At the China Central Radio and Television Station's 2024 Spring Festival Gala, Xin Zhilei, Hu Ge, Tang Yan and Chen Long, as representatives of the crew of this year's popular TV series "Flowers", jointly participated in the Spring Festival Gala's opening program "Inspiring Dragons".
Among the four, Xin Zhilei, Tang Yan and Chen Long participated in the Spring Festival Gala for the first time. The TV series "Flowers" took three full years to shoot. In the film and television industry, such a long shooting time is rare.
The TV series "Flowers" is adapted from the novel "Flowers" which won the Mao Dun Literature Award. It tells the story of the early 1990s, on the beach in Shanghai, where A Bao, Lingzi, Miss Wang and Li Li met and fought against the turmoil of the times. story. The director of the play is Wong Kar-Wai, which attracts even more attention.
In March 2019, for the role of "Flowers", Xin Zhilei met Wong Kar-wai in Hong Kong.
Actor Xin Zhilei: When I met the director, I felt that I was not suitable, so I was very relaxed. I didn’t want to waste the director’s time too much. I said that’s fine, I think half an hour It’s almost enough to explain to the director what kind of person I am.
Half a year later, Xin Zhilei received a notice from Wong Kar-wai that she would star in Li Li in "Flowers". Most of the characters in "Flowers" are locals in Shanghai. Only Li Li is an outsider. She was born in the north and has been to Shenzhen. However, she wants to build a big hotel on the most prosperous road in Shanghai. She appears mysteriously. Only ambition is unabashed.
As an actor, Xin Zhilei is not from a professional background. She was born in Hegang City, Heilongjiang Province, and the poverty she described actually began when she was a teenager.
Actor Xin Zhilei: When I was in high school, I would go to a fast food restaurant in Hegang City to work for two or three hours after school. It was also a relatively normal time at that time. I actually went to junior high school. I didn’t want to ask my parents for money because I could feel how hard it was for them. Later I discovered that when I became an adult, when I really grew up, some of my personality traits were due to my family environment when I was a child, or because I had subconsciously cultivated my current personality.
In 2005, Xin Zhilei entered the entertainment industry by chance. Before that, her father suddenly became paralyzed, and her mother was unable to work full-time to take care of her father, so making money was still Xin Zhilei's biggest wish. Five years after her debut, in 2012, Xin Zhilei won the opportunity to play the female lead in the movie "Yangtze River Pictures". There is a scene in the movie that requires the heroine to jump from a moving boat into a winter river.
Actor Xin Zhilei: At that time, the actresses who went to the audition with me were much more ruthless than me. They walked in wearing a down jacket and it was all frozen. At that time, I felt that there were many people who were more desperate than me. You have to do it. Only when you work harder and harder can you do it.
Reporter: Now think about that kind of struggle, what is lost?
actor Xin Zhilei: I lost my health for a short period of time. I was always sick during that time, but I didn’t lose anything. I always felt that I gained much more than I lost. Reporter
: What pulls you to keep moving forward?
actor Xin Zhilei: I may think it is a sense of responsibility, which is the love and sense of responsibility for the family. It was like this in the beginning, just to let them live a good life.
Since then, Xin Zhilei has accumulated popularity and confidence as an actor with film and television dramas such as "Xiu Chun Dao", "Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace" and "Celebrating More Than Years". By 2019, at the age of 34, she got the role of Li Li in "Flowers" and got the opportunity to cooperate with Wong Kar-wai.
Actor Xin Zhilei: I had a small confrontation with the director at the beginning. Just two days after the filming started, he asked us to go to the balcony to talk about the scene where we were eating hot pot on the table. If so, I kept asking the director, why should I walk over? The director said that the light here looks good, and I said that I must have a reason. Then the director said that you are an actor and you should think about this problem by yourself, but I want you to walk over. I said I had no reason to walk over, I couldn't walk over, and he said fine, then you can act directly on the table. After the performance, the director asked me if this would look good. Then I asked what to do. Anyway, I struggled with it for a long time. Suddenly the director said, "Okay, you guys come and film it. I'm tired today and I'm leaving." After that, I didn’t see the director for more than a month. I asked him later and he said that because he was really too busy, we had to shoot other people. But what I feel I blame myself for is that at that moment I was right The director became suspicious.
actor Xin Zhilei: This also taught me a good lesson, that is, when you decide to act in a play, you must not be against each other, you must trust each other, and then everyone can work together to complete a good work. .
After "Flowers" was broadcast, Xin Zhilei once said that she never thought she could be so beautiful. This is of course because Wong Kar Wai is good at creating unique beauty, but in addition to lighting, photography, costumes, and makeup, beauty must ultimately be presented by actors.
Actor Xin Zhilei: I never felt comfortable playing Li Li. She always wore very high heels, exquisite suits, exquisite hair, and exquisite makeup. She was never comfortable for a moment, and she never took off all her armor.
In the TV series, light and shadow change, and the beauty of the characters is composed of countless details. Outside of TV dramas, details mean boring, repetitive, and even boring.
Actor Xin Zhilei: After three years of acting, I was very confused in the first two years. I just didn’t know what I was doing, and I didn’t know if I was acting correctly. Basically, I was walking every day, looking back, and doing some postures. It was quite broken for a while.
Reporter: Just like a child learning to walk, do you have to learn to walk again?
Actor Xin Zhilei: Yes, I played Li Li in "Flowers". I even learned to walk all over again. The director said I don’t want you to be like this. When you come to Huanghe Road, you represent Shenzhen speed. You should never give me a slow pace. , It’s not that you are in a hurry to do something today, but that the rhythm in your heart must not be slowed down.
In addition to walking, he also kept turning his head. A shot from walking to turning his head had to be shot many times.
Actor Xin Zhilei: At first, I thought it was okay to just turn your head. You will know how good it is when you turn your head for a day or three years. Really, I often do the kind of scenes where I turn my head, and my whole back is covered. Cramping does not mean that we turn our heads casually like this. When you turn your head, your eyes should have the feeling of the scene you are playing, and you cannot be stiff, you have to be natural, you have to twist naturally, and perform the play in an extremely unnatural situation. nature.
actor Xin Zhilei: Because when we were the three heroines before, we didn’t know what each other’s roles were, and we didn’t know what our relationship was with Mr. Bao, played by Hu Ge. It was so funny, until we were aired Only then did the three of us really know what kind of relationship we were, something we didn’t even know for the past three years.
Reporter: It turns out that "Flowers" is a script-killed show.
actor Xin Zhilei: Pretty much. Not only did we not know each other, but we even acted and acted until we finally understood our own context three years later. I played such a person, and Li Li was such a character. Her The ending is this.
reporter: What are the challenges for you as an actor?
Actor Xin Zhilei: When you played a role in the past, because you mastered the complete script at the beginning, you knew very well where the character came from, where she was going, what she was going to do, and what her mental journey was at each node. But when acting in " "Flowers" is not, only the director knows it. I even think the director doesn't know it until the end. He sometimes adjusts the characters according to our actors' own characteristics, so it seems that this challenge and test is unknown, and you don't know when. To wrap up, we initially said it would be half a year or one year, but as we continued filming, it turned into three years. At three years, we even thought it might be five years, or even longer. Reporter
: Do you have such a firm belief in your heart that I will continue to shoot no matter how many years it takes?
Actor Xin Zhilei: That’s for sure, we must finish filming it.
When the filming of "Flowers" entered its third year, Xin Zhilei received an invitation to star in the drama "Preliminary Evidence". This is a one-man show, with only one actor on stage, playing multiple roles for 120 minutes.
Actor Xin Zhilei: At that time, I felt like I was going crazy every day. It lasted about three or four months. I set very strict rules for myself. I must get up at what time every morning and how many stairs I have to climb. How many stairs do I have to recite and how many pages of lines do I need to recite on the second day and how many do I need to recite on the third day? I basically calculated every day very clearly before this play. Reporter
: Many people now mention that they like a line in this play very much. You once said that it has always been imprinted in your heart.
actor Xin Zhilei: There has always been such a girl in my heart. She is brave and fearless. If I shrink back, I think I will lose her. This is my favorite line in this script.
In the end, Xin Zhilei, who stood on the stage of a drama for the first time, achieved a self-breakthrough and experienced the feeling of transcendence.
Actor Xin Zhilei: When I came back to play Li Li after finishing the play, my entire line was very loose. I just spoke lightly, but all the pressure you feel when negotiating or speaking with your opponent is still there. In the past, the director always said Xin Zhilei, why do you always speak in high notes? This is partly due to your own self-confidence, and partly due to the change in the thickness of your lines. Reporter
: Could it be another kind of reshaping, a reshaping of performance?
actor Xin Zhilei: In fact, the most wrong thing I did at the beginning was to guess what the director thought Li Li should be like. This mistake really made me search for two years.
Reporter: Did you just mean that you actually deliberately thought about imitating some of the characters he created during this process?
Actor Xin Zhilei: Yes, I think this is a detour I have taken. For example, does the director want a Li Li in the style of "In the Mood for Love", or does he want a Li Li in the style of Gong Er? I have thought about it and tried it all. Then one day he suddenly told me, why did I find you? Come on, because I have watched your "Xiu Chun Knife". I never thought that he had seen me playing such a character who was not the protagonist and did not have many roles. I also never thought that he thought I was that kind of character. The acting is good.
Actor Xin Zhilei: Fortunately, I didn’t give up. Later, many people asked me, do you have any secrets for being an actor? What's the secret to success? I said no, but I persisted and didn’t give up.
Producers丨Liu Bin Wang Huidong Reporter Shen Gongfu丨Planner Wang Ning丨Director Huang Ying丨Yin Jianzhang Photography丨Wang Yang Wang Zhongren Gao Zhong
