Zhang Songwen plays the governor of Cao County, who is very city-oriented.
As the first film and television work to show the case of the national anti-gang crime office, "Anti-Gang Battle" has risen continuously in the May 1st file with word-of-mouth counterattack, and the box office exceeded 130 million yuan before the deadline, and Zhang Songwen, who plays the county magistrate Cao Zhiyuan, has also won the recognition of many audiences with his accurate and wonderful acting skills. Zhang Songwen loves acting too much and knows too much about acting. When interviewed, whenever we talked about the play, he would improvise the impressive plot again, plus explain the background of the story at the time of the performance. He can reproduce almost every line, vividly and accurately reproducing every look of the characters in the film.
In the process of chatting with Zhang Songwen, we gradually learned why he could put down harsh words in front of each collaborator, "I can't pick up your play, I won't be an actor."
I started to want to play a bully: the villain can't write good and evil on his face
There are two reasons why "Sweeping Black And Decisive Battle" attracted Zhang Songwen to join, one is that the theme and script are rare in the mainland film market, and the different script naturally makes the actors feel excited; the other is that investors have always been eager for his joining to enrich this role, and promised to give him a very large performance space, Zhang Songwen therefore believes that this role will be well shaped, and this story must be very good. "In the past, I was worried that there was a type of director, that is, how to act you must strictly follow the script, I saw the script of "Sweeping Black" and thought that it had a lot of places worth digging, plus director Lu Yulai respected and understood the actors very much, and could give you the space to play, how good! So I agreed to star, and I thought it was okay to create such a creative environment. Interestingly, Zhang Songwen's most wanted role at the beginning was Sun Zhibiao, the "bully" played by Jin Shijia, who said that he had hardly seen a role so completely bad that he was in a state of madness from beginning to end. But in the end, he also starred as Cao Zhiyuan, the county magistrate of Weihe County, who had a more complex personality, once appeared as a good county magistrate and parent official, he did not gamble or prostitute, rarely went out to socialize, often worked overtime until late at night, shrunk in the office to eat box lunches, actively opened up the development zone project, and said that he wanted to lead the people to get rid of poverty and get rich, until the end, he revealed his true face, he was Sun Zhibiao's half-brother, and he was also the most greedy moth in the county.
The governor of Cao County threatens the accomplice mistress in the car.
Zhang Songwen remembers that it was very interesting to create the role of Cao Zhiyuan. About halfway through the performance, the director, the producer and the crew colleagues all ran to stop, they said, "Teacher Zhang, this performance may be a bit of a problem, you are playing a good person now, but this role is a villain." Zhang Songwen said: "The villain never feels that he is a villain, I have never seen a particularly bad boy or girl around me, when I think they are bad, when you ask him why (will be so bad), he may have 100 reasons to tell you why this is so, if from the beginning he wrote good and evil on his face, then what suspense, what can be empathetic with the audience?" Facts have proved that Zhang Songwen's persistence has brought a strong sense of vitality and three-dimensionality to the role of Cao Zhiyuan, he went deep into the heart of the character, hollowed out his mind to approach the background and motivation of the character, in the month before the start of filming, he and Lu Yulai polished the script for more than a month, put forward more than a dozen suggestions, and enriched the role together: "In fact, I am very grateful to the director, and I also admire them, and I am willing to accept an actor's suggestion on top of his existing script, which is incredible." Cao Zhiyuan's background is very complicated, his father is an old county magistrate, the family does not worry about food and clothing, and his career is smooth, but why he will go to the point of being an umbrella and corruption, the motivation behind it must be clearly reflected. ”
Forcing a colleague to jump off a building is improvisation
On the one hand, the shaping of the role is that Zhang Songwen will never fight an unprepared battle, after receiving the script of "Sweeping The Gang Battle", he began to collect information, watched a large number of documentaries on the Internet about the anti-gang crime and anti-evil, and the most impressive link in each film was the confession of the criminal officer in the detention center before the court sentence was pronounced, "At this moment, they are the most sincere, because the wrong thing to do is qualitative, he can only confess why he did it at that time, he will regret it, and the authenticity of these reasons is higher than the performance, Because it can help you find the motives of these criminals. Zhang Songwen said that before the start of filming, many colleagues of the State Political and Legal Commission will also communicate with them, just like everyone thinks that Sun Zhibiao and Cao Zhiyuan are too bad and arrogant, but in reality, some criminals are even worse than them, many things to sweep away criminal syndicates and eliminate evil are real, and the movie only shows a few examples. There is no exact prototype for Cao Zhiyuan's role, but it is a synthesis of many corrupt officials, he does not write greedy words on his face, and packages himself well, so that the people and colleagues once thought that he was a good county magistrate, just like the scene where he half persuaded and half threatened his colleague Qi Feiyu to carry the corruption case and jump off the building to commit suicide, it was all from improvisation, rationalizing the motivation of the characters in each scene.
The Cao County Governor played by Zhang Songwen has a complex and three-dimensional personality.
"The script of that scene was that I was going to force Qi Feiyu to die, and I would think about why he wanted to die, and he could directly admit to the corruption sentence, and why he did this because only when something happened could the people in the investigation team leave." I said to the director at the time, you let the actor who plays Qi Feiyu come to my office for a supper, let's have an impromptu scene, and while eating me, I can persuade him to die. Lu Yulai was a little worried at the time, he asked Zhang Songwen, what if the other party can't catch your play, Zhang Songwen patted his shoulder and said, "It won't be impossible", and then he told Qi Feiyu's actor, "No matter what I say later, you just need to listen to me chat carefully, and when you feel scared, you know how to act this scene." So, they improvised a performance, Cao Zhiyuan and Qi Feiyu remembered the friendship when they were just assigned to the unit, and after paying homage to their son in the United States and gambling and owing huge sums of money, they finally told him that as long as Qi Feiyu could carry things down, he would ensure that his son was okay, "I was very impressed by that performance", Zhang Songwen said: "You force a person to die, but also let this person be grateful to you, this person is indeed bad to the bone, but he has a very deep motive, so as not to violate the personality of a character." I think the performance should be free, the realism of improvisation is very precious, when I and the opponent are acting, he can spread out and act, I hope they have no pressure, you can do whatever you want. ”
If you can't catch each other's plays, you won't be an actor
"How to act" this point, in Zhang Songwen's performance rules are extremely important, most of the performance has a rule, how to act everyone needs to discuss in advance, if it is an actor suddenly change the way of acting, the other party should react, how to pick up, will cause a lot of pressure on the other party, so many actors do not dare to easily improvise, but Zhang Songwen believes that the most attractive performance is not deliberate. "What is the most valuable performance? It's not that I'm holding a cup of boiling water and not being scalded, but the moment you don't pay attention to being burned, if you deliberately play don't burn it, it's not precious, because the audience can't see the most real and natural performance reaction. He remembers that when he was a newcomer, he also encountered a situation similar to "not free", when he first came out to act, some old actors would draw the steps of the performance with him: "Boy, when you come in and hear me say this, you push open the door, then you take three steps, you can only take three steps, after three steps, you will splash me with water, but don't splash my face, splash my body, and then talk about your lines... I was very nervous, I felt that every step could not be overlooked, if the acting became such a boxed formula, wouldn't you be crazy? Acting should be enjoyable and free, so I tell the opponent actor before each performance, if I can't catch your play, I won't be an actor. In this way, Zhang Songwen used to leave this harsh sentence with every actor he cooperated with.
The dignified Cao County Governor directed himself to perform a sudden conflict.
"Sweeping Black Battle" was filmed in Huizhou, Guangdong in August, when it was a sweltering heat, the high temperature weather and the urgency and seriousness of the subject matter made the whole crew full of fighting spirit, director Lu Yulai told the Beijing News reporter, at that time the state of the whole person was a little tired, because every day will face different problems, every day after filming will go back to revise and sort out the script, fortunately, there are these particularly excellent actors to help him solve together, everyone will discuss a better presentation method about this scene before the performance, In the process of deep interaction, I found too many surprises that the original script did not have. Zhang Songwen joked that Lu Yulai should be the director who knows the actor best, and he does not blindly emphasize the sense of authority of the director, but respects the actor's ideas. "He's very similar to director Xin Shuang in the series 'The Hidden Corner', they don't ask you to tell you how to teach you how to act, but every time they come to ask 'how do you want to act', if he cares a lot about the director's sense of authority, he probably doesn't want to cooperate with me in the future (laughs), but they know very well that some of our ideas are for the good of the play." 」
【Interview】
Whether the live performance is good or not, you don't know it yourself
Courtesy of Zhang Songwen
Beijing News: Is this your first cooperation with Jiang Wu? It feels like you two have a tacit understanding.
Zhang Songwen: It was 2002, the first play in my life, when I was a fledgling, no one asked me to be an actor (laughs), so I went to be an assistant director. The male number one of that play (I really can't remember which one) is Jiang Wu, at that time there was a role that was a villain and no one played, just thinking that I was learning to act and let me play the villain, after nearly 20 years, this time it was Wu Ge playing the decent, I played the villain, this thing made me both very emotional. Brother Wu often said to me, "Wen'er, then we are only in our early 30s, now I am 50, you are more than 40, you are so old", I love to touch his stomach and say that I am really grateful to him, because at that time I just debuted and did not understand anything, he has been helping me, teaching me, is my best master brother.
The governor of Cao County meditated alone after forcing Qi Feiyu to die.
Beijing News: After the work is released, will you see the feedback from the audience? Do you care about comments?
Zhang Songwen: An actor should actually have self-awareness, are you acting well? In fact, you don't have to look at the edited (sample), the scene is good or not, you don't know it yourself? It's like if you ask the piano if he plays the piano well, doesn't he know yet? The people who perform are the same, and I must know if I'm acting well or not. The measure of the play is whether you are acting or not, don't care if you play handsome, cool or not, you really have a heart, this is what each actor knows, do not have to learn too much from the feedback of the audience, they should be clear whether they really work hard for the role.
Zhou Huixiaowan, a senior reporter of the Beijing News
Senior Editor Huang Jialing Proofreader Li Lijun