The premiere of "Interstellar" held in Los Angeles ended perfectly, followed by a banquet.
Anne Hathaway, wearing a strapless deep V evening gown and holding a glass of champagne in her right hand, walked to Wang Shu and said with a smile, "Shu, do you look good?"
To be honest, this dress is not very good-looking and does not suit his aesthetic taste, but he still smiled and praised: "It looks good."
Wang Shu's praise satisfied Anne Hathaway's emotional value, and she smiled like a flower and was very happy.
The two chatted for a while, and the model worker came over and asked with a smile, "What are you talking about?"
"Nothing." Without waiting for Wang Shu to answer, Anne Hathaway spoke first.
When the hardworking sister heard this, she just smiled and didn't ask any further questions.
The three chatted for a while, and then someone else came over and started talking to each other.
As time went by, the banquet after the premiere ceremony ended successfully.
Anne Hathaway was quite tired due to her busy schedule in the past few days, so she went home to rest after the cocktail party.
But the hardworking sister was different. She did not go to China with the crew to promote the movie, so she was relatively less tired. Now she came to Wang Shu's apartment.
"Shu, I haven't seen you for a few days, and I always feel like I'm missing you in my heart." As soon as Jessica Chastain walked into Wang Shu's apartment, she hugged Wang Shu from behind while saying sweet words.
Wang Shu heard it, but he was not foolish enough to believe it.
They are all people in the entertainment industry. He will say something that provides emotional value, and the female artists will do the same.
If you take it seriously, that's naive.
The normal response to asking about someone’s well-being is definitely “I miss you, too.”
But Wang Shu had to ask back, "Are you thinking about it in your heart or somewhere else?"
"Hate~" Jessica Chastain pretended to be shy.
"Haha." Wang Shu laughed.
Jessica Chastain took the initiative to kiss Wang Shu on the side of his face and said, "I'm going to take a shower first."
"Yeah." Wang Shu responded.
Looking at Jessica Chastain's back as she walked towards the bathroom, Wang Shu felt that the bathroom was so big that it would be too troublesome to go in one by one, so it would not be impossible for two people to go in together.
immediately……
In fact, the question he asked just now was intentional.
He knew very well that Jessica Chastain might have a crush on him, but it wasn't love.
So, even if Jessica Chastain is saying sweet words, they are fake.
And he has no love for Jessica Chastain either.
In that case, we are too lazy to role-play with each other.
Just talk about the kidneys, not the heart. There is no need to complicate things.
We are all adults, so we should act like adults.
…………
The next day, Wang Shu, as the director of "Interstellar", accepted an exclusive interview with the American media.
Reporter: "Did you watch movies when you were a kid? Did you have any favorite movies or filmmakers?"
Wang Shu: "Look, when I was a kid in my country, there were often movie screenings and we would gather together to watch them. My favorite movie was "The Escape Plan," which had a song called "Flicking Cotton," which was a classic."
In fact, his answer is nonsense.
In his hometown, electricity was not available until 1993, and it was only a few years later that people gradually started to own televisions.
Although there are open-air movie screenings in the countryside, they are not very common.
The reporter asked in confusion: "'Run and Escape'?"
Wang Shu smiled and said, "It's a Chinese-language film that you may not have heard of."
The reporter did not ask further questions, but instead asked in a procedural manner: "When was your first time trying to make a movie? When did you feel like you wanted to make movies all the time?"
Wang Shu: "When I first started watching movies, I thought they were cool and wanted to make a movie. However, due to my limited family conditions, I kept the idea to myself until I came to Beijing. The creativity of a movie is indescribable and crucial. You have to rely on your own feelings. Because no one would give you a script to shoot when you first started, so in order to be able to direct a movie, I wrote the script myself."
Reporter: "You want to become a filmmaker. How do your parents react? This dream seems out of reach, and many young filmmakers have worried about it."
Wang Shu: "Well... they didn't know I wanted to be a filmmaker. They just thought I was going to Beijing to work and earn money. It wasn't until I became a filmmaker that they found out."
“After knowing this, not only were they very happy, they also supported me.”
Reporter: "How did you make your first feature film, Buried? What prompted you to come to Hollywood?"
Wang Shu: "I have to thank a friend of mine for Buried. Without his help, I would not have been able to successfully make this film."
"I still remember when I first contacted him, I told him that I was from the University of Southern California and was an international student director."
Reporter: "Southern California?"
Wang Shu smiled and replied: "Yes, I lied to him and said I was a student at the University of Southern California."
The reporter nodded: "So he was fooled by you?" "Yes!" Wang Shu replied, "I was still a newcomer at the time. If I hadn't pretended to be a student from a prestigious university, no one would have believed me."
"In order to successfully fool my friend and make the movie, I had to pretend to be an international student."
The reporter nodded and continued with the process: "When was the first time people became interested in you? What do you think of your future success? What is your biggest ambition next?"
Wang Shu: “It’s hard for me to remember. It could be before Buried, or it could be after Buried. As for the future… I don’t have any ideas at the moment. I’ll just take it one step at a time.”
"And the greatest ambition..."
At this point, Wang Shu smiled and said, "I am a Chinese-language film director. I hope to promote Chinese-language films to the world in the future."
The reporter smiled and replied: "I hope that day will come."
Then he continued, "Shu, after you finished filming Buried Alive, you filmed The Tuner. Only after that did you have the opportunity to take on big-budget movies. Do you think this is a test for you?"
Wang Shu: "Well, a large-scale movie is a very logical next step for me - I guess you wouldn't call it large-scale, you'd call it medium-scale, but, in my opinion, it's a very big movie. I can work with big stars and the budget is a hundred times that of Buried. It's a step up or forward for me."
“In terms of scale, I took a step up, and it was a very useful experience for me. I think very few filmmakers have this opportunity now.”
"When people see me do The Piano Tuner, they might say, 'This guy did little independent films and then he did this.'"
"I'm sure there's a lot of pressure to do a mid-sized studio movie, but it's better than starting with a well-known franchise, so my timing is good. I can use this movie to build relationships with big companies and learn how to deal with the pressure of big-budget filmmaking."
“It was a very lucky, very valuable experience, and the timing helped me in that sense.”
"After we finished Buried, we went to the Berlin Film Festival and were lucky enough to win the Alfred Bauer Silver Bear Award, which made the film popular with many film producers. We not only recovered our costs but also made a profit. It was this achievement that made us popular with major film and television companies after we returned to China."
"It was because Buried Alive received some recognition that I then worked with China Film Group to shoot The Piano Tuner, which was a good thing."
"A lot of lucky things have happened to me, and this is the luckiest one."
"My starting point is not high enough, not everyone believes me, and some even doubt me."
“China Film Group believed in me and extended an olive branch to me.”
……
Reporter: "It's surprising that you made a musical right after filming Interstellar. Has this been something you wanted to do for a long time?"
Wang Shu: “Yeah. If you really want to grow and cultivate those series that are already known, I think it will be a bit difficult to find a studio to develop after the project is established, because they have time pressure, but this does not mean that you need to invest all your time. Because you still need to throw out ideas, discuss, do other things, think about everything, and find the right feeling, which all takes time.”
Reporter: "How did you get involved in Interstellar? What do you hope to convey through it?"
Wang Shu: "The project was originally developed by Linda Obst, who was very good friends with Kip Thorne, an astrophysicist at Caltech, and they wanted to make a science fiction film that was based on real-world science."
"Originally they were planning a movie with Steven Spielberg at Paramount, then Steven left Paramount, and then Paramount found me."
"This film is about the intimate connection between people and the contrast between people and the universe. When I heard about the opportunity to participate, I jumped in without hesitation. This opportunity is too rare. You have to not only balance the emotion and the scale of the story, but also pay attention to the huge scale of the whole story."
Reporter: "While your films have been popular both commercially and critically, some people feel that the emotions in your films are overwhelmed by the big scenes. Do you think this is correct? Is Interstellar a rebuttal to this?"
Wang Shu: “No, not at all. I try not to react to what I make. It’s not as hard as you think to control your reaction within a certain limit. Bad reviews or specific criticisms can make you angry, while praise or love can make you happy - but every movie will have its ups and downs, and a movie is still the same movie!”
"So, it's natural for other people to have this reaction, and it's their very subjective reaction. It's the same when I watch other movies. So, it's best not to react to your own movie."
"We've always had an emotional reaction to movies, going back to Buried."
"I think the performance of the lead actor in the film is extremely moving, and my work is very technical and very precise, but the characters in the film are the emotional center that move others, and if there are no excellent actors involved, this film will not be successful."
Reporter: "You can't please everyone"
Wang Shu: "As a filmmaker, you have to know that no matter how positive things seem, you will always see bad reviews, and you will always notice that what some people like is what others hate, so you can't take action accordingly. I think just do what you believe in."
Reporter: "Your films—The Tuner, The Wolf of Wall Street, Pacific Rim, Life of Pi, and Interstellar—have great actors, and you've worked with some of them more than once. How do you work with actors?"
Wang Shu: “I like working with actors, and I like to develop relationships with them so that I can work with them again and again. I’ve worked with different actors, like Anne Hathaway and Matthew McConaughey, and one thing I learned from Matthew McConaughey is that there’s magic in an actor’s performance—sometimes they go beyond good technical performance.”
“I admire that so much that even if I don’t understand it and I can’t do it myself, I’m not an actor and I’m not very good at acting, I can still feel it and observe it and understand how to create the conditions for these moments to happen. I find the performance of an actor to be very mysterious and very compelling. The best thing I can do is to make these moments happen.”
Reporter: "Shu, it seems that except for your movie, all other movies released by the big studios are sequels, remakes or adaptations. Why is it so difficult to make original movies?"
Wang Shu: “Because movies are a business, someone has to pay for it – they are expensive collective efforts.”
“Inevitably, the film industry goes through cycles that lean toward particular types of entertainment, sometimes toward originals, sometimes toward franchises.”
“I think making original movies is always a challenge, and we’re at a time in the business right now — and I don’t want to personalize the studios because it’s not any one person’s fault — where the big movies, or the idea of a big movie, is moving more and more toward known intellectual property, like books or comic book characters, things that are already known.”
“This trend will change over time and die out, but right now it’s attracting the most investment.”
"I've found that the studios are always open to innovation and newness. They have a responsibility to reach a wider audience and pay for their films. No one understands better than the studio executives how much people want to see new and original entertainment in movies. They have a very good understanding of this and they need to find the right things to put together at the right time."
Since coming to Hollywood, Wang Shu has shot several movies here. However, the American version of "The Piano Tuner" is a remake of his Chinese version of "The Piano Tuner", "The Wolf of Wall Street" is an adaptation of the character's autobiography, and "Life of Pi" is adapted from a best-selling American novel.
Combined with Marvel and DC movies.
In fact, the concepts of many movies tend to be based on known intellectual property.
In the film industry, this is inevitable.
Because investors will inevitably assess the risks before making an investment, and known intellectual property rights often have a group of fans to guarantee them, so the risks are relatively reduced.
In other words...known intellectual property is more favored by investors.
It is also often easier to be made into a blockbuster! (End of this chapter)
Anne Hathaway, wearing a strapless deep V evening gown and holding a glass of champagne in her right hand, walked to Wang Shu and said with a smile, "Shu, do you look good?"
To be honest, this dress is not very good-looking and does not suit his aesthetic taste, but he still smiled and praised: "It looks good."
Wang Shu's praise satisfied Anne Hathaway's emotional value, and she smiled like a flower and was very happy.
The two chatted for a while, and the model worker came over and asked with a smile, "What are you talking about?"
"Nothing." Without waiting for Wang Shu to answer, Anne Hathaway spoke first.
When the hardworking sister heard this, she just smiled and didn't ask any further questions.
The three chatted for a while, and then someone else came over and started talking to each other.
As time went by, the banquet after the premiere ceremony ended successfully.
Anne Hathaway was quite tired due to her busy schedule in the past few days, so she went home to rest after the cocktail party.
But the hardworking sister was different. She did not go to China with the crew to promote the movie, so she was relatively less tired. Now she came to Wang Shu's apartment.
"Shu, I haven't seen you for a few days, and I always feel like I'm missing you in my heart." As soon as Jessica Chastain walked into Wang Shu's apartment, she hugged Wang Shu from behind while saying sweet words.
Wang Shu heard it, but he was not foolish enough to believe it.
They are all people in the entertainment industry. He will say something that provides emotional value, and the female artists will do the same.
If you take it seriously, that's naive.
The normal response to asking about someone’s well-being is definitely “I miss you, too.”
But Wang Shu had to ask back, "Are you thinking about it in your heart or somewhere else?"
"Hate~" Jessica Chastain pretended to be shy.
"Haha." Wang Shu laughed.
Jessica Chastain took the initiative to kiss Wang Shu on the side of his face and said, "I'm going to take a shower first."
"Yeah." Wang Shu responded.
Looking at Jessica Chastain's back as she walked towards the bathroom, Wang Shu felt that the bathroom was so big that it would be too troublesome to go in one by one, so it would not be impossible for two people to go in together.
immediately……
In fact, the question he asked just now was intentional.
He knew very well that Jessica Chastain might have a crush on him, but it wasn't love.
So, even if Jessica Chastain is saying sweet words, they are fake.
And he has no love for Jessica Chastain either.
In that case, we are too lazy to role-play with each other.
Just talk about the kidneys, not the heart. There is no need to complicate things.
We are all adults, so we should act like adults.
…………
The next day, Wang Shu, as the director of "Interstellar", accepted an exclusive interview with the American media.
Reporter: "Did you watch movies when you were a kid? Did you have any favorite movies or filmmakers?"
Wang Shu: "Look, when I was a kid in my country, there were often movie screenings and we would gather together to watch them. My favorite movie was "The Escape Plan," which had a song called "Flicking Cotton," which was a classic."
In fact, his answer is nonsense.
In his hometown, electricity was not available until 1993, and it was only a few years later that people gradually started to own televisions.
Although there are open-air movie screenings in the countryside, they are not very common.
The reporter asked in confusion: "'Run and Escape'?"
Wang Shu smiled and said, "It's a Chinese-language film that you may not have heard of."
The reporter did not ask further questions, but instead asked in a procedural manner: "When was your first time trying to make a movie? When did you feel like you wanted to make movies all the time?"
Wang Shu: "When I first started watching movies, I thought they were cool and wanted to make a movie. However, due to my limited family conditions, I kept the idea to myself until I came to Beijing. The creativity of a movie is indescribable and crucial. You have to rely on your own feelings. Because no one would give you a script to shoot when you first started, so in order to be able to direct a movie, I wrote the script myself."
Reporter: "You want to become a filmmaker. How do your parents react? This dream seems out of reach, and many young filmmakers have worried about it."
Wang Shu: "Well... they didn't know I wanted to be a filmmaker. They just thought I was going to Beijing to work and earn money. It wasn't until I became a filmmaker that they found out."
“After knowing this, not only were they very happy, they also supported me.”
Reporter: "How did you make your first feature film, Buried? What prompted you to come to Hollywood?"
Wang Shu: "I have to thank a friend of mine for Buried. Without his help, I would not have been able to successfully make this film."
"I still remember when I first contacted him, I told him that I was from the University of Southern California and was an international student director."
Reporter: "Southern California?"
Wang Shu smiled and replied: "Yes, I lied to him and said I was a student at the University of Southern California."
The reporter nodded: "So he was fooled by you?" "Yes!" Wang Shu replied, "I was still a newcomer at the time. If I hadn't pretended to be a student from a prestigious university, no one would have believed me."
"In order to successfully fool my friend and make the movie, I had to pretend to be an international student."
The reporter nodded and continued with the process: "When was the first time people became interested in you? What do you think of your future success? What is your biggest ambition next?"
Wang Shu: “It’s hard for me to remember. It could be before Buried, or it could be after Buried. As for the future… I don’t have any ideas at the moment. I’ll just take it one step at a time.”
"And the greatest ambition..."
At this point, Wang Shu smiled and said, "I am a Chinese-language film director. I hope to promote Chinese-language films to the world in the future."
The reporter smiled and replied: "I hope that day will come."
Then he continued, "Shu, after you finished filming Buried Alive, you filmed The Tuner. Only after that did you have the opportunity to take on big-budget movies. Do you think this is a test for you?"
Wang Shu: "Well, a large-scale movie is a very logical next step for me - I guess you wouldn't call it large-scale, you'd call it medium-scale, but, in my opinion, it's a very big movie. I can work with big stars and the budget is a hundred times that of Buried. It's a step up or forward for me."
“In terms of scale, I took a step up, and it was a very useful experience for me. I think very few filmmakers have this opportunity now.”
"When people see me do The Piano Tuner, they might say, 'This guy did little independent films and then he did this.'"
"I'm sure there's a lot of pressure to do a mid-sized studio movie, but it's better than starting with a well-known franchise, so my timing is good. I can use this movie to build relationships with big companies and learn how to deal with the pressure of big-budget filmmaking."
“It was a very lucky, very valuable experience, and the timing helped me in that sense.”
"After we finished Buried, we went to the Berlin Film Festival and were lucky enough to win the Alfred Bauer Silver Bear Award, which made the film popular with many film producers. We not only recovered our costs but also made a profit. It was this achievement that made us popular with major film and television companies after we returned to China."
"It was because Buried Alive received some recognition that I then worked with China Film Group to shoot The Piano Tuner, which was a good thing."
"A lot of lucky things have happened to me, and this is the luckiest one."
"My starting point is not high enough, not everyone believes me, and some even doubt me."
“China Film Group believed in me and extended an olive branch to me.”
……
Reporter: "It's surprising that you made a musical right after filming Interstellar. Has this been something you wanted to do for a long time?"
Wang Shu: “Yeah. If you really want to grow and cultivate those series that are already known, I think it will be a bit difficult to find a studio to develop after the project is established, because they have time pressure, but this does not mean that you need to invest all your time. Because you still need to throw out ideas, discuss, do other things, think about everything, and find the right feeling, which all takes time.”
Reporter: "How did you get involved in Interstellar? What do you hope to convey through it?"
Wang Shu: "The project was originally developed by Linda Obst, who was very good friends with Kip Thorne, an astrophysicist at Caltech, and they wanted to make a science fiction film that was based on real-world science."
"Originally they were planning a movie with Steven Spielberg at Paramount, then Steven left Paramount, and then Paramount found me."
"This film is about the intimate connection between people and the contrast between people and the universe. When I heard about the opportunity to participate, I jumped in without hesitation. This opportunity is too rare. You have to not only balance the emotion and the scale of the story, but also pay attention to the huge scale of the whole story."
Reporter: "While your films have been popular both commercially and critically, some people feel that the emotions in your films are overwhelmed by the big scenes. Do you think this is correct? Is Interstellar a rebuttal to this?"
Wang Shu: “No, not at all. I try not to react to what I make. It’s not as hard as you think to control your reaction within a certain limit. Bad reviews or specific criticisms can make you angry, while praise or love can make you happy - but every movie will have its ups and downs, and a movie is still the same movie!”
"So, it's natural for other people to have this reaction, and it's their very subjective reaction. It's the same when I watch other movies. So, it's best not to react to your own movie."
"We've always had an emotional reaction to movies, going back to Buried."
"I think the performance of the lead actor in the film is extremely moving, and my work is very technical and very precise, but the characters in the film are the emotional center that move others, and if there are no excellent actors involved, this film will not be successful."
Reporter: "You can't please everyone"
Wang Shu: "As a filmmaker, you have to know that no matter how positive things seem, you will always see bad reviews, and you will always notice that what some people like is what others hate, so you can't take action accordingly. I think just do what you believe in."
Reporter: "Your films—The Tuner, The Wolf of Wall Street, Pacific Rim, Life of Pi, and Interstellar—have great actors, and you've worked with some of them more than once. How do you work with actors?"
Wang Shu: “I like working with actors, and I like to develop relationships with them so that I can work with them again and again. I’ve worked with different actors, like Anne Hathaway and Matthew McConaughey, and one thing I learned from Matthew McConaughey is that there’s magic in an actor’s performance—sometimes they go beyond good technical performance.”
“I admire that so much that even if I don’t understand it and I can’t do it myself, I’m not an actor and I’m not very good at acting, I can still feel it and observe it and understand how to create the conditions for these moments to happen. I find the performance of an actor to be very mysterious and very compelling. The best thing I can do is to make these moments happen.”
Reporter: "Shu, it seems that except for your movie, all other movies released by the big studios are sequels, remakes or adaptations. Why is it so difficult to make original movies?"
Wang Shu: “Because movies are a business, someone has to pay for it – they are expensive collective efforts.”
“Inevitably, the film industry goes through cycles that lean toward particular types of entertainment, sometimes toward originals, sometimes toward franchises.”
“I think making original movies is always a challenge, and we’re at a time in the business right now — and I don’t want to personalize the studios because it’s not any one person’s fault — where the big movies, or the idea of a big movie, is moving more and more toward known intellectual property, like books or comic book characters, things that are already known.”
“This trend will change over time and die out, but right now it’s attracting the most investment.”
"I've found that the studios are always open to innovation and newness. They have a responsibility to reach a wider audience and pay for their films. No one understands better than the studio executives how much people want to see new and original entertainment in movies. They have a very good understanding of this and they need to find the right things to put together at the right time."
Since coming to Hollywood, Wang Shu has shot several movies here. However, the American version of "The Piano Tuner" is a remake of his Chinese version of "The Piano Tuner", "The Wolf of Wall Street" is an adaptation of the character's autobiography, and "Life of Pi" is adapted from a best-selling American novel.
Combined with Marvel and DC movies.
In fact, the concepts of many movies tend to be based on known intellectual property.
In the film industry, this is inevitable.
Because investors will inevitably assess the risks before making an investment, and known intellectual property rights often have a group of fans to guarantee them, so the risks are relatively reduced.
In other words...known intellectual property is more favored by investors.
It is also often easier to be made into a blockbuster! (End of this chapter)
