Chapter 108: Heartbeat (Part 2)

Every year from February to March, there is always a lot of personnel movement between New York on the East Coast and Hollywood on the West Coast.

Because the next few months will be the busiest period for a new round of film and television production.

In order to ensure the broadcast of a new round of films and television, especially TV series, old series need to start filming a new season, and new series also need to be prepared and put on the agenda - in this way, whether it is an artist with a work contract or a newcomer who dreams of becoming a star and plans to break into the entertainment industry, they all have to start preparing.

In the past, when Su Yun was filming, the leading and main supporting roles had already been decided, and the other supporting roles were sent by the actors' union, and then filming would start after selecting actors who roughly met the requirements. This was a standard commercial production model. Therefore, this time, going to GG everywhere to conduct large-scale auditions became a random operation that many people saw as a result of her being stimulated by the previous loss.

But we have to say that this wave of marketing has already started at a huge cost on GG before filming even started, and the huge amount of attention it has generated is indeed eye-catching.

Moreover, an advance cast list was "leaked" in advance: with a superstar of Gregory Peck's caliber, it seems that the script of this new movie must be very good, otherwise it would not have been possible to convince this legendary figure to participate.

After all, Gregory Peck was a well-known person who was very careful about his reputation. In the mixed Hollywood and among the movie stars of his generation who were constantly involved in gossips, he was the only moral compass who had lived his life with no scandals, had good vision and a good reputation. There was no other choice.

Speaking of which, Su Yun was able to invite veteran superstar Gregory Peck, all thanks to her previous experience of having a whim and following Spielberg to negotiate the use of clips from the movie "Moby Dick".

At the time, the two were still new in the circle. Although Gregory received them warmly, he was afraid that his movies would be used randomly or even spoofed by newcomers because he was afraid of his reputation. Therefore, he refused the request to use his video materials in "Great White Shark".

Later, when "Jaws" and "The Sixth Sense" were released, he went to see these two movies and found them very remarkable. Only then did he begin to regret that he did not explore them more at the time and rudely rejected the request of the potential newcomer.

Fortunately, these two newcomers have real strength and can make it. Otherwise, if they were frustrated because of this, not only would it damage his reputation, but he would also feel guilty.

It was for this reason that when Su Yun came to him again with great sincerity and brought the entire new movie script, Gregory read the whole story very carefully this time and agreed to the role of the male lead for a normal price. He did not look down on the invitation to play a supporting role or the arrogance of asking for a higher price because of his fame.

As for why Elizabeth Taylor agreed to guest-star in the role of the male protagonist's mother, it originated from an unexpected encounter: when finishing the filming of "Léon", Su Yun and Zha Lan felt deeply exhausted from the busy post-production work, so they both took a day off as bosses, dressed up and sneaked out to eat, drink and have fun.

Because they both climbed up from the bottom of society and have bohemian personalities, the two of them don't have much awareness of being celebrities. Instead, they are like-minded and hang out in various small shops with good reputations to buy food and drinks.

Just to buy two big burgers that the locals said were super delicious, two people waited in line for half an hour and finally squeezed into the front row.

"You are so lucky, these are the last two!" The waiter brought two big burgers that looked large, filling and smelled tempting.

When the two were happily preparing to exchange money for goods, a plump woman wearing sunglasses came up from behind and asked, "Can you give me one?"

Zha Lan was a very selfish person, and she immediately replied rudely, "It's impossible."

Su Yun saw that the plump woman had a good attitude. In addition, she and Zha Lan had already developed a habit of hurting each other, so she said, "We may need to reshoot some shots. You ate so much today. Why don't you stop eating? If you get fat, it will be difficult to deal with it later."

"Thank you." Zha Lan replied to Su Yun with a fake smile, "With the weight loss diet menu and training schedule you got for me, what I eat today is just what I will follow for two or three days when I go back. There is no need to give up the delicious food for this."

"I lost more than 20 pounds because of your shit, and now I should gain it back." Zha Lan said as he started eating, taking a bite of burger and a sip of soda happily.

Seeing him like this, Su Yun was hesitating whether to humble herself and be a good person, but the plump woman shifted her focus.

Led by the plump woman to sit in a corner, looking at her extremely beautiful violet eyes after she took off her sunglasses, Su Yun could hardly believe that this was the legendary actress Elizabeth Taylor whom she met when she first went to the Oscar awards ceremony.

Even though most of the attention was stolen by the naked artist when she went on stage to receive the award, the charm of the "Jade Lady" who was able to maintain her beauty from young to old was still eye-catching. When Su Yun saw her at that time, she was also a beautiful woman with a voluptuous figure and radiant glow.

But now, the beauty still has some traces of the stunning Egyptian queen in her past, but her figure has reached an astonishing 180 pounds...

To put it in perspective, a height of 1.63 meters and a weight of over 160 kilograms would be considered only slightly obese among ordinary people; but in the entertainment industry where slim figures were once popular, having this weight would be considered a "sin."

Taylor distressedly recounted the reason for her sudden weight gain: after marrying her new husband John Warner, in order to support her husband's candidacy for Congress, she was so busy that she had very little free time, so she ate whatever she could get her hands on, without worrying about whether it would make her fat - because she was no longer making movies at that time, so she didn't need to care about her appearance and weight.

After her husband was elected, she began a busy political life. After finishing her supporting duties, she lived alone at home. She was bored and her life started to get out of control. She wanted to vent all her depression through eating and drinking. Anyway, she thought no one would see her, so she didn't care what she looked like after eating.

So, she started with binge eating, and her tendency to binge eating became more and more serious until she could no longer control it. She was overweight to over 180 pounds, and was finally discovered by a reporter one day by chance, becoming a hot topic for a while.

Looking at the fat in the mirror, she wanted to lose weight, but it was hard to control her habit of binge eating, so she secretly went to a small place to buy food...

"I heard that the East has some amazing traditional Chinese medicine and Chinese herbs that can cure diseases that even doctors find difficult to treat..." Taylor only heard a little bit and had only a vague understanding, so he obviously mistook Su Yun's scientific diet and training method from later generations as a magical spell from the East.

Su Yun supported her forehead helplessly: Such uncontrollable binge eating is obviously a symptom of bulimia, but current scientific concepts do not have much understanding of this, which is indeed tricky.

This symptom is not uncommon among these programmers, especially if they are also 2D otakus. At least eight out of ten of them are fat otakus who can't control their mouths.

Unwilling to see the beauty sad because of gaining weight and with the intention of making more friends, Su Yun made a detailed table for Taylor with the help of a systematic reference to later scientific diet training.

Compared to the previous doctor's method of weight loss that required highly controlled diet and increased exercise intensity, Taylor saw that Su Yun's chart did have some boiled food, although it didn't taste very good, which at least allowed her to eat her fill. This time, Taylor followed the plan seriously and hard, holding her breath to teach those who made fun of her for gaining weight a lesson.

After several months of dieting, Taylor has successfully lost nearly 30 pounds. If it weren't for the occasional greedy food, the number might be even higher.

However, the natural beauty of her former self has reappeared.

In order to repay Su Yun for her great help, Taylor offered to play a cameo role in Su Yun's new movie at a preferential price: there was still some time before the official filming started, so she could still lose some weight.

Su Yun naturally took note of the kindness shown by the beauty, so in addition to designing clothes for her, she also went to find Al Pacino, with whom she had worked before, to invite him to play the protagonist's father who had a rivalry with Taylor.

However, Pacino said that he really didn't have any schedule recently, so he recommended his friend Robert De Niro to Su Yun, saying that he was short of money recently and he should be able to be hired if he spent more money.

Relying on Pacino's recommendation and the complexity of the character's personality, Su Yun successfully spent money to get De Niro - to be honest, he does look a bit like the father of the male protagonist in the original version, but his looks and acting skills are like a higher-end version.

It just so happened that De Niro had just finished filming the movie "Taxi Driver" recently, so he no longer needed to keep the punk hairstyle of shaving the sides and leaving a tuft in the middle. So when it came to Su Yun's hands, she simply shaved the middle of his head to make him a bald head, and then pasted a wig around it... Suddenly, a Mediterranean hairdo that looked ten years older came into being, and he looked like a middle-aged man who had to give up his dreams for the sake of life.

Since the elders and the male lead are all good-looking, the role of the sister naturally cannot be of low appearance. Su Yun thought about it and set her sights on Isabelle Adjani, who was nominated for the youngest Best Actress at the Oscars last year for "Adele Hugo's Story". On the one hand, she wanted to go to the international stage to brush up her qualifications and popularity, and on the other hand, she wanted to maintain her social freedom and did not want to be constrained by long film shooting work. Su Yun, a typical quick shooter and a high-profile new film project, was very suitable for her to make a cameo appearance.

After successfully deciding on the actors for the family, the role of the school beauty who is against the heroine was given to Brooke Shields, who was brought to the interview by her mother who was eager for her daughter to become a star; and the role of the little nerd with glasses who had a certain role in the basket boy auction was given to Robert Downey Jr., who didn't like acting so much that he went to England to study classical ballet, but was dragged back to New York for an interview by his father Robert Downey Sr. on the grounds that it was a rare opportunity.

However, there are only a few young actors who are dragged to the audition by their parents due to their own family problems. Most of them are young actors who are already interested in acting and find ways to sign up on their own.

For example, Keanu Reeves, who was obtained by Su Yun at a great bargain price for the price of weeds. This kid loved performing and often performed in community theaters. When he was sent by the Actors Guild, Su Yun chose him without hesitation to play the role of the male protagonist's gay friend, as his age and image were very suitable for playing a good gay friend with Tom.

As for Su Yun's female protagonist, she was recommended by Romy: She had a neighbor in her villa in the suburbs of Paris who favored boys over girls. The little girl was only 10 years old but was already 1.6 meters tall, so her parents had always raised her as a boy. However, Romy could see that the little girl was very cute and had a good command of English. If she could play a cute little girl in the movie, maybe the parents would not treat her like that anymore.

When Romy mentioned the name Sophie Marceau, Su Yun agreed on the spot: As expected, beauties know beauties, and knowing beauties will give her more opportunities to be introduced to beauties...

Alas, in such a star-studded feast for beauty lovers, I only regret that I am not a Dian family man.

Next, Su Yun looked up some familiar names in the registration forms to participate in the "Summer Camp for Tomorrow's Stars" to play the basket boy in the auction, and then looked at Chen Boyang and Zhang Querong who were invited to practice the song.

"Although the accompaniment has been written, what you need to perform in the movie is a cappella singing." Su Yun passed the song over, "You need to learn each other's singing skills and acting talents. It would be best if you can become more similar to each other, so that you can better play the role of twins."

After reading the lyrics of the song carefully, the two young people couldn't help but glance at Marisu, who had a calm expression.

Well, since the "protagonist" in the suspected lyrics can accept this calmly, there should be nothing they can't sing -

“What’s your name?”

What's your name?

Is it mary or sue?

What's your name?

Do I stand a chance with you?

Its so hard to find a personality with charm like yours for me…

(I can’t find someone like you no matter how hard I try. Someone like you is so charming to me…)”

To be honest, the melody is really fresh, cute and moving, except that the lyrics are a bit embarrassing because they coincide with Su Yun's English name...

But - I've got the money, so just sing.

The two young people who were comforting each other with their eyes at this time did not know that the lyrics that they were still a little embarrassed about singing to the twelve-year-old Su Yun would be difficult to sing so easily to the same person who had grown up in a few years.

Perhaps those youthful, hazy yet hard-to-conceal passionate feelings are always too heavy to express in words, so one can only chew over the ups and downs of those ambiguous and guesswork-filled feelings in one's heart, turning all the old events in one's memory into the most unforgettable tenderness in one's heart.