He switched from a doctor of biochemistry to a comedian 19 years ago, was invited to perform at the annual White House press conference, and recently participated in the "Talk Show Conference" as a contestant.
| Author: Chen Rongwei Huang Xianyi
In the fourth season of "Talk Show Conference", Huang Xi appeared, and the audience, players, and laughter members all stood up and applauded, and the crowd exclaimed in disbelief, "Is it true?" "He's my idol!"
During the performance, Huang Xi ridiculed Yang Lan, who invited him to appear on the talk show, and Li Shi, who gave him a speech as a screenwriter but was rejected, also wrote down his ups and downs over the years: "If I hadn't introduced the talk show to China, there wouldn't have been a "Talk Show Conference", and I wouldn't have had the opportunity to participate in the audition today. "Two minutes into the lecture, all four laughers shot the lights.
After 19 years in the industry, this well-deserved "elder" of China's talk show industry suddenly appeared on the stage where newcomers gathered, and many audiences and even contestants said that they "never expected it". Returning to China with many halos such as "the first Asian to perform a talk show at the annual meeting of the White House press" and "the first Chinese to enter the mainstream comedy industry in the United States", Huang Xi has witnessed the great changes of Chinese talk shows from the beginning to the leap, and has also experienced the dissipation of the halo above his head, but his love for talk shows has become increasingly deep.
Surprise players who are looked up
"Just watched so many young actors perform, I am very stressed, there is a feeling of the Yangtze River after the waves pushing the front waves, you are all too good." But I just want to ask you one thing, have you ever performed in the White House? This "Versailles" segment is the first baggage that Huang Xi threw on the stage of the fourth season of "Talk Show Conference", and successfully won him a lot of laughter.
The performance at the White House took place at the annual meeting of American journalists in March 2010, and Huang Xi, as the only invited talk show actor, performed a 15-minute talk show performance in front of the VICE President of the United States, members of Congress, U.S. Supreme Court justices, and many famous American journalists, which caused a sensation in the United States. Then Vice President Biden said to him after the meeting: "Huang Xi, after you become a big celebrity in the future, if your servant tells you that Joe Biden is waiting for you at the door, please don't ask Who?" ”
After the annual meeting, the video of his performance at the White House quickly swept through the Chinese circles, and crossed the ocean, appearing on the hot list of China's major video websites, becoming the enlightenment of many Chinese people for talk shows. Huang Xi himself did not expect that his talk show performance could receive such a warm response in China.
In 2011, Huang Xi's autobiography "Yellow of Cucumber, West of Watermelon" was published in China, and his "grassroots" used to be known to more people: born in an ordinary family in Baishan, Jilin Province, who went to the United States in the 1990s to study for a doctorate in biochemistry, at the age of 32, he began to contact talk shows from scratch, used his spare time to practice in bars, spent 8 years on the stage of the mainstream American comedy show "David Letterman Show" and "Allen Show", and then was invited to perform at the White House, became famous in a world war, and became a full-time talk show actor. Huang Xi's experience, like a pebble thrown into the water, took the lead in stirring up ripples in Chinese talk shows.
More than one stand-up comedian said he was influenced by Huang Xi on this path. "Without Huang Xi, many people would lack courage." Cheng Lu, a stand-up comedian who once attended Huang Xi's new book sale with a "pilgrimage" mood, said that Huang Xi was "a template character with inspirational significance and possible replication" for Chinese talk shows. Yang Meng'en even called Huang Xi the "ideal life of a talk show actor", and Zhou Qimo, known as the "ceiling of talk shows", also hurriedly gave up the title of "OG (Elder)". Because of this, when Huang Xi ridiculed himself as "the spirit of talk show in heaven" in "Talk Show Conference", there was cheers and applause from the audience.
In 2021, Huang Xi participated in the fourth season of "Talk Show Conference".
Participating in the recording of "Talk Show Conference" as a contestant this time, Huang Xi's original intention was to "compete with young colleagues". "I thought it was just a surprise player to talk about it and it was over." Since returning to China in 2013, Huang Xi has spent most of his time in Beijing, and participating in the "Talk Show Conference" is a rare opportunity for him to communicate with young peers across the country.
In the years since returning to China, Huang Xi has personally experienced the rapid development of Chinese talk shows, and the difference with the "playing style" of the United States has become increasingly clear: "China is a team battle, collective creation, can quickly produce a lot of things, in the United States may have 8 to 10 years to do things, in the country may be done in 6 months, the opportunity is particularly many, everyone feels that in a particularly large, unprecedented wave." ”
In 2009, Huang Xi participated in the American TV show "The Allen Show".
Where did Huang Xi go
Huang Xi said in the paragraph that when he returned to China in 2013, he found that he was more popular than talk shows. This is true. At that time, Huang Xi was already a celebrity in the American comedy industry, and Yang Lan and Lu Yu invited him to do exclusive interviews one after another. At that time, talk shows were still in their infancy in China, with offline talk show clubs only a few in southern cities, and talk shows in Beijing had just emerged in very few bars and clubs.
There are the memories of the audience who watched the talk show performance in Beijing that year, and there are Huang Xi's performances, and he is mostly the finale. The few spectators on the scene, including the actors, were mostly excited about the performances of others, except for the cheers, applause and laughter that huang Xi would respond after he took the stage.
Huang Xi's expression and body language.
In recent years, the "Spit Conference" and "Talk Show Conference" have flourished, creating a number of talk show stars, and offline talk show clubs have also mushroomed across the country. Some people say that the golden age of Chinese talk shows has arrived. However, Huang Xi, who introduced talk shows to the chinese audience's vision, ran counter to this craze and gradually moved away from the center of popular topics. Occasionally, some people ask, where did Huang Xi go?
After returning to China, Huang Xi took over the olive branch thrown by CCTV and became the host of the financial channel "Is It True" program. "No matter where you go, you can watch CCTV programs on TV." Huang Xi admitted that one of the reasons for joining "Is It True" is the strong influence of CCTV, and he wants to let more people see the talk show.
Huang Xi recalled that when he first talked about talk shows in China, he played 4 consecutive shows in Shanghai, and the audience at the bottom was all college students and white-collar workers. After 2015, the barriers to the age span and professional type of the audience slowly disappeared. In his view, there is the subtle influence of this show. "At that time, many people watched 'Is It True], the elderly watched it, the children watched it, and the audience's acceptance of talk shows was also greater."
In this life science interactive verification program, the opening show of each two-minute period is Huang Xi's talk show performance time, and the rest of the program content is composed of truth video investigation, on-site true and false experiments, and guest guessing of true and false game links. It was one of the only two TV shows in China at that time to have a talk show stage, the other being Wang Zijian's "Tonight's Post-80s Talk Show". The director of the latter is Ye Feng, who later pulled Li Tou into the partnership and founded the laughing fruit culture.
In 2017, the first season of "Talk Show Conference" jointly created by Xiaoguo Culture and Tencent Video was launched, becoming the first thrust of China's talk show boom. Nowadays, few people remember that in the same year, there was also a "CSM China Professional Talk Show Competition" with Huang Xi as a judge, which was broadcast on iQiyi. Among the top 20 players in the show, there are today's talk show OG Zhou Qimo and popular talk show actor Pi Ball. "At that time, the number of hits also exceeded 100 million, and it is a pity that I did not do the second and third seasons." Talking about this show, Huang Xi had some feelings, "In fact, "Talk Show Conference" is not really popular until the third season. ”
In addition to television and online variety shows, Huang Xi also founded the talk show club "Laughing Fang", organizing offline performances and training new talents, and Rock, a popular player in "Talk Show Conference", came out of the Laughing Fang training class. From 2014 to 2019, Huang Xi also spent a lot of effort to make sitcoms that integrated the elements of talk shows, but unfortunately, due to investment, market and other factors, it has not been able to achieve his wishes. Participating in the fourth season of the "Talk Show Conference" this time said in the paragraph that the investor withdrew the funds and changed to the bridge section of the blockchain, which came from this experience.
However, Huang Xi enjoyed the most offline performances. Every year when he holds a tour, he not only ponders the passages, but also the audience: Tianjin audiences like to answer the phone, and Beijing audiences react best to callbacks ... "On the stage, when I shake out my baggage, there is laughter under the stage, and I feel particularly good." Huang Xi said, "Really good talk show actors must insist on offline performances, and those Coke segments in variety shows are all ground out in offline performances." ”
Huang Xi performed offline.
Confession and indulgence
Tan Xiaohong, the general director of the fourth season of "Talk Show Conference", believes that talk show is "telling your story funny". Unlike crosstalk, which requires a master to lead the door, talk shows seem to have no threshold at all, and funny passages often stem from the performance's life accumulation. Li Also stressed his point of view many times in the show: "Everyone can be a 5-minute talk show actor. ”
Huang Xi believes that it is easy to talk about talk shows, but to become a professional talk show actor, it has to undergo many tests. He once wrote in his autobiography: "In the United States, it usually takes 15 years for stand-up comedians to become famous overnight, and it may take 15 years to find out that they are not suitable for talk shows." ”
Before becoming famous, Huang Xi also experienced a long period of loneliness and no name. After the birth of his son in 2007, he even stayed off the stage for a while. In the middle, Huang Xi has faced the incomprehension of his friends around him, the reality that his performances have repeatedly hit walls, and a series of "worse" such as dangerous car accidents and discrimination.
Most of these pains and tribulations became the material for him to write his paragraphs, and they were told lightly in the subsequent talk show performances, becoming the introduction to amusing the audience. No matter how painful things and unbearable experiences are, they can also be told in a comedic way, which is the power of talk shows.
In his opinion, for a professional stand-up comedian, the most important thing is "confession and fascination". "You have to live with the possibility – you may be talking about it in obscurity for 20 years, in a small club. But you have to feel like this is what I should do, you have to really love this thing, I can't live without it, not because I have something to give back. Whether it's good or bad, I've gone this path all my life, and I have to have this energy to really do a good job of talk shows. ”
When working as a stand-up comedian in the United States, Huang Xi always had two notebooks, one small to carry around, one to keep on the bedside, so that he could write down inspiration at any time, and then practice in front of the mirror or video recorder. "You can't say that you are addicted to talk shows every minute of every day, but you do have to eat and sleep for a few years thinking about talk shows, and if you haven't experienced that stage, you can't do a good talk show." 」 The passages that made countless audiences laugh were formed in these days and nights of hard thinking and repeated practice.
After more than ten years of fame, to this day, Huang Xi still maintains this creative habit and will write paragraphs when he has time. It's just that now the mobile phone has replaced the notebook, and the inspiration flashes, and it can be taken out of the pocket at any time to record, and the performance content can be saved for 40 minutes to an hour a year. After writing it, it is taken to the offline performance to try and practice, three or four times a week, the cycle is repeated, rarely intermittent.
In 2020, Huang Xi performed in Xiamen.
Huang Xi has been an introverted and keen person since childhood, always wanting to please others, so he often buries his feelings deep in his heart. He listened to the advice of his friends and used to write a diary to rehearse himself, but with little success, until he met a talk show.
"Because I didn't have the courage to talk to my friends face-to-face about these things, I had to go to the talk show stage and tell them." Talk shows provide him with an "outlet", "When talking about talk shows, I feel that although I am still living my own life, I can keep a certain distance from life, which is a very good thing." 」 Huang Xi said that talk shows have become a way for him to heal himself.
Huang Xi hopes that at the age of 72, he can say on stage, "I've been doing talk shows for 40 years." "If you can still perform at that age, it means that you are full of enthusiasm and have achieved your ideals." I've been doing what I love all my life, and I think it's almost a perfect life. ”