Author | Yao Yuan
Lee Seok Is an actor. She told the South Wind Window reporter that in order to avoid unnecessary trouble, her resume did not have a graduation college column.
But when she goes to the crew interview, the director will still notice the blank space on her resume.
"Peking University."
- Li Chengxi had to reluctantly tell the other party about his alma mater.
In 99% of the cases, the director will look at her in surprise and confusion and ask her why she came to be an actress.
▲ Li Chengxi had signed up for the draft "Creation Camp 2020"
After 3 years of changing careers, Li Cheng Xi has heard this question hundreds of times. And she also learned how to reduce the cost of communication, using a ridiculous way to cope with the past: "Like it, I can't think of it." ”
In 2013, with a score of 669 points, Li Chengxi became a science student in Fuding City, Fujian Province, and entered the Yuanpei College of Peking University. After graduation, she entered a leading financial company, took a promising position, and received a handsome salary.
Until 2018, Li Cheng Xi resolutely ran away from the "formal life" road of the financial elite.
Quitting her job and changing careers, she became a newcomer actor struggling at the bottom of the acting industry.
▲ Li Chengxi's graduation photo (source Weibo @ Zeng _PKU)
From one set of evaluation systems that apply to the vast majority of people in society to another, Li ChengXi suffers from gaps, frustrations and not being understood. Inside and outside the circle, people think she is whimsical.
Only Li Cheng Xi himself felt happy.
Learn to be a girl group
Li ChengXi asked his agent to delete the "graduation college" column from the actor's profile.
After several interviews, Li ChengXi was keenly aware that there was a certain general stereotype of "xueba" in the show business circle.
When she entered the industry, casting directors often asked her, "What can you do?" Acting bully? ”
▲ Li Chengxi is on the set
She can hear the inference behind this question: you can enter Peking University, the first 20 years of your life must be crazy learning, lack of life experience and emotional materials, and can't act well.
In addition, Li Cheng Xi studied science, a discipline that occupies an employment advantage in most industries in society, but in the show business circle, it is equal to "strong logic, too rational, and not good at mobilizing sensibility".
"You will obviously feel that the external evaluation standards have changed." Li Chengxi said.
But she also admits that studying and acting are "actually quite different."
▲Li Chengxi
Learning is an extremely rational process, which requires meticulous logic, strong memory and sober thinking to find solutions to problems, and most positions in society are looking at this ability. However, a good performer needs to deeply empathize with the fate of the characters, fully mobilize the emotional side, and focus on artistic intuition.
For Li Chengxi, the most difficult thing about performance is to "liberate nature" and "learn to transfer emotions, mobilize past emotional fragments, and put into performance."
All of this requires Li Chengxi to learn from scratch.
▲ Li Cheng Xi in "Mist Tracking"
Fortunately, the learning methods are common. Self-planning, reflection and condensation are the magic weapons for Li Chengxi to win in his student days. She believes that this will also help her improve her acting.
Li Chengxi brought the more real energy of his studies to the performance. For example, a string of fake phone numbers was written in the line book, and she could write them down verbatim, even as if she were treating coursework at school—combing her understanding of the play and analyzing the character into a manuscript and sending it to the director.
▲ Li Cheng Xi in "Yangtze River Demon Ji"
This surprised the director: "She was the first of the auditioners to be so meticulous. ”
For example, in the idol talent show "Creation Camp 2020", Li Chengxi rehearsed the show with four girls, and she developed a detailed training plan for the team, which specifically targeted each day to a percentage.
In the interview, she used economic theories such as "marginal benefit" and "sunk cost" to analyze her practice progress and song selection.
▲ Li Cheng Xi made a training plan for the team at the time of "Creation Camp 2020"
The teammate next to her listened to her and described her: "This may be the difference between being smart, and learning to be a bully and a scum." ”
Xueba was a girl group, which was a rather gimmicky topic at that time.
After the show aired, the interview got decent hits on the web.
But Li Chengxi's intelligence and seriousness do not seem to have translated into popularity. In the first round of the show, Li Chengxi ranked 75th out of 101 girls — well below her exam rankings as a student.
▲ Li Chengxi's ranking in "Creation Camp 2020" is not ideal
When it was announced that he was eliminated, Li Cheng xi cried. When the mentor gave his farewell speech, Li Cheng Xi kept his head down. Under the exaggerated color grading filter of the girl group program, the traces of tears on her face can still be seen clearly.
"I got the first blow in my life." Later, Li Chengxi described his mood when the women's group lost the election.
Not a single choice question
In the eyes of the alumni of Fuding No. 1 Middle School, Li Chengxi is a legendary figure in a small county town and a fengyun sister in the mouth of the teacher.
"[I'm] years younger than her to hear her story." After learning that she participated in "Creation Camp 2020", a compatriot left a message on the Internet: "Good grades, can play, look good, the heroine of the novel in her mind." ”
In the eyes of outsiders, Li Chengxi's life in the first 22 years was filled with the "protagonist aura".
▲Li Chengxi when he was a child. When he was admitted to college, Li Chengxi entered Peking University as a naked score of science in the college entrance examination
Like most Chinese children, Li Chengxi's dream when he was a child was to "go to Peking University Tsinghua". But unlike most children, she fulfilled this dream.
She frankly told the Nanfeng Window reporter that she was not a good student who followed the rules in the traditional sense, "did not have a particularly hard reading experience", spent a lot of time on study, and often did not write much homework.
Perhaps suddenly realizing that this would be interpreted as some kind of ostentation, or misleading, Li Cheng Xi then added: "Of course, this is not a matter of pride. ”
In fact, Li Cheng Xi is proud.
Li Cheng Xi has a strong planning ability for his studies. The usual blank exam papers were the practice materials she left before the exam to visually check her revision.
Method, efficiency, talent – Arguably, Lee has mastered these three things flexibly, which she believes "makes more sense than sitting at a desk and moving yourself into your study time."
As for "Peking University Tsinghua", it is actually not Li Chengxi's only dream.
In Li Chengxi's growth experience, academic and literary and artistic activities are not a single choice topic. She also dreams of going to Nortel, Chinese opera, and dreaming of becoming an actor.
▲ Li Chengxi also dreams of becoming an actor
Li Chengxi described himself as a child with a "strong desire to express". When a family watches TV, she will take the initiative to imitate the bridge section on tv; when she goes to karaoke, she will jump on the sofa excitedly and dance to the songs of the adults.
And "Tsinghua Peking University" and "Nortel Drama" are, after all, two parallel and disjoint roads.
In the small county where she grew up, if the child's grades were good, "it must be the right child to go to the top of the general high school and take the college entrance examination."
At that time, not only did the teachers and parents think so, but Li Chengxi himself also tacitly accepted that this was a matter of course. Only now, in retrospect, she would use the words "conservative" and "traditional" to describe what she thought at that time.
▲Lee Joo Seol joined the dance troupe and performed in college (Lee Joo Seok in the front row)
However, although Li Chengxi hid his dream of learning to act in his heart at that time, he still insisted on literature and art as a hobby. Even in his junior year of high school, Li Cheng Xi still maintained the habit of practicing dance for 2 hours three times a week.
When she went to college, the literary and artistic activities organized by the school were her stage. Conducting singing competitions, hosting sports festivals and coming-of-age ceremonies, Li Cheng Xi will always be the center of sight of all teachers and students.
Being watched by people made Li Cheng Xi feel a dazzling happiness. In the process of performing, she seems to become another self, experiencing some fresh feelings that have never been seen in daily life.
She described: "Very painful. ”
▲ Li Cheng Xi was once "someone else's child", and everyone said that "the existence of the heroine of the novel"
This thrill, which is difficult for outsiders to understand, fascinated Li Chengxi, so much so that after working in the financial industry for a while, she still fell in love with it.
Therefore, after a long time of deliberation, Li Chengxi decided to give it a go in 2018.
This year, Li Cheng Xi was 23 years old.
Narrow passages
Soon after changing careers, Li Chengxi got the opportunity to make a cameo role.
The first time she filmed, she was confused by what she saw on the scene.
Some actors who are heavier than their own roles can't even memorize their lines, and the director even needs to show each other on the walkie-talkie how to read the lines and where to put the accents.
▲ Li Chengxi is on the set
After the end of the day, Li Chengxi returned to the hotel, and with a heart of inquiry, she searched for the background information of the actors on Weibo. She wondered why they were here, only to find that "either the company is pretty good or there are a lot of fans."
Li Chengxi realized that the evaluation dimension of the performing arts industry is not only acting skills and attitudes. In the market, the work is also a commodity, and the popularity and topicality of an actor are as important as professional ability, sometimes even more so.
Therefore, Li Cheng Xi signed up for "Creation Camp 2020". She hopes to get some exposure through the talent show and add some extra value to herself in this harsh evaluation system.
The results were much lower than expected.
▲ Li Chengxi in "Creation Camp 2020"
She sincerely shared with the audience at an event the confusion and frustration she and her peers felt at that time: "It seems that in this competition, the strength is not as good as the low starting point but there is progress, the hard training is not as good as the lazy but topical, and the patient is not as good as the crying." ”
The video later circulated online, drawing more than 2,000 comments.
Some admired her outspokenness, while others felt offended.
But almost all the comments agreed that audience popularity is a metaphysics, and the upward passage of showbiz is very narrow, unlike competitive sports or exam rankings, there is no fairness at all.
As a so-called insider and witness, Li ChengXi knows this better than people.
▲ Li ChengXi once shared his experience in an event
Most actors in the industry find it pointless to run a group interview, and the probability of getting a good staring opportunity through an open interview is almost zero. Li ChengXi said that he has a production friend who is currently in charge of a micro-short drama project, and has countless friends to greet this friend to leave a place for a certain actor, and even some people have proposed to bring funds to star.
In the past two or three years, due to the impact of the epidemic, the film and television drama market has been sluggish, the funds for some projects have shrunk, and the job opportunities of most actors are scarce. "Not to mention the actors standing at the bottom and waist of the industry, even the actors who stand on the top of the mountain now have a lot of free time and have no drama to play."
Li ChengXi stated in a calm tone, not sounding anxious. There are some facts that she has accepted calmly.
▲ Li Chengxi in "Dance Student" still maintains his passion
For example, actors who can't get along in the circle often have to go to dinner to accompany them. However, the investors, producers, and film and television company bosses at the same table "don't want to look at you with a straight eye."
But when Li Chengxi's educational background was introduced at the dinner table, Li Chengxi found that the people at the table would look at her more. "Don't say more respect, at least not so despise me."
At this time, the labels of academic hegemony and rationality given by Peking University are no longer outliers in the entertainment industry, but have become a talisman for Li Chengxi.
3-year term
In the movie "Burst Drummer", the young Andrew is bent on becoming a top jazz drummer, and meets a grumpy and moody devil mentor who challenges the limits and chases his dreams with unconventional means.
Andrew practiced jazz drums all night, grinding blood bubbles out of the tiger's mouth, putting them in ice cubes for a short time to relieve pain, and then immediately put into practice, until the drum surface was gradually stained with blood; he was slapped by the instructor, had a car accident, and had to rush to the scene desperately, dressed in disheveled clothes and sweating, and finished the performance in a state of almost madness.
▲ Andrew's experience in "Burst Drummer" made Li Cheng Xi feel very "enjoyable"
Some viewers hated the film, disagreed with the values it conveyed, and felt that it was too extreme, and that the near-self-destructive approach to effort was simply morbid and cruel. But after Li Cheng Xi saw it, he only felt that it was "so cool and enjoyable".
She said she was a person who liked something and "would enjoy being tormented by it."
When I was a child, I took dance classes, and almost all children hated soft practice the most. The teacher asked them to spread their legs apart and lie on the ground like frogs, and the teacher then stomped their legs to the ground with his feet until they were close to the ground, and the tearing pain of the ligaments was unbearable.
Li Chengxi's grandmother sent her to dance class, and when she saw this scene, she was heartbroken and insisted on not sending her to study again.
▲Li Chengxi as a child
But Li Cheng Xi did not find it difficult. She said: "Physical torture, or the blow experienced in life, frustration will definitely come, but I myself get a painful feeling from it." ”
"Painful," she mentioned again.
Perhaps because of this side of his personality, Li Cheng Xi left from the "Kangzhuang Avenue". She is somewhat naïve to believe that after surviving all this, she will be like andrew, the drummer in the movie, close to the extreme and realize her dreams.
▲ Li Cheng Xi once posted this picture on Weibo that said that "life is only one step away from dreams"
Today, the friends she can talk to are still the same group of classmates she met at Peking University.
The students' work is either in investment banks, fund companies, or law firms, and they have bought a house, a car, and married in Beijing, and their life progress is rapid and smooth.
Li Cheng Xi would not feel a particularly great pressure from his peers, but secretly rejoiced that he did not live a two-point life early.
▲ Li Cheng xi once said on Zhihu that he was doing a project of "how to choose between reality and dreams"
Not being kidnapped by society's definition of success, Lee behaves at ease. She just felt that her waywardness was not fair to her mother.
"It is reasonable to say that she has cultivated a child who was admitted to Peking University, and after graduating for so many years, she should feed her family." Li Chengxi said that her current income is sometimes absent, and sometimes she has to accept subsidies from her mother.
The deadline she set for herself was 30. At the age of 30, before he had made a name for himself in this circle, Li Cheng xi changed careers and looked for other ways out.
With 3 years to go until the deadline, she is determined to do whatever it takes to give it her all.
Li Chengxi remembered the year he was preparing to graduate from Peking University. One day, Li Cheng xi knocked on the door of the college's office and told the party secretary of The Yuanpei College of Peking University that he had plans to enter the performing arts industry in the future. She did not expect that the secretary excitedly praised her: "This is our Yuanpei's child, And Yuanpei people should boldly pursue what they want to do!" ”
At that moment, the surging in Li Chengxi's heart lit up the entire college building.
The secretary said that when she succeeded in the show business circle, he invited her to return to Peking University and exchange experiences with her students.
▲ Li Chengxi in "Dance Student"
After 5 years, Li Chengxi felt a little ashamed.
With her current grades, she can't proudly tell her teacher that she made the right choice. She did not have the courage to encourage her students to pursue their dreams like herself and desperately.
In the autumn after the talent show ended, Li Cheng Xi sent a Weibo. She gave up her travels and opted for a book of essays to spend a lazy afternoon by the sea.
▲ After the end of "Creation Camp 2020", Li Cheng Xi sunbathed the sunset he saw while running
Weibo is accompanied by a passage from a collection of essays: "The world is only one step away from the drama, and life is only one step away from dreams." ”
At the age of 27, Li Chengxi still wants to indulge in his dreams for a while. Just a little while.
Author | Yao Yuan
Edit | He Ziwei
Duty Editor | Ji Jie
Typography | Fifi