Chapter 144: Oscar Best Actor
"Hello, Clark, take a seat." Pointing to a chair in the tent, Duke waited for the Marine Corps captain, Clark Lewis, to sit down before turning his attention back to the dozen actors sitting nearby. They would play the most prominent American and German soldiers in Saving Private Ryan.
His gaze swept over them one by one. Aside from Tom Hanks, who was playing Captain Miller, the rest of the actors were completely different from the ones he remembered. Setting Leonardo DiCaprio aside, there were no famous names among them.
Duke didn't mind. These actors had stood out through two rounds of auditions, proving they possessed the fundamental acting chops. All they lacked was a crucial opportunity, and this film just might change some of their lives.
Reaching an agreement with Tom Hanks so quickly had also somewhat exceeded Duke's expectations. Charles Roven and Robin Grande's initial contact with Eno Martin had gone extremely poorly. The agent had refused to budge from a 20 million dollar base salary, causing Duke to briefly consider dropping Tom Hanks. He had even thought of a backup choice: Liam Neeson, who had played Oskar Schindler.
Somehow, that news reached Eno Martin's ears. The veteran agent was clearly a smart man; likely guessing why Duke wanted to walk away, he had consulted Tom Hanks and changed the salary structure to a 1+2 model.
A base salary cut in half was within Duke's expectations, so he naturally had no reason to object. However, things got stuck at the production company level. Over several days of seesaw negotiations, the various parties all made certain compromises. Tom Hanks's compensation was ultimately set at 12 million dollars plus a fifteen percent share of the film's profits.
Once any actor or director had enough leverage, they would do everything possible to fight for their own interests within legal and reasonable bounds. The fact that Tom Hanks signed this contract was not unrelated to Duke being the director. After all, Duke's previous films had brought in massive profits, so increasing the profit-sharing percentage was hardly a bad thing.
Aside from Tom Hanks, the individual salaries of all the other actors were kept under 1 million dollars.
"Starting today, you must become trained soldiers as quickly as possible."