This May, Yin Zhusheng is a little busy.
Open his Weibo, we can find that in the past two months, he has sent more content than in the past few years.
Both of the dramas he starred in aired at the end of April. In "The Gate of Rebirth", he is the great villain Xu Zhengqing, who sets up a situation to kill his brothers, and his sons and nephews are simply innocent; in "The Wind Rises in Longxi", he transforms into Li Yan, the protector of Zhongdu, who opposes Zhuge Liang, and is quite an old man who conspires with the country.
This is not the first time that Yin Zhusheng has "broken the circle".
In 2019, "The Twelve Hours of Chang'an" (hereinafter referred to as "Chang'an") was broadcast, and his right-hand man Lin Jiulang was on the hot search with his "girl sitting posture".
He is also a "villain professional". Bao Shungui in "Wolf Totem", Takeda Koichi in "Blade", Ma Dechang in "The Great Qing Salt Merchant", and Poisonous Harrier in "Wolf Hunter" are all classic characters with clear recognition.
In fact, Yin Zhusheng was originally a drama actor. His Weibo official certification is only four words: drama actor. Before entering the fast lane of the film and television circle, he was the "shoulder handle" of the Shanghai drama circle.
He has won the Magnolia Drama Award, the Golden Lion Award for Drama, and the Plum Blossom Award for Drama, and is a standard grand slam winner of the drama award. The drama "Shang Martingale" starring him is a work that can be recorded in the history of Chinese drama.
Trapped at home in Shanghai for two months, Yin Zhusheng had a lot to say. The following is his story.
Xu Zhengqing of the "split"
In the winter of 2020, director Cao Dun filmed "Wolf Hunter" in Xinjiang. I had a driving scene because it had just snowed the day before, and I thought about the effect a little more realistic, but I didn't expect the revolver to hang directly in the air and roll over into the ditch.
The ditch is steep and deep, with a height of nearly 20 meters, but fortunately the speed is not fast. When I went to the hospital for MRI, the doctor said that the nose was broken and the waist was seriously misaligned. In fact, my waist is old wound. I came from a baseball background, played in the reserve team, the provincial team did not go in, and then chose to become a soldier. When he got off the company, he flashed his waist. Later, after the million-dollar disarmament, I went home and went to college. When I was in school, I was injured once in a big drama, and my knees and waist were also scarred when I performed "Shang Martingale".
After the filming of "The Wolf Hunter", I slowed down the pace of the scene. The doctor warns that if you are injured again, the lumbar disc is likely to protrude. So the big action scenes, I almost don't act. The drama "Faust" came to me last year, and I said you see the way I am now, I can't act. Director Rimas Tuminas also can't get in russia.
It was at this time that the agent said to me, I have a script here, you see if you are interested. After reading it in one breath, I was very interested, Xu Zhengqing is a person who is extremely bad. I decided to talk to the director.
In fact, I have long met director Yang Dong and also know the producer Zhang Weiwei. I told the director that I hoped that every time I came over, I would give me a day of preparation time, because I was still in the "Wind Rise Longxi" group, and director Lu Yang "competed" every day. From costume drama to modern drama, it always takes time to get into the state.
I promised it well in the early days, but when I got busy, it changed. When I got to the back, I almost spun in a row. This side just shut down in the early morning, and it started at eight o'clock in the morning. The drive between the two places is 5 hours, and you can only squint in the car for a while.
The most difficult thing about Xu Zhengqing is that he needs to hide it. First, I can't let my opponents see my true intentions; second, when I'm in contact with others, I can't let the audience see that I'm a bad person.
Generally speaking, performances are divided into two types: overt performance and covert performance. Spy dramas are overtly acting, you only need to hide from your opponents, you don't have to hide from the audience; secretly acting is to hide from everyone. This play, on the other hand, is intertwined.
Every time I'm filming, I ask the director, who am I acting for now? Acting for the audience and acting for the people in the play are completely different forms of expression. Many small details, people in the play may not notice, but people off the screen can see the problem at a glance. It's like when I turned that watch, it was too much to repeat.
Xu Zhengqing is a divided person. I don't understand the specific words and deeds of such people, but in our modern society, we do a lot of things, which are not uniform. It can even be said that the original intention is forgotten. So I thought, find that feeling of split personality. What does this kind of person look like in reality?
There is a scene where I follow Zhuang Wenjie (Wang Junkai). I saw some viewers say that Xu Zhengqing killed Father Zhuang (Pan Yueming), and he was ashamed to follow him. The audience thinks so, but in my understanding, he is actually hesitant. When I took a close-up shot, I cried. You said that this person can cry, how can he get such a black hand?
Why Xu Zhengqing had to crack "Roselle", this is the problem I talked to the director on the first day of entering the group. He was not short of money, and he painstakingly went around a long circle for what it was for. Objectively speaking, this character only wrote 80%, and 20% was not written. When he was finally caught by the police for review, he was not given a chance to explain.
The last explanation I give is that his psychology has become perverted. What supported him to find out the secret of "Roselle" was to fight for a breath. At that time, I was the boss of your family, and everything in the bank was managed by me, just like a son, and finally you confessed the secret and actually hid me.
This is very similar to the abolition of the ancient dynasty, the prince did not do anything wrong, why did you abolish people? If it is for money, Xu Zhengqing has no need to check cultural relics at all, and it is a situation and a risk, "Roselle Map" is taken to the black market and sold casually, that is, tens of millions. He should have done it as a cause.
The right side "sits", Li Yan moves
"The Wind Rises longxi" gives me the feeling of being very similar to "Chang'an". When filming "Chang'an", I also asked director Cao Dun that others speak modern dialects, so why am I a literary text. Li Yan is also like this, even if he speaks modern language, he must talk about rhyme, and every sentence must be neat. Li Yan has a strict personality and never fights unprepared battles.
The first scene that entered the crew was to shoot Li Yan to say goodbye to Chen Gong (Played by Chen Kun).
Ma Dai (Dong Haoran) led an army to surround the mansion, and I hugged Chen Kun and cried. I say thank you, two generations of your family saved me. At that time, Li Yan was very sad in his heart, Liu Ying (Yang Ying) burned a torch, and he had almost no way out.
After a large series of scenes were filmed, director Lu Yang called Chen Kun and me over, saying that the two of them wanted to remake this scene.
I was nervous and said where I was acting wrong? He said no, it's that you two acted too well, I understood the problem before, and now that I have a new idea, let's hurry up and repeat this scene.
When I said goodbye to Chen Gong, people kept coming in. In front of Chen Gong, Li Yan was a look, as soon as someone came in, he would immediately turn into another person. It's also a bit of a comedy. Seeing the film, I was generally satisfied. If you think about this image, and then compare it with Xu Zhengqing, is it a completely different performance?
The scene where Li Yan escaped on horseback, I personally attended. However, that scene, in fact, did not achieve perfection. Finally the horse jumped up and only got a back shot. Because the horse was in a hurry to go home, the audience only saw one horse, and where the camera could not shoot, there were more than a dozen horse pestles there. It saw the horses and wanted to finish work and go home.
The first time I rode a horse was to shoot "Fan Zhongyun", which is almost thirty years ago. It was an Oriental horse, taller than me. To get on the horse, you have to step on a stool. The horse's back is particularly wide and feels like sitting on a sofa.
When I made Wolf Totem, I drove 300 horses. After the shooting, I realized that the horse chew I was riding on had long since come off. If you think about it, 300 horses, if they fall into the herd, they will definitely be trampled to death if they can't stop the car.
My high school classmates still came to me a few days ago and said that they didn't recognize you when they watched "The Wind Rises longxi". I can recognize the other scenes as soon as I look at the way you walk. Because I was on the baseball team with him at that time, I still retained the running posture of an athlete. He said you're acting really well, old and cunning, a little silly, a little dull, and a little official.
I said I just wanted that feeling, and some of the big guys were like that.
Lin Jiulang of "Chang'an" is another feeling. Li Yan is moving, Lin Jiulang is Jing. In order to play this role, I deliberately turned over the "Tang Six Classics". He was a big man, a very wronged man.
The whole play of "Chang'an" was filmed in the flower room. Director Cao Dun said, discuss with you, let's shoot here. I said yes. It was a big winter, and we were building all the real scenes, the flowers were real, and the base was still through the pipes, steaming hot. I dressed warmly and sat in the house and was very comfortable.
The space in the flower room is so large that there is no dispatch. They also put a karma drum next to me and said that there was nothing to touch and play with. I knocked it twice, and the drum beat was used in the play with music.
Beating drums while talking is not easy. It's always hard to do it twice, like riding a bike, you ride fast, it's impossible to talk slowly. At that time, Lin Jiulang couldn't let people see his nervousness. Speak slowly, but the drums beat quickly, and it's a challenge. In addition, his eye sockets are always a little wet, which is also a design of mine. The elderly, especially those in the northwest, tend to get trachoma and often shed tears involuntarily.
When I am acting, I like to follow each other, and I may be used to acting in supporting roles. In fact, acting is to serve each other, you serve each other well, the play can be very accurate. Some actors like to highlight themselves when performing, others act like this, I have to suppress him, this is definitely not OK. The most important thing about acting is to communicate with each other.
A thousand faces for one person? How can it be
Before resigning, I worked as vice president at the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center. Because I joined the party when I was a soldier. Later, he acted in "Shang Martingale" and won all the awards that the theater industry could win. He also has military experience, achievements, and party members, which is relatively scarce in the unit.
After the birth of my child, I wanted to resign. On the one hand, I felt that my theatrical concepts and ideas could not be realized, at least not at the time. On the other hand, the more you have, the more you earn.
When I submitted my resignation, the leader also advised me, saying that you can go out to take over the play, and the unit will not stop you.
I said, I don't want to go out and put on a show every three or five minutes. In that case, no one knows that you are an actor and will not leave any impression on the audience.' In fact, before resigning, the family could not open the pot.
My lines were trained from the drama "Shang Martingale". At that time, when I got the script, I opened my mouth, and it didn't feel right, and the word was tongue-in-cheek. Director Chen Yiyi said to hurry up and worship the teacher. In that play, there were many old artists participating. I asked Teacher Zhang Mingyu, who played Zhao Liang, for advice, and he taught me a whole set of methods that I still use to this day.
I also have a lot of experience in speaking Japanese. I was not good at English since I was a child, and I studied Japanese for a while in order to enter the university. After making Wolf Totem, Blade approached me and said there was a Japanese character.
I took a newspaper and said I read you a passage in Japanese. After reading it, they directly clapped and said, Teacher Yin, you must come. The way japanese people speak is completely different from Chinese.
《Blade》Koichi Takeda
He can't do yin and yang, like the upper voice, the child's sound, it is absolutely impossible to make, so many times it is very strange to listen to. You take all the factors into account and you find that you're a bit like Japanese.
There is a Japanese actor named Kenichi Miura, and he speaks very interestingly. He tried to communicate in Mandarin, but in the process of doing so, he often had to stop and think. I also learned this technique from him.
After the filming of "Blade", I played 7 Japanese people in a row. Later, when this kind of drama came to me, I didn't pick it up. I said that I had run out of oil, that one's skills were limited, and that all the tricks were done.
During this time, I often wondered whether Xu Zhengqing's change of an actor who was not so familiar to the audience to play would have an impact on this play. The effects are certainly there, but if you change a relatively unfamiliar face, the effect may be better.
The biggest obstacle for an actor is to be "preconceived". No one can really "one person with a thousand faces", how can people completely change their faces with this skill? Sometimes you know the audience too well, and as soon as I appear, many people think I'm the villain. But when we make TV dramas now, they are always cooked and not raw.
When filming "The Wind Rises in Longxi", Chen Kun talked to me about this problem. He was very confused, saying that brother what to do with our actors, now when acting, no matter what I act, people think that I am Chen Kun. I've thought about it too, because I've always played bad guys in the past. Now I want to understand that good people and bad people don't really matter. As long as the script is well written and the characters are interesting, I can accept it whether it is a decent or a villain. But the Japanese I refused.
Even so, I wanted to create as many characters as possible. During the live shooting, the director and I occasionally had different understandings of the characters. Director Yang Dong prepared this play for two years, and his understanding of the character is deeper than mine, and I respect him very much. But after all, I have reached the age of Xu Zhengqing, and my understanding of the words and deeds of an "old man" is relatively clearer.
We had a good chat when communicating on site. Sometimes he is also very stubborn, saying that Teacher Yin, you will shoot one like this first, I said don't lie to me, you must use this when you shoot a clip.
We actually shot two. When it came time to dubbing later, I found that some of the scenes in the play coincided with what I was thinking at the time. I'm happy and thanks to the director.
In 2021, I played 13 roles, some with more scenes and some with fewer roles. But overall very enjoyable. I strive to be different in every role. Everyone has a habit of acting, but when you get a strange role, you have to change all the habits and re-enter the character on this basis.
I didn't have a role I particularly wanted to challenge, and in "Amai Conscription", I played an emperor and danced a dance, which was an addiction to the emperor. He had never played an emperor before, and only made a cameo appearance in "Great Qin Fu".
What I am pursuing now is not to play different types of characters, but to face different role challenges and different performance methods. When acting in Faust, the director's acting philosophy was, "Everything is unknown." Although he is the artistic director of the Vakhtangov Theater in Russia, he does not mention Stanislavsky.
For example, if it is on fire, how do you behave. Many people may come up and act directly, but in real life, we can't know in advance where the fire started. You have to walk up to it before you can find out that there is a fire here.
Finally, I hope that people will not call me the "Godfather of Drama". I can't stand it.
【Text/Ma II】