"You're late. "Karen said, looking inquiringly at the well-dressed and personable lawyer she hadn't heard of Michael. Clayton, this person has been a partner for 17 years and has not even been a general junior partner - but in front of this big case of hundreds of millions, the law firm sent him to save the scene, he must not be a simple person.

This case is extremely important for Karen, of course, for U/Notrh, similar lawsuits are always going on, but she is about to get a key promotion, and at this juncture things must not get out of control, losing a lawsuit is not a big deal for a pharmaceutical company, but losing a lawsuit in which they have an advantage, losing a lawsuit because of Karen's mistake in choosing a law firm, this can't bring down the company, but at least it will bring down Karen, so this thing must not go wrong, the instability factor - that damn madman, must be eliminated, She has to judge who is her adversary and who is her partner.

Michael. Clayton looked at her, too, and his thoughts about her were clearly written in his eyes: he hated Karen, he felt that he had seen through her, and he thought she was one of those high-ranking people who had sold out her conscience, hiding her filthy true face under the mask of professionalism. Michael is familiar with such characters, he has spent most of his life with them, he hates her as much as he dislikes himself, in fact, Michael and Karen understand each other to some extent, they are both forced to the point of suffocation by their profession, and they are only a little bit away from the top.

But neither Karen nor Michael have any sympathy for each other, in fact, Michael's fragility can only make him more disgusted by Karen, it is precisely because Karen herself knows the danger of this mentality, she is disgusted to cooperate with such a person, the company needs absolutely professional legal services, no need for human struggle, no one knows better than Karen whether this drug will cause adverse reactions, but so what? She didn't need a lawyer with a clear conscience, and that would make everything uncertain.

She felt that Michael would be that variable, and she hated that variable.

She also knew that Michael believed she would be a ruthless client, he guessed what she was going to do, and he hated her.

They were silent for a few seconds, and no one spoke, but the atmosphere was not dull and boring, on the contrary, the air on the set was like the desert oil field before the storm, dry, full of static electricity, and a single friction seemed to stir up a fire. Jenny and Daniel kept looking at each other, feeling that something in her body was being pushed up in a straight line, like she had been injected with adrenaline, her heartbeat began to soar, but her mind was unexpectedly calm, as if she had been injected with psychedelic drugs, and when 'Karen' said the lines, there was also a detached Jenny above Karen who was calmly examining her and Michael - it was like splitting two personalities at the same time, one was feeling Karen's despair and venting her despair, and the other was thinking about fragments and jumping thoughts, It's like having a lucid dream, which feels weird, but addictive.

"You know what he did." Karen said, placing a stack of documents in front of Michael, "It was a parking lot, and people were going to pick up their cars and he was standing there." ”

She paused, pursed her lips and chose the right word, Karen's habit, she was always a little unsure of what was about to be said, but she didn't want to expose her weakness in front of Michael.

"He stood there naked." She chooses neutral words, non-controversial, more written, which is an instinct written in Karen's blood, Karen's lines have always been so banal, her point is in her performance, the consideration under these calm tones and words. "Shouting words that no one can understand, reciting psalms - someone has to be responsible."

A sneer flashed across Michael's face, and he was not afraid to expose Karen to know: his ultimate goal was to know that Karen needed someone to take responsibility for the current loss of control, and she herself had no interest in the role.

"Listen," he said, his attitude tired, but with an indisobedient force, "he's just not in a good state lately, he's divorced, his daughter has left him, all he has is this case, he didn't take pills for a day, so it's this situation, but he's still the lawyer who knows the case best." You didn't hire him because of his depression, you hired him because of his intelligence, his focus, his passion for this case for the past six years—"

Karen felt uncomfortable, and she realized that she was having a hard time getting there: she pressured the firm to change lawyers, and Michael took over. So she deliberately broke Michael's persuasive rhythm, "I'm sorry, but we've been paying for his time every moment of the past six years." ”

She decided to end the conversation, and the matter was not over, but she had already lazy in dealing with Michael. Clayton, this man bores her, Karen bores a lot of people, but Michael-Michael just poked her in the nerves.

"Listen, I know you want an explanation—" Michael tried again, but the knowing expression already showed that he knew Karen's weakness, and he knew that Karen was going to end the conversation.

"In the morning, I'll give Marty. Bach called. Karen told herself not to care about Michael's thoughts, and she quickly packed her briefcase, "But of course you know that, thank you for your time, Michael." ”

She stood up, her eyes briefly crossed with Michael again, time seemed to freeze here, and an unpleasant gloomy aftermath spread out from the point of sight, both Karen and Michael were a little caught off guard, at this moment, they seemed to go deep into each other's spiritual world, and saw their embarrassment - down, depressed, confused, numb, the future is a gray fog for them, they are both successful in the eyes of the world, but they both hide an unknown embarrassment -

In this short communication, what was brewing was not the emotion of sympathy, but the annoyance and vigilance that was seen through, Karen came back to her senses, nodded briefly and stiffly, and strode out of the café, while Michael lowered his head and looked at the tableware used in the café, as if he had a strong interest in them.

“cut！ good！ With the director's shout, the whole set came to life, Jenny returned to reality from Karen's world, and for a moment there was a feeling of 'real and illusory', but thanks to the use of Goldfinger over the years, she quickly came out of this illusion, smiled and came to Tony's side, watching the replay on the monitor.

"This shot would be good material." Tony's cheeks flushed with excitement as he clapped his palms vigorously, "This time the performance of several shots is good, and I think we're done with this scene." ”

And Daniel also came to the side of the monitor, although he still had a little Michael's feeling, but he didn't really split his personality, he still returned to his role as an actor, and asked with concern, "How does the silence just now feel in the camera, do you need to cut it?" ”

"No, I don't." Tony shook his head, his tone even more excited, "It's a very good feeling, it's just a god—a feeling that words can't express, and I think that second pause perfectly echoes the silence at the beginning of the scene, and expresses the script vividly." ”

As a director and screenwriter, his words were certainly convincing, and the atmosphere on set was cheerful and exciting, and Jenny re-watched her performance twice and felt very satisfied, she smiled and said, "It looks like we can go to lunch on time." ”

"Yes, yes." Tony said absent-mindedly, seemingly completely immersed in his own thoughts, and he lowered his head and said to himself, "Maybe we can reshoot a few shots......"

After finishing this shot, the morning's schedule was completed, and Jenny was a little hungrier than usual, as if she had just run a hundred meters, she didn't say hello to Daniel, but nodded lightly at him, and then found Mary and went to the cafeteria with her for lunch: although she moved Daniel and made him agree to take "Michael. Clayton", but this does not mean that Daniel and her are friends who cherish each other, especially during filming, and the two should reduce their contact with Jenny and Daniel, so as not to spoil Daniel's sense of involvement.

Of course, for Daniel, Jenny's handling couldn't have been more welcoming, and when they met occasionally, he always ended up with a ' Karen's call Jenny, she has a feeling that the reason why Daniel can prepare for the role of Michael so quickly, in addition to the fact that this role is indeed relatively simple, is that in previous performances, it was difficult for Daniel to find the anchor point for himself, and now he has found Jenny, her fast and steady play stimulated his inspiration, allowing him to quickly grasp Michael's intricate emotional world, so he will come over from time to time to interact with her as Karen and Michael, It is to maintain a connection with this fixed point in one's inner world.

Playing against an actor of this level is also completely the first time for Jenny, and among the actors who played against her before, no one can be called a master, at most he can only be regarded as a personality actor, of course, Christopher is the emperor, but that is also because last year was indeed not a big year, compared with Daniel, Christopher is completely the rhythm of being turned into slag. Of course, Jenny can also feel the tension when she plays against Chris, but that tension is essentially made up of sexual attraction, the unresolved sex between them. The tension is added to Roger and Sally, making the interaction between the two more eye-catching. But for Daniel and her, the tension between them has nothing to do with the relationship between men and women, it is more like a collision - Jenny has no face to call herself a genius, she has been in the industry for five years, and only now can she feel the joy of acting with the role of Karen and her resonance, and she has a first glimpse of the doorway of acting - so she will not call this collision a collision of genius and genius, but it is undeniable that under the chemistry between her and Daniel, the performance status of both seems to have been improved, just like two star clusters that were originally spinning alone, Suddenly, there was a collision, and thousands of sparks were encountered, and it was like the lines drawn by two pen tips intertwined, and they multiplied into a beautiful epic picture on their own. In the confrontation between her and Daniel just now, the life stories of Michael and Karen seem to be constantly writing themselves, and their collision is so layered, so full and profound, that it is beyond the control of Tony, Jenny and Daniel.

As a supporting character in the setting itself, Karen's life story is not so perfect, but as Michael, some new points that Daniel has unearthed here have almost made a fullness and a certain rewrite of Tony's Michael, of course, this also inspired Tony, and the three resonated, so Tony will consider reshooting the previous few scenes, so that Michael's personality is unified, and he is even likely to rewrite some plots, In order to make the script more suitable for Michael, who is more in-depth and infectious than the original setting.

This is the power of a master actor, if the average vase actor can only barely complete the performance task, a veteran actor like Clooney can take on most of the clear performance requirements, and a master actor can transform and improve the level and depth of the entire script - of course, there are very few actors who can do this at any given time. Among the actors who are still active in the United States, there are probably only a few people who have such ability.

Jenny hasn't played with actors of this level before, Meryl has collided with her, however, no matter how deepened, "Prada" is always a chick-flick, commercial-oriented women's film, her core theme is not so deep, Andy and Miranda's emotions are easier to capture, and they still embody a relatively shallow and softer contradiction. What's more, at that time, Jenny's perception of acting may not have really reached home, she was running with a character with an emotion, not like Karen, she really immersed her heart and found the resonance of the two, maybe the performance effect is similar, but the performance mentality is very different - maybe because of this, she gained insights and touches in her cooperation with Daniel, and the invisible improvement is more than the strength she drew from working with Meryl, which is not to say that Meryl or Andy are not good, But Daniel and Karen may resonate more with her, after the scene just now, Jenny clearly felt that she seemed to understand a little more about acting, she couldn't say what it was, it seemed to be an indescribable hazy experience, but indeed, this trance 'epiphany' state made her enjoy her current work more.

It's no wonder that Daniel almost never accepts commercial films, and Meryl rarely acts in purely commercial films, so that Jenny now goes back to take on "Unlucky Eros" type films, she really feels bored. The box office, salary, seems to be insignificant before the fun of acting, the joy of finding a good role and resonating with it, of course, intellectually, Jenny should still star in "Avatar", but emotionally, she really doesn't have much interest in "Avatar", this film has no challenge to her acting skills, and the story of the Na'vi people can't move her, it is really a purely commercial purpose. - Although the irony is that "Avatar" will definitely take the global box office first, pushing the record to a height that no one can match, and "Michael. Although Clayton gathers her and Daniel, if there are no accidents, the reputation of the two performances will not be bad, but it can be expected that the box office performance will not be too good.

If Jenny is a complete artist personality and is self-centered to the point where she doesn't care about everything else, then she may really change the route of art films, and from then on she is obsessed with finding this kind of deep role that resonates with herself to play, but her pursuit is still more complicated than Daniel, and Daniel is a male star after all, he has much more choice, just like "9", no matter how many actresses there are, he is still Dinghaishen, and Jenny is no matter how good she is, even if she plays his wife, In the finished film, it is still one of the background boards that sets off Daniel along with other Oscar-winning actresses. If you change to Daniel's route, you will only get more and more unpopular, and the narrower and narrower the walk, so such an idea just came up by chance, and it was quickly extinguished by her - it is okay to pursue movies that are both artistic and commercial, people always have to pursue a little, but they can't just think about playing their own resonant roles, after all, while there are pursuits, people also have to be down-to-earth.

"There's nothing I need to care about lately, is it?" At lunch, she asked Mary that the production of "Monroe" had stopped because of her relationship with Daniel, and Jenny was living like a retreat, and indeed she didn't want to be distracted by the never-ending trivial things of her career during her role as Karen.

"There is no big news except for the year-end box office statistics." Mary checked her email, "Oh, by the way, we're probably going back to Los Angeles in two weeks - the Pirates of the Caribbean 2 DVD is going on sale soon, and you need to go back and do some activities." ”

Because the crew is filmed in chronological order, Karen's scenes are intermittent, and it is not a problem for Jenny to leave the crew for a few days, she nodded indifferently, "Is the final box office prediction for "Unlucky Eros" out?" ”

The time has entered December, "Unlucky Eros" has been released for more than half a month, with the gradual landing of the Christmas blockbuster, it will definitely reduce the film schedule, the box office will not have many variables at this time, it will only gradually decline according to certain statistical laws, so at this time, the estimated national box office in the United States will be a more accurate number, and the data when the final comprehensive downgrade, sometimes the difference will not exceed hundreds of thousands - this is one of the proofs of the rapid development of science and technology over the years, in 2001 when Jenny first entered the industry, There is no shadow of this algorithm at all.

"The country should be fixed at 60 million." Mary said happily, "As for overseas, the United Kingdom has already been listed, and the numbers are not bad, if you count overseas, it is not a problem to receive one or two million, and if you are lucky, you should be able to break 100 million." ”

The cost of 20 million received the domestic box office of 60 million, the box office has completely returned to the cost, and the overseas ones can be sold as much as they can earn, and in the end, the number that Big Dream gets will be more than the investment share, because they have a commission from the distributor, Jenny nodded with satisfaction: This means that soon, Big Dream can make the first dividend.

"What about Pirates?" She also asked that since the DVD is ready to be released, it also means that the world is almost the last place to release - the now ignored small box warehouse Chinese mainland should have passed the censorship of "Pirates" some time ago and arranged for the release of the film. "What is the final global box office?"

"Coupled with the box office in China, 420 million in China, 760 million abroad, and 11.8 in the world, it should be the second in film history," Mary said this, but her mood turned weak - because Disney did not mean to pay dividends, compared to the fixed price of "Pirates" and the poor DVD dividends, "Unlucky Eros" to Big Dream and Jenny may bring higher and more lasting economic benefits than "Pirates", "Of course, the global champion and the North American champion can't run, and fans of "The Lord of the Rings" have been angry recentlyYou know, despite the development of new markets and inflation, "The Lord of the Rings" was suppressed by "Pirates", which is still the perception of most people. ”

"Ah," Jenny smiled, "It seems that the mainland market has developed rapidly in recent years, and it has contributed 10 million US dollars." ”

Compared with the Chinese market, which was often tens of millions of dollars and hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office in 2014, at the beginning of the 21st century, for Hollywood, the Chinese film market is about non-existent, not only because the size of the Chinese film market is very small, but even for a period of time it is almost completely silent, and there is a system of unpredictable standards before the release, and the reasons for censorship are absurd. And because Chinese mainland's box office share is unique in the world, Hollywood can take only 25% of the share from the mainland box office, so the mainland box office figures are only counted in the total box office quota to look good, really get very little money, although in the overseas market, a single country can contribute 10 million US dollars is not too little, but in the end get 2.5 million, this figure is very pitiful.

For a cash machine like "Pirates", whether it is $5 million for the first part or $10 million for the second part, in fact, the final amount is not an interesting number, but Mary seems to be aware of Jenny's consistent strong interest in the Chinese market, and also cleverly said, ""Pirate 1 seems to be the PRC's box office champion that year - if "Pirate 2" is the same, then the box office of the champion has doubled compared to three years ago, this is indeed a growing market - It looks like China is really on the rise on all fronts. ”

Jenny smiled and didn't say much: in fact, there was an ulterior reason why she paid so much attention to the performance of "Pirate 2" on the mainland. That is, in her memory, the original world line's "Pirate 2" was not actually released in the mainland, and the reason was very outrageous - it is said that "Pirate 2" did not pass the censorship because there were too many horror pictures, skeletons and fantasy elements, and it was not suitable for children.

Chen Zhen has a deep memory of this incident, mainly because before that, "Pirate 1" with more skeleton pictures was successfully released, and the smooth and comfortable switching of this standard is really breathtaking - "Pirate 2" She finally went to Hong Kong to watch it, and in the end she still saw it on the big screen, and after that, with the launch of Disney's investment project in Shanghai, almost all the film projects promoted by the group can be released at the same time, and they have never experienced such erratic censorship, although "Pirates 3 and 4" all have 'horror elements' on par with 2, but they can also be launched in the summer file, and they have not been left behind at all.

At that time, as an audience, I didn't think too deeply, I was just scolding radio and television, but after the crossing, Jenny's way of thinking has also changed to a certain extent, she also thought that "Pirate 2" would also be frustrated in China for similar reasons, and I also wanted to remind Bob to remember the layout in China, so that it would be easy to grab the beach in the future, but I don't know why, "Pirates 2" passed the review very smoothly in this world, although the schedule was not synchronized, but compared with the original fate, it is not easy.

Is there any special reason behind this? Disney started the China drop early? Is there anything on the mainland that hasn't changed here? Jenny wasn't omniscient, she couldn't think of why, but this slight change reminded her more deeply: this world was originally a certain difference from her timeline, and now, with her joining and participating, the differences will definitely get bigger and bigger, and this part of Goldfinger that belongs to the preknowledge advantage is getting worse and harder, and maybe the expiration time will be sooner than she thought......

The author has something to say: Note: I actually forgot that the continent of Pirate 3 is gone...... Is it on?

Everything else should be true~――

I've been waiting for a long time~ Tonight's single update!