Huang Xi: When OG is standing

Reporter Ni Zhaozhong reported from Beijing

Cute and thin, Huang Xi's appearance is not outstanding. And this not-so-amazing-looking polytechnic man conquered the talk show audiences in China and the United States in his unique way.

Huang Xi was originally engaged in scientific research, and after being exposed to talk shows, he found his true self. Along the way, he embarked on "The Allen Show", "Letterman Show" and other well-known programs in the United States, and played his own piece of the world in the fiercely competitive American talk show market.

In March 2010, Huang Xi was invited to perform at the Annual Press Conference of the White House in the United States, humorously ridiculing a group of American celebrities. The more than 10-minute video immediately exploded all over the Internet, allowing many young people to see the hope of talk shows, and even became a bright light that led them into this field later.

Not long after, Huang Xi returned to China and began to host the CCTV program "Is It True", which is now close to 10 years old. That show combines talk shows with life and science content to further bring humor to the public.

When Huang Xi first came to prominence, a group of so-called talk show bigwigs are still unknown. Like Zhou Qimo, who used to be a contestant in the show where Huang Xi served as a judge, Rock was a student in Huang Xi's training class, and when Huang Xi performed in the White House, Li Was still a college student. As a real OG, Huang Xi once ridiculed: "If Zhou Qimo is considered to be the OG of the domestic talk show industry, then I am the 'spirit in heaven' of the talk show." ”

Talk shows in China are developing rapidly, and the industry landscape is changing rapidly. However, because Huang Xi has not led such influential talk shows as "Talk Show Conference" and "Spit Conference", he seems to be a little lonely over the years. In fact, Huang Xi's acting career has never been interrupted, and he still tours the country every year and founded a club called "Laughing Fang".

Some people who do not know Huang Xi often say that he is "the peak of his debut". In fact, Huang Xi was in the industry for more than 8 years before he really caught fire for the first time. Along the way, Huang Xi did have the capital to masturbate, "In the case of no team and no capital, I can do this step today, and it is okay."

Recently, Huang Xi was interviewed by a reporter from China Business Daily, talked about the creative skills of talk shows, and shared his life experience and insights over the years. The following self-statement is based on the interview.

Huang Xi was interviewed by a reporter from China Business Daily. Video screenshots

Never debuted at the peak

I didn't make my debut at all, and people who didn't know me said so. I have always told others that I may also be relatively bitter, and I have been doing it for more than 8 years before I really caught fire for the first time, all of which have been fighting in the back for many years, and there is no debut that is the peak.

Say not as hot as before, but also see how you compare. Some people never watch TV, I even know some people, except for the B station does not watch anything, I rarely post things on the B station, he may feel that it is not hot. Now the audience is very divided, some people know that this person is quite good, and others may not know who he is.

Similar remarks, at the beginning, really made me particularly uncomfortable, some public accounts do not know why they suddenly began to scold you. I don't know these people, and when I look at what they say, they don't know what's going on with me. Later, I also understood that some people are just trying to get an eyeball or something. This is also a drawback of doing this business, you can't make everyone satisfied, but it is enough for many people to like it.

After so many years of doing talk shows, in a sense, I feel like it allowed me to find myself. After becoming a stand-up comedian, I know who I am, which is very important, once I recognize who I am, my self-confidence can be raised. Otherwise, you have always wondered what kind of person I should be, whether I should do this thing, and after doing it, I still feel uncomfortable in my heart, and this frustration is easy to produce inferiority.

Some people will compare me to Li Shi, but I haven't thought about this before. There will be that mentality, like when you were a child, you watched how other people's children behaved. Then again, with no team and no capital, I can do this step today, and I think it's okay. I didn't do what he did, he didn't do what I did, and he could only say that everyone's path is different.

Appeared in the talk show conference, there is indeed some controversy, a fan also told me, said that it is to see me in the talk show conference, as if I did not sleep at night, he does not understand why I went there, but I think it is also a good thing to go, with the new batch of talk show actors now, to see how they are also very good, I just held the attitude of going to tell a paragraph and come back.

Seeing young stand-up comedians, sometimes I can really see my own shadow, for example, they are very passionate, and then they hate not to sleep, and they have to write that paragraph well, anyway, I can understand that energy.

Humor requires skill

Humor requires a certain amount of skill, and I didn't know it until I was in my 30s. I used to think that all the great comedy masters were born so funny, but then I learned a little bit that they were also trained, and then I also took the training class and read some books on humor skills. But the most crucial thing is how to find your own voice, that is, to find out who you are, and to be more real on the stage, which is a very difficult thing, which is the so-called threshold.

I have summarized 17 humorous techniques in my 18 years of practice, such as common reverse thinking, but not three, call back or surprise others, of course, the harmonic terrier is also, but the harmonic terrier is not welcomed. People all over the world who talk about stand-up comedy are not very eager to see the harmonic terrier.

A good talk show is something that can be expressed in any way, and one of the actors I admire the most is George Carlin. When he was young, he also wore a suit to tell some particularly short, very wise jokes, and after he matured a little, he told a lot of passages about society, humanities, and religion, and almost all areas of society could penetrate, and they could refine the good places, which was a particularly attractive place for me.

In comparison, offline talk show performances are the hardest core, because it is impossible to have post-processing, and most variety shows have post-processing, so sometimes when the actors just get on stage, the bottom has begun to explode, which is unlikely. At this point, I quite agree with what Guo Degang said, what is the real standard, that is, whether the audience wants to buy tickets to see you.

Imitating the kind of passage that others say is actually very low, but maybe the talk show has just come out, and everyone feels fresh. So I told everyone to watch more talk shows, you know what is good and what is bad, otherwise a simple interaction can catch fire.

Of course, this is not the fault of the audience, the actor provokes the audience and makes the audience give the atmosphere, which is not the company's annual meeting. I'm not against the interaction, this is a very important part, but if you interact with the whole scene, it is obvious that you have no baggage.

I told others before, now watching talk shows is really the tip of the iceberg, I believe it must be tens of billions of yuan of industry, now I don't know if there are already tens of billions of yuan, I think it will definitely be the case in the future, because there are many variety show forms of talk shows, and there are many dramas and movies derived from talk shows.

Now just started, there are really few people in China who can do a performance alone, one hand may be able to count, now the number of practitioners is still too small, how to have tens of thousands of people, in order to really break through a lot of doors.

For example, if you say you want to make a play now, many people think that how can you do a play by a talk show actor, and you present the humor of the talk show through the play, which is the next step that is too normal. But now there is no one I want to do, I have tried for many years, it feels very difficult, and then turn the feeling of talk show into a movie, or then into other variety shows, this is something that can be done.

Say the talk show is the best country

For the first time, I felt like I said that talk shows "became" about half a year to a year. At that time, I always went to a small club, in a basement next to Harvard University, by a MIT graduate, and they had a game every Monday, and I won 6 times there, and I thought it was pretty good, so I started to participate in other competitions, although it was more than winning and winning, but the basic ranking was still good.

Figuring out what talk shows are all about, I spent about seven or eight years. I actually doubt myself most of the time along the way. Seinfeld said that talk shows are a survival game, which means you don't know where your next job will come from. And when I started talking about talk shows, there were very few Asians in the U.S. doing it.

Sometimes I go to a place to perform, the media or the producer, he will tell me publicly, thinking that I have a good paragraph, but the audience may not be interested in the story of the Asians. This basically means that you have no hope at all, and no matter how good you talk about it, everyone will not be interested, so it was really difficult at that time.

In the United States, everyone first knew that I was performing on the "Letterman Show", that performance was quite successful, basically a burden of more than ten seconds, the effect was particularly good, and then the chairman of the annual press conference saw my performance, and called me to go to the White House, which was quite simple.

At that time, I would return to China, and there were several opportunities. Mainly the CCTV program "Is It True", it is a weekly program, I have to record it here, so I think I will go back to China to try it. In China, at least I'm part of the history of this talk show, and in the U.S. I'm probably one of many talk show actors.

China is the best country to say talk shows, not one of them. Mainly for young actors, the opportunities that China now gives to young actors are unimaginable in any other country, including the United States. In the United States, 99% of new actors can't make money in the first five or six years, they are all working while polishing their paragraphs, and they may make a little money after five or six years. But there are many opportunities in China, and you can do performances and screenwriters.

There are many differences between China and the United States, and even the biggest stars in the United States will speak in small theaters. "Seinfeld" is still the hottest sitcom in the United States, it is the top card in the United States, every night Seinfeld, Jim Gaffigan, and a black actor, all three people are there to talk, there is nothing strange. In China, if you go out without anyone hugging you, carrying a bag for you, you are embarrassed to go out, so the culture is very different.

When performing in theaters, there are some aspects where the scale of the United States is bigger, such as sex and politics, but on the other hand, the scale of China is even larger than theirs, for example, you can make jokes about the pronunciation of people in some countries, these things are very cautious in the United States, but there is no problem in China.

In the audience, the Audience in the United States may be more hi, before the performance said that the good point is to drink a little drunk, said that the ugly point has been half drunk, from the beginning the atmosphere is very warm, talking about the middle of someone may have begun to say nonsense, often have to have security guards to put people out, the domestic audience rarely drinks before the performance, so everyone is slightly quieter, but the audience is also very enthusiastic after heating up.

Low self-esteem and self-confidence

I am actually a person with low self-esteem, and someone asked me to do an audio show, saying that you are a talk show actor, can you teach everyone how to be confident. I told them that I wasn't much sure about my self-confidence, and I was confident in my inferiority.

I think in fact, many people have a sense of inferiority, especially those who study science. Because there is an absolute standard for studying science, that is, you may not be able to do Einstein in your life, the standard for studying liberal arts may be a little personalized, and everyone's standard is different.

I was particularly uncomfortable for a while, and it didn't work to use some of the methods that others introduced. Later, I thought that most of the time in this life is actually more painful, in fact, you can choose whether to cry or laugh at any time, it is better to make things that are slightly uncomfortable a little more fun, so that you are comfortable yourself, and others are also comfortable.

A complete cure for melancholy is not particularly possible, but it can make you more accepting of yourself. To go deeper, for example, if you believe in fate, I am the life of doing this, which on the surface seems to be a kind of abandonment, but in fact it gives you more confidence.

Modern people are under a lot of pressure, and it's not just me. I have personally seen a man, probably in his 40s, call his mother in public, saying that he took 13 orders today, and then he had to socialize, the leader let all the female colleagues go away before he could go home, he is too tired to do it now, he doesn't want to make money, so big old men are crying there to call his mother, there are many people around, there is no one joke, I thought it was actually not easy.

At my age, my parents are unwell, may be in a bad mood for a long time, and work is also the same, such as some projects that have not been negotiated for half a day, and they are not comfortable. If you want to come and go, you can only sum up that sentence, remember the three words "hastily will be counted" in the most difficult time, and the time will be gone, and it will be gone, it can only be like this.

And I don't believe that the tone of people is happy, at least I don't have that feeling, there is nothing today, without any pressure, I will not say very happy, I feel that there is always a bit of a loss, that feeling is a basic line, the rest is processed in your head, I think comedy is tragedy, they are one thing.

The biggest tragedy of life is that you may struggle all your life and finally die, so entertainment is also very important. Everyone thinks that what entertainment is wrong to death, this is really not right, there are many things that should be paid attention to, but you can't do it without entertainment, and you really can't live.

(Editor: Hao Cheng Proofreader: Yan Jingning)