Qianjiang Evening News Hourly News Reporter Sun Wen
"Feng Yuanzheng is always so different a good actor, an actor captain with ideas, or an acting teacher who is very different from everyone else."
This is the performance artist Lan Tianye's evaluation of Feng Yuanzheng, and on the cover of the essay collection "Feng Yuanzheng's Acting Lesson", this sentence is more prominent than the title.
For the "good" of the good actor Feng Yuanzheng, the general public has deeply experienced from the TV series "Don't Talk to Strangers", the movie "Do Not Disturb", and the drama "Tea House", and this new work that has just been released will let us understand the identity of "actor captain" and "acting teacher".
"Feng Yuanzheng's Acting Lesson" was jointly launched by Houlang Publishing and Beijing United Publishing Company, Feng Yuanzheng shared his nearly 40 years of drama life, and for the first time, he disclosed his lectures on Nortel and Drama.
In recent years, the popularity of variety shows such as "Actors Please Take Place", "The Birth of Actors", "I Am an Actor", and "Acting School" has promoted the public's attention to topics such as "actors" and "acting skills".
Feng Expedition's classroom
This stems from the natural attention of the people before and after the losing of the stage, but also from the urgent call that broke out under the accumulation of various industry shortcomings - "what is the performance", "to the actors do not want traffic" and "how to transform idols". Speaking of which, acting is also a "high-risk" profession, because it is only one step away from the peak to the bottom. From this point of view, Feng Yuanzheng's experience is written for actors, but not only for actors. Because he said —"
Why is this book called "Feng Yuanzheng's Acting Class"? First, I hope that the name is straightforward, so that people will be talking about performance when they listen; then there are people who do not understand performance, people who like to perform, they may learn some performance through this book; people who know how to perform may have some new ideas after reading it.
So, what exactly is the performance?
For this topic, in those popular variety shows, actors are commented on by directors, producers, screenwriters and even scholars, media, drama critics, and ordinary audiences, and it seems that everyone can say a little bit about performance. However, actors may be the people who understand actors the most.
Stills from "Don't Talk to Strangers"
If you let the "captain actor" say why the performance is called "performance". He believes that "table" is the surface, performance, expression, "acting" is deduction, using our external, that is, our body to feel our heart, and then expressing the inner things through the body, that is, performance.
He also threw out his own reminder that performance is not "performance": "Two words reversed is the essential difference, because "performance" is a process of external →. When you start "acting", you lose the most moving thing. ”
How to interpret the performance with the public, Feng Yuanzheng gave many examples, such as: "Crying drama can't cry, the director will ask, who do you have the best relationship with at home?" You say Grandma. The director asked again, do you want your grandmother? How is she doing now? You cry when you think about it. This is the sense of truth, relying on your own subconscious. But this kind of truth is not the truth of the character, it is the expression of the emotions of the actor himself, and you are just using your own crying or laughing to complete the character's lines. That's why you may not be able to stop the tears after you have finished acting, you are not crying the characters, you are crying your own sadness. ”
It is worth mentioning that "Feng Yuanzheng's Acting Class" also specially includes the article "I Pass through the Wall" that was on the WeChat public account, telling the past of the young Feng Expedition when he studied in Germany.
Such a narrative is not lacking in the book, Feng Yuanzheng recalled his own life from a skydiver to a professional actor, to study in Berlin, and then to return to the Beijing renyi who was attached to him, leaving behind classic images such as Song Erye, Quaker, Gu Zhenguan, etc., with a telling story, showing his life on the stage and in front of the camera.
Stills from "The Teahouse"
【Fresh Reading】
In 1978, while still in junior high school, I joined the Beijing amateur skydiving team and dreamed of becoming a professional skydiver. Until I graduated from high school in 1981, for 4 years, I had to go to the skydiving tower every week to practice, and I also participated in the national amateur skydiving competition many times.
Out of my insistence on skydiving, I made the first choice in my life and gave up the college entrance examination in order to participate in the national skydiving competition. After the high school graduation exam, I entered the training team with my luggage on my back and began my life of skydiving until I participated in the national competition in August of that year. However, just after the national competition, the coach of the professional team told me that I could not take the professional athlete exam because I was too old and too thin. It was a thunderbolt for me at the time. I was at a loss.
Working at home, I insisted on reading every day, and later, with the help of my brother's friends, I found a job doing zippers. In the early 1980s, the door of reform and opening up slowly opened, and some popular things from abroad began to enter The country one after another, jeans were the popular costumes at that time. Making jeans requires a zipper, so my job is arguably a popular one. During my year at the zipper factory, I met several literary enthusiasts who liked to perform and often pulled me to discuss with them, and I was deeply infected by their enthusiasm. They brought me into the world of art, into the acting industry.
When I went with them to participate in amateur literary and art training classes, the registration fee was very cheap, 30 yuan to learn for 3 months, 1 week twice. In the training class, the performance opened another window for me, a window into the world of art, the world of the soul, and the dialogue with myself. I was immediately attracted, just like when I was learning to skydive.
In middle school, although I had good grades and good performance, I didn't like to talk and was an introvert. Skydiving is a sport that changes me, it allows me to release the things that my heart desires the most, such as persistence, courage, concentration, it opens a window for me. And this window of the performance made me feel a different world from skydiving. So as soon as I opened it, I liked it. Since then, my dream has been to be an actor.
However, from the beginning of learning to act, "blows" followed. In that era, if you want to become an actor, you have to rely on "appearance". Although I later went to the Drama Department of the Higher Academy of Arts in West Berlin, Germany, the Grotowski School of Performance, which was the main subject, believed that anyone with a good IQ could become a good actor. Since I was very thin at the time, almost all the teachers who taught acting thought that my "image" was not good, which made me feel inferior at one time, and the only thing that gave me confidence was my composition and understanding of the theoretical knowledge of performance. Although I studied acting as an amateur, I took it seriously. Every time I debrief a performance, even if it's a skit idea, I do my best.
Looking back on this experience now, the process may be a bit tortuous, but I still have to thank it. Without this experience, without the initial self-awareness, the practice of art, and the thinking of life, I could not have a deeper love and deeper understanding of art and performance, and I would not be able to become who I am today.
When I officially turned positive at the end of my one-year internship in a zipper factory, I was a little hesitant because I liked acting and wanted to engage in the acting industry. So, after thinking about it again and again, I resolutely gave up my more stable job and studied acting wholeheartedly. I knew I wasn't very impressed because of my physical condition, but I had the privilege of meeting several mentors. Just when I was inferior because I was not optimistic, my skydiving team coach told me that if I wanted to learn acting, I would go to his sister, who knew that his sister was Niu Xinci, a teacher of the directing department of the Central Academy of Drama. I told Teacher Niu, I can't do it, I can't do it. She encouraged me, saying that I had very good conditions and my own personality, and that learning to act and being an actor was not necessarily a good image.
In Chinese opera, I also met Song Shizhen, a teacher who teaches vocal music in the Acting Department, and studied with her for free for 2 years. When I was most disheartened, she said to me, "I've taught you for so long, are you going to give up?" A person must have a pursuit, you may not be an actor, but after learning the same, you must learn well. You go back and think about it, after 3 days, if you decide not to learn, then don't come back; if you decide to continue learning, then you come again. "After 3 days, I said to Teacher Song, I want to continue learning!
In 1984, I took the exam at the Beijing Film Academy. This exam not only experienced some twists and turns, but also quietly opened a door for my artistic path.
At that time, everyone speculated who could pass the initial test, the re-test, and the third test, and I was still the person who was not included in the passing list, but when I thought of the encouragement of the teachers, I was full of confidence. After successfully passing the initial test, I look forward to the retest. When I took the re-examination, I sat in a corner in the back row, and when the teacher called me, I didn't hear me. Finally, I learned that the teacher called me and meant to let me take the first exam in the next group. I thought, the last one in the previous group was more polished, and if it was the next group, it was the first. None of us candidates want to be the first because we feel like we're at a loss. But there was no way, the teacher said that the previous group was finished, and could only wait for the next group after the break. An hour later, I was the first to go in for a retry. The teacher introduced the rules of the examination room, and I began.
There are four subjects in the re-examination: recitation, vocal music, form and sketch. I was reciting a narrative poem, very well prepared, the poem was also very good, and when the recitation was in tears, a teacher shouted to stop, I said I had not finished the recitation, the teacher said yes. When I was taking vocal music, I sang a song called "Camel Bell", and the more I sang, the more uncomfortable it became, and when it was time to sing the chorus, I stopped. The teacher asked me, why don't you sing? I whispered, I don't want to sing anymore. The teacher said, you can sing it, sing a high note to listen to it, and I said I don't want to sing. The teacher also felt a little helpless and had to give up. When I was taking the physical examination, I showed a set of broadcast gymnastics, and the teacher asked me to go down. The second candidate sitting next to me was a girl, and after her first three exams were completed, the teacher asked me to perform a skit with her, the skit was called "Reunion", the time, place, and character relationship let us think for ourselves and perform by ourselves, and the third candidate re-examined and we played. Time was very tight, and when we were discussing how to set the scene and the situation, I had a flash of inspiration, thinking that I had read a lot of books about Zhiqing before, and suggested to her that we could perform a story of Zhiqing returning to the city. The response to that skit was very good, and many test takers watched through the cracks in the door, and I was more confident.
After the re-examination, a teacher came to me. I looked at her familiarly, feeling like a teacher in an interview, and before I could think about it, she asked me how tall and heavy I was, and I answered them one by one. She said that she was preparing a movie called "Far Away", and she lacked a male lead, and she wanted me to try it, and I agreed. The day of the audition was exactly my three attempts, and at the same time as the examination, I had to go to the crew to audition, passed the level, and finally selected me to act in this play, which was the later "Youth Festival". And this director is the fourth generation of famous director Zhang Nunxin.
Maybe there is a kind of fate in the dark that allows me to meet director Zhang Nunxin. I have a deep affection for her film "Sand Gull", which talks about the spirit of the Chinese women's volleyball team, because there are many plots in the film that are somewhat similar to my experience. As early as when I was studying acting in my spare time, I told my classmates that my dream was to cooperate with director Zhang Nunxin and act in her films, even if the role was not much. Unexpectedly, such a distant wish at that time came true a few years later.
In 1985, I was admitted to Beijing Renyi.
I saw the drama of renyi 3 times at that time. When I was fifteen or sixteen years old, I watched Mr. Cao Yu's historical drama "Wang Zhaojun" on TELEVISION, and for the first time I knew that the original drama looked like this. The second time was at the Renyi Theater, lin Zhaohua's "Absolute Signal", which was called "China's first avant-garde drama". I burst into tears in the darkness, because the bitterness and loneliness of the unemployed young Kuroko in the play were very similar to my mentality at that time. The third time was at the Capitol Theatre. At that time, I had already started to study acting, and i bought the best ticket with a friend to watch the renyi drama "Alley Deep". That day I sat in the audience and silently thought, "In this life, if I can also stand on the stage of human art and act, I will be satisfied." ”
So, of course, I can't miss this opportunity to enroll in the Renyi Student Class. In that year, there were 16 students enrolled in the student class, and we will study in renyi for 2 years, constantly eliminating, screening, and finally leaving a small part. Our homeroom teachers are Tong Di Teacher and Lin Liankun Teacher. Teacher Lin said to us in a serious way in the first class: "Among you, some people have made TV dramas, some people have made movies, but I hope you will not be proud and start from scratch." ”
It had been exactly 3 years since I resigned from the zipper factory and vowed to study acting. All the setbacks and achievements in the past 3 years have been zeroed in my heart from that moment on, and my life has a new beginning.
Excerpted from "Feng Yuanzheng's Acting Lesson" after the wave publishing authorization
This article is the original work of Qianjiang Evening News, without permission, it is forbidden to reprint, copy, excerpt, rewrite and carry out network dissemination of all works of copyright use, otherwise this newspaper will follow judicial channels to pursue the legal responsibility of the infringer.