Chapter 66: The Legendary Lee

As time slowly crept toward mid-April and Duke finished all post-production work, he followed Warner's schedule and accepted an exclusive interview for the entertainment section of the Los Angeles Times. The interview took place at Rock Studio. Aside from the routine promotional push for The Rock, a significant portion of the conversation revolved around John Mason and Christopher Lee, just as they had coordinated beforehand.

"Rumor has it that you initially wanted to invite Sean Connery to play John Mason?"

Sarah, the reporter sitting across from Duke, asked, "Why did you abandon that idea and choose Christopher Lee instead?"

"Mason is an incredibly formidable agent, even if he is getting up there in years." Duke threw a perfectly timed phantom punch, prompting the reporter to immediately reply, "Yes, we could see that in the trailer."

"Actually, in my initial concept..."

Having received guidance from Warner's public relations team beforehand, Duke understood how to leverage momentum for publicity. "The ideal candidate for Mason was an explosively capable action star like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Unfortunately, Mr. Schwarzenegger accepted a role in True Lies, so I had to look for someone else."

"So what you're saying," the reporter immediately seized on the key point, "is that Sean Connery wasn't the first choice for John Mason either."

"Exactly." Duke nodded at once, lying without missing a beat. "Someone later recommended Mr. Connery to me, and I felt he was a suitable alternative."

He deliberately emphasized the words "alternative" and "audition." "As a result, the production team sent him an audition invitation. We never finalized Sean Connery to play John Mason. He was merely one of the candidates. Even though he played 007, that was far too long ago. As you can see from the trailer, Mason is a fierce and ruthless agent—completely different from Bond."

"Then why did you choose Christopher Lee?"

"It went like this. To find the right actor, I watched a few 007 films from the past dozen years."

Lying through his teeth was an essential survival skill in Hollywood. "Then I saw The Man with the Golden Gun. Everyone should have seen this movie; it's widely recognized as the 007 film where the villain's charisma outshines Bond himself. Lee played The Man with the Golden Gun. At the time, I felt that he was exactly the John Mason I needed. I had my assistant pull up his file, and after I read it..."

Making a few exaggerated gestures, Duke said, "Shock is the only word to describe the feeling. At first, I thought it had to be fake. Warner even sent an official inquiry to the British Government to verify it. The results proved the file was completely genuine."

"What exactly did you see?" the reporter hurriedly asked.

"After reading his file, I felt that Lee simply was Mason. No one could be more suitable." Duke deliberately laced his tone with shock, as if he still couldn't believe it. "Christopher Lee is a living legend. I mean him personally, his actual life experiences! There are plenty of people in Hollywood with better acting skills or higher achievements than him, but when it comes to being a secret agent, absolutely no one can surpass him!"

"Not even Sean Connery?"

"Sean Connery?" Duke said with a trace of disdain. "Everyone thinks Sean Connery is suitable for John Mason because he once played the fictional agent James Bond. But Christopher Lee served as an actual secret agent for nearly a decade! He was a member of the British Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare during World War II!"

"Oh my God!"

The reporter cried out in surprise. As someone who covered entertainment news, how could she not know that the original James Bond novels were adapted from the real experiences of agents in the British Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare?

...

"Is this true? A real British secret agent? Not a fake like Sean Connery?"

Sitting in a Manhattan ice cream shop, Aerin—one of the few girls who was genuinely interested in action movies—was asking her roommate, Anna.

Anna, a student at the New York University Film Production Institute, was reading a copy of the Los Angeles Times. "It's definitely true," she said. "The Los Angeles Times has already verified it with the British Government!"

"I can't believe Hollywood has such a unique actor like Christopher Lee." Aerin's face was full of disbelief.

"His resume is right here. Do you want to read it, Miss Lauder?" Anna handed the newspaper over, and Aerin practically snatched it from her. The front-page headline was just as eye-catching as the pictures of the medals Lee had earned.

"Christopher Lee, who plays the role of John Mason in The Rock, is a living legend. I'm not talking about his acting career—there are plenty of people with better acting skills and higher achievements than him. I mean the man himself; he is a legend!"

Aerin's eyes quickly moved down to the detailed information below.

"At seventeen, Lee went to Finland to join the army and fight the Soviet Union. After fighting the Soviets, he returned to Britain and joined the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) to fight the Nazis in Egypt. Just how formidable was this unit? The German Field Marshal Rommel personally said that the damage caused by the LRDG was greater than any other British force!"

"According to British Government records, Lee drove a machine-gun-mounted Chevrolet hundreds of kilometers behind Nazi lines under the scorching Sahara Desert sun, infiltrated their airfields, and blew German fighter planes to pieces. He left behind nothing but scrap metal and a pile of German soldiers lying in pools of blood. The Italian army, who fought alongside the German forces, once called Lee's detachment the Ghost Patrol!"

"Returning to Britain from the Egyptian desert, Lee hadn't tasted enough blood. He turned around and joined the Special Operations Executive of the British Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare—the predecessor to the intelligence agency James Bond belonged to—and became a true secret agent. He carried out reconnaissance, espionage, and sabotage missions in Nazi-occupied territories. Having braved death countless times and established an illustrious military record, Britain, the Czech Republic, Yugoslavia, and Poland all awarded him combat medals! By the way, Tito was a close personal friend of his!"

"A few years after the end of World War II, Christopher Lee retired from his roles as a soldier and an agent with a successful legacy, but his career as an actor had only just begun. The author of 007, Fleming, was Lee's cousin. They fought side-by-side in the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. James Bond is essentially adapted from the experiences of Lee, Fleming, and their comrades-in-arms!"

"Lee is absolutely not one of those actors who just looks the part of a secret agent; he is also a fencing champion..."

Seeing this, Aerin blinked and turned to her companion who was eating ice cream next to her. "Anna, are you sure this is real? It's too unbelievable! It's simply impossible to believe!"

"It's definitely real." Anna handed her copies of the New York Times and the Washington Post. "There are related reports in these papers too. Without verification, the Big Three Newspapers would never publish this on the front pages of their entertainment sections!"

After reading the Big Three Newspapers, Aerin simply ran over to the ice cream shop's newspaper rack and gathered up all the remaining papers. Aside from a few tabloids like the Daily Mail and the New York Post, the vast majority of the newspapers carried reports about Christopher Lee, prominently placed on the front pages of their entertainment sections. The possibility of this news being faked was minuscule. The Los Angeles Times even printed a copy of the official reply letter from the British Government. The Big Three Newspapers wouldn't fabricate a lie that could be so easily exposed.

"I used to think Sean Connery was pretty good, being the first-generation 007 and all."

It had to be said that the overwhelming media coverage, combined with Christopher Lee's verified legendary experiences, had inadvertently changed many people's opinions. "Seeing this now, I realize Connery's so-called secret agent experience is entirely unnoteworthy. Compared to Lee's real history, he's just like a clueless baby."

"Sean Connery was crude and impulsive in his youth. I've read some of the reports." Aerin curled her lip. "I watched the earliest 007 movies, and I always felt he was a bit dense, like a fool. I don't know why, but as he's gotten older these past few years, he suddenly transformed into a gentleman."

"Who cares!" Showing the carefree side of youth, she brushed it off. "When the time comes, let's go see The Rock together and check out that former British secret agent!"

"I think the tall and imposing Lee is far better suited for the role of an agent than Connery."

Public opinion was always shifting. A person could be the media's darling one day, only to be dragged through the mud the next. Under the public relations maneuvering of Warner Brothers, Christopher Lee's real-life experiences spread across all of North America in just a few short days. Perhaps Hollywood actors had gone on to become President, and other prominent figures might emerge in the future, but a genuine secret agent who had actively served for years was absolutely rare.

As for Sean Connery, although the media still compared him to Christopher Lee, very few people continued to believe he was better suited for the role of John Mason. Even when tabloids owned by the News Group claimed that real-life experience and acting skills were two entirely different things, and that Lee's acting was inferior to Connery's, not many people bought it.

After all, Lee was also a veteran actor with decades of performance experience, boasting famous roles like The Man with the Golden Gun. As everyone knew, Sean Connery was never renowned for his acting prowess. When weighing a real former secret agent against a fictional one, the public possessed enough basic judgment to see which was more convincing, even if they were susceptible to being swayed by public opinion.

If Sean Connery was a scarce resource for playing retired agent roles, then Christopher Lee was an absolutely unique, unparalleled asset in Hollywood.

But that wasn't all. By leveraging this rivalry with Sean Connery, Christopher Lee's fame temporarily skyrocketed, even before The Rock premiered. He received audition invitations from several production crews and, during one such audition, snatched the leading male role in First Knight directly out of Sean Connery's hands. After Warner used the media to hype it up further, voices even began to emerge claiming that Sean Connery's acting skills couldn't compare to Christopher Lee's.

These were all promotional tactics. Warner temporarily held the upper hand, and, embracing the spirit of kicking a man while he was down, they leaked many of Sean Connery's shady, under-the-table affairs to the public!