In the past, Feng Xian had received at least ten lawyer’s letters, so when he saw this Weibo post, he didn’t take it too seriously. He thought it was just like before – at most they would verbally threaten him a couple times and that’s it. So, after reading it, he directly deleted the Weibo post, thinking that would be the end of it. He started playing dead. No matter how much netizens ridiculed or scolded him, he never responded.
He thought that as long as he waited for the uproar to die down, everything would go back to normal. Feng Xian holed up at home for a full half month. Just when he thought it was about time he could return to Weibo, he unexpectedly received a court summons. Only then did Feng Xian realize that the Weibo post was not just a threat – it was serious.
While Feng Xian was in a fluster, the crew of A Farce was not idle either. Having won this brilliant turnaround, the uneasy atmosphere in the crew was completely swept away. Now with the filming about to wrap up, everyone was filled with motivation.
The atmosphere on their crew was especially good, so much so that when a director from next door came to borrow props from Ye Zhou, he couldn’t help but sigh in admiration. That director was also somewhat experienced, having led dozens of crews. Looking across the industry, aside from the famous big-name directors with their own teams, it was difficult to find another crew with an atmosphere as good as Ye Zhou’s.
Without Ye Zhou having to say anything, as long as the tasks for the day were not completed, almost all the staff would voluntarily work overtime and were unwilling to leave. That director had also privately asked some of Ye Zhou’s crew members why they were all so dedicated – could it be that Ye Zhou had cast some kind of spell over them?
The crew members’ responses were very straightforward: “Our Director Ye is really nice. Working for him doesn’t feel tiring at all.” Just then, it was time for lunch. The guy patted the director’s shoulder and said, “Have you eaten yet? If not, try the meals from our crew.”
The director had originally declined – after all, he still had a ton of things to do. Where would he find time to stay and eat? And boxed meals taste the same no matter where you eat them anyway. But he had barely taken two steps when he caught a very strong, appetizing aroma, causing him to halt in his tracks.
Seeing this, the crew member was surprised and asked, “Director Liu, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” The director waved his hand while turning back around. “I just suddenly remembered I don’t have anything going on after this, so I might as well eat before leaving.”
“I’ve heard your crew’s meals are pretty good. Come on, take me to try some.” Saying so, Director Liu enthusiastically grabbed the crew member’s arm.
The crew member was exasperated by his 180-degree change in attitude, but he wasn’t really surprised. After all, it was truly difficult for anyone to resist the appeal of their crew’s work meals!
After the meal, Director Liu let out a satisfied burp. He finally understood why Ye Zhou’s crew members were all so dedicated. With meals this good every day, it would be a crime not to work hard and properly appreciate the delicious food going into their stomachs!
As he reluctantly prepared to leave, Director Liu happened to bump into Ye Zhou, who had just returned, with a cold yet elegant young man following behind him.
Seeing each other, both were somewhat surprised. Then Ye Zhou smiled and greeted him, “Director Liu, leaving already?”
“Yes, yes.” Director Liu immediately nodded. Perhaps because he was still basking in the satisfaction of the meal, he uncharacteristically let go of his sternness and joked, “Director Ye, your crew’s meals are really good. You must be spending a small fortune every day, right?”
Ye Zhou was briefly taken aback by his question. On instinct, he responded, “Oh, this…”
In truth, he didn’t actually know since the crew’s chef had originally been brought in by Jiang Tingyuan. At the time, he had specifically asked how much they should pay these two chefs, but the boss said there was no need and that their salaries would be covered by Jingzhe.
From then on, the canteen expenses had been separated from the crew’s finances, so Ye Zhou wasn’t too clear himself on exactly how much was being spent.
However, Director Liu seemed genuinely curious, staring fixedly at Ye Zhou. Left with no choice, Ye Zhou could only look at Boss Jiang beside him for help.
Jiang Tingyuan actually didn’t really want to say. But unable to resist Ye Zhou’s unfairly adorable gaze, the boss eventually couldn’t hold himself back. “Not much, just over a hundred thousand or so,” Jiang Tingyuan said after a slight hesitation, lowering the price a bit.
Ye Zhou: “???”
What the hell was the boss saying? He could understand every single word by itself, but when they were put together, he couldn’t make any sense of it!
Director Liu beside them: “!!!”
Damn! He realized his previous guesses had been totally wrong. Perhaps the crew members weren’t solely motivated by the meals, but possibly also because…this crew was freaking rich!!
In a daze, Director Liu numbly nodded and left the studio on unsteady feet.
After he left, Ye Zhou stood frozen in place for a long time. Jiang Tingyuan was also a bit helpless, softly sighing as he reached out to grasp Ye Zhou’s paw and pulled him into the studio. However, after two steps, he found the person still motionless, standing there like a statue.
Left with no choice, Jiang Tingyuan could only move back to his side and lower his voice by his ear, “It’s not a lot of money, don’t stress over it.”
Hearing this, Ye Zhou nearly cried. It wasn’t just stressful, it was way too stressful!
Any director would feel immense pressure knowing their crew’s canteen alone cost over a hundred thousand a day. For smaller crews, their expenses for a whole week might not even reach that much!
“Jiang-ge, tell me the truth, it’s really just over a hundred thousand?” Ye Zhou asked in a trembling voice.
Jiang Tingyuan looked at his expression and nodded, “…Yes.”
“You hesitated, you hesitated!” Ye Zhou wasn’t stupid. Seeing that, he immediately understood that Boss Jiang was definitely not telling the truth. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll go ask Chef Zhang!”
Chef Zhang was one of their crew’s head chefs. He was famously honest and straightforward, never telling lies.
Seeing Ye Zhou’s attitude, Jiang Tingyuan fell silent for a few seconds before slowly responding, “Two hundred thousand.”
Ye Zhou was instantly stunned, his whole face the picture of grief and indignation. “I call BS, and I have evidence! The total investment for this movie isn’t even 20 million, but just on food, it’s costing 200,000 a day…”
Looking at this number alone, it doesn’t seem that high. But it’s important to know this is only the daily expense. Normally, shooting a movie takes at least 4-5 months to complete. For bigger productions, shooting for 1-2 years is not uncommon.
For Ye Zhou’s crew, up until now they had been filming for over 5 months. At 200,000 per day, just the food costs alone were close to 10 million.
Perhaps because Ye Zhou’s expression was too fierce, even Boss Jiang didn’t know how to console him. After a long while, he slowly said, “Don’t you like spending money? It’s all spent on you, isn’t that good?”
Strictly speaking, Jiang Tingyuan had only revealed half the costs. Earlier, when Ye Zhou had a fever, in order to nourish his body, he airlifted many nutritional ingredients from Country D at a high price and instructed the chef to keep an eye to make sure Ye Zhou ate them.
Just those expensive ingredients, plus the special storage and shipping fees, added at least 300,000-400,000 more per day. Of course, Boss Jiang would definitely not mention this part.
Ye Zhou clutched his chest, taking a long time to recover. This price was truly beyond what he could accept. By now, he had already forgotten his earlier bold claim to spend all of Boss Jiang’s money. After being reminded by Boss Jiang, he twisted his expression and said, “I…do like spending money, but that money should be spent meaningfully, right?”
Boss Jiang’s brows furrowed. “Is spending on food not meaningful?”
Boss Jiang was having trouble following Ye Zhou’s logic. Having accumulated wealth to his level, frankly speaking, money was just a string of numbers. In Boss Jiang’s eyes, proper nutrition was crucial to maintaining health. There was nothing more meaningful than health.
Ye Zhou had more or less calmed down by now. He sighed and said with difficulty, “It’s meaningful.” Too meaningful, just a bit expensive.
“But I think filming should be done under relatively harsh conditions. Otherwise, the final work would lack soul.” Ye Zhou decisively continued, “So, Jiang-ge, please send the chefs back. I think eating boxed meals is perfectly fine.”
Of course, Boss Jiang could not agree. Sending the chefs back, then letting Ye Zhou go back to eating that junk food? No way.
The two remained at an impasse for a few minutes until the assistant director came to gather everyone, breaking the deadlock. Fortunately, after Ye Zhou’s unremitting efforts, although the boss did not take the chefs back, he did agree to stop air-freighting ingredients.
This way, although the costs were still high, they could at least be reduced by half. Ye Zhou was deeply relieved.
Not long after the shooting started in the afternoon, Boss Jiang left early after receiving a call from the company, but not before reminding Ye Zhou, as usual, “Don’t sneak out to eat junk food.”
After finding out his crew’s meals were so extravagantly priced, Ye Zhou no longer had any desire for junk food. He very cooperatively nodded.
With Boss Jiang gone, Ye Zhou devoted himself wholly to the shoot. Since Ye Zhou liked to film the more difficult scenes earlier, although they were nearing the end, the remaining shots were not too challenging.
The shooting these past two days had gone very smoothly, but this afternoon some issues suddenly came up.
“Cut.” Ye Zhou’s brows furrowed as he called for a stop. “Xie-laoshi1“老师” (lǎoshī), which directly translates to “teacher,” is also a respectful way to address professionals in various fields, including actors. It connotes respect for their mastery and expertise in their craft, acknowledging them as learned individuals and educators in the arts., come over here, please.”
Once Xie Gefei came over, Ye Zhou showed him the footage they had just shot, then said after a moment: “The feeling here isn’t quite right.”
Ye Zhou: “It’s a bit overdone, too deliberate, which makes the problem even more obvious.”
Xie Gefei nodded, his voice apologetic. “I’m sorry, Director Ye, let me try again.”
However, this time Xie Gefei’s portrayal of Killer No. 3 was still stiff due to the emotional ups and downs, which was even worse than before. After over a dozen NGs in a row, even someone as easygoing as Xie Gefei couldn’t help feeling discouraged.
Ye Zhou silently watched the monitor while the assistant director went to comfort Xie Gefei and help adjust his emotions for the next take.
This scene was between Killer No. 3 and the judge, after No. 3 got arrested and was brought to court. The opposing lawyer read out one charge after another against him, while No. 3 remained silent from start to finish, not defending himself at all. Just as the judge was about to announce the final verdict, No. 3, who had been quiet and cooperative the whole time, suddenly moved and swallowed the poison he had prepared long ago. Under everyone’s horrified gazes, he slowly collapsed to the ground.
After staring at the monitor for about ten minutes, Ye Zhou suddenly stood up with the script in hand and walked over to Xie Gefei, asking: “What do you think No. 3 was thinking right before his death?”
Xie Gefei was briefly stunned. After thinking for a bit, he said: “It should be…scorn for the law, refusing to accept the court’s verdict, choosing to end his own life first before the results came out…”
“No, that’s not it.” Before he could finish, Ye Zhou cut him off. “He never had contempt for the law. You can tell from his prior actions. Someone who scorns the law wouldn’t give up escaping when the police found him.”
“With his skills, he could have escaped if he really wanted to then, but he didn’t.”
Hearing Ye Zhou’s analysis, Xie Gefei froze. Then his brows knitted tightly together as he thought hard for a long time before responding uncertainly: “Is it possible he had blind confidence in himself? After all, ever since he started as a hitman, he had never failed before. This was the first time he failed.”
“So, he wanted to regain his dignity from the police, but it backfired, and he ended up sacrificing himself instead.”
Upon hearing this, Ye Zhou didn’t respond.
Just then, the assistant director popped his head over and gave his own opinion: “What Xie-laoshi said makes a lot of sense. No. 3 is a very complicated character. Before meeting Fang Wei, he had never failed. This failure must have been a huge blow.”
Ye Zhou suddenly shook his head. “No, No. 3 wouldn’t do that.”
“Why wouldn’t he?” The assistant director blurted out reflexively.
He looked to Xie Gefei at the side. Ye Zhou’s expression was extremely solemn and serious, his voice tinged with stubbornness as he said: “He just wouldn’t. As long as he’s No. 3, he wouldn’t do that.”
Xie Gefei himself also knew that NG-ing so many times must be because he hadn’t found the right emotions for the role, unable to empathize with the character. But no matter how much he thought about it, he just couldn’t seem to find the right answer.
So even though he clearly knew that his mental state was off, he couldn’t find a breakthrough. He could only keep NG-ing over and over, trying to find inspiration through the performance, but in the end, they were still stuck here.
“Do you still remember the question I asked you during your audition back then? How did you answer it?” Ye Zhou asked.
Xie Gefei was somewhat confused but quickly recalled what happened during the audition that day.
“You asked me, what kind of role should No. 3 be?” His voice was uncertain.
After hesitating for a few seconds, he continued: “At the time I said, he is a pure yet…has a low self-esteem kind of character.”
Saying this, Xie Gefei’s tone suddenly rose in disbelief as he asked: “You mean…?”
Ye Zhou affirmed: “Xie-laoshi, you are an excellent professional actor. Sometimes, you can completely trust your own instincts and flesh out the role according to your own ideas.”
“Being prudent is good, but being overly cautious, constantly doubting yourself, and sticking to rigid acting patterns will gradually make you lose this intuition and inspiration.”
As Ye Zhou’s words landed, Xie Gefei’s attractive eyes widened sharply. “You, you knew…”
Ye Zhou sighed. Yes, he had noticed Xie Gefei’s problem long ago. It was just that Xie Gefei had still been able to cope smoothly with the earlier scenes, so Ye Zhou hadn’t said anything.
He had originally wanted to wait for Xie Gefei to notice the issue himself during filming and make adjustments, but he didn’t.
Xie Gefei’s problem was not uncommon. On the contrary, it was something many classically trained actors encountered when first starting out.
Their acting was too templatized. They knew exactly what emotions should be shown for each situation, when to smile, when to cry, when to get angry. They could handle it all perfectly, flawlessly even. But being flawless was precisely the biggest flaw.
To give a simple example, people would often see a celebrity constantly playing a certain archetype of role. After some time, even if they suddenly switched roles one day, the impression they gave audiences would still feel the same, mediocre yet also lacking individuality.
It was as if no matter how complex a role they were given, once they truly started acting and followed the templates they had learned, that role would seem no different from all the others they had played before, like the same person from start to finish.
Take Liu Ruihua from Ye Zhou’s crew, for instance. Liu-laoshi was famously known in the industry as a villain specialist, an absolute veteran. But when people brought up Liu Ruihua, all they thought of were the villains he had portrayed.
Hadn’t he also played positive roles before? Of course, he had. In earlier years, Liu Ruihua had made attempts to change things up, even giving up high-paying jobs to take on some unconventional roles, precisely to seek a breakthrough. But he failed, and it was not difficult to find out the reason. When an actor keeps performing the same way year after year, that performative template gets ingrained into his bones. As soon as he starts acting, he’ll subconsciously follow that template.
Wanting to break through not only requires self-effort but also strong resources and guidance from famous directors. Undoubtedly, this was very difficult.
Xie Gefei was currently in this kind of state. Villains should be sinister and scheming, protagonists should be upright and frank – these rigid notions completely restricted his imagination, further limiting his talents.
This was also likely related to Xie Gefei’s frustration in recent years. After all, as an extra, as long as he acted appropriately without stealing the spotlight from the leads, directors would be satisfied. If he performed too exceptionally and stole the leads’ limelight, it would instead draw the directors’ displeasure.
Over time, Xie Gefei developed this habit. He would act however the script dictated, however Ye Zhou instructed, smiling when told to smile, crying when told to cry. He was long used to suppressing his own brilliance. If not for Ye Zhou’s reminder just now, Xie Gefei might have even forgotten himself.
“You are an excellent actor. As long as you wish, you can take on any role.”
From that day forth, these words were deeply engraved in Xie Gefei’s heart as if tattooed on, all the way until much later when he had become the nation’s first domestically recognized Grand Slam actor to sweep all major domestic film awards. When asked “How do you manage to portray such extremely contrasting roles so perfectly?”, Xie Gefei would always think back to that afternoon, the tranquil studio, and these words Ye Zhou had said to him.
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