There was a time when Mary was in a bad state.
Because of the excessive pressure, there was baldness on the top of her head, and Shen Teng comforted her after knowing it: "If you want to open something, we won't."
As a result, it didn't take long for Shen Teng to become bald.
Later, he often talked to his friends about it, and he said, "I also comforted Ma Li, and the one I was bald was bigger than her." ”
Looking back, within the scope of today's public perception, Shen Teng and Ma Li have long become "people who create happiness", such a setting has made them gain a lot of love, but it has also made the two "levitated" to a certain extent.
It seems difficult for people to imagine that they can dissolve most people's life dilemmas with comedy on stage, and they will be trapped by life offstage.
For example, Shen Teng does not like to expose his private life too much, nor is he good at accepting interviews, he said: "After becoming famous, many times I am patient. ”
Mary, on the other hand, had a period of depression.
She was filming in Hong Kong, and the doctor prescribed her a bunch of pills, and each bottle was full of her name, but she didn't eat a single one.
Later, it was comedy that saved Mary.
This year is the 16th year that Shen Teng and Ma Li have known each other. As a partner, Shen Teng once described his cooperation with Ma Li as "complementary": "She is explosive and has a particularly good rhythm, and I am bad." ”
To a certain extent, the creation on the stage reflects the personalities of Shen Teng and Ma Li, and by extension to life, it may be traced back to their growth experience.
In 1982, Ma Li was born in a small county town in Dandong, Liaoning Province, and at the age of 8, her parents divorced, her mother remarried, and her gentle stepfather entered the life of the mother and daughter.
Mary's childhood photo
The mother has a hot temper and has her own plan for her daughter's future. At a very young age, Mary was sent to study basketball, long-distance running and javelin because her mother wanted her to become an athlete.
However, it turns out that Ma Li is indeed suitable for sports, she is at the top of every competition, and perhaps it is this experience that makes Ma Li's personality always carry a kind of "boldness" and "strength".
In the movie "Charlotte Troubles", Mary holds a javelin
Maybe the story goes on and Mary becomes a great athlete, but some "branches" emerge.
In 1996, the Liaoning Culture and Art School came to the county to recruit performance students, who were in the process of further education, and her stepfather encouraged Ma Li to try it too. The mother thought it was unreliable: "How could she possibly act?" But the stepfather thought, "Let the child try it, maybe it will be suitable." ”
To everyone's surprise, on the day of the interview, Ma Li, who had never had acting experience, brought a performance that made the teachers marvel, and immediately decided to let her enroll.
In this way, Ma Li's life suddenly took a turn at the age of 14, from the track and field field to the stage, and never looked back.
Old photo of Mary
Looking back, whether it is from the initial Liaoning Art School or to the performance department of the Central Academy of Drama, Ma Li's grades have always been the highest in the class.
In terms of learning, she is a top student, and in life, she is never worse than her peers. At that time, Ma Li's mother opened a restaurant in the county town, because she always felt that she did not give her daughter a complete family, so she never treated her poorly in money, recalling that Ma Li said that she was a "loser" at that time: "I spent a lot of money, as long as she did not reject me, it means that there is still money." ”
It wasn't until the year of college graduation that Ma Li learned that her mother's hotel had long been unable to make ends meet, and for several years her tuition and living expenses were borrowed from her mother.
Mary with her mother
Like Ma Li, Shen Teng's family also opened a restaurant, and he once thought that the money his father earned was "inexhaustible and inexhaustible." Shen Teng was born in Qiqihar in a family of four, his father liked to sing and play the violin, and his sister Shen Na learned to dance and sing since childhood.
In this family, Shen Teng said that he was the most "wasted" one. Unlike Ma Li's "habit of top-notch" since childhood, Shen Teng has not had any ambition since childhood, every time he does homework, Shen Teng's mother will always move a bench to sit on the side of the "overseer", and as a result, the final text mother will memorize, Shen Teng still stays in the first sentence.
In order to encourage her brother, her sister Shen Na even handwritten some slogans on the wall of his room, "You want to cheer" and "You have to work hard", but it is clear that "soaking encouragement" is of no use to Shen Teng - no matter how full the wall is written, he can sleep soundly in the house.
Shen Teng was a child
On weekdays, my father liked to watch Chaplin's movies, and Shen Teng would occasionally watch them with him, and once, his father also dressed Shen Teng as Chaplin and took a picture of him with great interest.
Although dressed in Chaplin's clothes, Shen Teng never thought that he would become an actor in the future, and his ultimate dream in life was to lie at home and play games every day.
In 1999, Shen Teng was 20 years old. At the suggestion of his family, he studied hard for several months and was admitted to the People's Liberation Army Academy of Arts in Beijing. At that time, Shen Teng grew a pair of small tiger teeth, and he always liked to smack his mouth when he smiled.
His father once suggested that Shen Teng grind out the two small tiger teeth, which looked more Zhou Zheng, but Shen Teng refused: "In case Zhang Yimou and Feng Xiaogang come to pick an actor one day, because the teeth pick me, won't I be yellow as soon as I have a chance to correct?" Shen Teng was looking forward to the teeth to bring him some opportunities, but Ma Li lost some opportunities because of his teeth.
In 2004, Ma Li, who was studying in Chinese opera, was preparing to shoot a graduation drama, and according to her professional ability, she was supposed to be the heroine, but during the rehearsal, she was informed that she was assigned a supporting role.
The reason is that a teacher thinks that Ma Li "looks like a monkey" and even gave advice: "If you want to be an actor after graduation, it is best to pull out four of your upper teeth and put another hoop." The teacher's words dealt a big blow to Ma Li, who had not yet entered the society at that time, and made her discouraged.
Near graduation, the surrounding classmates took photos to the crew every day to participate in the interview, but Ma Li chose to lie in the dormitory, because she felt that she was "not good looking, not confident." ”
After graduation, she did not choose to enter the society, but joined the theater training class organized by director Lin Zhaohua at Peking University to continue to polish her acting skills.
In those years, she began to perform some plays one after another, and the stage of the theater made her feel comfortable and confident - because she was some distance away from the audience, she could show her acting skills without being too focused on her looks.
In 2005, Ma Li got a role in the play "The City Is Full of Pyramids", the role is not heavy, but every time she appears, she will cause the audience to laugh.
Ma Li (right) in the drama "The City Is Full of Pyramids"
In one of them, the happy twist director Peng Damo, who sat in front of the stage to watch the play, and He Jiong, the male protagonist at the time. After watching it, Peng Damo felt that Ma Li's performance was "too vivid" and immediately decided to invite her to make a happy twist cameo.
Ma Li always remembers the day when she first came to Happy Twist, the troupe was rehearsing the drama "Somali Pirates", starring Shen Teng. As soon as Ma Li pushed open the door, she found that the room was divided into three groups of people: a group of people gathered to eat and drink, a group of people guarding a long chair to play a game of killing, and a handful of people who were stepping on a stool to fight the landlord. Ma Li had a thought at the time: "What kind of team is this?" ”
Years later, Shen Teng talked about the first time he saw Ma Li: "Wearing a slip dress, beautiful and quiet. And Ma Li described Shen Teng: "The eye sockets are particularly deep, too handsome." ”
Shen Teng was young
Before Ma Li entered the Happy Twist, Shen Teng had been here for two years.
In 2003, when the 23-year-old Shen Teng was preparing to graduate from the military arts, a female classmate in the class handed Shen Teng a script and told him that a newly formed troupe was recruiting actors, and if you were interested, you could try it. After reading the script, Shen Teng was immediately moved by the wonderful story and decided to go to the interview. Because Shen Teng had just finished hemorrhoid surgery at that time, he could only lie on the sofa halfway and wait for the interview.
The director walked in from outside the door, saw Shen Teng "paralyzed" on the sofa, and felt that he "has a personality, a unique aura, and is too suitable for our troupe." In this way, Shen Teng joined the Happy Twist, which had just been established at that time. Partners He Jiong and Xie Na starred in the troupe's first drama "Want to Eat Twist Flowers now screw you up".
Poster of the drama "Want to Eat Twist Flowers Now Screw you up"
Shen Teng (third from left) Xie Na (fifth from left) He Jiong (sixth from left)
At that time, because the drama was relatively niche, happy twist did not have too much attention, and sometimes the audience sitting under the stage was not even as large as the number of actors on the stage.
At the worst time, a performance only sold 7 tickets, the cost of the performance was tens of thousands of yuan, but the "box office" was only a few hundred yuan, under consideration, they temporarily decided to cancel the performance, standing in the snow to apologize to the audience one by one.
In those days, Shen Teng's career was not very successful, but it became his happiest time, when he often rode with his friends to a nearby noodle restaurant to eat a bowl of fried sauce noodles, while eating and discussing the drama he was rehearsing.
"In short, we talk about things related to creation."
Shen Teng's old photo
Because Shen Teng's parents had moved to Beijing at that time, he did not have much pressure in life, and his parents did not interfere too much in his career, so after becoming famous, Shen Teng was most afraid of being invited to the stage to give a speech: "I have not eaten anything bitter, I will not do anything except stand on the stage and lie." ”
It is precisely because of this growth experience that Shen Teng is lazy. He describes himself as lazy to use his brain anywhere outside of the drama, and sometimes when he drives home alone, he drives because he doesn't use his brain.
Unlike Shen Teng, Ma Li is good at grasping the initiative in life, the big and small things in life, she has to do it herself, even if she is in a romantic relationship, she does not need others to do anything for herself: "The other party only needs to be responsible for making me happy." ”
It is also in this way that the "loose" Shen Teng and the "tight" Ma Li have produced a wonderful chemical reaction in the process of cooperation.
In 2010, starting from the drama "The Earl of Wulongshan", 28-year-old Ma Li and 31-year-old Shen Teng officially began to cooperate. On the stage, Shen Teng's performance is usually very casual, sometimes he forgets the words when he is acting, and has to make up the words temporarily, and almost every time, Ma Li, as a partner, can pick up.
Ma Li and Shen Teng in the drama "The Earl of Wulongshan"
Also this year, He Jiong invited Ma Li to co-star in the sketch "Super Happiness Insoles" at the Hunan Satellite TV Lantern Joy Party, and after the sketch was broadcast, Ma Li from the northeast and her trademark laughter caught fire together.
Ma Li and Shen Teng in the sketch "Super Happy Insoles"
On the other hand, Shen Teng also got the opportunity to go from the stage to the screen. In 2012, Shen Teng debuted on CCTV Spring Festival Gala as "Hao Jian", and his partner Allen co-starred in the sketch "Today's Happiness".
Shen Teng in the sketch "Today's Happiness" (middle)
After that, Ma Li and Shen Teng appeared on the stage of the CCTV Spring Festival Gala for three consecutive years, and together starred in the sketches "Help It", "Today's Happiness 2" and "Throw In Their Favor". As more and more people recognized, Ma Li's image began to gradually solidify.
At that time, every time someone saw her, they would always invite Ma Li to "laugh one", and Ma Li said: "I can understand, but I don't like it".
"I am in life and I am on the stage, are two different things."
Shen Teng and Ma Li in the sketch "Today's Happiness"
The same trouble, Shen Teng also has. For a long time, whether it was on a show or a variety show. Everyone will always say: "Hao Jian is here!" It seems that they prefer to call him "Hao Jian" on the Spring Festival Gala stage than "drama actor" Shen Teng.
Shen Teng, who has been pierced by the symbol "Hao Jian" for several years, said: "As an actor, I am not satisfied to accompany Hao Jian to old age. In 2015, Happy Twist planned to adapt the play "Charlotte Troubles" into a movie.
Initially, Shen Teng was quickly identified as the male protagonist, but Ma Li, who played "Ma Dongmei" on the stage for nearly three years, did not get this role. The reason is because the producers feel that she is "not beautiful enough, not well-known enough, no box office appeal".
This incident caused a great blow to Ma Li, she felt a little discouraged, but still looked forward to the turnaround - the role of the principal in "Charlotte Troubles", which was supposed to be played by Fan Wei, but for various reasons, it was finally played by Li Liqun.
Li Liqun, who played the principal in "Charlotte Troubles"
Ma Li thought to herself: "Will the actress who plays Ma Dongmei also have things that can't be starred, and I can still have some chances?" Ma Li did not expect that her wish was really fulfilled, and finally for various reasons, the role of "Ma Dongmei" was handed back to her hand.
On National Day in 2015, "Charlotte Troubles" was released.
Almost no one had too many expectations for it, after all, for most people at that time, Shen Teng and Ma Li were just a "limited combination" that appeared at the Spring Festival Gala every year.
In the early stage of publicity, Shen Teng called himself and Ma Li "elderly film and television newcomers": "We have no appeal at the box office, and the audience does not know that this is a good movie." ”
"I hope you can believe us and come and see this movie."
This year, Shen Teng was 36 years old, and at that time he did not know that he would become one of the most box office appealing male stars in 6 years.
And the 33-year-old Ma Li did not expect that she would become the leading "female comedian" in China.
Unexpectedly, "Charlotte Troubles" caught fire. Like a dark horse, the film grossed 1.4 billion yuan that year, and Shen Teng and Ma Li, as the main actors, were also pushed into a larger traffic pool.
More opportunities were placed in front of them, and some crews even offered sky-high performance fees in order to invite Shen Teng to star, and Shen Teng described this process as "smashing me with money".
However, for the script, he chose to be extremely cautious: "I can't consume myself".
Stills from Shen Teng's "Charlotte Troubles"
There are some things that Shen Teng can choose, such as the script, and some things that he can't choose, such as the fame that comes quickly. Shen Teng did not like his private life to be exposed.
When he was a drama actor, he did not have any fame, and at most he gave three interviews a year, but even with such a frequency, Shen Teng still tried to refuse every time.
After "Charlotte Troubles", he began to have to give interviews continuously, and he gradually got used to it, but still resisted: "Before each interview, I began to feel uncomfortable a few days in advance, and I couldn't sleep all night. ”
Some lifestyle habits are also beginning to be forced to change.
In the past, Shen Teng liked to sit on the side of the road with his friends, eat a bowl of ramen noodles bare-chested, and drink two bottles of beer, but now every dinner is either at a friend's house or in a reserved private room. Shen Teng said, in short, it is not free.
In order to find balance, in 2016, Shen Teng returned to the happy twist stage and performed dozens of plays. Reappearing on the big screen, it's 2017.
Shen Teng, who has gained 20 pounds, appeared in the third movie of Happy Twist, "Shy Iron Fist", only this time he was only a supporting role, and the man standing next to Ma Li was replaced by Ellen.
Mary and Allen in the movie "Shy Iron Fist"
Even so, the combination of Happy Twist's team and Shen Tengmali is still a good medicine at the box office, and the film's box office achieved more than 2 billion yuan in that year.
On the other hand, Mary is also experiencing some struggles. With several eye-catching box office results, Ma Li became one of the top three actresses at the domestic box office, but she still had low self-esteem.
After becoming famous, Mary became afraid to go out, and every time she went out, she would always apply a thick layer of foundation to her face: "This can cover the freckles on my face." ”
She began to work weight loss and skin care, dyeing her hair the most fashionable color and always paying attention to her image. But despite all this effort, she is often reminded not to spend too much time on looks: "If you look too good, you are not funny." ”
Ma Li felt puzzled, she asked the staff around her: "Why can't actresses be beautiful and funny?" ”
But the truth is that sometimes Mary even makes others forget that she is still a woman.
During the filming of the movie "Shy Iron Fist", there was a scene in which Mary and Ellen were to fall into the pool together. This scene was filmed for two full days, it was late autumn, And Ma Li was in the menstrual period, and after shooting a dozen times in a row, the physical discomfort made Ma Li collapse, and she lay on Alan's shoulder and cried.
Allen said it was the first time he'd seen Mary cry in more than a dozen years of knowing her. After the scene was finished, the director apologized to Ma Li: "I'm sorry Ma Li, I forgot that you were a girl." "It seems that in the entertainment industry, stars are divided into three categories:
Male celebrities, female celebrities and female comedians.
Ma Li felt helpless and felt helpless.
Looking back, after the movie "Shy Iron Fist", the number of times Ma Li and Shen Teng shared the stage began to decrease significantly, and Shen Teng once talked about the reasons in an interview: "We are afraid that the audience will get tired of watching, so we temporarily separate and recharge." ”
Although they both walked out of the "happy twist" and faced the same comedy market, the situation of the two went in two directions - after separation, Shen Teng's career continued to go high, from the movie "Flying Life", "Crazy Alien" to "The Richest Man in Xihong", in just a few years, most of the movies starring him have had eye-catching box office performances.
Shen Teng began to be called a "box office myth", and the word "tenam" even appeared in the film industry - the longer Shen Teng appeared in a movie, the more secure the box office of the film.
In 2021, with the movie "Hello Li Huanying", Shen Teng became the first filmmaker to break through the 20 billion box office of Chinese films.
Ma Li is different, leaving Shen Teng's days, she starred in several movies including "Caller Rhapsody", "Lie Detector", "Fortune Diary" and so on. But these works are not satisfactory at the box office or in word of mouth, on Douban, most of the movies starring Ma Li have an average score of less than 6 points, and the worst one is even only 2.8 points.
Mary in the movie "The Lie Detector"
Some media described Ma Li's films as "crazy output, continuous bad films", and some people commented on her as: acting skills online, but lack of vision to choose scripts.
She rarely responded to this, and she began to turn more energy back to her family.
In 2018, Ma Li and her boyfriend Xu Wenhe entered into marriage, and two years later, their son was born. After becoming a mother, Mary became much more light on many things, she began to accept her imperfections, and began to gradually ignore the eyes of others, she said: "You can never make everyone satisfied." 」 ”
Ma Li and her husband Xu Wenhe
Like Ma Li, Shen Teng also stepped into a new chapter in his life. In 2016, he married his girlfriend Wang Qi, who had been in love for 12 years, and became a father the following year after marriage.
Shen Teng, his wife Wang Qi and his son
In his career, Shen Teng began to experiment with different fields, and in 2021, he directed the "Youth Line" module in the movie "My Father and Me". This is Shen Teng's first time as a film director, and Ma Li, as a good friend, naturally fully supports it. There is a scene in the movie that requires Ma Li to use fitness equipment to work out, when she happens to have a back injury and commit another crime, but because this scene is one of the main laughs in the movie, she still insists on finishing the performance.
In the face of Shen Teng's self-blame, she comforted: "It's okay, I just gave birth to a child, when I lost weight." "This year is the 15th year that the two have known each other. Although the cooperation gradually decreased, when asked every time he was asked who the actress he most wanted to cooperate with, Shen Teng would always give the answer without hesitation: "Ma Li".
Not long ago, in a variety show, Shen Teng and Ma Li combined, wearing the school uniform in the movie "Charlotte Troubles", appeared on the screen.
When the two called each other "Charlotte" and "Dongmei" again, people realized that 7 years had passed since 2015, which Shen Teng and Ma Li became popular overnight.
In the past 7 years, Shen Teng has become fatter and fatter, and Ma Li's hair has become shorter and shorter. Outside of the story, their lives have long since entered the next chapter. Shen Teng's sister once described the cooperation between the two as follows: "Red wine with steak, white wine with hairy crab, is very important to the taste." ”
For Shen Teng, Ma Li will always be his "most tacit partner of this century", they accompany each other through the lowest years of their lives, and when they succeed, they stand in the spotlight.
Time back to 2020, Ma Li's partner Shen Teng once again appeared on the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, performing the skit "Walk through the Scene". At that time, Ma Li was 7 months pregnant, but still insisted on wearing high heels to trot on the stage, and later in an interview, Shen Teng said: "On the stage, as soon as I saw her running, I was particularly worried. ”
After the show, Shen Teng returned to the backstage and wrote a New Year greeting card for Ma Li.
On the card, he wrote down one by one: I wish you all the happiness of your family.
Shen Teng said: "In 2020, It is ma Li's first time as a mother, whether it is a little boy or a little girl, I wish her family happiness. ”
As he finished writing the card, he faintly heard, not far away, Ma Li's trademark laughter wafting back again.