Versatile Superstar: Rise In Hollywood-Novel

"You don't like it. Your expression wasn't the one I had expected."

Zavier asked as he looked at Aiden's face. He looked a bit worried like the script wasn't at the level he had thought it would be. At least Zavier guessed that and became a bit reserved. 

Fortunately, Aiden shook his head. 

"It's not that. The idea and theme of the script. I truly feel like this is the best way to go with Kai. When the idea of a sequel first came up, I didn't want it to be some 'fake death' gimmick because that would really be contradicting the ideas and motives of Kai. This is what I think we should go for to do justice to the ideology of Kai."

He stopped his words there and his eyes looked at the script. They held the same expression of concern. 

'Even the system is showing the script score at 89/100. That's the highest I have seen till now, so the problem isn't the quality.'

Aiden didn't fully believe in script scores at this point in his career as [Action Hero] itself had an average script score of 60 yet it grossed over 100 million dollars. 

Even the system has clarified that script scores don't judge the commercial value of a movie. But it does judge where the story stands in various ways. And [The Black Saint] was at the top in that regard. 

But…

"I just feel like I will truly lose my mind if I play something like this. Kai, I played him well in the first part. It was doable but we never took a peek into his thoughts a lot. This sequel is totally about that. It's one of the most tragic stories I have read."

Aiden voiced out his concerns and Zavier gave an expression of realisation. He had lost himself in writing the script so much that he forgot how much of a difficult character Kai was. 

Yes, he was a maniac killer but his thoughts were the bitter truths of reality. He believed that people were animals in the true sense and society was there to tame it. He was the personification of the darkest sides of a human. 

People related to him because of that. 

If you took a deeper dive into his story and what made him like that, then that made for a very tragic story. It was basically about him getting out of the gripe of society and fighting towards a singular goal. 

That was to rise above morals and truly become a god. 

"But you need to do it. No one other than you could."

Zavier said, trying to persuade Aiden. 

"I know that but I was in therapy just at the start of this year. I feel like I would go back to it again after this role."

He laughed, trying to ease his nerves. With the growing level of immersion, it was hard to say what would happen if he did this role. 

Kai August might become the end of him. 

"I understand where you are coming from. I feel like you would only be able to make a decision after thinking about it for a few days. That's completely fine with me. I was going to give you time anyway since you just returned from a shooting. I am going to have some meetings with Granite films on it and hopefully start the first schedule of this in December."

Zavier informed Aiden. For the record, Granite films were extremely excited about producing a sequel as [Black Saints] was a huge hit for them. Hollywood strived for sequels and they didn't want to fall back on this successful formula. 

'December — [Agnas] will release then too.'

He thought in his mind. It was currently the last week of September, so Aiden had two months in between. He was going to finish up <Morpheus> and do some drafts on the game. Deciding on [The Black Saint] was an additional worry on top of it. 

He felt like he would be thinking about it a lot. 

"Okay, I will contact you in a few days."

Aiden said and gave one last glance to the script. 

***

"This is looking like a nice scene. <God's World> is the draft title, so I need to borrow a lot of small things from mythology."

Aiden said. It was late at night and he had just finished one of the starting scenes for a main quest.

It was the scene in which the main character would meet a talking monkey which was obviously a reference to Sun Wukong from Journey to the West. Just besides Aiden's laptop, books containing tales from different mythologies were placed. 

He was going to use small and big characters from a lot of mythologies. Sun Wukong was one of his favourites. 

He looked through the scene again before sending it to Cory. It looked right. 

Then, he took out his phone and saw that there were a few messages from Wade, Zavier and Ava. 

He texted them back and although it seemed like Ava wanted to talk longer, he dismissed it by saying that he needed to sleep early. 

'Sigh, what should I do?'

He leaned against his chair and started thinking about [The Black Saint]. 

The script has truly shocked him to the core. 

The sequel didn't really start with some sequence of Kai surviving and starting a new life as the new god of Night City. No, in just the first scene, it confirmed that Kai was well and truly dead. 

Yet, his ideas were now all over the city. Politicians were cowering due to him and the public was scared of him. There were even cults that were starting. Revolutions on the back of his name. 

And this was something that Kai had envisioned. 

The story didn't really focus on these things either apart from the initial minutes. It moves quickly to Kai's past and what made him give everything to chase after being a god. 

It goes to explore his psychological nature and the shocking thing was that for most of his early life, Kai was actually just a very smart person who played the role of a maniac. 

But slowly, his mask became his true face and after that, it was just a conquest for him to rise in the world of crime. 

There was one scene that stayed in Aiden's mind for longer than others. 

It was a discussion about religion. A topic that was always going to be controversial. 

'You know religion is a funny thing. It's supposed to show the way of life. God will heal everything. It's going to be fine until you embrace him but no one asks if God is embracing me or not.'

'God's ways are different.'

'Maybe but his followers are extremely simple. I mean they talk about minority oppression everyday but when minority becomes majority, they oppress too. It's like a cycle like everything else. You know, I feel like if God exists, he would think of every one of his followers as dumb. After all, they think that God is looking after them but is he really? Do you think he's looking after you? Do you think he will save you?'

This conversation happened with a guy who Kai killed with a scissor the next second. It was a very short conversation and these types of conversations are everywhere in the script but they tell a lot about the nature of Kai. 

His views were different but it was hard to argue against them. 

'Ah, I'm surely going to therapy after playing him. Should I talk to Dr. Penny about it? Nah, she's just going to tell me to not do it.'

Aiden thought in his mind. 

He stood up from his chair and walked towards the window. A cold wind was blowing at night and it sounded peaceful. 

Thinking of something, he took out his phone. He called a number and after a few rings, it was picked up. 

​ "Uncle Sam, how are you?"

"Aiden, I'm extremely good. Why are you calling me this late at night? What do you need? A key to my restaurant? Address of a strip club or just something else?"

Uncle Sam's cheerful voice came out from the other side. And as usual, he was trying to sell the experience of a strip club to Aiden. 

Even if he goes there, he won't be with his uncle. 

"I need advice."

"Advice? What kind of? Are you thinking of proposing to someone? Wade did told me you are into some—"

"No, it's a movie."

Uncle Sam quieted down hearing that. He was mostly serious whenever it came to work or Aiden's career. 

"What kind of a movie? If you are calling me, it's not an issue of you wanting to do it right?"

"Yeah, I do want it. I really want to."

Aiden said as he took a deep breath. 

"Then, what's the problem?"

"I'm just a bit scared. It's not a role that would be easy and I might change in some way after doing it. I guess, I'm scared I will become more like the character I'm playing."