Just like the tree planters who have planted trees for more than twenty years, they finally grow new shoots one after another, and the depths are the love and longing that cannot be extinguished.
Text | Admiralty
Edit | Mulberry Willow
On the back of the screen, the beginning of the wish
It was the night everyone was looking forward to. Hundreds of people arrived early and waited for the projectionists to go to work. The lights went out, and in the darkness, everyone waited with bated breath. A beam of light came over, the film turned, men and women appeared on the curtain, and some strange and mysterious worlds—the film opened.
Looking at the shadows on the screen, the little boy in the audience is curious about the world behind the scenes: Why are the people in the movie so tall? The movie is over, where did they go? He wanted to go behind the curtain and take a look.
This scene happened twice in the actor Zhang Yi's body — once when he was ten years old, his parents took him to a movie, and he was a little boy who went around the curtain to find out, and the movie was "Red Sorghum". The second time was when he was forty years old, he became the male protagonist of Zhang Yimou's film "One Second", a labor prisoner who chased the movie screening and wanted to see the last image of his deceased daughter.
From audience to actor, thirty years of wish come true.
Zhang Yimou's last two films, "One Second" and "On the Cliff", Zhang Yi are both starring. He is one of the most professional actors. Filming "One Second", Zhang Yimou's first request was to lose weight. He lost 20 pounds in 20 days, lost 110 pounds, and never touched a meal of pasta.
Later, when filming "On the Cliff", there was a scene of being shocked by electric shocks, zhang Yimou proposed that a stand-in could be used, and the picture of not showing his face was completed by the stand-in. Zhang Yi refused - a person accepts the state of electric shock, if there is no real stimulation, it is difficult to act, he really suffered an electric shock. There is also a scene where he and Sha Yi fight each other in the snow. The prop team provided a fake knife, and he offered to use a real knife. The real knife went to the blade and finally inserted it into his mouth.
After Zhang Yi killed Qingqing, Zhang Yimou took the megaphone and said something in front of many people in the crew - Zhang Yi is a very good actor, very, very dedicated. With such good actors, Chinese films are promising.
In the past two years, Zhang Yi has been one of the most familiar faces for theater audiences. From "Eight Hundred" and "King Kong Chuan" to "One Second" and "On the Cliff", he became the fifth male actor in China to break through the 10 billion box office mark. After watching his performance of "My Motherland and Me", someone said that among all the movies in the National Day file that year and more than 50 well-known actors who participated in the show, the most he could not forget was Zhang Yi, who did not show his face, and the eyes on the mask.
But one of the questions Zhang Yi has paid attention to in terms of knowledge is, what kind of experience does an actor have in shooting a bad scene?
This seems to be the real experience of most actors, and more deeply, it is also the life proposition of most people: when we make a wish, what exactly do we make? Is a person who was born without having so many people worthy of dreaming? How much effort does a person who is in the mud have to go through to become himself?
Zhang Yi later answered the question himself – this is not a bad thing, he has made many scenes, made group performances and cameos, and is a person who crawls out of the shell of the play. "If you want to perform seriously in a play, that's what you deserve." But in every play, you can be a good actor by performing seriously."
And now everything he gets is grown out of the shell of the play. Just like the tree planters who have planted trees for more than twenty years, they finally grow new shoots one after another, and the depths are the love and longing that cannot be extinguished.
Stills from the source "One Second"
A decade that cannot be defeated
Some time ago, Zhang Yi suddenly wanted to see what his earliest acting was like, so he found out the TV series he acted in for the first time. It was a 1996 film, and when I looked at it, it was uncomfortable, and the acting skills at that time, in his words, were collapsing. The young man in front of the camera, his face has not yet grown, he can't act, he is nervous and stage-timid, from the current point of view, it seems that there is no possibility of becoming an actor.
For many years after making a wish to become an actor, Zhang Yi spent time in such an almost faint hope.
From a very young age, he had a rare sensitivity. When he was a child reading "Dream of the Red Chamber", he didn't quite understand many of the contents, but when he read the end, the white expanse of the land was so clean that he could feel a deep sadness. When he was a child, he lived next door to the former residence of the writer Xiao Hong, and later read her book, in which he wrote: I turned from the old Shangshi Street, silently stood on the stone of the central street, and closed my eyes: Are you still cold? Still hungry? Have you and I ever been aligned? Has it ever passed through your body?
At the Harbin Drama Theatre, Zhang Yi was hit by a drama for the first time — northeast playwright Zhang Mingyuan had a play called "A Man's Head and a Heaven.". After he finished watching it, he cried uncontrollably in the audience. Feel that the stage is so sacred that it can hit people's souls. He looked around for drama scripts to read, and some people suggested that he go to Beijing and watch dramas every day.
His later teacher Peng Peng recalled to "People" that when he saw Zhang Yi, he didn't stand up, he stood there in the eight bends... Such a thin man, with a long neck, thought that the child's image was not good. This is Zhang Yi, who first arrived in Beijing when he was 18 years old.
Limited by his looks, he fell out of the list in the examinations of The North Shadow and the Chinese Drama. During the interview, the teacher of the Chinese Opera Acting Department asked him awkwardly: Do you consider going to the Chinese Department or the Directing Department? Applying for the People's Liberation Army Academy of Arts, he did not even meet the chief examiner because the physical examination was not up to standard. Finally, the Comrades-in-Arms Drama Troupe of the Beijing Military Region took him in with a quota of self-funded students.
I joined the troupe and stayed for ten years. But this is the beginning of another path of frustration. In an interview with "People", he recalled that at that time, he did not grow up, and his limbs were stiff and uncoordinated on the stage. Speaking is always like broadcasting, like reading. Acting in any drama is very tense and unreal. It is often said: Zhang Yi, your acting is a death.
He had no choice but to work as a minutealist and write promotional notes. Occasionally, he can run the dragon set, and he tries his best to add drama to himself. For example, in a drama, he plays an ordinary villager, he uses gauze to hang his arm, on crutches, and kicks another actor on the spot, the audience does not notice him, but the director scolds him.
It was then that a life-changing drama appeared, "Erna Assault", the original drama of the TV series "Soldier Assault", written by Lan Xiaolong, the pen holder of the troupe at that time.
In this play, Zhang Yi is a living prop, a mass actor, a voiceover, a field note, and a character Yuan Lang's B role. It is said that it is a B role, but in fact, it is an actor who can never get on the stage - even if the actor of Yuan Lang's A role cannot be played for some reason, the troupe will go elsewhere to find actors, rather than letting Zhang Yi take the stage.
This play was rehearsed for a full six years. There were many nights when the rehearsal was over, and Zhang Yi would stay until the end, pretending to lock the door. When everyone is gone, he will return to the stage and, in the dark, play the whole play again.
Little did he know at the time that these experiences would come in handy later. Twenty-five or six years old, he had no money, ate six yuan a day of bibimbap, and began to find a new way out. For example, writing a script, from a gunner to a screenwriter. The hardest one, spent 4 months to write 18 episodes of the script, and finally the funder withdrew, did not get a penny.
Desperate, looking around for the crew to run the dragon set. When I arrived at "Qiao Family Compound", I played Chen Jianbin's follower. In the crew, director Hu Mei asked him, Xiao Zhangyi, how old are you? Then tell him solemnly: You remember, the actor will not come out at the age of 28, just wash and sleep.
He listened and was shocked—he was 27 years old that year.
A twist after a letter
That was the year, when the alarm bells of the actor's age were about to ring, the opportunity really came - director Kang Honglei saw "Erna Assault" and decided to change it to the TV series "Soldier Assault".
Knowing this news, Zhang Yi wrote a letter of invitation to war overnight. There is a sentence in the letter that I have dreamed of playing a lot of times. There is a moving sincerity and there is also sourness.
Before that, Kang Honglei had already cooperated with Zhang Yi in the TV series "Migrant Worker". Zhang Yi played male number three, slow to play, no confidence, but Kang Honglei appreciated him, prepared a tape for him that exceeded the normal actor by 3 times, and let him shoot slowly.
In the end, he did not let Zhang Yi play Xu Sanduo, but gave him the role of class leader Shi Jin. Later, the "Soldier Assault" fire, life after the popularity, Zhang Yi said in the interview program, he wore big pants out of the door to buy eggs, was recognized, carrying the egg hood to run, the result ran too fast, the egg broke in the tree, the egg liquid dripped down the net pocket.
Image source "Soldier Assault" stills
After that, Zhang Yi continued to participate in Kang Honglei's "My Regiment Leader My Regiment" and "Life and Death Line", filmed several urban love dramas, and began to cooperate with film directors, from Jia Zhangke, Chen Kaige to Zhang Yimou.
In the past ten years, in the dark, behind the scenes, the days of running dragon sets and being a supporting role have become his best nourishment. He played the little people in the tide of the times, and there was endless fun.
For example, Meng in "My Regiment Leader My Regiment" is annoyed, a person with a shrugged eyebrow, not so scrappy, and full of doubts and disbelief, who lives desolately to the end. In Jia Zhangke's "Mountains and Rivers of the Past", he played Zhang Jinsheng, the coal boss of Chafu, teaching his lover to drive a car, the car crashed on the stone monument, distressed, and pretended to be indifferent, lifted his foot and kicked the bumper of the car, and the bumper fell directly. This is one of the best baggage in the movie, which zhang yi improvised.
Even if it is a less important role, he will leave a glory. In "I Am Not Pan Jinlian", he played the chief judge Jia Mingming. In the shot, a group of people surround the petitioner Li Xuelian, and suddenly there is a hand that tightly tuggs at her school bag belt - rough, tough, and exposed. There are friends who are familiar with him guessing, so much drama, it must be Zhang Yi's hand. Send a WeChat question, sure enough.
In 2015, Zhang Yi won the Golden Rooster Award for Best Supporting Actor that year with the movie "Dear". After taking the stage, he thanked 17 people in one breath. Later, he said, he imagined many times, in case he won the prize, whether to just say thank you on stage — that would be cool. But that was the first time in his life that he had been recognized in acting since he was 18 years old and aspired to be an actor, and he didn't want to waste that opportunity.
An actor who was once considered to be an actor is dead, survived for nearly twenty years, and his wish was finally fulfilled.
Image source "Dear" stills
Glory is good, but happiness is the most rare
Last year, Zhang Yi rarely appeared on a talk show, he said, over the years, many variety shows have found him, but he has never taken over - in addition to movies and TV series, Zhang Yi is indeed a rare invisible person among actors.
This barrier to fame is probably related to his ten years in the army. In the troupe, there were flowers and applause after the show, someone asked him for autographs, and there would be a hearty meal, and he would often secretly put a Coke in his bag. After returning to the troupe, it continued to be a storm of criticism, who did not act well, to write inspections, penalty stations, and military postures.
When is it really happy? It is after all these things have passed, at night, the brothers are lying in the bed, do not dare to turn on the flashlight, after being covered with the quilt, sullenly open the Coke, bang, drink into a mouthful, and play a long burp... My favorites are the bland days, where I have fear and resistance to the hilarity.
So every time he hears other people's praise, he always feels unreal. The evaluation he most agreed with came from Jia Zhangke. After playing the coal boss in "The Old Man of Mountains and Rivers", Jia Zhangke commented on him in Shanxi dialect: Boss Zhang, can do it - not that it is too good, it is great, but it is OK.
Outside of acting, he has built up his own simple and happy life – he loves cats, has seven cats at home, and at home, cats have a special bedroom, adjacent to his bedroom. He had punched them in the wall, connected by passages, which he considered to be respect for the cats. He introduces himself in Zhihu as a cat and a waiter for the audience.
When filming, he cherishes all the moments in front of the camera, and the image thing lives longer than we do, and it can be retained after hundreds of years, thousands of years, that is worth a lot. But when he is not filming, what he cherishes most is this simple happiness, being able to enjoy himself in ordinary days, which is more meaningful than the infinite scenery in front of people.
This is Zhang Yi's beautiful life, the wish that lasted for thirty years has come true, behind it is his long-term efforts, there are changes, there are also persistence.
Not only Zhang Yi, the wish is the best expectation of each of us for life, some people's wish is to let the children in the mountains go out one more, some people's wish is to dedicate the sweetness of the melon to the people, there are some small but cute wishes, such as going to the amusement park, and some people's wish is to be thin and earn more, or to run five kilometers and pass the exam... It is by relying on such small or grand wishes to go to the far side of our ideals in a long and continuous effort.
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From October 21st to November 11th, the National Activity of Showing a Better Life Competition for a Wonderful Life was officially launched, during which dozens of stars launched a wish challenge to encourage everyone to show a colorful and beautiful life, and participants can upload videos to the True Happiness APP to witness the germination and realization of different wishes.
October 21 is also the starting point for the real happy APP to open the trial operation of the revised version, the revised true happiness APP focuses on everyone's yearning for a better life, launches the real choice product channel, the strict selection of good store channel, builds an entertainment content social platform featuring events and lists, and realizes the new upgrade of the happy shopping by enhancing the value of the purchase and the vitality of the music, helping one after another good wishes to come true.
As Zhang Yi said in the video, the process of realizing a wish may be very bitter, very tiring, and difficult, but the moment the wish comes true, it is really beautiful, really good, and really happy.
Resources:
1. Behind the scenes of "One Second" to create a documentary
2. "On the Cliff" behind-the-scenes documentary program
3. "Impersonator Zhang Translation", 2017.11 "People"
4. "Zhang Yi: Every minute and every second of the movie is so precious" 2020.12.09 "Southern Weekend"