan at the beginning, the underground party has a firm belief. As long as you follow this path, everything will be solved.
In contrast, the character of Guo Shaobai is much more complicated. He is floating and has no firm beliefs. He passively accepts all kinds of things instilled by his cousin, classmates, and fiancée. He follows the trend and is very contradictory. Although he chose to follow his fiancée's faith, he returned to the United States after his fiancée died.
This is probably what Mao Zedong said about the weakness of the bourgeoisie. How to grasp the scale is very subtle, and it may become a facial expression if you are not careful.
After finally dealing with Yuan Quan, he went downstairs to go home. Just as I was riding my motorcycle, my cell phone rang in my pocket.
These days, a cell phone is just a mobile phone. It doesn’t even have a text messaging function, so it stays in your pocket.
"Hello?"
"Li Tang, let's have a drink together tonight. The ladies from the good times are all back." Bald Xu's excited voice came from the phone.
"Not going."
"Tsk, you said you wanted to treat me last time, but don't keep your words..."
"No time, goodbye."
Li Tang refused simply and hung up the phone before he finished speaking. The filming was about to start and he didn't want to be distracted. And you can’t talk too much about that guy, or you’ll end up entangling him.
I had just hung up my phone and was about to drive away when my phone rang again as if to remind me.
This is not over yet. He didn't even look at it and said straight away: "I told you that I don't have time, but I just don't have time! Stop fighting, and then..."
"Uh... Li Tang, I'm Lou Ye."
"Ah? Oh, I'm sorry, Brother Ye, I thought it was my colleague. So what, is there any news?"
It’s not easy, it’s almost ten days since I was born, and I finally got a call.
"Are you free right now?"
"I'm free, I'm free."
"I'm with a friend, come over and talk."
"Okay, Brother Ye, where are you?"
"we are at……"
After asking for the address, Li Tang hurried to a cafe on Xiangyang Road on his motorcycle.
It was a cafe that looked very bourgeois from the outside. Not many customers came in, but they immediately spotted Lou Ye sitting by the window. I haven't seen him for half a month. Brother Ye looks a little haggard, with tiredness in his brows.
When he saw Li Tang entering, he quickly raised his hand to greet him.
Sitting opposite him was a woman with shawl-length hair. When she saw Lou Ye waving, she turned back. She is in her thirties, very beautiful, with sharp eyes and a unique temperament.
"This is my partner Nai'an! Li Tang!" Lou Ye introduced.
"Hello, Li Tang!" Nai An stood up with a smile and shook hands.
"Nai...Sister An, hello!"
Li Tang knew Naian, and Lou Ye had this name on his list of producers of two previous films. And when he saw Nai'an, he immediately recognized that this face often appeared in movies and TV series, including his outstanding performances in Lou Ye's two movies.
He's a producer, he's an actor, and he's very good at it.
It's just that there is no one with the surname Nai. Nai'an sounds like a stage name. Li Tang doesn't know how to call her, but calling her sister is correct.
"My surname is Lu, please call me Sister An. I have heard Lou Ye talk about you a long time ago..."
Compared with Lou Ye's reticence, Nai'an is obviously very talkative.
During the exchange between the two, Li Tang learned that Nai An was not only an alumnus of his acting career, but also almost became his colleague.
In her early years, she was admitted to the Department of Acting at Shanghai Theater Academy, where she was a student of Mrs. Lou. Later, she felt that this was not her ambition, and after dropping out, she was re-entered into the Department of Directing at the Chinese Theater Academy. After graduation, he was assigned to the Shanghai People's Art Theatre, the predecessor of the Drama Center. But she chose to give up again, opened her own company called Dream Art Company, and became an independent producer.
It can be seen that she and Lou Ye are the same kind of people, both of whom love movies.
Of course, making movies requires money, and producers also need to eat. Her acting skills were not bad, and her appearance was very good, so she became an actress again.
It’s quite interesting to say that a person who didn’t like being an actor but determined to be a director did not hesitate to drop out of the theater school and re-enter the directing department of the Chinese Theater Academy. In the end, he became an actor again.
"It's a pity that I don't have the talent to be a director, so I had to choose to work as a assistant for Lou Ye and help him handle some affairs. I think I can be regarded as an agent." Nai'an finally said.
