Chapter 315: The Importance of Black People to Film

"I heard you went back to Canada a few days ago?"

Sitting casually on the sofa, Duke asked Ellen Page in a conversational tone, "It should be almost winter over there, right?"

Ellen Page nodded. "It's already snowing back home, but summer is just starting here. The world is truly amazing."

"Making movies is a process of experiencing the wonders of the world," Duke laughed. "You get to discover the magic of suddenly switching from winter to summer, and you get to see why others are happy or sad."

He chatted casually with the little girl for a bit.

Seeing her gradually relax, Duke changed the subject. "I heard from Kate that you had a great time playing with her?"

"Yeah, I usually just call her Mom." She reached out and hugged Kate Beckinsale's arm. "Kate really likes me, and I really like Kate."

"Then you should be perfectly happy when you're with her," Duke guided her. "Why were you so stiff just now?"

"Uh..." Ellen Page shook her small head. "I was just a bit nervous."

"Kate is your mother," Duke said, shooting a glance at Kate Beckinsale.

She immediately picked up the cue. "That's right, sweetheart. You were never this nervous when we spent time together before."

"I just..." She lowered her head. "I'm a little afraid of doing a bad job."

"And now?" Duke asked.

"I'll prove myself!"

A child around ten years old was at the perfect age for being competitive.

"Just wait and see," she said.

"I'll be waiting," he said.

Duke pointed a finger at her and was about to stand up to head back behind the monitor when the girl across from him suddenly leaned in. Lowering her voice so only the three of them could hear, she asked, "Can I ask you a question? I've been wondering about it for a long time. If I don't get the answer, my curiosity is going to torture me."

"Go ahead," Duke said casually.

"Well..." Ellen Page turned to look at Kate Beckinsale, stuck out her tongue, and asked, "Are all Hollywood directors as patient as you?"

"You'll understand in the future." Duke smiled and walked away.

During the subsequent filming, Ellen Page's acting was still a bit tight, but it was a massive improvement over the test shoot. Sometimes, talent was simply something hard work couldn't replace. With each consecutive take, her performance grew better and better. In Duke's eyes, if he could guide Ellen Page fully into the zone during the upcoming scenes, she could easily rival the artsy Scarlett Johansson's performance in The Horse Whisperer.

Especially on the fourth take, anyone could see Ellen Page's enormous progress. Compared to this astoundingly talented girl, Kate Beckinsale was truly just going through the motions of acting. Duke wasn't entirely sure what her greatest talent was, but it certainly wasn't acting.

As an actress, Kate Beckinsale's talent could only be described as exceedingly average.

Later on, her scene opposite Liam Neeson, who played Officer Michael, fully exposed her shortcomings.

Liam Neeson had been around Hollywood for years and wasn't exactly known for phenomenal acting chops either; his raw talent was only about average. Yet, compared to him, Kate Beckinsale was clearly leagues behind.

Duke watched the footage on the monitor and didn't immediately call cut.

Catherine, the character played by Kate Beckinsale, was married to an armored car guard who had been shot and killed during a robbery. Michael, the officer investigating the case, was tasked with delivering the news. The tender family bliss Catherine had just shared with her daughter instantly vanished, replaced by a deep sorrow that permeated every corner of the house.

According to the demands of the script and the scene, Kate Beckinsale needed to convey a complex layered mix of emotions: shock, disbelief, denial, and utter heartbreak. However, her beautiful face was simply too stiff. Even though she managed to contort her features into the right expressions, the performance felt far too deliberate and forced.

In other words, she was acting for the sake of acting.

"Cut!"

Duke finally called cut and had his assistant call Kate Beckinsale over. Pointing to the playback on the monitor, he asked, "Can you see the issue here?"

"Mhm." Kate Beckinsale watched it for a moment and nodded.

"You have ten minutes to adjust."

After Duke finished speaking, Kate Beckinsale headed over to the temporary rest area, and a makeup artist immediately trailed after her for touch-ups.

Ten minutes flew by. Once filming resumed, Kate Beckinsale's performance was a little better, but the improvement was extremely limited.

The moment a person suffered a massive emotional blow was often the ultimate test of acting chops. Rapidly cycling through a myriad of expressions in just a few short seconds was something even Kate Beckinsale during her peak in Van Helsing would find exceptionally difficult to pull off, let alone her current self.

In this situation, there was absolutely no need for him to break the scene down for her. What the scene required of the actor was blatantly obvious, and Duke couldn't really offer Kate Beckinsale much guidance on the craft itself. As a professional actress, her acting skills were still vastly superior to his own.

"Cut!"

After calling cut for the umpteenth time, a touch of anger gradually crept into Duke's voice, even if he wasn't exactly a James Cameron-style tyrant on set. Half the afternoon had already slipped away on a single shot, and the entire production crew couldn't just sit around endlessly burning time on one actress.

"I'm sorry..."

The crew took a short break. Knowing full well that she was entirely the bottleneck, Kate Beckinsale hurried over to apologize to Duke.

"Just maintain your best state."

Losing his temper wouldn't solve anything, so Duke thought for a moment before adding, "I'll make some appropriate adjustments."

Since the actress couldn't deliver, he had no choice as the director but to make a few adjustments to stay on schedule. These changes wouldn't impact the overall film much, but they would definitely affect the actress.

The adjustment was actually quite simple. The camera had been locked onto a tight frontal close-up of Kate Beckinsale. By widening the shot to include her entire body and shifting the camera to a side profile angle, the glaring flaws in her performance would be safely obscured.

Under normal circumstances, a director would never treat a lead actor like this. Actors needed ample close-up screen time to leave a lasting impression on the audience. Unless a director was intentionally trying to screw over an actor, or the actor was genuinely incapable of meeting the demands of the scene, very few would resort to a side profile when a direct close-up was warranted.

Yes, Duke could have just kept grinding through take after take. Strictly speaking, the production had plenty of time.

The problem was that after nearly twenty botched takes, he realized Kate Beckinsale's malleability was painfully average. Her degree of improvement after endless repetition could only be described as better than nothing. There was simply no point in wasting any more time.

Sure enough, roles like pure eye candy or a stiff-faced, expressionless vampire were ultimately the best fit for her.

Duke could only resign himself to that conclusion. Acting, like most professions in the world, had a strict talent barrier. Those lacking innate talent often had to put in ten times the effort—or more—just to deliver an outstanding performance.

If Kate Beckinsale spent five to ten years grinding in the indie film circuit, her acting might see a massive leap. But achieving that sort of growth over the short production cycle of a single movie was absolutely impossible.

Besides, with her gorgeous looks and baseline acting chops, she just needed a bit of luck to carve out an incredibly comfortable career in this industry.

How many actresses were genuinely willing to give up the easy money and fame of being eye candy, just to suffer through the chaotic, low-paying indie film scene to hone their craft?

Not to mention, out of everyone who threw themselves headfirst into indie films, how many actually made it big?

Seeing the crew adjust the camera angles, Kate Beckinsale immediately realized Duke's intentions. Her expression soured, but Duke couldn't care less about her feelings. Wasting time meant wasting money. As both the director and producer of this crew, the only people he had to answer to were the executives at Warner Brothers.

Filming quickly resumed. After only two NGs, Duke approved the shot, bringing the day's shoot to a close.

Shooting a film was a long, grueling marathon, and the director was the ultimate authority on set. At Duke's current standing, he was the undisputed master of the entire production. Just like any other crew, the Daylight cast and crew needed a break-in period. After a slow, somewhat rusty first week, the production gradually hit its stride by mid-November. The actors all settled into their roles and found their rhythm, and the shoot as a whole proceeded rather smoothly.

The only lingering issue was that Kate Beckinsale clearly held a grudge against Duke after that camera adjustment. Duke, however, didn't care in the slightest. When it came down to choosing between the film and a single actress, there wasn't even a choice to be made.

Compared to Kate Beckinsale's highly visible acting traces, former teen idol Jennifer Love Hewitt actually gave Duke a pleasant surprise. Over the past month, whenever she wasn't rehearsing lines or studying her script, she spent almost all her time embedded in a drug rehabilitation center on the outskirts of Wellington, talking with teenage girls who were genuine addicts.

Hard work didn't always guarantee a payoff, but a lack of effort guaranteed failure. Jennifer Love Hewitt's portrayal of the rebellious, drug-addicted daughter was undeniably the greatest surprise of the production so far.

"I value this role a lot."

During breaks in filming, she would often seek Duke out to discuss her character, occasionally steering the conversation toward other topics.

"From the very beginning of my career, I've been branded as a teen idol," she said. "It's my biggest asset, but transitioning away from that label is incredibly difficult. I fought hard to finally land a role that fits me so perfectly."

Jennifer Love Hewitt looked at Duke in dead earnest. "I know full well that my shelf life as a teen idol is almost up. If I don't seize this chance and give it everything I have, Hollywood will forget who I am in the blink of an eye. I am willing to pay any price to meet your expectations. Honestly, if you think my acting is lacking, I can actually take drugs before shooting the scenes where the character loses her mind from the addiction."