Chapter 745: Leonardo

In Paris, Duke primarily filmed scenes between the male lead played by Leonardo and the dream architect Ariadne. When the crew arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport, Scarlett Johansson and Michael Caine, who had arrived ahead of time, were already waiting for them.

Setting aside the snowy mountain exterior shots in Canada, Paris was the crew's final overseas stop.

Thanks to extensive rehearsals during pre-production, the crew swiftly settled into their filming rhythm once they shook off the jet lag.

Filming in Paris did bring its share of headaches, however. Duke needed to shoot several explosion scenes, but the Parisian authorities were having none of it, strictly forbidding the crew from using explosives. Fortunately, Duke had come prepared. He had already tasked Joss William's team with conducting extensive experiments to simulate explosions using high-pressure nitrogen.

The crew had spent weeks testing the rig during pre-production, and the practical results were exceptional. Even though the two leads were positioned at the very center of the blast zone, they were completely unaffected during filming; not even the paper cups on the table twitched.

Captured in high-speed slow motion by six cameras positioned at different angles, the explosion debris drifted through the air like suspended matter, delivering a profoundly stunning visual impact.

After wrapping Scarlett and Leonardo's scenes together, Charlize Theron, who had been promoting the South Africa World Cup, arrived in Paris on schedule to report to Duke and the crew.

Duke rented a historic hotel in Paris to film the scene where Charlize Theron's character jumps out of a window.

Naturally, they didn't shoot this on an upper floor. The actual set was on the ground floor. Through forced perspective and editing, they could easily achieve the necessary effect on screen.

Outside the hotel, on the perimeter of the set, Scarlett stood with her arms crossed, watching Charlize Theron sit on the windowsill. She pursed her lips slightly.

She turned to Tina Fey, who was standing beside her, and said, "She stabbed me during the morning shoot."

Tina Fey turned her head, giving Scarlett a slightly baffled look. She didn't quite understand what the actress meant. The morning's scene had involved Scarlett entering Leonardo's character's dream and being killed by a character in the subconscious...

Scarlett let her right hand drop, gently rubbing the spot just beneath her bust line. "I don't know if she did it on purpose. When she stabbed me with the prop knife, she pushed a little too hard. It still hurts even now..."

"Uh..."

Tina Fey didn't know what to say. Nobody could say for certain whether the other party had done it on purpose, and even if she had, no one could really say anything under those circumstances.

Scarlett continued glaring at Charlize Theron on the windowsill, muttering something under her breath. She was likely plotting a way to return the favor.

However, the moment the shoot began, she snapped her mouth shut. Scarlett knew better than anyone that she couldn't let anything interfere with Duke's work, no matter the reason.

Two cameras crossed diagonally without obstructing each other, pointed at Leonardo and Charlize Theron in front of opposite windows. The boom mic for the live audio slowly descended from above to the upper edge of the window.

Leonardo stepped up to the window. Seeing Charlize Theron perched on the opposite ledge, he asked in sheer astonishment, "Darling, what are you doing?"

"Come join me," Charlize Theron said, occasionally swinging her legs.

"Just step back inside," Leonardo coaxed, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. "Okay? Come back inside, hurry!"

"No!" Charlize Theron refused without hesitation. As the lighting crew adjusted the ambient light, her face gradually slipped into shadow. "I'm going to jump, and I want you to jump with me!"

"No, I'm not going to jump." Leonardo gave a subtle shake of his head. "Darling, listen to me now. If you jump right now, you won't wake up, understand? You'll die! So just come back inside, all right?"

"Please!" he pleaded. "Come back inside, and we'll talk this through."

"We've talked enough!"

With that, Charlize Theron kicked off one of her high heels. The shoe plummeted, landing on the green safety mat spread out beneath the window.

"Sally!" Leonardo immediately furrowed his brow, his eyes wide.

"Climb out here right now, or I'm going to jump..."

Charlize Theron was cut off mid-sentence by Duke's shout, "Cut!"

He beckoned to Leonardo. The actor hopped down from the window and closed the distance to Duke in a few strides.

"My fault?" he asked, pointing to himself.

"Furrowing your brow, widening your eyes..." Duke played back the shot they had just filmed, pointing at one of Leonardo's movements and saying bluntly, "I've mentioned the three biggest flaws in your acting, and you just showed two of them at the exact same time!"

Leonardo rubbed his chin. Studying the frozen frame on Duke's monitor, he nodded. "I'll work on fixing that."

Duke waved him off. "Go get your makeup touched up. We'll go again."

Years ago, Duke had already pointed out to Leonardo the three biggest problems with his acting: furrowing his brow, widening his eyes, and shouting...

They were three glaringly obvious problems. The most direct consequence was that, in certain respects, every character he played simply turned into Leonardo DiCaprio.

From the time he met Leonardo DiCaprio while filming Saving Private Ryan in 1995 until now, Duke knew full well that Leonardo's acting was far from bad. He might have lacked a bit of talent, but his tremendous effort was visible in every film he did.

Among actors of a similar caliber, Leonardo was undoubtedly one of the hard-working ones.

Duke still remembered how staggered he had been watching a particular scene in Django Unchained. While filming, Leonardo had accidentally slammed his hand down on shattered glass, leaving his hand covered in blood. Any normal person would have instinctively looked down at their hand or cried out, but Leonardo didn't. He calmly continued acting, even improvising by smearing his bloody hand across a female slave's face, perfectly portraying a cold, bloodthirsty, and mercenary Southern slave owner.

Nowadays, it was common in Hollywood—and the broader North American film industry—to compare Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, and Leonardo DiCaprio. The three shared commonalities: they were all top-tier Hollywood megastars, they all wanted to win the Golden Statuette for Best Actor, and they were all consistently unappreciated by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

In truth, as long as the trio maintained their status, they were bound to earn the Academy's validation eventually. History was littered with such precedents, and Oscar acting awards had never been purely dictated by the character or the performance anyway.

But of the three, Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio both walked very broad career paths. Johnny Depp was different; if the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise were to ever stumble, it wouldn't be long before he fell from his superstar position.

This also had to do with their differing styles. To a certain extent, Brad Pitt took the elegant rogue route, which suited his image; playing it a bit roguish naturally won over audiences. Johnny Depp's acting bounced back and forth between brooding melancholy and complete eccentricity; he had a massive range, but neither direction was truly mainstream, cementing him in a highly distinct league of his own. Leonardo was typical of school faction acting—methodical and deliberate, making him the most perfectly suited for crafting a Hollywood-style leading man.

The issue was simply that Leonardo's oscar campaign intentions in recent years had been far too obvious. Coupled with remarks from his youth that had offended the old men of the Academy, winning the award was not going to be easy.

Still, in Duke's view, out of the three of them, Leonardo undoubtedly had the highest probability of being the first to win the Oscar for Best Actor.

Johnny Depp, on the other hand, might be the earliest to fall. Being as non-mainstream as he was, if he kept at it, the slightest hiccup with Pirates of the Caribbean would probably see him exiting mainstream cinema before long.

In reality, he was even more reliant on a single franchise than Tom Cruise had been back in the day.

The Depp of Duke's memories had certainly left a profound impression on him; outside of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, the actor had generated a tragic streak of six consecutive big-budget flops. And they weren't minor flops—they were the kind of astronomical box office bombs that made investors want to vomit blood.

Duke was thoroughly satisfied with Leonardo's performance in Inception, with one exception: he truly wasn't suited for action scenes. Compared to his image and acting, his action scenes were far worse.

Fortunately, there was still such a thing in this world as stunt doubles.

With Charlize Theron and Leonardo DiCaprio's scenes wrapped, Duke temporarily handed the reins of the crew over to Anna Printz. He then led Tina Fey inside the hotel. Jamie Jensen, the executive in charge of Warner Brothers' marketing and distribution, had just flown into Paris from Los Angeles that very morning.

He had come both to check in on the production schedule and to discuss several key marketing strategies with Duke.

In the café, Duke set Tina Fey's custom Apple phone down in front of Jamie Jensen and said, "I believe we must prioritize our marketing on mobile devices."

It was already 2010, and the penetration rate of smartphones was quite high. For social networking sites like Instant Sharing and Twitter, the number of Mobile Phone users was gradually surpassing PC users.

"The rise and popularization of new media represented by the internet, Mobile Phones, and various PDA devices means that contemporary consumers are no longer just passive recipients. They have transitioned into producer-consumers who directly participate in knowledge-production activities like generating content and information!"

Though he wasn't as specialized as Jamie Jensen, Duke was speaking to the macro trends. "The old situation of monopolizing information production and controlling the flow of information is being replaced by a more democratic and diverse mass-participatory media format. This transition not only makes media content richer and voices increasingly complex, but also provides an opportunity to coalesce fan communities, collective identity, and wisdom."

He said earnestly, "These are all aspects we must pay attention to in the film's marketing."

"I know!" Jamie Jensen nodded. "Warner Brothers is also developing targeted promotional strategies based on your suggestions."

Duke knew perfectly well that if Inception was going to be even more successful, they had to focus heavily on marketing and distribution.