Chapter 908: Stars

Ever since the project entered preparation, the crew had held a major promotional event almost every month. May featured "Star Wars Day," and in late June, they convened a massive press conference in Dublin attended by all the principal actors.

Even though this press conference was far from the world's entertainment center, reporters from over five hundred media outlets still showed up. After all, this was Star Wars.

Reporters from different regions targeted different interviewees. The Chinese media threw almost all their questions at Daniel Wu.

"Mr. Wu," a Chinese reporter asked loudly, "the Star Wars IP has been around for years. When did you first encounter it?"

Daniel Wu was a smart man. He knew exactly why he had become one of the lead actors for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, so he answered the Chinese reporters' questions in exceptional detail.

"I actually first learned about the Star Wars universe through Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace. That movie came out in 1999. A few years later, I was suddenly captivated by a Darth Maul action figure, but I had no idea where he was from at the time. I just thought his design was incredibly cool. A few more years passed before I finally watched The Phantom Menace, and then I immediately watched the other prequels—sorry, don't blame me for my ignorance..."

Gathering his thoughts slightly, Daniel Wu continued, "After that, I watched the original Star Wars trilogy and caught up on everything in the Star Wars Series. But back then, I actually thought the original trilogy was just a TV spin-off of the prequels. I had absolutely no idea they were the original films. I just loved that kind of space opera—pure good triumphing over evil."

By the same token, the British media focused all their questions on their English Rose.

A reporter from The Times asked first, "Daisy, could you talk about the audition process for your role?"

"As an actress whose career is just starting out, my audition performances are usually pretty decent. But competing for Star Wars was different from other films. I was just too nervous. I went through multiple auditions, and each time gave you a chance to show off talents you hadn't displayed the time before, and to experience feelings you hadn't felt the previous time."

Despite being a newcomer, Daisy Ridley carried herself with natural poise. "I think I did terribly in a few of those audition rounds. I cried after the first one ended. I sobbed the whole way back because I thought I had completely messed it up. It was only after the final audition ended that I felt I had done well. I left, walked straight home, and ate an entire pack of cookies. I sat on the couch and said, 'I think I've done my best.'"

Meanwhile, the media from Latin American countries primarily interviewed Oscar Isaac.

A reporter from Brazil asked, "Could you talk about how it feels to be part of Star Wars and to work with Director Rosenberg?"

"It's simply a childhood dream come true! It's absolutely unbelievable and so full of joy. Joining Star Wars has been overwhelmingly exciting."

Matching his words, Oscar Isaac looked visibly thrilled. "Director Rosenberg is amazing. He is absolutely the friendliest and most passionate director I have ever worked with. He's brilliant, incredibly quick on his feet, and exceptionally optimistic. That energy is exactly what's driving everything in this entire project."

However, compared to the three new leads, even more media outlets kept their eyes locked on Harrison Ford. The production crew also placed much greater emphasis on his promotional packaging; his portrayal of Han Solo had long since become a pop culture icon.

Heavily promoting Harrison Ford also aligned perfectly with the production crew's commercial interests.

Turning a star into a symbol and fully exploiting their commercial value was a vital method for Hollywood to generate revenue and guarantee profits. Therefore, how to better sell a star's "symbolic" significance was inextricably linked to Hollywood's development.

The broad term "celebrity" was unreliable, as almost anyone who appeared on screen could be slapped with the "star" label. In Hollywood industry jargon, the actual term used to refer to stars was "talent." Using a word like "talent" wasn't meant to indicate that the star was inherently gifted, but rather served as a categorical label of commercial value.

In the collective labor of film production, star talent formed a part of the creative workforce. They used their bodies and voices to portray characters on screen, playing a very special symbolic role in the production process of a movie.

All movie stars were movie actors, but not all movie actors were stars. The biggest difference between an actor and a star—or rather, the primary factor determining a star's rank—was the circulation value of their "name."

A film could have hundreds or thousands of actors, but only a handful of "names" could serve as selling points—naturally, these "names" essentially belonged to the "stars" in leading roles. When defining a Hollywood star, economic value always occupied the central position. The star collective represented the high-level elite among box-office-drawing actors.

The hierarchical structure of Hollywood actors was vividly apparent in various settings. For instance, on a movie promotional poster, the stars' names would appear prominently right next to the film's title.

Highlighting certain actors in this manner was the most obvious symbolization trait, signifying that a "star" was a "name" used to generate sales. The communicative value of this "name" turned the "star" into a recognizable symbol of value and a currency of circulation.

When projecting profits, a star's box-office appeal could not only be calculated and estimated but also utilized for trade and circulation within the film market.

Hollywood typically defined box-office appeal like this: regardless of the other elements in a project, the proportion of financing and box office a film could attract based solely on the individual name of an actor or director.

The tier division in the Hollywood star system was entirely based on box-office appeal—which was to say, commercial viability—rather than acting skills.

It could be said that over the past thirty years, the tiers of Hollywood stars had practically no direct correlation with acting prowess or artistic contribution.

Take Duke's former Duke Studio and the current Lucasfilm as examples. They typically categorized Hollywood stars as follows.

Super A-List Superstars: they could guarantee presales, along with a substantial opening weekend box office.

A-List Stars: they wouldn't automatically trigger a frantic craze, but as long as the director and budget were right, and the film's genre aligned with the star's past works, they were a safe bet for the producers.

High-Quality Second-Tier Stars: actors claimed to wield influence similar to A-listers. In reality, their commercial value was unstable and subject to the impact of factors like the budget and their co-stars.

Second-Tier Stars: they could sometimes attract the attention of distribution companies, but the other elements of the film were relatively more important, such as the completeness of the script and the size of the budget.

Third-Tier Stars: their names alone had almost zero impact on the market. However, if paired with the right co-stars, directors, and budget, they could occasionally boost the box office in regional markets.

At the same time, the star camp contained a few more specialized groups.

Some actors did not belong to the first tier, but by repeatedly appearing in certain commercially successful films, they became genre stars. Generally speaking, a genre star's main stage was in "cult films" and "comedy films."

Additionally, some actors appeared in films outside the pop-market mainstream, breaking the usual continuity of movie roles and genres.

Time and time again, they challenged themselves with roles starkly different from their previous ones. They were known as "prestige actors."

However, they ultimately weren't the "mainstream" of Hollywood stars. Just like Daniel Day-Lewis and others of his ilk, they themselves possessed little box-office appeal, and the mainstream Hollywood film circle wasn't particularly enthusiastic about these prestige actors.

As a symbolized image, the star held a profound significance for the film industry. Even directors, producers, and investors at Duke's level would never overlook the appeal a superstar could bring.

As a commodity, a movie's most prominent trait was its "uniqueness." There would be similarities, but no two films were ever exactly the same.

Yet for both consumers and producers, this very trait was a hurdle.

The vast majority of movie transactions stemmed from consumers being willing to pay to watch unknown content. The consumer's mentality of "wanting to watch" was driven precisely by those parts of the film that were not fully understood.

Before seeing a movie, consumers could not be certain what exactly they were paying for. Concurrently, producers couldn't be entirely sure what consumers would like.

Hollywood had a famous saying: "Perhaps the most important fact in the entire movie industry is that nobody knows anything." To cope with this "symmetrical ignorance," they had to rely on the similarities or continuity between films.

Genre films and sequels were one way to cope, but the far more widespread method was employing stars.

The reason stars held such crucial standing in the movie business was that they provided a way to maintain equilibrium between uncertainty and certainty, difference and continuity, and uniqueness and familiarity.

Therefore, a star had to possess a distinct edge and exist as a familiar entity. A certain star's participation in a film would remind people of a series of familiar, known meanings they had projected in past movies. This known element allowed the audience to better grasp the unknown parts of a newly released film—for example, "a comedy movie starring Jim Carrey or Ben Stiller," or "a romance movie featuring Julia Roberts."

Hollywood producers described stars as "a monopoly on a certain personality," referring to how a star's distinct persona provided the film industry with a guarantee of product differentiation and quality.

However, stars were not direct commodities; you couldn't walk into any movie theater and actually buy a star.