Literary Master: Starting with Refusing to Be a Child Star

Chapter 159 Successfully

On the twentieth day of filming, a rumor began to circulate in the crew—that Yi Hong never sat in his own chair on set.

His chair had a nameplate that read "Cooper," but he never sat on it. He sat on prop boxes, next to camera rails, on the steps of the cabin door, and on a makeshift scaffold set up by the lighting crew.

When someone asked him why he didn't sit in his own chair, he replied, "The chair is too new."

The props team later replaced his chair with an older, slightly warped folding chair. He still didn't sit in it, but they placed the folding chair in Cooper's bedroom set, next to the bed. There was no explanation; they just put it there.

In the third week, Ren Suxi joined the crew. On her second day, she went to the costume department and asked if they could add a pocket to the lab coat worn by adult Murphy. The costume department asked her where to add it, and she pointed to the left chest area: "Murphy will put her father's photo there. Not to look at, but to put it there." The costume department didn't ask any further questions and sewed an inner pocket onto the left chest of the white coat that afternoon.

Jiao Huang was already 83 years old when he joined the crew. He needed help walking, but he didn't need anyone to help him rehearse his lines. Professor Brand had a scene where he read out the truth about the plan from his sickbed. That monologue was very long, with several physics terms interspersed in the lines.

Jiao Huang read the script twice that morning when he arrived at the set, and nailed it in one take during the actual filming that afternoon without any pauses. After he finished reading that part, the props team continued preparations for the next scene according to the schedule. Duan Yihong stood aside and watched him for a few seconds, then walked over and gently patted the armrest of his armchair without saying a word.

One night during a break in filming, Tan Zhuo was seen watching educational videos on planetary physics on her phone in a tent outside the set. The next morning, when she arrived at the set, the makeup artist was a little earlier than usual. She saw Tan Zhuo sitting in front of the makeup mirror, holding a cup of coffee, with an old notebook flipped to a certain page on the table in front of her. That notebook...

About half an hour after filming, it was closed and placed on the edge of the dressing table, and it was never opened again until the end of the day's filming.

Sometimes there are gaps between scenes on set. When the special effects team needs to adjust equipment or the lighting needs to be set up, the actors will gather together to wait. One day, on an outdoor location in Qinghai, Jiao Huang sat in a folding chair, basking in the sun for about ten minutes, his eyes closed, his expression calm. Occasionally, a breeze would blow, and his white hair would flutter. Gu Yanxi sat on the ground next to him, quietly flipping through a well-worn book, not disturbing him. No one spoke, and no one deliberately lowered their voices, but the volume of work-related conversations was lower than usual.

After that break, Jiao Huang opened his eyes, glanced at Gu Yanxi, and said, "You turned the pages so quietly just now, I almost didn't hear it." Gu Yanxi closed the book, looked up at him, and said, "Because I was afraid of disturbing you." Jiao Huang nodded, then was helped to his feet by his assistant and walked to the next shooting position. His knees were bent slightly less than before he stood up, as if the ten-odd minutes of rest had been enough for him to recover some of his strength.

A line from that scene later circulated within the production crew, and through word of mouth, it was dissected and reassembled, gradually generating several different versions. What remained in that gap was perhaps closer than any scene to the distance the entire work wanted to express—the transmission from one person to another, not accomplished through verbal exchange, but through the quiet confirmation that the other was still there. Luo Jinnian didn't correct those versions.

About a month into filming, a story circulating on set became a kind of consensus: Yi Hong would sometimes spend time alone in Cooper's bedroom set before actual shooting began. No one knew exactly what he was doing, but it was said that once when he came out, his eyes had a faint redness. Later, one day, he was sitting in his chair eating when someone asked him about the black hole scene. He replied, "When Cooper was at the edge of the black hole, he saw a picture of all time superimposed. He relived every second his daughter had missed in her life. When people encounter something like that, they stop." He continued eating his food as if it were just a normal little thing.

That same week, Gu Yanxi finished filming all of Murphy's scenes as a child. Her last scene was in the cabin, where Murphy was in the storage room.

This was the first time she had walked into his room alone since Percy left. She stood in the center of the room, looking at the empty bed. Her gaze lingered for a moment on a certain spot, as if someone was still sitting there, just temporarily gone. That day, after work, when she went to the dressing room to remove her makeup, she took off her wig and placed it on the table. Then she paused for a moment in front of the mirror, touched the short ends of her hair, and pushed open the door, leaving without looking back.

When Luo Jinnian saw that replay on the monitor, he didn't call for it to stop. He knew that moment was over and it wouldn't happen again in the same way.

As filming entered its third month, the crew moved from Qinghai to Iceland.

During the project evaluation phase, Luo Jinnian had already selected the northern latitude region as the main filming location for the alien landscape—a region with open terrain.

The visual layers created by the gentle slopes covered in tundra and the gray-black rock formations are closer to the planet's original concept than any set built in a studio.

Iceland's weather is more unpredictable than Qinghai's, with wind direction changing every few hours, altering the lighting conditions accordingly.

During the first week after the crew arrived, there were four days when filming could not begin at the designated location due to strong winds, and they had to stay at the temporary accommodation to wait for the window of opportunity.

Duan Yihong did not rest at the camp. During the breaks in those days, he wore a dark windproof jacket and walked to a hillside near the camp and stood alone for a while. From a distance, he just stood there, his back view appearing stable and quiet under the gray sky.

In the afternoon, the wind stopped.

The crew spent about two hours transporting the equipment to the filming location—a gentle slope covered with black volcanic rock and moss. The first scene involved Cooper walking on the planet's surface in search of an outpost probe. Duan Yihong needed to walk along a pre-marked route while simultaneously dealing with issues with the recording equipment.

Although the wind speed decreased during the actual shooting, it was still beyond the ideal range. Duan Yihong's walking posture and volume gradually stabilized through repeated adjustments, forming a relatively balanced coordination with the wind, which allowed for the capture of clear original recordings.

After confirming the availability of the footage on the monitor, Luo Jinnian did not request a reshoot.

Gu Yanxi's scenes were all completed during the Iceland phase.

But during a casual conversation at the filming location, Duan Yihong thought of his daughter as he stood alone on a hillside.

"She's seven years old this year. She wasn't even in elementary school when I left. I don't know if she'll still remember me when I go back."

He paused for a moment. "When Cooper left, Murphy was about his age. He probably didn't know whether she would still recognize him when he came back."

When Duan Yihong said these words, his tone was calmer than usual, without any hint of seeking a response; he was simply stating an observation that he had already completed in his own thinking.

Jiao Huang's scenes in Iceland were few, but one key scene was filmed in a studio near the base. The scene where Professor Brand confesses the plan to Cooper before his death was set in a simplified hospital room with uniform light gray walls. The dialogue in that scene involved a large amount of explanatory content about theoretical physics and the mission, with a higher information density than regular conversation. The props team placed an old lamp and a bundle of scattered documents on the bedside table. Before filming officially began, Jiao Huang did not ask to read the script; he simply sat by the bed.

After resting for a while, I looked at the arrangement of the bundle of documents but didn't reach out to adjust it. The audio and video were both very clean on the day of filming, and that take was approved.

A week later, Tan Zhuo and Ren Suxi completed the scene of intergenerational transmission in a temporary studio in Iceland. Tan Zhuo, wearing a communication device, gave a monologue to the camera: Ren Suxi responded to this line simultaneously in another studio. The two scenes took place in different spaces and were edited together in post-production to form a complete dialogue.

One day before filming began, Tan Zhuo approached Luo Jinnian and suggested adding a gesture to the scene where she discovers Cooper is still alive. "When she realizes he's still there, she should put her hand on the communicator. Not press it, just place it on top. She needs to confirm that the device is actually there." Luo Jinnian thought for a moment: "Before placing it on, clench your fist and then relax it." Tan Zhuo nodded without asking any further questions.

The scene was filmed that afternoon. Tan Zhuo sat in the cockpit of the spaceship, in front of her a row of indicator lights on the dials, with a starry sky backdrop that would be replaced in post-production. Her gaze swept across the dials from left to right, confirming the parameter. Then, she raised her right hand, paused for a moment on the communicator, her fingers curling slightly before relaxing and landing smoothly on the device panel.

Without further explanation, the record was complete enough.

Luo Jinnian sat there, not watching the replay a second time, and turned his attention to the parameters and positions that needed to be calibrated for the next scene.