As she and her husband and one-year-old daughter moved into their new home in New York, Chen Notice noticed pencil marks on the door frame — a sign of the old owner of the house that the child's height had grown.
"Age is like that for me, just a mark on the door frame."
Born in Chengdu in 1982, immigrated to the United States at the age of 15, went to Hong Kong, China at the age of 23 to participate in the Miss Chinese Pageant, signed a contract with TVB, and chose to give up his acting career at the age of 32 at the age of 32 to study in the United States. For Chen Fara, who is already 40 years old, every step of life is like these tick marks, steady and steady, but full of surprises.
The interview and filming took place during the New York winter. That morning, all the staff were discussing the impending snowstorm and Chen Farah. She came alone, without an agent, without an assistant. A driver master from the northeast whom she knew well also left after taking her to the studio.
It makes one wonder – did she come here alone like this nine years ago?
In 2013, when several media reported the news of Chen Fara's study in the United States, many people were surprised and admired her courage to change the stage. But few people know that the idea of temporarily letting go of TVB's thriving career and re-learning acting skills has actually been brewing in her heart for a long time.
Chen Fara, who came from a business school, signed in TVB as soon as she graduated. This Sichuan girl who studied in the United States coincidentally started an 8-year acting career in Hong Kong, China.
However, in the past 8 years, she has always been angry because she is not "from a science class": "Although I have learned a lot of things in continuous acting, I have never learned it systematically and thoroughly. Therefore, after filming, I felt that in the same working environment, the same model and similar script were constantly filmed, and it was difficult to discover something new. ”
Constantly learning and improving oneself is the nature of "good student" Chen Fara. When she realized her shortcomings, she hired a teacher from the Central Academy of Drama to polish her acting skills; for several years, she took leave from the company while filming, flying to Beijing every two weeks, taking two full days of classes, and then flying back to Hong Kong to continue filming.
Soon, with his excellent foundation and super learning ability, Chen Fara began to receive some scripts for the main role, and was even once known as one of the "TVB Boss Hua Dan". But she is extremely demanding of herself, and still only attributes all these achievements to "good luck".
At that time, the idea of wanting to study acting became stronger in her mind - "I have been looking for some ways to learn on my own, but I feel that it is still not thorough enough, and this intermittent learning method is difficult for me to fully improve, so I later decided to go to different acting schools." ”
One day, Chen Fara turned on the computer, typed the words "the world's best drama school" into the search engine, and then submitted applications to the top five universities one by one according to the pop-up rankings.
"At that time, I was very motivated, very eager to go, very eager to study in that pure environment." After registration, she flew around the world to take exams after a busy work, written test, interview, re-examination, re-examination... But she didn't tell anyone at the time.
If it doesn't sound, it's already a hit. Chen Farah finally got her wish and was admitted to juilliard (Juilliard), one of the thousand people to choose, this art temple in New York, mecca that everyone in the world who has an actor's dream aspires to, and Chen Fara must have stepped onto this stage not just by luck.
There are too many things in New York City, if a person's head is space or too full, it is very tired to stay here, and Chen Fara came here at the most suitable point in life. Like all college freshmen, juilliard is looking forward to the future of her studies.
However, fading the glitz and bustle of the city's surface, what awaits her is a whole year of stress and loneliness.
Giving up your career and returning to school is not an easy task. In the first year of school, Chen Fara had a lot of finishing business and publicity work in Hong Kong and mainland China.
"At that time, many people felt as if I suddenly left as soon as I left, but in fact, when I first started studying, I basically flew back every month, and it was only on weekends, and sometimes I went back on the same day. It takes about thirty hours on the road each time, and it's Sunday night to get back to school, and it's Sunday morning. ”
For Chen Fara, the transition to the United States is not so much a journey to explore the unknown, but rather a journey to find his own heart.
At school, Chen Fara and her classmates, who were at least ten years younger than her, attended classes and rehearsed plays, and tossed from nine o'clock in the morning to ten o'clock in the evening in the classroom without chairs every day. Coupled with the weekend of boat and car labor, the first year of school is a great physical challenge for her.
"At that time, I was flying back and forth between the two sides of the globe, and I didn't have time to meet new people on the weekends like other classmates. Therefore, the circle of life suddenly became a vacuum, very lonely. ”
Fortunately, the rhythm of New York is similar to that of Hong Kong, and everyone is lonely and happy in the enthusiasm. Chen Fara gradually integrated into the area, slowly established her own social circle, and also developed a good physical fitness, becoming one of the New Yorkers who walked on the street.
In addition to the courses of acting, there are music, history, current affairs and politics, etc. - if you want to play a three-dimensional role and become a three-dimensional actor, you must first become a three-dimensional person.
"For example, we have a course called 'Point of View,' where the teacher proposes some current news or historical events, lets us study and discuss them, put our own experiences in, and then output the ideas." Chen Fara recalled, "These topics are not black and white, but in the gray area. Just like if you want to play a big villain, you must also find a good angle and bring in some richer and more comprehensive understanding. ”
Once, the school invited Oscar "movie emperor" Daniel Day-Lewis to teach Chen Fara's class. He talked about taking a break between each play and then learning a new skill.
"Once, he went to a place in Italy where no one was, went to learn to make leather shoes, and did it for more than a year. I thought it was cool, so rare. Chen Fara's tone revealed a hint of adoration like a small fan.
The transition brought her loneliness, but this "loneliness" also gave her the coveted opportunity to hone her acting skills and let her better understand herself. "After graduation, I found that what I learned the most was not technical things, but how to live, how to observe the world, how to build various perspectives... So after learning acting skills for half a day, I realized that there was no set of acting skills to play. She said with a smile.
Growing up in Sichuan, going to the United States to study business, participating in beauty pageants, signing into Hong Kong TVB acting, entering Juilliard, and transferring to Hollywood - all these life decisions are so unexpected in the eyes of others, but they are so natural in Chen Fara.
When Chen Fara was very young, both of her parents worked at a dance school, which was also where she first came into contact with art. When she was five or six years old, her very enterprising mother chose to go to Beijing Normal University for two years of courses. As the saying goes, "if there is a mother, there must be a daughter", many years later, Chen Fara's decision was the same as that of her mother at that time.
In those two years, Chen Fara, who lived with her father, learned to be independent and very able to endure hardships, and never had that kind of pampered and habitual personality. "At that time, my elementary school teacher always said that Chen Fara had always been that dirty, dark, skinny child, and I grew up like a boy."
It is precisely because of his parents' "free-range" education that Chen Fara has had an opinion and responsibility since he was a child. From deciding what to eat today when she was a child, to what major to choose in college later, and going to Hong Kong to develop after graduation, her parents rarely influenced her decision.
"At that time, my father's friend said to him: 'You see your daughter is alone in Hong Kong, she can't even speak Cantonese, how can she mix in the entertainment industry?' My dad would say, 'She knows herself and can handle it.' This trust and support allows Chen Farah to pursue the cause she loves without restraint." Because it is the path you choose, you will go on without regrets. ”
The epidemic in the past two years has made Chen Fara realize that society can change quickly, and people have the ability to adapt to change quickly.
"It's really hard for me to imagine that in the future society, we will still talk about equality between men and women. Are you still talking about the limitations women face? Now, women have a lot of responsibilities and titles from society, "but in addition to age, gender, nationality, etc., I hope that everyone can jump out of these rules and find the common ground of human nature." Chen Fara often thinks so.
The sky had been overcast before the blizzard, but the sunlight was still flowing in through the studio's glass window when no one was paying attention, and spread faintly on her white dress.
Chen Fara mentioned that this is the first time she has tried this style of shooting: "In the past, there would be some fixed patterns, frontal, looking at the camera, sideways... This time it's more casual, more improvised, and there's more room to play, which I like pretty much. She sat barefoot on the table, as if embracing herself.
In February last year, Chen Fara and her husband welcomed a lovely daughter. "I often argue with my husband now that he wants our daughter to go to his alma mater, Harvard, and I want her to go to Juilliard, but in fact we still hope not to put any restrictions on her and let her develop freely." She will form her own worldview and make some choices on her own. There will certainly be a lot of mistakes, but it's also an opportunity for her to learn and grow. ”
When she had just moved into her new home in New York with her husband and daughter, Chen Fara noticed the marks left by the previous owner of the house on the door frame — pencil marks followed by a series of date numbers, recording growth and surprises.
Looking at these traces, she was quite touched: "I look at those lines of half a meter, one meter two, one meter three one, as if watching this child grow up, it is very interesting." Age to me, like these marks. ”
Like many people, Chen Fara was once afraid of getting old.
"I remember when I used to be a beauty pageant, there was a girl who was a lot older than us, 25 years old, and the rest of us were 18, 19, 20 years old. At that time, I thought that 25 years old was such a big age, but then I reached 25 years old, and I thought 30 years old was so big... All the way to the present, I don't seem to care so much about age, and I feel very happy to live a moist life. ”
But for an actor, age is no longer simply a sign of the passage of time, but also a commodity condition that is consumed. Chen Fara knows it well-
"In the commercial society, in fact, the largest consumer group is people in their twenties and thirties; by the age of forty, fifty, and sixty, the consumer group has become very small. Therefore, from the perspective of business operations, whether it is fashion, movies, TV series, even the entire entertainment industry, they all want to make money for young people, so they must also find people of that age group to express. ”
However, Chen Fara believes that relying on the natural selection of business is far from enough, and the film and television industry in her eyes is shouldering more social responsibilities and breaking the age barrier.
"Not only the stories of young girls, more mature women, and even older women, but also their social and artistic value. So, I also want manufacturers to not just follow the money, but to let people of all ages tell different stories. I think that business society sometimes needs to be artificially balanced, because it is easy to go to an extreme by relying on the power of natural consumption alone. ”
When asked, "What would you do if you didn't act?" When this question was asked, Chen Fara said that she often encountered this problem in interviews.
"Every time my answer is different, I realize that I still have so many unfulfilled dreams." She laughed.
Chen Fara has always loved the feeling of creating things with her hands, whether it is carpentry or sewing, and recently she has made a plush rabbit doll for her daughter.
"I took the sewing machine out of my house, listened to music with my headphones on, did the crafts, and used my hands to physically make something, which made me feel very peaceful and quiet inside." This kind of patience is the same as the craftsman spirit of her dedication to polishing her acting skills when she treats her work.
"Sometimes, we are easily affected by society, by the people around us and the environment, and some ideas are not really our own ideas. But to believe that there will always be some longing voice in your heart - 'I should no longer be in this job' or 'I should not be with this person again' - not to say that you will act without scruples when you hear that voice, but at least to face that voice very honestly. ”
By the end of the shoot, it was getting dark. Chen Fara left with a message: "Stay warm."
Everyone is waiting for the coming snowstorm. She's also preparing for it.
Source: Fashion COSMO April issue
Editor: Gong Zheyi
Text: He Jingqi
Photo by Karl Simone
Photography Assistant: David Luo
Styling: Michael Cook
Producer/Artist Co-ordinator: Even Yu @ APEX Communications
Production Manager/PR: Guoran Yu @ APEX Communications
Makeup: Tatyana Harkoff
发型: Takuya Yamaguchi @ The Wall Group
Video clip: Wang Yijie
Image source
Fashion COSMO / Sina Weibo
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