Chapter 219 - I Will Play The Lead Role?
Chapter 219: I Will Play The Lead Role?
Duan Ke, Yan Wenwen, Ren Penghui, Yan Zekun and the othere were astonished, and as they watched Feng Huo scream, they couldn’t help but gulp.
The agent who had been dragged out of the water could only watch silently as Feng Huo was beaten, head lowered and mouth shut.
No mercy!
“This investor such a boss?” A young man managing the equipment laughed quietly, whispering to himself in stunned amazement. “I like it!”
“Old Mu, start the ship. Let’s head back!” Chu Xian called to Old Mu.
“Brother Chu Xian.” Duan Ke called out, and then gave him a thumbs up.
Chu Xian smiled and walked over to the director. He put his hand on his shoulder, and spoke: “We might need to go through some trouble to find another male lead, and we’ll need to redo everything we did these past two days.”
“That’s fine. I should have listened to you earlier. If we continued filming, I think I would have reached the point where I couldn’t resist hitting him either.” Duan Ke shook his head. Just now Feng Huo really had gone over the line and angered everyone, but because he had his status protecting him, nobody dared say anything. But unluckily for him, he just happened to meet Chu Xian.
“En, I’ve troubled everyone.” Chu Xian looked to the actors and actresses around him. “I’m really sorry, everyone. I’ll treat you all to dinner tonight.”
“Is everyone’s schedules particularly tight in the next few months?” Duan Ke looked to his crew members and asked.
Duan Ke’s movie would take around a month to film, but with this matter with Feng Huo, they would need to find a new actor to play the lead, and they would probably be delayed at least half a month.
“My schedule might be kind of tight. I’m already scheduled to act in a tv show in a month’s time.” Yan Wenwen thought for a moment and then replied.
Duan Ke frowned. It was not easy to cast the male lead for a movie; you always needed to reserve time with the big stars far ahead of schedule, and Duan Ke was not willing to settle for some small time celebrity for his precious lead role.
“Can we have Ren Penghui or Yan Zekun play the lead?” Chu Xian suggested when he saw Duan Ke’s furrowed brows.
Duan Ke considered this suggestion, but soon shook his head. Their acting skill was good, but neither of the two men were handsome enough or cool enough. It was also this reason that they’d been relegated to supporting roles throughout their career. The modern world cared a lot about the face, and if the film was not a comedy, it was important that the male lead be handsome.
“If we really cannot find anyone, I can always play myself, and we can have Ren Penghui play the lead role.” Chu Xian said as Duan Ke shook his head, assuming that the director was worried about filling the supporting role that the switching actor would leave behind.
When Duan Ke heard this suggestion, his eyes brightened and he turned to examine Chu Xian. After a moment, he nodded to himself.
“If we really need it, I can play a role, but I have to say that I don’t know how to act!” Chu Xian hesitated for a moment before nodding. He didn’t really want to put himself in the spotlight, and wasn’t looking to show himself to the public, since at the end of the day, he had many secrets that he could not show anyone.
“No problem. I think you can do it. Your acting skills can’t be worse than that of Feng Huo. We basically have no shot at finding a famous actor to play the male lead at this point, so we should just have you do it.”
“Brother Chu Xian, you will play the male lead!”
In the end, Duan Ke spoke with a look of certainty.
“Eh…”
Chu Xian was stunned, and so was the surrounding actors.
“No, I can’t, Big Brother Duan, Director Duan, if you want to have this movie turn out well then we cannot do this. At most I can play a supporting role, and then you can have Ren Penghui or Yan Zekun play the male lead.” Chu Xian hurriedly waved his hand.
“Why can we not? Brother Chu Xian, you should believe in yourself. Your face and your physic are already much more handsome than many of the celebrities nowadays, don’t you all agree?”
Duan Ke turned to the people beside him.
“Yes, Big Brother Chu Xian is very handsome, and I think even a normal person won’t be as bad as what we had just now, so there won’t be a problem if he plays the lead role.”
Yan Wenwen hurriedly nodded and replied.
“Yes, yes. Acting is alive, and brother Chu Xian is already very professional at all these things. I don’t think that there will be any problems.” Ren Penghui nodded and spoke up as well.
“Come, come. Do it, brother Chu Xian. This entire movie rests on your shoulders, if you don’t take the role, I really don’t know where I will find another acotr.” Duan Ke walked over to Chu Xian’s side and begged him.
“That’s right, Big Brother Chu Xian. Acting in a movie is very easy, if you don’t know what to do we can teach you. And this movie isn’t very demanding on the male lead.” Yan Wenwen also walked over and tried to persuade him; she thought it would be very interesting if Chu Xian played the male lead.
“I’ll think about it.” Chu Xian shook his head lightly, and did not reject or accept the offer.
“Alright, okay. Brother Chu Xian, just help me this once. I think you can do it. Getting some B tier or C tier actor would not be as good as just having you play the role.”
Chu Xian chuckled. The boat was nearing the shore, so he turned and changed the subject. “We’ll talk about it later, let’s return to shore first.”
The ship docked in the harbor, and Feng Huo’s agent immediately rushed to the celebrity actor’s side and helped him off the boat, and without a word, the pair directly left.
Many of the actors and actresses waiting on shore watched with expressions of confusion as Feng Huo left, and when they heard that he was no longer part of the movie, began whispering up a storm.
But when they saw all the important players on the ship completely satisfied with the arrangement, they could all guess that Feng Huo must have done something and got kicked off the cast.
As they thought back to what had happened on the set these past few days, they all understood. Some of the actors even quietly applauded the decision, and thought that Feng Huo got what he deserved for acting so high and mighty and arrogant.
The next morning, Chu Xian woke up and held his head in confusion. He remembered that the previous night he’d somehow gotten completely drunk, and afterwards been somehow tricked by Duan Ke and Yan Wenwen into agreeing to play the role.
“Ai, I’ll just take the role. In the entertainment industry nowadays, you can become popular quickly and then lose all that popularity just as quickly. As long as I don’t do anything afterwards, it’ll take at most two months and I’ll be forgotten.” Chu Xian reasoned to himself, and then got in his car and drove to the set.
After he thought it through, Chu Xian did not worry about the little matters.
“Brother Chu Xian!”
“Chu Xian!”
When he arrived on set, all the actors and actresses called out and greeted him. The news of what had happened yesterday had already spread, and all of them only had respect for Chu Xian, and they all gave him a big thumbs up.
But when they found out that the director also wanted him to play the lead role, they could only laugh, all of them finding the situation very amusing.
“Come, come, Brother Chu Xian. Let’s get your makeup started. We’ll be starting over filming, so we need to hurry a little bit.” Duan Ke called over as soon as he saw Chu Xian arrive.
Chu Xian helplessly nodded and walked over.
Very quickly, Chu Xian had changed into the fisherman’s clothes, and a simple coat of makeup covered his face.
“Good, excellent. You are much more handsome than that little pale face!” Duan Ke looked over Chu Xian’s outfit with complete satisfaction.
Yan Wenwen also looked him over, but her face held some hints of awkwardness. When she thought about what had happened the night before, her eyes held a bit of disappointment.
“We’ll start from the first scene. Everyone make your preparations. Brother Chu Xian, you got this. You’ll definitely be able to do it, no problem.” Duan Ke called out loudly.
“Action!”
The first scene began, and for Chu Xian, this act of separating and storing fish didn’t require any thought or acting. He just did what he would have done if he were on his own ship, and everything came very naturally.
“Okay, that take was great. Excellent!”
Duan Ke clapped in satisfaction, and they directly moved on to the next scene. After the days work was done, to their surprise, they had already caught up and refilmed everything they had scrapped from those first two days.
“Big Brother Chu Xian.” When they were wrapping up the day, Yan Wenwen walked over and handed Chu Xian a bottle of water.
Chu Xian smiled at her. “Thank you!”
“You are welcome. Oh, your girlfriend is very pretty.” Yan Wenwen forced a smile and replied.
Chu Xian nodded and smiled. “You are also beautiful, a goddess for millions of young men.”
Yan Wenwen smiled at the compliment. “Oh, Big Brother Chu xian, how long have you and your girlfriend been together?”
“Five years. She was by my side when I was a poor nobody, and in a blink of an eye, five years have passed.” Chu Xian smiled sweetly as he thought back on those days.
“Your girlfriend is very fortunate to have met a man like you with such talent and potential.” Yan Wenwen ducked her head and spoke quietly before turning away. “Oh, I forgot to get something.”
Chu Xian watched her walk away and chuckled.
“You’re not bad, brother. Impressive, very impressive!” As Yan Wenwen left, Duan Ke, Ren Penghui, and Yan Zekun walked over and gave him a big thumbs up.
“Heihei.” Chu Xian knew what they were talking about and chuckled. “Alright, give me the script. I’ll look it over tonight.”
“Yes, of course. Not a problem.” Duan Ke nodded, and then edged over and whispered. “You really don’t want to? The goddess?”
“Maybe another life.” Chu Xian was somewhat tempted, but he shook his head and patted their shoulders. “Let’s go, I need to get home for dinner.”
They all laughed.
The next day filming continued.
In the end, Chu Xian was not a great actor. His acting skills were about on par with those of Feng Huo, and when it came to the yelling scene, he was also cut many times and eventually passed after six or seven takes.
The filming afterwards also had its bumps and scrapes, and although his acting got a little better, it was only okay, and managed the minimum of not alienating the audience with awkwardness.
This continued for over ten days, and for the sake of filming, Chu Xian had to pause the plan to open the new aquarium store, and which cause Zhang Xiaohua to complain a lot.
He also could not move to take on the fish farm at Feng Tai Lake, and he had to postpone that as well and leave the fish farm completely unattended.
But luckily Duan Ke made it up to him somewhat and promised that he would bring the crew and the celebrities to the store to help his publicity on opening day.
Yan Wenwen, Ren Penghui, and Yan Zekun all promised they would come, and even helped him advertise the event on Weibo.
“Let’s go. Today we’ll be leaving behind the shore and heading farther into the water. We’ll be staying on the boat for four to five days. Everyone make your arrangements.”
On the twentieth day of filming, a large portion of the movie was already shot, and the most important sequence was coming up.
The shark hunting, and the crashing of ships.
They needed to sail the fishing ship out to the cruise ship area in the public waters and film some scenes there.