author | Chen Dan
cover source | Douban
came to Hengdian to pursue dreams and gold nuggets. Many people thought they would take off.
This is the area with the highest concentration of celebrities in the country, and it is where traffic gathers. Fans come from all over the world and gather at the entrance of various hotels just to catch a glimpse of the stars during their commute. Proxies are also rampant in this town. In order to shoot the star Reuter, he climbed trees and battled wits with the crew.
Hengdian’s taxi and online ride-hailing drivers are well-informed. A driver master told Xuebao Financial News that there was once a shooting agent who wanted to spend 2,000 yuan to charter a car for a day and let him take him around various "hills" in Hengdian. If someone takes the flowers back and asks for a taxi ticket, they are usually hired "fake fans."
actor Hongxu (pseudonym) also had many hallucinations of taking off, but the reality was met with silence.
He had participated in the popular talent show and thought he had knocked on the door of the crew, but he did not expect that "idol" would become a negative label. He also briefly gained traffic in the short video era, but it quickly dissipated. He even received a major drama project and thought that his career would start from there, but he did not expect that a longer period of unemployment would be waiting for him.
In this line of work, it means jumping between hope and disappointment countless times.
is disappointed more frequently than he loses his hair. Whenever bad news came, he would feel even more desperate when he woke up the next day and saw so much hair on the pillow.
"The straw that breaks the camel's back is not the last straw, but my last hair. If I really don't want to work anymore, this industry may only bring me baldness." Hongxu laughed at himself.
In a bustling hotpot restaurant in Hengdian, he told his story to Snow Leopard Finance through the fog.
Suddenly fell down while climbing a mountain
In December 2023, Hongxu drove from Beijing to Hengdian for more than ten hours. Because he was afraid of falling asleep, he chatted on the phone with people all the way, and his voice was hoarse when he arrived at the crew hotel.
People who had worked with him on the previous crew were a little surprised when they saw him, "Why have you changed your appearance?"
Hongxu rarely grew a beard. With his handsome appearance, he is often regarded as a college student, but with his beard, he looks a bit like a hippie.
This is the second time he has grown a beard. The first time for
was in 2019. He received his first long-form drama project in his life, and he had many roles. But not long after the production started, the epidemic broke out, the crew was suspended, and some projects were even canceled. Hongxu's crew also stopped working. Before the excitement and joy of joining the group subsided, they were replaced by anxiety and uneasiness. During that period, he grew a beard.
is like climbing a mountain and suddenly falling down. Hongxu has had this experience many times in his career. Not long after
entered the industry, he briefly captured the traffic. In 2017, a short video he shot received more than 5 million likes in two days and exceeded 100 million views in a month. Fans who followed him followed him from Douyin to Weibo. Because of this video, many entertainment companies in Beijing have offered me an olive branch. After a long period of research, he finally chose a company with alumni from his high school - "I can feel more at ease when I have fellow employees here."
At that time, Douyin had only been online for a year and had not yet become an important position to highlight the flow of artists. Neither Hongxu nor the company cared about it, and they did not continue to deepen their efforts after the hit video, and the traffic quickly dissipated.
Idol development was once a hot topic in the entertainment industry. After the two programs "Idol Producer" and "Produce 101" became popular, 2018 was called "the first year of idol development". Major film and television companies and brokerage companies have launched idol businesses. Being an "idol" has become a stepping stone for many people to enter the entertainment industry.
After arriving in Beijing, Hongxu also entered the company's idol department and successfully participated in a talent show.
Hongxu does not have high expectations for the ranking. He wants to gain a certain amount of exposure through the program.
exposure requires lens. A show lasts two to three hours, with hundreds of contestants, and it is not easy to get shots in the show.
In order to get more shots, he talked to the camera for half an hour while the program crew was preparing for filming. But it turned out that this was of little use. The most shots he took were in the period when he was eliminated.
In this battle royale game, Hongxu survived two rounds. He had more opportunities to interview with the crew, but before the exposure lasted long, the director began to dislike using idols. Although he has a professional background, because he participated in the talent show, Hongxu was labeled as an idol that was not favored by the crew - an idol.
From 2019 to 2022, Hongxu continued to interview and meet with the team. Occasionally he would receive supporting roles in some small and medium-cost dramas, but more often than not he would be out of work for a long time.
In 2022, Hongxu finally got an important role in an S-class costume project. A crew of several hundred people started shooting in Hengdian. He had never seen such a big battle, had never been exposed to such a professional team, and the cast was something he had never dared to imagine before. "It felt like a dream come true." He really thought that his career was going to take off and take off.
However, the awaited "Godot" did not arrive. After the S-class project was completed, Hongxu entered the longest period of unemployment in his career. During this time, he grew a beard again.
Until more than a year later, he returned to Hengdian, joined a new crew, and started a new role.
As long as he has a movie to shoot, he doesn’t choose a role.
To take on this new role, Hongxu had to first pass the hurdle in his own mind - he is an annoying character. Even if you create a character, it still takes courage to be hated by the audience.
He struggled for a long time and communicated with the screenwriter about whether to make the character more likable, but in the end he decided to stick to the original settings of the script. Each character has its own function, and his role is to support fire, and he will be "killed" by the male protagonist after a long time. If this is the case, then act in such a way that the audience hates him very much.
He plays another role, a person similar to a wallflower or a second-rate person. Although he is a small character, he carefully figured out the character's psychology, enriched the character's history based on his own understanding, and also added a lot of designs.
At the beginning, Hongxu didn't dare to talk to the director about his ideas. He could only test the director's attitude bit by bit and over and over on the scene. Only after getting approval from the director did I dare to let go.
For the crew, time is money. Many directors plan the camera locations and content in advance, leaving little room for supporting actors to perform. Hongxu was lucky. He added a lot of designs to the character and the director kept them all.
Before the official filming, many crews will organize script readings - this is a link that Hongxu likes very much. Just like the athletes entering the Olympic Games, the script reading is a concentrated appearance and detailed performance of the actors. After a round of reading, everyone will have a ranking in their mind.
When acting, actors pay attention to meeting their opponents. Only when two people match up and get along well can the play be good. What I fear the most is acting with one person, and not being able to catch anything I throw at me, and have no response. If this is the case, the play will not look good, and the only choice is to rely on editors to cut it, and what comes out will be half-finished.
When he went to college, Hongxu's grades in professional courses were the first in his grade and he won a scholarship. The head teacher told him that his explosiveness in acting was very good, which was his advantage. But after so many years in the industry, he has never received a role that required explosive power.
Sometimes, when he sees other people's roles, he will feel envious, and even secretly thinks that if he plays the role himself, he will be able to perform better. But actors are like merchandise in a showcase, always being chosen.
Many actors he has never seen or heard of can get good roles right away, maybe because they are backed by influential companies, maybe because of their outstanding appearance. Although Hongxu is envious, he knows his conditions - he is not the type of actor that capital or the market likes, and he does not expect such good luck to happen to him.
The famous Russian drama theorist Stanislavsky once said: "There are only small actors, no small roles." Hongxu has always believed this. His request is very simple. He can always have movies to shoot, and he doesn't choose big or small movies, nor does he choose roles.
Hongxu had "pretended to be" before, thinking that actors should play different people and experience different lives. But now he deeply feels the difficulty of shaping a character - it would be good if he can play a role that suits him well."I want to be able to stand out in the field that I am suitable for. When certain types of roles are mentioned, I can be thought of immediately."
has become a prime supporting role - this is Hongxu's ultimate ideal.
Bread and ideals are in danger
Many actors will talk about the experience of hitting a wall after becoming famous, but Hongxu has lost count of how many roles he has been rejected.
In the past, he had about five or six interviews a week, about 120 times in half a year. In the second half of 2023, he only interviewed forty or fifty times. The
video website has reduced costs and increased efficiency, eliminating a large number of small and medium-sized cost and low-cost projects, which is the source of many job opportunities in Hongxu.
After being unemployed for more than a year, money became a real problem. Including housing loan and car loan, he has nearly 20,000 yuan in expenses every month. Before coming to Hengdian this time, he had reached the point where he was about to borrow money.
The actor industry looks glamorous, but in fact many people are struggling. Many people think that actors can earn a living for a year by filming one movie, and it doesn't matter if they don't usually film movies. But the truth is, only a handful of people can make money.
Hongxu's family is not wealthy. His father stopped working very early and his mother's salary is the only source of income. Just after graduating from college, he performed in a avant-garde drama in Chengdu for a period of time. The rehearsal fee was only 10 to 25 yuan per performance, and now it has only increased to 50 yuan a day. After signing a contract with the company and starting filming, his income increased a bit, but he often couldn't make ends meet.
Before going to bed every night, Hongxu would encourage himself: He must audition well and prepare well. But when I was having dinner the next day, I couldn't help but think about my savings and the future.
He has thought about changing careers countless times, driving an online ride-hailing service or delivering goods through live streaming. There are also actors I know who work as merchandisers or internet celebrities. Although they have income and the work is relatively easy, they are not as happy as when they were actors. What's more, live streaming is already a red ocean. If there is no official push, there will be very few people watching the live broadcast and nothing will be sold.
When Hongxu first started playing Douyin, there weren’t that many people shooting videos. As long as you take a photo and upload it, you can get likes and gain 100,000 followers in a short period of time. But things are different now. Works will soon be submerged. Hundreds and thousands of views cannot be monetized, nor can they bring any exposure. He has missed this opportunity.
In Hongxu's view, the profession of actor is very beautiful, as he can split his life into many parts for others to see. But for the actor himself, this beauty is like a layer of glass. He can see the light, be illuminated, but cannot catch it. Every time there is filming, it's like the earth turns to the side where the sun shines, it's warm and comfortable. But soon it turned around again, the light disappeared, and it fell into a long night.
Hongxu’s ideal is to become a recognized actor and support the people he likes with his favorite career. This goal may be said to be high or low. It seems easy to achieve, but difficult to achieve at the same time. When
first entered the industry, he set himself a five-year plan and a ten-year plan. He ambitiously told his mother, "Let you see me in the cinema within 5 years." He also joked with the university teachers, "When I come out, our department will be famous." Now, he doesn't dare to push himself too hard. In this business, the greater your hopes, the easier it is to be disappointed and fall into internal strife.
Last year, Hongxu went to Yonghe Temple twice to wish for a job. Once, a variety show approached him, but another time, the role he wanted chose someone else.
Writer Yu Hua once said that if a person is still telling fortunes, it shows that he is still motivated. Although there were countless waverings and self-doubts, Hongxu always held hope in his heart - if he persisted, he would receive the next film soon. Every time when he felt that he was running out of ammunition and food, and that there was no way out, he would always see a glimmer of hope.
Just like at the end of 2023, he came to Hengdian again.
