The Best Movie Actor In Hollywood! Chapter 73

From the woods to the town of Foy, the ground was white with artificial snow. Matthew knelt in the middle of the man-made forest, his helmet upturned beside him.

Over a dozen camera crews with handheld cameras stood ready to film the actors.

Focused on Matthew were three two-person camera crews, their task to capture Ronald Speirs, the central figure of this scene.

On the battlefield, one by one, soldiers in the uniforms of the 101st Airborne Division fell to the ground to the sound of gunfire.

In the foreground, Major Richard Winters, played by Damian Lewis, agitatedly tried to take command of the front line himself, but was stopped by the regimental commander.

Easy Company lacked effective command, a fatal flaw on the battlefield, and they were on the verge of being wiped out by the Germans.

Matthew held a standard tactical position, crouched in the snow, until Damian Lewis called out to him.

"Speirs, to me!"

Hearing the shout, Matthew immediately ran over, clutching his Thompson. Damian Lewis stared out at the battlefield and yelled to him, "You're going in. Relieve Dyke and lead Easy Company in the attack!"

At that moment, Matthew was being treated like the star of the show.

The camera crews didn't interfere with Matthew's movements in the slightest. He had long since captured the essence of Ronald Speirs's character, and his face betrayed no emotion—not panic, not anxiety, only a stoic calm. As he charged forward, he looked every bit the battle-hardened veteran who had long ago made peace with life and death on the fields of World War II.

Boom!

Under the pyrotechnicians' control, the snow ahead erupted in a cloud of smoke. Undaunted, Matthew plunged through the smoke and grime, taking cover behind a haystack. Without a word, he grabbed the actor playing Dyke by the collar and declared, "I'm taking command!"

"First Sergeant Lipton!" he immediately demanded. "What's the situation?"

The officer immediately crawled over and replied, "The company is scattered. 1st Battalion attempted a flanking maneuver, but they're taking fire from a sniper. I think he's in that building with the collapsed roof."

He spoke as quickly as he could, and as Matthew listened, he pointed to a house in the distance and ordered, "Take out that building with mortars!"

Matthew got to his feet. "The rest of you, attack head-on! No more flanking maneuvers!"

With that, he burst out from behind the haystack and yelled, "Follow me!"

Without a backward glance, Matthew charged forward, trusting the men of Easy Company to follow his lead. He stuck to the route he had mapped out when he first took his position, sprinting behind a house before coming to a halt.

"Cut!" The director, Frenkel, shouted through a megaphone to stop filming. He appeared on the viewing platform of the tallest house and gave Matthew a thumbs-up. "Great take, kid!"

That concluded the filming of the expansive battle scene. Frenkel came down from the platform, gave an order to his assistant to have the crew adjust the set, and then walked over to Matthew.

Matthew greeted him, taking off his steel helmet. Frenkel walked up and clapped him on the shoulder. "You're a real actor."

Matthew just smiled.

Frenkel nodded. The young man had made a good impression on him: smart, humble, hardworking, dedicated, and respectful. An actor like that would never give a director any trouble.

He pointed to a low wall at the end of the street and said, "On the next take, don't think about anything else. Just run as fast as you can to that wall, get over it, and I'll be waiting for you on the other side."

The street was filled with German tanks and soldiers. Matthew glanced over and saw the short wall, which couldn't have been more than a meter high, if that.

He replied, "Got it!"

The scene was about Ronald Speirs breaking through a heavily fortified German street alone to link up with I Company on the other side and facilitate a two-pronged attack on the Germans.

The historical accounts and memoirs were full of descriptions of this event; it wasn't some fictional sequence added by the writers.

According to First Sergeant Lipton's memoirs, the Germans never imagined a single soldier would dare to run straight into their lines, let alone escape without a scratch. The fact that Easy Company was fiercely attacking at the time served as a crucial distraction for the German soldiers.

It was this very incident that led the men of Easy Company to accept Ronald Speirs, and after the ignominious flight of Lieutenant Dyke, Ronald Speirs logically took over as the commander of Easy Company.

The set was reset, and filming began again.

After a few lines of dialogue with the actor playing First Sergeant Lipton, Matthew shot out from behind the house, his long legs pumping like a panther's. He raced past the German fortifications on the street, darting between a tank and a self-propelled gun.

Three cameras captured him from different angles.

Matthew heard nothing but the whistling wind in his ears as he sprinted past the infamous and formidable German Tiger tank and approached the low wall without losing speed. His feet found purchase on the low wall, which was over a meter high.

What he hadn't expected was that the wall was just a prop and couldn't support his weight. The moment he got on top of it, he felt the structure shift beneath him.

In the next instant, a third of the wall collapsed, dragging Matthew down with it.

Matthew sensed the danger even before he hit the ground, and the moment his body made contact, he immediately rolled, just in time to avoid the broken bricks falling from above. But as soon as he landed, a searing pain shot through his arm.

"Cut!" Director Frenkel, who was just behind the wall, hastily yelled, "Medic! Get a medic over here, quick!"

A medical team is an essential part of the crew when filming war scenes like this, and a doctor with a first-aid kit came running over at once.

A sharp pain shot through Matthew's left arm. He struggled to get up from the ground, but an experienced assistant director immediately stopped him.

"Don't move!" the man warned. "Let the doctor take a look first."

"It's alright!" Matthew immediately shook his head. "I'm fine."

He had worked in construction before, where bumps and bruises were a common occurrence, so he figured it was just a minor injury to his arm and that the rest of his body was fine.

No film crew wants an actor to get injured, and an on-set injury often spells big trouble.

Not only did the doctor rush over as fast as he could, but even the producer, Gary, showed up.

"Where are you hurt?" the doctor knelt beside Matthew, who pointed to his left arm. "Here."

The doctor unbuttoned his sleeve and asked, "Anywhere else?"

Matthew shook his head. "Seems fine. I don't feel any other pain."

The doctor rolled up the sleeve to reveal his upper arm. Matthew glanced down and saw only a bruise. The doctor immediately felt it, then sighed in relief. "The bone is fine. It's just a superficial injury."

Matthew felt a wave of relief as well; no one wants to get injured.

He then moved his arms and legs as the doctor instructed, confirming that it was only a minor injury to his arm.

"Let's get you to the hospital first to get it checked out properly," David Frenkel said, walking over.

As he spoke, his brow furrowed. Setting up this scene hadn't been easy, and most of it was already shot, which was good. But if it rained tonight or tomorrow, it would be a problem.

With this crappy London weather, the rain was unpredictable, and many scenes would have to be reshot, throwing the entire filming schedule off track.

It wasn't just director David Frenkel; even Gary, the producer, was worried. Delays in filming often meant increased expenses, the last thing a producer wants, but they couldn't stop an actor from seeing a doctor after an injury.

If a powerful agent was backing the actor, it would be even more problematic.

"Let's go," the doctor urged Matthew. "I'll go with you to the hospital."

Frenkel walked over to the other side and snapped at the set decorators, pointing at the short wall and shouting, clearly very annoyed.

Matthew saw this but wasn't foolish enough to think Frenkel was worried about him. He guessed the director was worried about the shooting schedule.

"It's a minor injury," Matthew said, moving his left arm, which felt fine except for a slight ache. "There's no need to go to the hospital."

Frenkel immediately turned his head to look at him, and Matthew continued, "I want to finish the scene."

Since Matthew insisted, the others naturally didn't object, and after the doctor briefly treated his left arm and his makeup was touched up, he returned to filming.

The low wall wasn't repaired, just reinforced along most of its remaining section. After Frenkel decided to use the footage they'd just shot and resumed filming, Matthew tumbled over the low wall and disappeared behind a house amidst a line of extras and armored tanks representing the German forces in the town.

A short distance from the wall, Gary and Eric watched the scene unfold.

"What a dedicated young man," Gary remarked, clearly approving of Matthew's work ethic. "With him on board, we'll have far fewer unnecessary hassles."

He asked Eric, "What's his name?"

Eric, of course, knew who Matthew was and replied, "Matthew Horner. He's the actor Hanks personally picked at the audition."

Gary nodded slightly. "Hanks always had a good eye."

Eric thought about Helen's request, but fulfilling it was proving more complicated than expected. The final decision wasn't his to make, but Gary's. He paused for a moment before saying hesitantly, "Should we organize a press conference? Maybe we could have Matthew Horner attend as well. What do you think?"

Gary thought for a moment before replying, "I think that's a good idea."