148: Chapter 153 Scarlett's Private Tutoring

Upon hearing this, Chen Mo thought for a long while before slowly speaking.

"Don't play a superhero; play that kind of... person—someone who gets scared, hesitates, has flaws, but is always trying to live."

"I *am* a superhero actor."

"You're different. The Black Widow you play isn't a god; she feels pain when hurt, cries when she loses someone, and sits silently on a plane staring out the window after doing something irreversible. You've given her humanity."

Scarlett watched as he picked up a business card from the bar.

Senior private acting coach at the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute, New York, Sandy Thompson.

She told him that if he really wanted to learn, he should look her up, say he was recommended by Scarlett, and there would be no tuition fee.

Chen Mo took the business card and said thank you.

"Don't thank me. When you become famous, remember to mention me. The industry hates people who forget who brought them onto the set once they hit it big. You're not that kind of person, but I still have to say it."

She walked to the door, turned back, and added one last thing: "Next time you come, don't just visit the set. Come to audition—audition for my leading man."

The door closed.

That night, Chen Mo returned to his apartment. The pothos was still alive on the bay window, and the night sky of Los Angeles was tinted a pale orange by the city lights.

He sat on the sofa, and his phone lit up.

A text from Scarlett:

[When I saw you sitting by the bed missing your mom today, I almost cried.]

[Then you're tougher than me. I didn't cry; I just missed her.]

[Your mom must be very proud of you.]

[She says I'm too thin. Every time we video chat, she says, 'You've lost weight, remember to eat. If the Chinese food in Los Angeles isn't authentic, learn to cook it yourself.' I told her I don't know how, and she said, 'You can write songs, why can't you stir-fry vegetables?']

Scarlett sent a laughing emoji: [Moms are all the same. My mom says I'm too thin playing Black Widow and tells me to eat more. It's like all moms think their children aren't fat enough.]

[My fridge only has cola and mineral water. Next time I visit the set, I'll bring you over to see—not to show off.]

[Next time you visit, it won't be to the set; it'll be to audition for my leading man.] She added this sentence right after, followed by an emoji.

Chen Mo placed his phone on the coffee table. The business card was tucked into the title page of his notebook, with Scarlett's handwritten recommendation next to the name in black marker.

The pothos swayed gently in the air conditioning.

He picked up his phone and sent a message to Taylor: [Went to the set today to watch others act, and the director grabbed me on the spot to try a scene. The prompt was just three words—'Miss your mom.' I sat there thinking for a long time, but I didn't cry in the end.]

[But the director said it was good, and Scarlett said she almost cried. I think they're both right, so I must be quite talented. When you get back from your tour, I'll tell you all about it.]

A little while later, Scarlett sent him the recording of the audition with the caption: [The tears you held back are more moving than many actors actually crying. Will your mom see this?]

He replied: [She will in the movie theater someday.]

Chen Mo turned off his phone and went to take a shower. Closing his eyes under the hot water, he thought of the movement of those calloused knuckles lingering on the replay button.

Chen Mo's family hadn't always been wealthy. When he was a child, his father was a state-owned enterprise employee, and his mother was a primary school teacher.

After being laid off, his father caught the mining boom and became wealthy, improving life for their family and relatives. But as a father, he wasn't generous with him; he even raised him frugally.

His mother was a typical Chinese woman—she could live through the mundane, the difficult, and the prosperous just the same. Yet, even during their hardest times, she still bought him a piano, even if it was a secondhand one discarded by a school.

The money he sent home last year had all been put into a fixed-term deposit by his mother, who said she was saving it for his future marriage.

The wall between music and acting seemed to have been pried open a crack today.

There were less than two months left until the Grammy Awards, and the first full-cast rehearsal was scheduled for January 4th.

Chen Mo's recording studio had been getting set up since the night before—

Pushing the mixing console to the wall, clearing a space in the center, and taping down floor markers to the scale of the Grammy Awards stage.

Music director David had held a meeting an hour early. The sheet music for the string quartet had been revised several times, with the revision date of each version circled in red ink in the top right corner.

He had bought a roll of fluorescent green tape on Amazon and stuck it to the studio's wooden floor, crouching down for a long time to press down the edges.

At nine in the morning, everyone arrived.

First violinist Susan kept her Stradivarius in its case to warm up, drummer Tommy was in the corner gently tapping his knees with drum brushes to warm up his hands, the bassist was leaning against the wall flipping through sheet music, and the trio of backing vocalists were squeezed onto Chen Mo's old sofa sharing a single score.

The air conditioning was set to low, but with so many people, the air quickly became stuffy and heavy.

David pushed the talkback microphone from the control room, his voice traveling through the glass into the studio: "Today is the first full-cast rehearsal. We've already polished more than twenty versions with just the keyboard; now we're going to layer all the parts together."

"Start with the footsteps. You walk to the piano and stand still. The string quartet starts in E-flat, the backing vocals come in at the fourth measure, and the drums cut in before the third chorus. If there's a problem, we stop."

Chen Mo stood at the door of the recording studio, no microphone in hand.

He closed his eyes and ran through the blocking in his mind: how many steps to the piano, how many steps to the edge of the stage, where to turn, where to stand with the backing vocalists. Then, he opened his eyes, walked to the first floor marker, and stood still.

The first walk-through was without music.

Chen Mo walked the path marked out by the tape alone; Susan's bow was still resting on the music stand, and the drummer was still drinking his first cup of coffee.

The studio was very quiet, with only the sound of sneakers stepping on the wooden floor.

Walking to the tape marker corresponding to the third chorus, he stopped and glanced back at the control room.

David pressed the talkback microphone: "You paused half a beat too long before the third chorus just now."

Chen Mo said the floor marker was crooked; he only realized when he got there that he needed to turn at a slightly different angle to face the audience directly.

On the twentieth take, the whole band played together. The E-flat transition section of the string quartet had just begun to push forward, the drummer cut in before the third chorus, and the backing group came in on the second line of the verse.

Chen Mo stood up from the piano and walked to the edge of the stage. He had no microphone in his hand, but his right hand remained in a loose grip, maintaining the exact wrist angle as in the official performance.

At the fifteenth step—the fifteenth step from the piano to the edge of the stage—he suddenly stopped, turned around, and said to Susan: "In that E-flat to C transition, the strings came in too early. You should wait until my left hand moves from the B-flat to the E-flat inversion before coming in. Don't count the beats."

Susan gently placed her bow on the music stand and pushed up her glasses: "These few steps of yours are more complicated than our quartet's full score."

David chimed in from behind the control room glass: "Susan said last time that accompanying you is like solving a math problem with no standard answer."

Chen Mo acknowledged this, saying he tried his best to make the problem solvable, but he had to leave that gap open.

On the twenty-third take, Chen Mo stood up from the piano again, walked to the edge of the stage, turned around, and returned to the piano.

This time it went smoothly; his shoulders weren't tense, and his steps didn't hesitate. But David pressed the talkback microphone: "Your shoulders were stiff while you were walking."

Chen Mo stopped and looked down at his shoulders, saying: "Sorry, because when I played the piano before, my body was fixed. When walking and singing, my center of gravity is always shifting, and I have to find my balance with every step. Whenever I try to find my balance, my shoulders instinctively hunch up."

"Then practice until it's a habit. Practice walking and singing until it's as steady as playing the piano while sitting. Practice until you don't have to think about where your center of gravity is, and your body finds its balance on its own. Until that day, keep walking."

On the twenty-fourth take, at the tenth step from the piano to the edge of the stage, he began to try sinking his shoulders, imagining he was still sitting at the piano, his spine extending upward, his center of gravity resting on his heels.

On the twenty-fifth take, by the fifteenth step, his right wrist finally hung naturally, no longer tense as if gripping an air microphone.

Then, on the twenty-eighth take, he walked to the tape marker before the third chorus, turned around, faced the backing vocalists, his shoulders completely relaxed, his breathing steady, and his voice without a trace of tension.