Chapter 370: One-Take Wonder: How to Play a "Bad" Actor
The first shot of “King of Extras” began filming.
The “Pig Cage Tenement” film set.
“Scene one, take one! Action!”
At Gu Zhiyuan’s command, the clapperboard snapped shut with a crisp sound.
The camera focused on the entrance to the set. The scene was Chen San holding a resume, trying to sneak in to find a role, only to be shoved away and driven off by the Assistant Director.
Jiang Ci entered the frame.
He was wearing a cheap denim outfit, clutching a resume that was folded and frayed at the edges.
He walked forward, his steps steady, his posture relaxed.
His body leaned forward slightly, a posture that held just the right amount of respect, but not a trace of sycophancy.
The actor playing the Assistant Director, as per the script, gave him a hard shove.
Jiang Ci staggered back, but steadied himself firmly.
His clear eyes held no anger or pleading, only a kind of calm determination.
Behind the monitor, Gu Zhiyuan’s fingers gripping the walkie-talkie unconsciously tightened.
Wrong.
Completely wrong.
“Cut!”
Gu Zhiyuan’s voice rang out.
The set instantly fell silent.
The actor playing the Assistant Director grew nervous, thinking it was his fault. “Director Gu, was my push not hard enough?”
Gu Zhiyuan didn’t answer. He stared intently at the playback on the monitor.
On the screen, Jiang Ci’s performance was near perfect.
Every detail, every tiny pause, was brimming with a sense of story.
But that wasn’t a cannon fodder extra.
He acted too well.
So well he didn’t resemble an extra at all.
It had become the biggest flaw at this moment.
Gu Zhiyuan opened his mouth, but didn’t know what to say.
Was he supposed to tell a Film Emperor, ‘You acted too well, so it doesn’t work’?
Jiang Ci stood in place, watching Gu Zhiyuan’s furrowed brow, and also realized the problem.
He was a max-level character who had returned to the beginner’s village.
But he had forgotten what a level-zero newbie’s walking posture was like, where his gaze should wander.
He was playing “Chen San”, not “Jiang Ci playing Chen San”.
“Director Gu,” Jiang Ci suddenly spoke up, “give me ten minutes.”
Without waiting for Gu Zhiyuan’s response, he walked straight to the main gate of the set and squatted down.
A few genuine background actors who hadn’t gotten any work yet, waiting to watch the excitement, were still gathered there.
Their clothes were shabby, their faces etched with the weariness of life’s hardships.
Jiang Ci squatted not far from them, watching quietly.
He observed a middle-aged man.
The man wanted to straighten his back, to appear more professional,
but years of bending over for odd jobs had left his neck stiff and forward-leaning, making his effort seem comical instead.
He observed a young boy.
The boy’s hands didn’t know where to go, one moment shoved into his pockets, the next pulled out to scratch his head.
His eyes darted around, afraid to meet anyone’s gaze directly, yet he kept stealing glances at everything on the set with his peripheral vision.
These were the real extras.
Their body language was filled with awkwardness, longing, and trying too hard.
Lin Wan stood not far away, watching Jiang Ci.
Jiang Ci stood up.
He began pacing back and forth at the edge of the set, imitating that young boy, walking with an uncoordinated, same-side arm and leg gait.
Then he imitated that middle-aged man, straining to straighten his neck, only to make his whole body look even stiffer.
Facing the air, he practiced the evasiveness in his eyes, practiced that comical feeling of wanting to show himself off, yet being afraid of being seen through.
Lin Wan felt this was practically a performance art piece titled “Self-Destruction of Skills”.
“All departments, prepare!” Gu Zhiyuan’s roar came again. “Another take!”
Action!
Jiang Ci entered the frame again.
This time, his entire aura had changed.
His back was slightly hunched, no longer upright.
He rubbed his hands together, his face full of obsequiousness, nodding and bowing as he approached the Assistant Director.
“Director, you see…”
The Assistant Director impatiently shoved him away again.
This time, Jiang Ci didn’t stand firm.
He was pushed into a staggering stumble, almost falling.
At the moment his body lost balance,
Jiang Ci’s instinctive reaction wasn’t to protect his face or body.
But to tightly protect the crumpled resume in his arms.
The paper was more important than the person.
Behind the monitor, Gu Zhiyuan’s gaze suddenly sharpened.
That’s it!
This detail instantly captured the very soul of Chen San’s character!
“Push!” Gu Zhiyuan grabbed the walkie-talkie and roared into it. “Push harder! Don’t let him stand steady!”
He stood up excitedly, shouting at the Cinematographer:
“Da Huang! Switch to handheld! Get right in his face! I want that shaky, uneasy, turbulent feeling of being repeatedly crushed by life!”
The Cinematographer immediately hoisted the camera and charged forward.
The lens shook violently.
Jiang Ci was pushed around, stumbling left and right in the frame, but the resume in his hand never left his grip.
He even started earnestly discussing with the Assistant Director.
“Director, actually, playing a corpse comes in many varieties.”
His expression was incredibly serious.
“There’s the freshly dead kind, the body still has residual warmth, relatively soft. Then there’s the kind dead for half a day, starting to stiffen up.”
“And then there’s the kind dead for a long time, that requires…”
The more seriously he “explained”, the more the people watching him thought he was a lunatic.
Behind the monitor, a few set assistants and crew members were stunned for a moment, then couldn’t hold back, snorting with laughter.
The laughter grew louder and louder, until finally, the entire crew in the monitor area were laughing uproariously.
But as they laughed, their laughter gradually died down.
Many fell silent.
In that comical, obsessive, pushed-around-like-a-fool Chen San, they saw their former selves.
Themselves holding a resume, standing humbly before an interviewer, nervous enough to sweat through their palms.
Themselves saying stupid things, doing stupid things, desperately trying to prove themselves for a single opportunity.
The core of the comedy detonated completely at the critical point between “awkwardness” and “heartache”.
Gu Zhiyuan didn’t call cut.
Because of extreme excitement.
He suddenly had an even bolder, crazier idea.
“Don’t stop!” he growled into the walkie-talkie. “Camera, follow! All departments, follow! This entire scene, we’re doing it in one continuous take!”
Everyone was stunned.
One continuous take?
From Chen San being chased off the set, through the entire “Pig Cage Tenement”, all the way until he walks into that nightclub’s back alley?
This was a huge challenge for the actor’s blocking, emotional continuity, and the coordination of all departments.
But no one objected.
Everyone had been ignited by Jiang Ci’s performance just now.
The camera followed Jiang Ci closely.
He was roughly shoved to the ground one last time by the Assistant Director, and that resume also fell into the muddy water.
He didn’t get up immediately. First, he carefully picked up the resume, using his sleeve to wipe the mud off it.
He stood up, patted the dust off his backside, and scoffed disdainfully, “Tch!” in the direction of the set gate.
He limped forward, passing through the wasteland built from scrap metal and junk.
He saw a soda can on the ground and, probably wanting to look cool, kicked it out, intending to catch it again with his foot.
Instead, his foot missed.
He fell flat on his face with a solid thud.
Behind the monitor, another wave of explosive laughter erupted.
Jiang Ci got up from the ground, not a trace of embarrassment on his face.
He nonchalantly brushed the dust off his clothes, cursed at the air again, “Tch!”
Then, he continued limping forward without looking back, his retreating figure both desolate and comical.
“Cut!”
Gu Zhiyuan roared out the word.
He stared at that receding figure on the monitor, his eyes completely red.
This was the Chen San he wanted.
A nobody who turned all his heartache and wretchedness into a joke.
The next scene was in the nightclub’s makeup room.
Chen Yi had already changed into her costume.
She had rejected the brand-new, sequined dance dress prepared by the Costume Department.
From her own bag, she pulled out a neatly folded old cheongsam.
A cheongsam in a bright, fiery red.