American Entertainment: Starting with playing the role of Little Beaver

Chapter 11 I am Hermione Granger.
"Isha! It's almost eight o'clock, why aren't you coming down yet!"

"Here I am~ I'm here~"

The thumping footsteps sounded like drums, creating a whirlwind that carried Isabella from upstairs to downstairs.

She was dressed very simply today.

Wearing a white top, light denim jeans, and white sneakers, with her golden hair naturally flowing down her back and a black baseball cap on her head, and a phone pouch for loose change slung across her shoulder, she looked youthful and energetic, but at the same time, it made Catherine's eyes twitch.

"Isa, I don't think I've misread the time, right? Today is August 19th?"

"Yeah, what's wrong?"

Are you going to the final interview today?

"Yeah~ Didn't Director Jesse say he'd be there before 10 o'clock?"

Isabella glanced at the clock in the entryway; it was a little past 7:50. "There are still two hours. We won't be late."

"No, no, no—it's not about being late, it's that you look like you're on a beach vacation."

Catherine expressed her feelings, saying, "It's not serious."

In the little girl's eyes, the final interview was a big deal.

Putting everything else aside, at the very least you need to have the right attitude and dress formally.

Yes, anyone familiar with Britain knows that the Union Jack in old London has many rules, and the dress code varies depending on the occasion. While you don't need to dress too formally for a job interview, though...

The jeans look a bit too wild.

In Britain, skirts are considered formal wear for women.

Oh, you mean this?

Isabella glanced at the pants. "Sis, you don't understand. The strong are always right, no matter what they do."

"For example, when drinking red wine, etiquette dictates that one should only hold the stem of the glass, but Her Majesty has always been drinking from the bowl. Would you dare say she lacks manners, is ill-mannered, or is rude? You wouldn't, would you?"

"Similarly, Sir Maggie Smith is now saying that I have no problem winning over Hermione, so what difference does it make how I dress?"

“You—” Catherine was stunned.

Such a metaphor would be considered utterly treasonous in Great Britain.

His brows furrowed, he glared at his sister, "Do you want to die?"

"Okay, okay, I'm not kidding anymore..."

Seeing her sister getting anxious, Isabella immediately pressed her hands down to signal her to calm down. "Alright, Keisha, there's a reason why I dressed simply. I also wanted to dress more formally, but today is the final interview, and nobody knows if we'll have to change clothes. Wearing something else wouldn't be convenient."

The plausible reason softened Catherine's expression, but she was still a little angry. "Can't you just talk properly?"

"I just noticed you seemed nervous and wanted to help you relax."

"Ha—Get out—"

The two arrived at the garage playfully bickering, and the stark contrast between their laughter and anger puzzled Vivian, who was waiting there.

"What's wrong with you two? Did you have a fight?"

“No,” Catherine denied outright.

Isabella didn't speak, but she shook her head rhythmically, like a seal slapping its belly.

Vivian was somewhat taken aback by the abstract response, but in the end, she gave up on agonizing over it, started the car, and drove out of the house.

It's the weekend, and London is a bit congested, with the average speed per car barely reaching 20 miles per hour. But luckily, Leavesdon is really close to Mayfair, and since the family left early, it only took about an hour and a half of stop-and-go driving to get there.

A month later, there were far fewer construction workers, and the dusty scene had disappeared, indicating that the film's set construction was almost complete. Furthermore, signs had been erected on set, and guided by these landmarks, Vivian quickly found the final location—not the small office building Isabella and the others had visited before, but a huge, shed-like factory.

After parking the car and identifying herself to the staff, Isabella was quickly guided to Jesse.

"Oh~ Isa~ Keisha~ Vivian~ Hello~"

Jesse greeted them first, then looked at Vivian.

"Leave Isa to me. You can't go into the waiting room, but don't worry, our people will take you to a monitored lounge where they can see what's happening in the waiting room. Then, someone will take you to the audition site when Isa is auditioning."

Vivian understood the rules of the industry and accepted them with a smile.

Catherine, who had been angry since leaving the house, put away her sullen face and cheered her sister on.

Follow Jesse into the waiting room reserved for auditionees. The environment inside is nice and the space is quite large, but there are not many seats, only twenty in total, and eighteen of them are already occupied.

With a quick scan, Isabella spotted two familiar faces.

One is Daniel Radcliffe, the other is Emma Watson, and as for the others?

She didn't know any of them.

Perhaps they were competitors? As soon as Isabella entered the room, she found the atmosphere terribly tense. No one spoke, and everyone stared at the newcomer with curious eyes.

The fact that she was the center of attention made Isabella a little embarrassed, uh...

She pretended.

hee hee~
She's seen this kind of situation many times in her past life. When you find that the position you want is highly competitive, finding your rivals, understanding them, and eliminating them is a normal psychological state, and it has nothing to do with age.

and so……

I sat down in the last remaining empty seat, deciding to remain unchanged in the face of any eventuality.

After waiting for a while, when the clock struck 9:50, the door to the waiting room opened again.

Jesse walked in with a blond boy with a watermelon-shaped haircut.

Like Isabella, this person also received bullying glances from everyone as soon as she appeared.

Sigh, Isabella also bullied him.

There was nothing she could do; she had recognized the other person's identity.

He is Ron.

Rupert Grint.

The simultaneous stare of nineteen pairs of eyes made Rupert a little flustered. Seeing that Isabella was alone, he sprang from his chair in a flash. On the surface, it looked like he simply found a chair and sat down, but in reality, his movements were so quick that it seemed he had always been there, merely going to the restroom—completely natural.

Isabella was somewhat impressed by this reaction.

Isabella glanced at him a couple more times, and just as she looked away, Rupert suddenly called out to her softly, "Hello? I'm Rupert Grint. Are you also one of the final interviewees?"

Isabella found him a bit funny. "Do I look like an examiner?"

“It doesn’t seem like it.” Rupert shook his head.

"Then I can only be the one auditioning."

"..." Rupert paused for a moment, realizing that his question was rather foolish.

The next second, he immediately explained, "Uh, I mean, it seems like this is the first time we've met?"

"Oh, if that's what you mean, then that's true."

"So you are..."

"Let me introduce myself. I am Isabella Haywood. You can call me Isabella."

Rupert is kind of cute.

Now that he had revealed his identity, Isabella no longer needed to hide it.

But just as she stretched out her right hand, wanting to get to know Rupert, the little guy suddenly widened his eyes as if he had seen the devil, and exclaimed, "Oh—My—God—you are Isabella, the Queen of Escape?"

"..."

To be fair, even if the two were speaking in hushed tones, in the eerily quiet waiting room, their voices were still quite clear. Therefore, Rupert's raising of his voice under these circumstances meant…

Swah——

Everyone turned their attention to Isabella.

Moreover, unlike the previous scrutiny, this time, many people's eyes showed surprise.

"Are you doing intensive review for the exam? That's really amazing."

Isabella smiled and nodded at the guys staring at her, while her mouth never stopped moving.

"Oh, you're Harry Potter? The boy who survived?"

She adapted the lines Ron and Harry exchanged when they met.

"Uh...sorry...I didn't mean to yell..."

Whether it was the stares of the crowd or Isabella's words, Rupert realized his lapse in composure, but after finding Isabella to be easy to talk to, he became excited again.

"I'm just so surprised, I never expected to meet a living legend today..."

Rupert's family wasn't involved in the arts, but they were quite wealthy. His father claimed to be a souvenir dealer, but he was certified by the FIA ​​and sold F1 merchandise. Although he didn't attend one of the top nine public schools, it was still a well-known century-old school in the area.

The casting information, which was inaccessible to outsiders, wasn't a big secret to their family. Therefore, the story of Isabella's courageous act of sneaking off to audition without her family's knowledge had already reached his ears.

Or rather, among the twenty people present, there were really not many ordinary people.

To other competitors, Isabella might be a living father, but to Rupert, she was practically a martial goddess—

"You know what? I was completely stunned when I heard your story!"

"Although I love Harry Potter and want to get a role in it, I only dared to record my resume as a video and send it to Susie's casting team."

"But what about you? Wow~ You just come to the set and ambush people? That's so cool!"

Isabella's eyes crinkled with a smile at her heartfelt admiration.

This also made the other three girls at the scene look unpleasant.

And the three examiners sitting in the monitoring room...

"Rupert's personality is quite similar to Ron's."

Film producer David Heyman laughed as he took off his headphones. "This Isabella is quite lively, and she's very funny. She said Rupert's shouting was like he was cramming for an exam? Oh—that's a funny analogy."

"really."

Rowling nodded. "That's actually what I like about her; she can joke around and she can be serious."

"Speaking differently depending on the occasion is a very valuable skill."

"Right? Chris?"

She looked at Chris Columbus.

As the project director, Columbus did not offer a definitive assessment.

He smiled and said, "It's ten o'clock, we can move on to the second segment." Children, animals, and water are the three most difficult elements to conquer in the film industry because they are uncontrollable.

Therefore, casting is the most important part of the entire process in children's films. It is simpler to select a child who fits the role and let him be himself in front of the camera than to select a child who can act and then give him acting instructions on set.

Therefore, bringing the children together and seeing what they will do is the first test of today's final interview.

In this exam, everyone scored above 80 because no one was making noise, but two people scored above 95 because they were chatting happily.

Being outgoing and friendly is so much better than being a quiet, reserved person in the entertainment industry.

With the first exam over, the second exam officially began.

The staff divided everyone into groups, and they would meet the examiners in the order of Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

Because Hermione was last in line, the girls had to wait until everyone before them had finished their interviews before they could enter. This process...

To be honest, it's pretty boring.

Even though the average duration of the final interview is only 15 minutes, because the basic skills have already been tested in the previous rounds, 15 minutes for one person means that the 16 boys (excluding the girls) will have to use up 240 minutes first.

In addition, lunch takes half an hour...

At 10 a.m., the final interview, as seen by the children, officially began. At 2:30 p.m., the girls drew lots to enter the venue.

Isabella was very unlucky and drew the last position.

By the time she changed into her Gryffindor uniform and entered the house, it was almost 3:30 in the afternoon, and everyone in front of her had already left.

"Isa, what's it like coming in now?"

As soon as Isabella entered the house, Rowling asked with a smile.

"Uh...it feels like being kept at school by the teacher and not allowed to go home..."

Isabella answered truthfully.

The apt words made Rowling, sitting on the left, burst into laughter, and David Heyman, sitting in the middle, couldn't help but chuckle.

After quickly completing the audition process, Chris Columbus, sitting on the far right, asked Isabella to draw her performance material. Following his instructions, Isabella received her test: she had to perform two scenes, both without props.

The first paragraph is a scene from the middle of the novel, where Hermione encounters a troll in the women's restroom;
The second part takes place after the Wizarding Chess storyline ends. Ron is unconscious, Harry wants to move on, while Hermione has to stay behind to take care of Ron. When they part, Hermione encourages Harry.

These two performances were not difficult for Isabella; Maggie Smith guided her through them.

So when Chris Columbus clapped his hands and instructed Isabella to perform according to the actual filming process, the three examiners received a flawless, one-take performance.

In the troll scene, Hermione, looking exhausted after relieving herself, emerged from the toilet stall. Just as she was about to leave with her eyes still blurry, a pair of huge feet suddenly appeared, causing her to stop abruptly and shudder.

Slowly raising her head, a colossal monster, whose entire form was obscured at a glance, came into her view.

The giant closed in, intending to attack.

Hermione was terrified and staggered backward.

But toilets are one-way passages, and when a troll blocks the exit, Hermione's back can only be a dead end.

So as she backed away, she bumped into a cubicle.

This fact caused the troll to swing his club, but Hermione decisively dodged and disappeared back into the compartment.

They lay prostrate on the ground, hoping the wooden door of the compartment would protect them from the giant's deadly attack.

then……

Over.

Rowling's eyes crinkled with a smile at his effortless performance.

She thought it was good.

Chris Columbus clearly captured Isabella's action of pausing for two seconds after prostrating herself on the ground before trembling.

He knew that the shiver was a stress response after the troll attack and Hermione being hit by the collapsing compartment, and also an instinct for humans to express their fear in the face of crisis. But at the same time, he knew even more clearly that this was not part of the script.

The script for "The Philosopher's Stone" didn't include such a detailed description because this scene required special effects during production. So, during the actual filming, Hermione only needed to climb out of the ruins.

To put it simply, the script was written with the unpredictability of children in mind, so the writers simplified the complex performances, but Isabella added back the parts that were cut.

If one had to evaluate it, this addition would be superfluous.

When the movie is officially released, neither the children watching the movie nor the adults who brought them will usually pay attention to these details, because Harry Potter is a commercial film.

Can……

Who could resist a genius with good comprehension?
Even if this genius might be man-made;

It was even handmade by an old artist like Maggie Smith;
But this kind of thing isn't really important, is it?
Even if it's man-made, it still proves that Isabella can understand teachings!

And then Isabella, disguised as Hermione, passionately encouraged Harry...

"Chris, what do you think of Isa?"

Five o'clock in the evening.

The three key figures in the Harry Potter project sat down for their final meeting.

The three voted unanimously for Harry and Ron, but for Hermione, Rowling cast her vote for Isabella before the voting even began.

This action made David Heyman look at Chris Columbus.

His meaning was clear: he would vote with Rowling.

To put it bluntly, Dan Niu is actually his person.

Regardless of Rowling's reasons for choosing Daniel, he still owes her a debt of gratitude.

Not to mention he also thought Isabella was excellent.

This question made Chris Columbus smile wryly. Looking at the ballot in his hand, he sighed and said, "Do you know what I'm thinking right now? I feel like I've gone back ten years."

"Ten years ago, when I took on the role in Home Alone, I didn't actually want to cast Macaulay Culkin. It was John Hughes, the writer and producer of Home Alone, who said he really liked Macaulay, and that's how he became the lead."

“I’m not saying this to vent my dissatisfaction with John, nor to say that I think the concessions I made back then were a mistake. What I want to say is that after I worked with Macaulay, I did discover his strengths. He is an extremely talented kid. I denied him back then simply because I didn’t know him well.”

"so……"

"Sir Maggie Smith has taken on a good student."

Chris Columbus circled Isabella Haywood on the voting list.

"Wish us happy cooperation."

He gently placed the ballot on the table.

Rowling beamed with joy.

"Oh~ Chris~ Thank you~"

Columbus has already conceded; it would be extremely impolite for her to still have a stern face.

"Our cooperation will definitely be very pleasant."

David Heyman also circled Isabella Haywood's name.

With the consensus reached, all parties have received the casting results one after another.

For Warner, the end of the dispute and the start of the project is the best news.

They won't have to lose money for nothing!
For all the candidates who participated in the final interview, failure would certainly be a huge blow, but success...

"What? Director Jesse? The results are out so quickly?"

"Oh, okay, I understand. Thank you so much! Please thank Ms. Rowling for me. I'll definitely pay you a visit another day!"

Vivian received the call at 6:15 p.m.

They are currently having dinner at the rooftop restaurant of Harrods department store in Knightsbridge.

Harrods is one of the world's largest luxury department stores, and its restaurants are very expensive. A simple bowl of Japanese ramen costs £29, while the table Vivian booked today would easily cost one or two thousand.

The reason Vivian ate such an expensive meal before the results came out was because she didn't see it as a celebration, but as a way to express her gratitude to Isabella for her recent contributions to the family.

Vivian could see every single minute Isabella was busy these days.

I feel even more sorry for her.

Although before she came, Vivian said that the result didn't matter, as long as she tried her best.

But when the surprise actually arrived, her hands still trembled involuntarily. She pursed her lips, wanting to give a happy smile, but after a moment, her eyes still welled up with tears.

He took two deep breaths—

Since I can't control my emotions, then I won't try to control them!

Without further hesitation, she leaned closer to her daughter, gently touching her forehead to hers, and murmured, "Mommy loves you."

The simplest words are the most heartfelt confessions.

With a slight smile, she replied happily, "Me too," while glancing at her older sister who was being ignored by her mother.

Catherine had guessed everything, her eyes sparkling with excitement, but she didn't move until she had confirmation.

"I am Hermione Granger."

Isabella winked at her sister.

"Oh~~~"

A calm yet extraordinary voice, like a spark, ignited a firework eager to burst forth—

Congratulations, Isa!

Catherine jumped up—

"Oh my god~ Oh my god~~ You really did it! You really did it!!"

She lunged at her younger sister.

Isabella opened her arms and hugged her.

But next second...

"Boom!"

"Ow~"

All three of them felt a sharp pain in their heads.

Nobody knows who hit whom, but they both hit each other on the head.

　Notes: ① While it's true that Chris Columbus directed *Home Alone*, in the US, the film is actually attributed to John Hughes, as he was both the producer and the sole screenwriter. In other words, *Home Alone* was a custom-written project; Hughes wrote the script with Macaulay Culkin in mind. Culkin had previously acted in Hughes' *Uncle Buck*, and Hughes was a big fan of his. ② John Hughes had a significant influence in the US, specializing in teen films. His films include *The Breakfast Club* and *Friday Night Is Not a School Day*. The latter, due to its immense popularity, even spawned a television series in 90. Later, in 95, a band called Save Ferris emerged in the US, named after a film, whose signature song is "The Only Way to Be," the theme song from *Scary Movie*.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)