Reset Life with Infinite Talents - Chapter 231

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Infinite Talent Reset Life Episode 231

‘Suddenly changing the female lead’s character setting!’

Bradley Cooper gets out of the car and hurriedly heads toward Lady Gaga’s Hollywood Hills mansion.

The script isn’t completely finished, but it’s almost in a completed state. This could be a situation where they might scrap the entire script.

‘I have to stop this!’

Lady Gaga’s manager, who spotted him from outside, hurriedly opens the door for him.

It was the moment he stepped inside the door.

“You are beautiful.”

Stop!

A pleasant husky voice speaks of love.

“…Get lost.”

A voice tinged with absurdity and contempt.

“No! You need to be more contemptuous, more disappointed. Didn’t you get teased like this during your school days?”

“I didn’t! The boys wouldn’t even pay attention to me!”

“Did you really get bullied?”

“Hey.”

“Anyway, this kind of repertoire is common, isn’t it? Boys who whisper love to ugly girls then push them away while giggling. Girls who encourage the boys because they can’t stand the sight of girls who are just plain ugly. You grew up being teased by those kinds of kids.”

Always hoping and being disappointed, then eventually giving up.

“…That’s like hell.”

“It happened quite often at the school I attended.”

“At that rich kid school?”

“Not everyone was rich.”

It was mainly the international students who scraped together money they didn’t have to study abroad at Fairmont who got picked on, so I’d beat them up whenever I saw that kind of behavior.

“You were bullied a lot too, yet you ignore the malice of teenagers?”

Teenagers easily cross lines.

An age that thoughtlessly packages it as pranks.

“…”

“Now, let’s try again. This declining star meets someone with an amazing voice in a rural town. That’s you, Allie.”

The moment he hears it, he realizes and trembles.

Perhaps a voice that could put him back on top.

That’s why the male protagonist Jackson Maine thinks he should seduce and use that innocent country woman.

“Jackson Maine has it easy. Because he’s handsome. Because even his voice is handsome.”

With that handsome face and voice, when he looked at someone and said they were beautiful, everyone fell for it.

“This person has lived easily like that all his life. Then he meets you, who’s like a hedgehog.”

“…I guess I should think he’s just trying to sleep with any woman while drunk, or rather, with me because I look easy.”

“Bingo. Let’s start.”

As soon as those words fell, greed filled the eyes of the declining star sitting at the small kitchen table.

Hiding it with a smile, he stares at Lady Gaga, Allie, with sticky eyes.

“You are truly beautiful.”

“Haa… Get lost.”

Chills!

Bradley Cooper clenches his fist tightly.

Even Jackson Maine’s gaze as he’s surprised and flustered by Allie’s contemptuous rejection.

It’s acting that completely deviates from the script.

But goosebumps rise all over his body.

However, their acting didn’t end there.

Johann’s mouth opens.

“Thud! Thud! Allie exits through the back door of the bar. With trembling hands, she lights a cigarette. Stars are the same too. Why do only men like this approach me? Isn’t there anyone who will see me as I am? Isn’t there anyone who will love me?”

Johann picks up an acoustic guitar.

Strum! Strum!

“I’m a woman too. A woman, not a plaything!”

‘Crazy! FUCK! Crazy!’

A dark night sky unfolds before his eyes.

In the shabby alley of a rural Arizona town, the self-deprecating yet desperate cry of a woman who wants to be a woman, smoking a cigarette, echoes.

An even stronger thrill than before runs through his entire body.

Strum!

“Ending. Monologue.”

“Haaa. I hate it. Really.”

“…Bravo!”

Clap clap clap clap clap clap clap!

“Bravo! Fucking bravo-! Yes, let’s scrap it! Let’s scrap it!”

How could he not scrap it after seeing something like this?

Bradley Cooper’s eyes gleamed with ecstasy.

“So you’re saying we should keep this setting all the way to the end?”

Always insecure about her appearance.

So she’s happy about success, but deep down suspects why the public likes her – the female protagonist Allie.

Instead of answering, Johann points to Lady Gaga.

“…Honestly, even now I don’t believe compliments about my appearance. I probably never will.”

She succeeded through musicality, not appearance.

That was an absolute and unchanging law.

“It was the same with my first relationship.”

Her first boyfriend, who was a DJ and owner of the club where she worked before debuting. What he liked was her singing ability and personality, not her appearance.

So whenever he gave attention to pretty and accomplished women, she got jealous, and they fought terribly because of it.

Their first relationship that ended after repeatedly breaking up and getting back together.

“The people I dated after that were…”

Tap!

Johann and Bradley Cooper tap the table, interrupting her words.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to talk about that.”

It must have been a difficult story, but thank you for sharing.

Bradley Cooper grins and stands up.

“Thanks, Gaga. Johann.”

Especially grateful to Johann.

Johann, who made this happen in less than half a day. He really thinks it was good to ask.

‘I’ll have to repay this favor somehow!’

“Please take care of me going forward.”

He turns around and grits his teeth.

‘This will be the differentiating factor!’

The differentiating factor from all the remakes that have come out so far.

His steps quickened with the text and scenes storming through his head like a whirlwind, and Johann and Lady Gaga looked at each other.

“It’s nice having a good acting partner, isn’t it?”

“Hoho. Of course they’ll raise the pay… That was acting, right?”

The gazes and gestures were too realistic to dismiss as just acting. So she’s starting to get suspicious.

‘Is this guy going around doing this stuff behind his girlfriend’s back…?’

“Hmm…”

‘I can’t say no.’

The person currently absorbed was ‘Eagles, Joseph Fiddler Walsh’ after all.

The legendary rock band Eagles, who achieved tremendous success enough to dominate an era, but gradually declined for various reasons including changes in 80s popular music trends.

‘Since I pulled out Joe from that time exactly…’

Joe Walsh from that time wasn’t particularly different from the male protagonist Jackson Maine.

Johann smiled awkwardly, and Lady Gaga narrowed her eyes.

* * *

Pitter-patter!

Rain falls, announcing autumn’s arrival.

Perhaps because of this, Johann and Emily’s nest feels even more serene.

Emily, who had been rolling around on the piano, opens her eyes wide.

“The script isn’t finished?”

“Originally, the female lead was supposed to be Beyoncé.”

Writing with someone in mind is like that.

Even without being conscious of it, that person’s way of speaking, actions, and thoughts end up seeping into the stage directions and dialogue.

‘It was like that when I wrote Casanova’s biography.’

“But suddenly she said she wanted to postpone her appearance.”

Bradley Cooper took this as a refusal to appear, so he was in the middle of revising the dialogue and stage directions.

Lady Gaga knew about this too, and she said she would appear even after seeing those revised lines and directions.

“With the condition that she wanted to be the overall producer of the soundtrack.”

“…Wow.”

Emily’s eyes light up.

Even though it’s a story about film production, it’s an exciting story that’s like a movie itself.

“Why did Beyoncé refuse to appear?”

“She didn’t reveal the reason, but… I think it’s because a musical film is coming out soon.”

La La Land, starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, which was already submitted to the Venice International Film Festival in August and received tremendous acclaim.

It’s officially opening this December, and it’s already receiving public anticipation.

“Ah! She wanted to decide on appearing after seeing how well it does at the box office, but Mr. Cooper hastily showed the script to Lady Gaga? And this situation happened?”

“There’s a high probability of that.”

“Among the Korean proverbs Mason mentioned, there was one for this kind of situation…”

“A dog that was chasing chickens ends up staring at the roof?”

“Right. That one!”

Emily snaps her fingers.

Johann shakes his head.

“We don’t know about that.”

Even if it received acclaim at the Venice International Film Festival, there’s no guarantee that will translate to public entertainment.

“That’s… a valid point.”

There are various musical films like Mamma Mia, Les Misérables, Into the Woods, Hairspray, and if we expand to include animation, Frozen, but they were all works that had mixed expectations for box office success until their release.

Musical films certainly have tremendous appeal, but due to the nature of musicals having somewhat artificial and exaggerated direction, public evaluation tends to be starkly divided.

Moreover, this is Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut. Certainly, Beyoncé would have had deep concerns.

“But I actually think it worked out well.”

“Really?”

She asks with her eyes for him to explain why Johann thinks so.

“If Beyoncé had been the female lead, it would have been exactly like the 1976 remake version.”

“…That could be true.”

The 1976 A Star Is Born remake, which was a success and love story of male and female singers, not male and female actors.

“And Allie is too much of a country person for Beyoncé to play.”

Beyoncé, who thanks to her wealthy family has only been on a path to success since childhood. It probably would have been an ill-fitting role.

“That’s why I’m more excited about Lady Gaga’s Allie.”

Because Lady Gaga has lived a life very similar to Allie from A Star Is Born, overcoming various pains including being bullied during her school years.

The story of a woman who sang quietly in a country club even though no one recognized her, who simply loved singing, and continued singing while overcoming terrible pain.

Lady Gaga could become Allie and fully convey her story to the audience, and would probably draw out a lot of empathy.

“Most people have at least one deficiency.”

Johann opens his eyes wide at Emily’s analysis.

“Have you been listening to lectures diligently for a month?”

After attending economics classes, her analytical skills seem to have improved.

“Hehe! Oh, but are you also appearing in the movie?”

He’s been providing tremendous help both musically and in character analysis. At this level, he should conscientiously be given at least one role.

“Well? There probably isn’t anything worth appearing in.”

This A Star Is Born remake is set in the 1990s to early 2000s, focusing on Allie and Jackson Maine’s love and success story. It wasn’t a time period where an 18-year-old Asian mixed-race person would have much to do.

“There’s no role I particularly covet either.”

“Why! Then just ask them to create one! You want to appear too!”

“Haha!”

Laughter comes out.

‘You really are a blessing to me.’

A person so grateful who sees through me without me having to say anything and says what I want to hear.

‘If I hadn’t met you, what would I be like now?’

I remember.

That meeting back then.

The time we’ve spent together since.

The moment I decided to confess and we started dating.

It becomes a melody that makes my lips move.

Like the saying that inspiration comes suddenly at any moment, fragments of Joe Walsh and others stir.

Ding!

Johann’s hand presses the piano keys.

“Your eyes that burn like the LA sky.”

I thought I was burning in the light of your eyes looking at me.

“Deep in my soul. Buried like California gold, the light within me that I didn’t even know, which you found.”

As he sang a serenade with his sweet voice that had shed its boyish tone and gazed with hot eyes, Emily also smiled and stared into Johann’s eyes.

Pitter-patter! Pitter-patter!

The cool but warm sound of rain embraced them.

* * *

Ding!

“…Move aside for a moment.”

Lady Gaga, gritting her teeth, pushes Johann away from the piano.

As soon as she heard the song he sang as if asking how it was, she pours out the melody bursting in her head while pressing the keys.

Her mouth opens and Allie’s inner story bursts forth.

“Like the Arizona sky.”

The rural Arizona town where Allie and Jackson first met.

“Your burning eyes.”

‘…Oh?’

Slightly different chords, slightly different lyrics.

In an instant, what had only been a rough draft, just an impulse, becomes a completed song.

Allie on the big stage confesses to Jackson Maine.

Her gratitude, her love, her words of wanting forever.

“My throat chokes up, I can’t find words to say. Every time we part, my heart aches!”

When the sun sets and the band’s performance stops.

“Our image will be remembered like this forever-.”

“…Bravo.”

Clap clap clap clap clap!

‘This is such fun!’

Creating music that fits the character.

Making film music.

Working with talented people.

Swoosh!

“…?!”

“Thank you.”

From noticing his concerns and helping establish the character to creating this kind of song.

‘This will be the main soundtrack song for both Allie and Jackson!’

Allie’s serenade with her heart wide open.

‘This song completes it!’

Allie’s character.

The main track of the movie’s latter half.

The intersection point of Allie and Jackson.

‘Starting with this song, Allie will completely soar, while Jackson will gradually lose his shine, overshadowed by Allie’s talent!’

The predetermined tragic ending.

Knowing the ending makes it feel even more melancholy.

Musical ideas and inspiration burst forth in his mind once again.

“How can I ever repay this kindness?”

What would it have been like now if he hadn’t met Johann?

He’d probably still be struggling with songs that weren’t working.

Johann was a benefactor, no, something more than that.

“Haha. As for the kindness.”

While it was partly just doing what needed to be done, there was also the fact that he immersed himself more deeply because the character and setting had changed due to him.

“This should be worth the money, right?”

“No, don’t!”

Lady Gaga hastily steps back. She looks at Johann desperately with tearful eyes.

“Sorry. I need to start preparing soon too.”

For the fan meeting.

It was already October, with only two months left until the fan meeting. He needed to prepare.

“If you say it like that, I can’t hold onto you…”

“I’ll contact you anytime a suitable song comes to mind.”

“…Phew.”

Johann smiles gently, gives her a hug, and turns around.

“Thank you for your hard work, Johann.”

“See you next time.”

Johann exits through the door opened by Lady Gaga’s Manager and looks up at the blue sky.

He murmurs about the longing that suddenly stirs up his heart.

“This… makes me want to try making one too.”

A movie.

Music that fits the characters.

Johann left Lady Gaga’s house with ambition gleaming in his eyes.

* * *

“Phew.”

A heavy sigh spreads through the conference room of Rocky Management Planning Department.

The Executive Office staff glare at Johann, and Johann turns his head away.

“…Then let me summarize again.”

Thud!

One of the staff members stands up and goes to the whiteboard.

“The current number of people hoping to participate in the fan meeting, counted online, is approximately 3.57 million.”

All American Wolfies plus overseas Wolfies were hoping to participate.

This was Johann’s first proper meeting with fans since his 2009 debut.

Of course, he had met some overseas fans in between, but that happened incidentally while proceeding with schedules, so it doesn’t count.

This was the first time he was formally preparing to communicate with fans.

Naturally, the Wolfies’ expectations had to be high.

“Even conservatively estimating the actual participants from this number, it’s 300,000 people.”

Crossing state lines in America isn’t as easy as one might think.

Moreover, most fans are in their teens to twenties. Even if they hope to participate, they’d be lucky if even one-tenth could actually attend.

But even so, that’s 300,000 people.

Even splitting between Western States and east, that’s 150,000 each. An enormous number.

“Meet and greet is obviously impossible.”

Meet & Greet, the most common fan meeting culture on Billboard.

An event held before or after concerts or during album promotion, where fans can briefly meet singers for greetings, autographs, and photography, usually operated with paid tickets or included in concert VIP ticket packages.

“Johann isn’t trying to hold a concert.”

“Since I’m the one inviting them, charging money seems a bit…”

Johann quickly closes his mouth mid-sentence.

“Sigh. For this reason, radio and TV studio events won’t work either.”

Event-style meetings held at radio stations, music programs, and TV shows where small audiences are invited for mini lives & Q&A sessions.

This is the second most common method after Meet & Greet.

“This would be worse than not doing it at all.”

Because the number of fans that can be accommodated at once is extremely limited.

At these words, everyone glares at Johann again.

The first fan meeting where he said he’d charge minimally even if he charged at all.

It was an almost impossible mission to meet as many fans as possible while minimizing losses, so everyone’s eyes had to be fierce.

“Johann, why don’t you just hold a concert?”

“I don’t have many songs on my track list?”

More precisely, he hasn’t released many songs.

He wanted to fill his first concert completely with his own songs. He had no desire to hold a concert before that.

“And I already made a promise…”

“Oh, come on!”

“The fans are all probably thinking about a concert too, Johann! Look! Over 200,000 comments saying they’d come even if tickets cost over $100!”

“…”

Johann kept his mouth firmly shut, saying this was something he couldn’t compromise on, while the staff clutched their heads and screamed in frustration.

That’s when it happened.

“In the end, there’s only one method.”

Everyone’s eyes turn to Andrew Pearson.

“Let’s adopt the fan meeting style from Asia, or rather Korea and Japan.”

“…?”

Johann and the staff tilted their heads sideways.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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