Men's World (3)
After the day's shooting wrapped up, the crew was busy packing up the set.
“……”
“……”
An awkward silence hung heavily between the two actors.
Frederic Patterson’s eye was swollen like a bruised plum, while Sion Lee had a wad of cotton stuffed in his mouth to stop the bleeding from where he’d bitten his lip when he took the first punch.
Frederic wanted nothing more than to tuck his tail and run home immediately, but the reason he couldn't was obvious—he was the guilty party.
He had thrown the first punch. Right into the face of the lead actor, Sion Lee.
On any normal set, filming would have ground to a halt immediately, and he would have faced a mountain of backlash. But because Sion had been so deeply immersed in the scene, he kept going without a cut, allowing everyone to just roll with it.
…Though, right after that, Frederic had been thoroughly beaten black and blue, which was probably why everyone was willing to let it slide.
The rest of the shoot had been an absolute chaotic brawl.
Sion had lunged back in as if he’d been waiting for the excuse, burying a fist into Frederic’s face to return the favor. Seeing that grin gleaming with raw, primal combativeness, Frederic had caught a brief glimpse of the pearly gates and fought back with everything he had just to survive.
Of course, Sion hadn't actually thrown full-power punches. It was just that the sheer physical exertion of grappling, rolling around, and wrestling for dominance was incredibly exhausting for Frederic, who wasn't particularly fond of that kind of roughhousing.
He hadn't been like this in the past, but as he got older, the idea of seriously duking it out with someone felt more tiring than exhilarating.
Sion, on the other hand, was completely different.
Frederic let out a heavy sigh, as if he understood exactly what was going through the mind of the man who had suddenly burst into a chuckle.
“…You had fun, didn't you?”
“Of course I did. Man, I'm really starting to like you, Frederic.”
“Does that mean you didn't before?”
Seeing Frederic look slightly dejected, Sion let out a refreshing laugh. He pulled the blood-soaked cotton from his mouth, and a thin trickle of red ran down his lip.
“Should I ask them to get you a fresh piece of cotton…?”
“Nah, it's fine. I'll just swallow the blood and put some spit on it. It'll stop soon.”
Sion grinned, looking as though he actually enjoyed the sharp, stinging pain. Sweating it out like this made him feel grounded, reminding him of where he stood and that he was truly alive.
Feeling a sudden, intense craving for a cold beer, Sion spoke up.
“Come over to my place. There are a few things I want to talk about regarding the shoot.”
“…Do I even have the right to refuse?”
“Sure. If you don't want to, you can get the hell back to your own house right now.”
…Frederic did not possess the courage to actually go home after hearing that. Whimpering under his breath, he quietly followed Sion out.
Under the cover of the dark night in South LA, people stared in awe at the Porsche 911 tearing down the road. After picking up a six-pack of beer from a nearby convenience store, Sion drove toward the park right in front of his house.
He gestured toward it, suggesting they grab a drink there first.
As the amber glow of the streetlights washed over the car, Frederic watched the pedestrians walking along the sidewalk and asked, “Hey, aren't you going to upgrade your car? With what you're making now, you could easily go for a higher tier.”
“Why bother? I'd rather invest that money or use it for my projects.”
“You haven't moved houses either. You're frugal in the weirdest ways. You weren't like this in the old days.”
“Well, this is plenty. I bought this place to live with my mother, so it's actually too big for me to live in alone.”
“Hmm…”
Frederic quietly recalled the past. He remembered how he used to use his parents' divorce as an 'excuse' to justify his wild behavior during the filming of The College Player. Sion had shut him down back then by casually mentioning that both of his parents were dead, and then just moved on.
Remembering that conversation made him feel a bit curious.
Frederic, whose parents were divorced and with whom he maintained a distant relationship, was currently enjoying his single life with no intention of starting a family anytime soon. He made decent money, had no financial worries, and focused entirely on having a good time.
But Sion…
“Isn't it exhausting? Working all the time without ever really letting loose and enjoying yourself?”
While the general public didn't know this side of him, Frederic, who had crossed paths with Sion in various ways, knew better than anyone just how much of a workaholic he was. Contrary to his flashy, playboy public image, Sion’s lifestyle was strictly, almost ruthlessly, focused on his craft.
And filming Fight Club had driven that point home once again.
Sion answered his question simply.
“I'm just curious to see how much better I can get.”
“What do they call that? Self-efficacy?”
“Something like that, I guess.”
“Man, even so, you're pushing yourself way too hard.”
“I have to. Everyone around me is doing the same.”
“…I don't get it.”
They arrived at the park, and Sion pulled the car over. Frederic hopped out and cracked open a can of beer.
It was a quiet, secluded park far from the main road. Sitting on the hood of the car with their cans, the two men took a light sip. It was a quiet moment of reconciliation, a silent agreement that there were no hard feelings despite the physical blows they had traded just hours earlier.
“Honestly… nothing beats a cold beer after a long day of work.”
As the chill of the beer cooled his chest, the California night breeze brushed pleasantly against his cheeks.
“Yeah, it's not bad,” Sion agreed, looking down at the city lights sprawling beneath the hill. “But you know, once you start having more things to take responsibility for, you can't just live like that forever.”
“Wait, did you get someone pregnant?”
“……”
Sion stared at Frederic with a look of genuine, deep-seated disgust, as if wondering how a human brain could produce such nonsense without a single filter.
With Frederic reduced to a slightly blanched paprika under his gaze, Sion finally continued.
“I didn't plan on working this hard either… but after my father passed away, and then my mother, I lived like a complete wreck for a while. Once I finally snapped out of it, I found myself thinking about a lot of things. I wanted to live each day vividly, to really experience it. You know how you want to watch a masterpiece of a movie in the absolute best theater possible? I guess I wanted to enjoy the movie called 'Me' in the most entertaining, high-quality way possible.”
“Oh… spoken like a true charismatic actor. That's a killer metaphor.”
Frederic was genuinely impressed by the unexpected depth of the conversation. Realizing this was probably the first time they had ever talked so deeply without their other friends around, he asked awkwardly, “So… is it fun?”
“It's incredibly fun. I mean, think about it. We've got The Matrix, the Star Wars prequels… the competition is absolutely fantastic every single time.”
And Sion wanted to show them that the world he was building wouldn't lose to theirs. Perhaps that was the real reason he was working so hard as an actor now. Through performances that blurred the line between reality and fiction, he wanted to bring a sense of vivid life to those who, like his past self, were despairing in a suffocating reality.
“But until recently, I was so consumed by it that I was starting to forget who I was even in private. Talking comfortably like this felt weirdly awkward.”
“…Yeah, it is a little awkward.”
“But having people close to me—people who understand and accept the parts of me I don't even know myself—definitely helped me snap out of it.”
“I'm included in that group, right?”
“Not a chance. Haha. You're not quite there yet, Frederic.”
“……”
“But I hope we can keep things like this~.”
Sion let out a mischievous laugh, continuing to tease the slightly deflated Paprika. Still, the taste of the beer they shared in that moment was incredibly, vividly alive.
When showtime finally arrived, the theater packed with eager moviegoers plunged into darkness. Everyone was buzzing with anticipation, waiting to witness 'it' on the giant screen.
After a few brief trailers flashed by, a production company's logo glowed in sharp green against the black screen.
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH—!!
The audience erupted into a deafening cheer as if they had been waiting for this exact moment.
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. The level of anticipation for this film was simply unprecedented.
In stark contrast to the roaring cheers, the trailer began quietly. Alien species walking through dense forests, followed by text rising against a black background. And then, the grand, sweeping Star Wars theme blasted through the speakers.
Da-da-da-daaa-daaa! Da-da-da-daaa-daaa!
From that moment on, the crowd couldn't even cheer. They simply stared in awe, deeply moved by the return of 'America's Myth' after sixteen long years.
From the generation that had enjoyed the franchise since childhood to the younger generation who had only watched it on VHS tapes after its release—some were so overwhelmed by the emotion of watching a new Star Wars film in a theater that they actually shed tears.
The sleek, magnificent spaceships, the revolutionary CGI, the word 'Jedi', and the lightsabers they wielded—just seeing these elements recreated for a new era sent shivers down everyone's spines.
In fact, once the trailer ended, a significant number of audience members actually got up and walked out of the theater, feeling they had already gotten their money's worth. That was the sheer, terrifying power of this film.
The highly anticipated new installment of Star Wars was a global phenomenon. Released on May 19, the week before Memorial Day—one of the biggest holiday seasons in the United States—it displayed overwhelming dominance right out of the gate.
Lines of fans camping out in tents in front of theaters were spotted all across the country, and a confident rumor began circulating within 20th Century Fox.
"We will surpass Titanic, which we distributed two years ago, all by ourselves."
Unusually for a blockbuster, it opened on a Wednesday, which reportedly caused noticeable economic losses across the nation as countless people simply skipped work to watch it.
And as expected, the film shattered the previous opening weekend box office records, launching with an astronomical $106.4 million.
In the early 90s, that kind of figure would have been considered a highly successful 'lifetime box office run' for a well-made film from release to its final screening. But now, with the explosive increase of multiplexes, the expansion of the global market, and the aggressive push of blockbuster strategies, earning that much money in a single weekend had become a reality.
Audiences leaving the theaters after watching Star Wars shared the same ecstatic reactions.
“I actually watched Star Wars! In a theater!”
“And it's a brand-new movie…! This is a historic moment in our lives!”
“Seriously, the CGI was insane! It was incredible…!”
“Is this the kind of shock our parents felt when they were kids?”
Observing these reactions through various channels, Elena Asimov, who played the role of Padmé Amidala, couldn't help but think:
…Wait, why is almost no one talking about the actual plot of the movie?
But it was only natural. Star Wars was practically a modern myth in America, and people were simply overjoyed by the mere fact that they could experience it in theaters again.
In other words, they weren't in the mood to critique the storyline or the actors' performances. They were drunk on the sheer excitement of Star Wars returning at the turn of the millennium, and these external factors propelled the film to a massive commercial success.
…At least, for the first few weeks.
As time passed, however, public opinion began to split, starting on the internet.
On the famous Star Wars fan site, Theforce.net, the atmosphere was shifting.
Alongside these reactions, fans even started selling t-shirts printed with the slogan "Jar Jar Must Die."
But those criticisms were just the beginning.
Even the media, which had initially praised the film as a 'monumental cultural phenomenon,' began to shift its tone over time, offering critiques like "technologically marvelous, but lacking a solid core."
While the box office numbers remained staggering, the polarizing reviews cast a shadow over the film's success. Yet, even in this climate, the actors had to put on bright smiles for their promotional interviews.
On television, Elena conducted her interviews with absolute professionalism, looking elegant and confident.
…But right now, she was burying her face in Sion’s chest.
“……”
“Don't let it get to you, El. You knew from the start that this role was a poisoned chalice.”
With her face still buried, Elena mumbled a quiet, “I know.”
She had kept up a perfect front in public, but seeing her look so deflated because the response didn't match her immense effort was incredibly endearing to Sion.
“It's the eternal dilemma of Hollywood blockbusters. You're walking a tightrope between hardcore fans who want depth and families who just want light entertainment. There's no movie in the world that can satisfy everyone. So don't take it to heart.”
“…But the acting was so hard.”
“I know, I know. The makeup was intense, and the costumes were so heavy.”
“And I worked so hard without ever complaining. But no one is talking about Padmé. They're all just talking about Jar Jar.”
“Would you feel better if they started selling 'Padmé Must Die' t-shirts instead?”
“No, of course not. But still…”
As the lead in her very first action blockbuster, she couldn't help but want people to recognize the sheer effort she had poured into the role. Elena kept her face buried in Sion’s chest for a long time, quietly comforting herself.
Sion patted her back gently, a sudden thought crossing his mind.
I didn't expect this.
Seeing Elena’s spirit crushed like this was surprisingly cute, but it also left him feeling a slight pang of guilt.
If I'd known she'd take it this hard, I should have paid more attention. I've been so busy myself ever since Echos of a Family…
Because the upcoming promotional campaign for Bad Contract 2, which Sion had heavily influenced as a franchise actor, had been specifically designed to anticipate this exact cultural landscape. It was crafted to directly address and compensate for the very elements that Star Wars Episode I lacked.
“Mmmph.”
“…There, there.”
“Mmmph…”
Sensing Elena’s silent demand for comfort, Sion gently and affectionately stroked her hair.