At the age of 18, he entered the drama industry, and at the age of 53, he lifted the trophy for the first time, and when it comes to the actress who became a late bloomer, Lu Zhong is definitely a person.
However, whether you have seen her empress dowager or the ordinary role of grandma and mother, it is clear that this is not due to Lü Zhong's strength. Even in the current domestic film industry, there are only a few people who can be more worthy of the title of "old drama bone" than her.
In fact, the reason why he became famous in his old age is because Lu Zhong has been active on the drama stage for half of his life and has no opportunity to meet with the national audience. It wasn't until she was 47 years old that she first came into contact with the screen.
Lü Zhong was born in Baoji, Shaanxi Province, and when he was a child, he traveled around the country with his father's work transfer, and after liberation, he took root in Beijing and spent his student years in an environment where a hundred flowers bloomed and a hundred schools competed.
Under the influence of such an atmosphere, Lü Zhong fell in love with literature and performance, and was one of the top literary and artistic activists in the school. After graduating from high school, she also tried to apply for Nortel, and she passed all the way with high scores, but she was unable to enter the college because of her background.
Fortunately, on the recommendation of the high school Chinese teacher, Lu Zhong was selected to join the Hebei Drama Theatre. Although the big stage in Lu Zhong's dream has a big gap with reality, she is already satisfied enough to realize her performance dream.
It was not until 1973 that Lü Zhong was transferred to the People's Art Theater. But in the talented art, Lu Zhong, who had originally grown into a pillar of the stage, had to play from a small role.
However, Lü Zhong did not feel that the days of his namelessness were wasting time. She kept polishing herself until she shined on the stage again and got an outside offer.
Lu Zhong's earliest access was not the opportunity in front of the stage, but the voice of the role of Jia Mu in the 87 version of "Dream of the Red Chamber". Although it was the first time to serve as a dubbing job, his solid line skills still allowed Lu Zhong to get his first photogenic invitation to play a wealthy female businessman in "Plainclothes Police".
From the current point of view, from the drama stage to the film and television drama set, it is a major breakthrough in the career of the actor. But at that time, the atmosphere was different. Mr. Cao Yu, the old dean of Renyi, once said: Actors go out to shoot movies and television, they all shoot a fault, come back to perform stage dramas without pulling a few, not serious!
Mr. Cao Yu, representative work "Thunderstorm"
Therefore, after the first time she starred in a TV series, although she had a good evaluation of the drama and Lü Zhong's performance, Lü Zhong was worried, and it was not until the past 3 years that people changed a lot of film and television dramas, and she dared to go out to take the drama again.
But even on the set, Lu Zhong never forgot the teachings of the old dean, and she, contrary to others, brought a rigorous attitude towards drama to the screen.
Therefore, after officially starting his film and television career, Lu Zhong quickly emerged, and the following year, he relied on "Who Do You Defend" to win the Feitian Award for Best Actress nomination. And when she actually lifted the trophy, it was 5 years later.
At this time, Lü Zhong was 56 years old. In fact, even if she stopped at this time, this period was drawn satisfactorily enough.
But Lü Zhong only regarded these honors as milestones on his way forward. On the contrary, after retiring from renyi at the age of 60 and becoming a freelance actor, Lu Zhong arranged the schedule more fully and devoted himself to film and television dramas.
She took over the filming of Empress Dong in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", Cixi in "Towards the Republic", and Wu Zetian in "Detective Di Renjie", which is not angry and arrogant, dignified and atmospheric, and has become the "empress dowager professional household" in the minds of the audience.
Until now, the 81-year-old Lu Zhong is still on the road. In 2021, she still has 4 new works released, including "Win or Lose", which starred Chen Kun and Xin Zhilei, and just premiered on December 21.
Perhaps compared with the late completion of the big instrument, the word thick accumulation and thin hair is more suitable for Lu Zhong.
And she can achieve such results, relying on those two words, serious.
From Cixi, who laughs and scolds, to Wu Zetian, who wears men's clothes, Lü Zhong can always interpret the taste different from others when playing classic roles.
And this depends on her acting as a real strength for academic research.
Before Lü Zhong's "Towards the Republic", there were already Liu Xiaoqing and Sichengaova, two top actors who played the role of Cixi. Of course, Lü Zhong has also seen their domineering and exposed interpretations, and then look at a bookish atmosphere, since he was a child, he has not even been the leader of the group, Lü Zhong really has no confidence, playing this powerful Lafayette.
In the end, the director advised her that we were looking for a flesh-and-blood Cixi with a human touch, and Lu Zhong agreed to it.
Her first thought about the role was that since Cixi was also a living person, it was impossible to sit on the throne all the time and lengthen her voice to shout little plums.
But what she was doing all the other time, in the previous film and television dramas, had never shown it, and Lu Zhong could only find the answer by herself.
She threw away all her work and spent a whole month consulting a large amount of historical materials about Cixi, and even fainted because she had forgotten to eat and sleep. Finally, from the written records, the different aspects of Cixi were refined.
For a 63-episode series, Lü Zhong became one of the people in the whole country who knew Cixi best. Not only did she know that Cixi loved to sing and grow vegetables in the back garden, but she also added her own understanding and thought out how she loved to sing and why she wanted to grow vegetables. Under her interpretation, Cixi in "Towards the Republic" was praised as "first of all a person, then a woman, and finally the empress."
And Lu Zhong did not show such a rigorous and serious attitude when playing a "big man". After she was transferred to renyi that year, the first role she got was a small eunuch who did not even have a line in the famous "Tea House".
For this role, Lü Zhong read a lot of books on eunuchs, speculated on the psychology of this group, imitated their words and deeds, and wrote a long biography of the character.
Kung Fu pays off, and Lu Zhong's efforts have made more people notice this background board character. When this drama was staged in Europe, someone also found the backstage and wanted to meet the actor of the nameless little eunuch.
And by the end of the tour, Lu Zhong had already won the opportunity to bow on stage at the end of the curtain for this small supporting role, which was impossible.
In the middle is the little eunuch played by Lü Zhong
Whenever he talks about the source of this true spirit, Lu Zhong will go back to his childhood.
Lu Zhong said that her grandfather was one of the earliest industrialists in China, opening a diesel engine factory in Shandong. And this "pragmatic" psychology was also brought to the family by Grandpa. Lü Zhong received "knowledge education" from an early age, and adults would take their children to factories, corps, and almshouses to personally experience the situation in the world.
This method of self-subjectivity, rather than passive indoctrination, made Lu Zhong develop the habit of loving to think, and eventually continued to her career as an actor, becoming this kind of contemplation of the role.
Lü Zhong did not feel that there was anything admirable about his attitude.
She smiled and said that this was the same as the teacup handed over by others, she always had to wipe it and wipe it and use it again. To enter the stomach of the things, you have to be responsible for yourself, this is the most basic lesson.
For Lu Zhong, being an actor is not a means of earning money to support his family or pursuing fame and fortune, but a way to contribute to society and make life meaningful.
Therefore, in life, she has always strived to be a small person who "walks on the street and no one recognizes".
After Lü Zhong married her husband Wu Guiling, she lived a 11-year separation before she was able to reunite her family. In Lü Zhong's own words, the couple is like a "cowherd weaver girl", and how much spare money they have in their hands is all handed over to the Ministry of Railways.
When the two got married, Lü Zhong was still in the Hebei Repertory Theatre, and even when he did not go to the countryside to tour, he stayed in Baoding on weekdays. Her husband, Wu Guiling, is an actress in renyi, and rehearsals are busier, and she has to stay in Beijing all the time.
Zhen Yuan Daxian, played by Wu Guiling, is his rare screen role
So Lu Zhong rushed between the two places, sometimes getting off the stage at night, going back to a bag of luggage, going to the train station, buying a midnight ticket to return home, not wanting to miss a little reunion time.
In the days of separation, daughters and sons were born one after another. At the age of 33, Lü Zhong was also transferred to Renyi, and the family was reunited.
Originally, Lu Zhong felt that when an actor attached too much importance to Vanity Fair, he had always strictly forbidden his children to enter the circle. But growing up with their parents in the theater, the sisters and brothers were inevitably influenced and became interested in this line of work.
The daughter Wu Qing even concealed her parents and applied for the Beijing Broadcasting Institute (now Zhongchuan), and only told her parents after being admitted. Obviously, the title of the golden list was a great joy, but Wu Qing said it like he had done something wrong, tearfully apologizing.
When Lu Zhong saw his daughter on this, he really didn't want to say anything. When his younger brother Wu Bing saw it, his sister was let go, and then he told his parents that he wanted to be a film and television screenwriter.
Lu Zhong also knows that his son has shown a very high talent for writing since he was a child. In secondary school, he had become a minor editor of the newspaper Youth and won an award at UNESCO. He also "released" Wu Bing to the Beijing Film Academy.
The sisters and brothers also followed their mother's teachings. After graduating from the Guangyuan Academy, Wu Qing did not find a counterpart job, but joined the army, and is currently subordinate to the relevant departments of the Air Force, contributing to the motherland's aerospace cause.
Although Wu Bing joined the show business circle, he has always acted low-key, and is a genre whose works are more famous than people, and his representative works "Wise Tiger Mountain" and "October Siege" are all well-known word-of-mouth masterpieces. In addition, he also stayed at Nortel after graduation and is currently working as a professor in the choreography and directing major.
And his wife, He Lin, was also a student of Nortel, who was in the same class as Chen Kun and Huang Xiaoming, and also suppressed Qunfang, with the reputation of Nortel School Flower.
In 2005, she became China's first Emmy winner with "Mother of a Slave", but she acted as low-key as her husband, and has always been only conscientious in filming, not too exposed to the public eye. The marriage with Wu Bing was also her inexplicable mother who was rumored to be Chen Kun's child mother, and she was made public in order to prove her innocence.
After their children grew up and had their own lives and careers, Lü Zhong and Wu Guiling were not idle. Wu Guiling organized a large number of retired old artists, lined up a drama "Ice Sugar Gourd" starring the elderly, and Lu Zhong also helped to participate, and said happily that he was still a little sister in that gang.
There are these predecessors in front, every night the students call Lü Zhong an old artist, Lü Zhong always very seriously retorted, you can call me a famous actor, or a senior literary and artistic worker, but the title of artist, I can't afford it.
In 2016, Wu Guiling, who had walked hand in hand with Lü Zhong for half a century, passed away due to illness. Although Lü Zhong was sad, he also saw it very openly and did not stop the pace of progress.
She said calmly that the laws of nature are equal, and that her husband, while he was alive, had tried his best to shine and heat up, so he walked without complaint or regret. After that, as long as you live a clear and fulfilling life, it is enough.