Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 1349 Protagonist and Supporting Role

"Very good, much better than yesterday's sample..."

A few days later, Ronald woke up early in the morning to watch the first two days of shooting. Because there was no lab in Memphis, the film was sent to a lab in a nearby state for processing and then sent back every two days for Ronald and the crew to watch.

Tom Cruise has been having a hard time these past two days on the set. Ronald asked him to perform each scene many times, and the most annoying thing was that the director didn't tell him how to perform or what he did wrong. He felt like he was back to when he first debuted ten years ago and his performance was often criticized.

However, the second batch of samples received Ronald's approval, which made Tom Cruise feel relieved. It seemed that filming a film directed by Ronald was more difficult than the famous directors he had worked with before.

"Remember this scene, and your future performances should be based on this emotional intensity, and don't overdo it." Ronald saw the dialogue between Bridget Fonda and Cruise on the screen. Because they had to decide whether to come to work, the couple went to the law firm to experience it in person.

Arriving in Memphis, Mitch and Abby were picked up by a limousine and taken directly to the hotel. This shot was a shot from inside the car, with the two holding hands and timidly looking at the various supplies in the car. Free brandy and a small TV that could watch real-time broadcasts, everything revealed a treatment that a newly graduated lawyer had never thought of.

"Once you've ridden in a luxury car, you'll realize they're all the same." Bridget Fonda made the comment in the manner of a country person coming to the city.

Tom Cruise also showed a hint of shyness on his face, and then he felt relaxed after his wife's witty words. It's not that luxurious... It's all within the expected range of what the top 5% of Harvard graduates can get.

"Can't go beyond this shot? Wait... Ronald, hey, director, director?"

Tom Cruise was a little confused. This shot was not a very dramatic scene. He had deliberately restrained his acting at Ronald's request. If he acted like this in the rest of the shots, would he have any acting skills left?
"Paula, I need to talk to Ronald alone. Am I disrespectful to him in any way? Or are there any special arrangements? I can't stand this kind of acting..."

"Relax and calm down, Tom. When has Ronald ever disappointed you? I can ask him for you, but the first thing you have to do is to respect him, just like you respect Scorsese, Coppola, Barry Levinson, and Oliver Stone..." Of course, Paula wanted to calm Cruise down on the one hand, and she was also ready to argue with Ronald on the other hand.

"I..." Tom Cruise let out a long breath. He had been in the industry for so many years. The famous directors before him had specific requirements for him and also praised his passionate performance. No one was like Ronald...

Could it be that, for all these years, those directors have treated me as a star who can guarantee box office success, instead of treating me like an actor with excellent acting skills? If I can achieve this level, they will say it's good, but when it comes to real actors, such as Paul Newman and Dustin Hoffman, they will have higher expectations?

No wonder they both won Oscars. Is that really the case? Is he just a vase to attract box office? Knowing that Ronald is unlikely to suppress him on purpose, Tom Cruise thought too much and doubted his talent for the first time.

……

"Tom..."

The shooting for the day was completed, and Ronald specially ordered takeout from the "World Famous Fried Chicken Shop" (this is the name of the fried chicken shop) and invited Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner to eat fried chicken together in the hotel room.

"Sorry, I have to keep my calories..." Tom Cruise did some psychological preparation before coming here, and when he found out that he was not a person with acting talent, he would not lose his composure on the spot. But eating fried chicken still exceeded his psychological bottom line...

"Paula, would you like some?" Ronald grabbed a chicken wing and ate it with his mouth full of oil. "It's really the best black food in Memphis..." Ronald also took a sip of grape juice.

"I think you should eat one. It will help you better understand the problems in acting..." Ronald was eating happily himself. Seeing Cruise's uncomfortable expression because he couldn't eat junk food to maintain his figure, he handed him a piece.

"Can eating this help me understand acting?" Tom Cruise gritted his teeth, put the fried chicken to his mouth and bit it hard. Under the crispy golden skin was tender meat full of juice. The taste of top-notch food exploded in his mouth.

Tom Cruise immediately recalled the taste of the delicious food he had eaten before he became an actor. Fried chicken was like an old friend he hadn't seen for many years, which soothed his taste buds and nerves...

"Another sip of grape juice?" Ronald handed over a glass.

"This is too sweet..." A piece of fried chicken is already quite indulgent, and adding a high-sugar drink...

"How about some beer?", Ronald tempted.

"Oh..." The cool beer cooled down his mouth which was heated by the fried chicken, and Tom Cruise felt extremely comfortable.

"Do you feel that the requirements I gave you are not enough to demonstrate your acting skills?" Ronald wiped his greasy hands and asked Cruise.

"Uh, that's not what I meant. I just want to devote my all to the role of Mitch..."

"Bingo, that's why I asked you to watch Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant's movies. Didn't you find that their acting was a bit bland?"

"This?" Tom Cruise suddenly frowned. Taking away the halo of the two most famous leading men in old Hollywood, the acting of these two stars was indeed a bit bland.

They don’t have any exaggerated movements or expressions. They are just like a friend you would meet in daily life who is better looking and more capable than you, but you are not very jealous.

"Do you still remember the supporting roles in the movies they starred in?" Ronald picked up another grape soda and took a sip. It was really delicious with fried chicken.

"Yes..." Tom Cruise remembered some details again. The main supporting characters in those movies, especially the villains, seemed to have better acting skills than the protagonists, the kind that were unforgettable.

"If you compare a movie to a dream adventure, then the audience actually puts themselves in the protagonist's shoes through the camera lens, and experiences this two-hour adventure by empathizing with him..."

"You mean... Tom is the object of the audience's empathy?" Even Paula understood now.

"Yes, just like fried chicken, which is a dish that every housewife in the South can make. You don't need to emphasize too much on the crispiness of the chicken skin, the tenderness of the chicken, or the amount of juice. They often eat home-cooked food, and they already know how to adjust the proportions to make it the most delicious.

All you have to do is tell them that this is southern black fried chicken and show that it tastes good, and the audience will use their daily experiences to complement your emotions. "

"And, for supporting roles, there are many areas that cannot be covered by daily experience. They need to be exaggerated to 120% in order to mobilize the audience's emotions?" Tom Cruise suddenly felt that all his acting experience in the past ten years was integrated at this moment.

"Yes, and in addition, they feel for the supporting characters by empathizing with you. So the emotions of the supporting characters are expressed through the reactions of the protagonists. If you don't act out of the ordinary, it will be a loss. As for the acting of the protagonists, you need to leave a certain amount of space for them to use their imagination." Ronald nodded, indicating that Tom, you have figured it out.

"Do you remember when you first took acting classes, your acting teacher said that when acting as a drunk person, you don't have to walk crookedly, but try to walk in a straight line? When acting crying, you don't have to cry like rain, but try to hold back the tears..."

"Yeah, yeah..." Tom Cruise was stunned and could only mutter his agreement to himself.

"But after that, those acting teachers will teach you how to mobilize your emotional memory, how to make your emotions explode as much as possible... Isn't this a contradiction?" Ronald drank grape juice and felt really comfortable being an inspirer.

"Yeah, yeah..." Tom Cruise was a little stunned. What he said made so much sense.

"Because most people who take acting classes are going to play supporting roles or even background actors. They don't have the opportunity to try out the leading role... Think about it, whether it's Francis (Coppola), Marty (Scorsese), or Barry (Levinson), don't they all ask you to act in a fuller direction?"

"Yes, yes..." Tom Cruise sat down slowly and hit his head with his fist, "Why didn't anyone tell me, why?"

"Because you are a star, Tom. They still need you to apply for loans from the bank to get audiences into the theaters, but if you want to be as good as Jimmy or Gary in acting, you will have to take this path sooner or later, so that the audience can more easily empathize with you and see the world in the movie."

"I have to go back, I need to think about it carefully..." Tom Cruise quickly said goodbye and went to his room. He wanted to watch another Jimmy Stewart movie and think about how he should act.

"But, Ronald...Tom played the leading role in Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July, and Oliver asked him to express his emotions in a stronger direction on the set."

Paula Wagner was not easily persuaded after all, so she closed the door and asked Ronald the question anyway.

"Yes, there are indeed some actors who can play the leading role by using the acting style of supporting roles, and the audience can accept it, but..."

Ronald crossed his legs and put his hands behind his head in a relaxed manner. "But first of all, there are only a few actors who can do this..."

"You mean Tom's acting skills are not good enough?" Paula Wagner frowned.

"On the contrary, I think Tom's acting is very good, in fact he played better than Dustin in Rain Man, but he is not Robert De Niro, nor James Cagney..."

De Niro is a star who often collaborates with Scorsese, but the new generation of audiences are not so familiar with James Cagney. He is an acting master who is as famous as Jimmy Stewart, and his methods are very different and particularly full, but there is no problem for the audience to put themselves in his perspective.

It may be because Cagney has a very good sense of rhythm, always leading the audience half a step at the emotional ups and downs, turning points, and climaxes, and then waiting for them there. Director Kubrick believed that Cagney was the best Hollywood male star.

"So their acting skills are just not up to top standards?" Paula Wagner didn't care. Not everyone can act to the same level as these two.

"And secondly, think about it, has De Niro ever starred in a commercially successful movie? Tom Cruise is a star. Even if he plays like Harrison Ford, the audience will still go crazy for him..."

Paula was also convinced and nodded repeatedly. Harrison Ford was indeed famous for his poor acting skills. Now it seems that he always plays the leading role, so he consciously or unconsciously lowers the intensity.

After all, if you play too full, the audience's sense of substitution will be greatly damaged. The protagonist is responsible for leading the audience to explore the dream world, which is why the protagonist is called the "Leading Man".

"Then why now?..." Paula Wagner had another doubt. It seemed that nowadays in the Oscars, there are not many actors like Jimmy Stewart winning the Best Actor and Best Actress awards?
According to Ronald's theory, the performances of the main and supporting roles are completely different, so shouldn't actors like Harrison Ford be able to win many awards? Why is it that in reality, only "Witness" in 1986 was nominated once?

"Today's judges are mostly people who used to play supporting roles. There were not so many judges back then, and producers, directors and screenwriters accounted for a much higher proportion than they do now. You see, after a large number of actors were added to the jury in the 1960s and 1970s, the Oscar winners began to favor those roles that are hard to come by in real life."

In order to win the award, Ronald did in-depth research on the Oscars.

"You convinced me, Ronald. When I choose scripts for Tom in the future, I will give priority to how to bring out his aura as the protagonist..." Paula Wagner left with satisfaction. Indeed, Ronald was the first to promote Tom Cruise, so he would not shy away from talking about these things, nor would he want to use his celebrity status to get things done, so he could speak frankly and point out the misunderstandings that Tom Cruise had already fallen into in his career development.

You are a star who is supposed to be the protagonist, so don’t act like a supporting role!
……

"Action!"

The filming continued the next morning. On the set, a scene where the law firm welcomed Mitch was being filmed.

The camera slowly panned down from the bookcase against the ceiling in the background. This large bookcase for storing legal documents is a standard feature of good law firms in America.

The camera zooms in to a close-up of an elderly lawyer, with his arm around Mitch's shoulders:

"He is our first choice. Law firms in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and even Washington are competing with us for him, so we want him to feel our sincerity and try to retain this top student who is about to graduate with excellent grades in the top five of his Harvard class."

At this time, Tom Cruise showed some pride, some shyness, and some timidity in a proper way. All the expressions were not pulled to the maximum like his previous performances, but left some space for the audience to discover his psychological state by themselves.

The camera continued to pan to the left, where a group of supporting actors were pretending to listen. They smiled, showing their teeth, or pouting their lips, trying their best to create exaggerated effects so that the audience would remember their faces among all the actors.

"Cut!"

After Ronald and the director of photography confirmed it, they were happy to keep this. After Tom Cruise lowered the intensity of his performance, it was easier for the audience to get involved in his role. For the role of Mitch this time, Cruise did not have the problem of overly strong emotions in his previous performances.

"Not bad?" Tom Cruise also felt the value of this acting method. Being a smart man, he saw the possibility of looking like Jimmy Stewart, one of the greatest actors in Hollywood.

"Very good. Well, we have to reshoot all the scenes we filmed before, otherwise your performance will be too different. Well done, Tom..."

"Yeah, yeah..." Everyone at the scene applauded to cheer for Cruise.

"Yeah, yeah..." Holly Hunter, the female supporting actress who had a role to play, also came over and hugged Tom Cruise, "You finally got it... man."

"Thank you, thank you..." Tom Cruise bowed to everyone and gave a grateful look to Ronald. Now he really understood how the protagonist acted.

(End of this chapter)