For a long time, good looks were a double-edged sword for Zhu Yilong.
"Good looks" is certainly a good stepping stone. Therefore, in the nearly ten years from college to the "tepid" days before the explosion, Zhu Yilong did not lack drama. With the blockbuster drama "Town Soul" coming out in 2018, the three words "Zhu Yilong" became the hot word of the year, and he received praise that may exceed everyone's expectations. Unfortunately, most of these praises are related to his appearance and temperament. Subsequently, Zhu Yilong successively used the names of "Little Grandfather", "Chen Yiming", "Jingran" and "Wu Evil" to show a very similar "handsome", "elegant" and "affectionate". "Good looks" seem to be the dazzling crown on his head, and it has also become a golden hoop of bondage.
Until Lin Nansheng in "Rebel", let his acting skills hidden under the good appearance surface. He accurately grasped the temperament of coexistence of youthfulness and vicissitudes, and completed the transformation from a traffic star to an actor.
And this time, when Mo Sanmei, who shaved her round head, wore a flower shirt and pants, and was full of stubble, as if she had not bathed for three days, stood on the big screen with her legs shaking, we can say that Zhu Yilong finally broke free of the shackles of "good looks" and showed the characteristics that belonged to the role.
Zhu Yilong, as an actor, sharply sheathed his blade.
Spend the decade of your life in earnest in the way of "observing baked sweet potatoes"
Most of the people who have studied acting have memorized the Stanislavsky system, and Zhu Yilong, who graduated from the acting department of the Beijing Film Academy, should be no exception. The essence of stanislavsky's system is to require the actor not to perform well, but to really live in the role, not to perform, but to live.
Class teacher Cui Xinqin once shared that Zhu Yilong's first homework, "Observation Life Practice", is the preparation stage of performance and the quality of training actors.
Zhu Yilong stood outside stupidly, stood for a day, staring intently at a baked sweet potato stall, "I don't know what he was going to do," "And then the next day suddenly five or six migrant workers came and carried the baked sweet potato stall to the classroom." It turned out that Zhu Yilong rented the baked sweet potato bucket. In the classroom, he continued to "stare silly at the stall and say, "Teacher, my show is over!" "Moving the scenes of life to the stage one-to-one is probably Zhu Yilong's naïve understanding of the Stanley system."
The classmates laughed into a group, but Zhu Yilong persistently played "a person who observes baked sweet potatoes", and this down-to-earth and serious just touched Cui Xinqin. The audience's laughter and questioning test the actor's sense of faith the most, and the performer must be "lonely in public" without interference, and enter the situation he imagines wholeheartedly, which is one of the essences of the Steiner system. He has said more than once in interviews, "When you go on stage, you are no longer you, you are another person, a character, a part of this story, then you don't need to care about other people's eyes."
Therefore, this down-to-earth young man successfully graduated, signed a contract with the company, and did not jump jobs or break contracts in ten years, and conscientiously filmed dozens of "unknown" works. From the hero to the cunning, from the national hero to the dark king, even the savage monkey, Zhu Yilong took it seriously. At this stage, Zhu Yilong and his works are difficult to evaluate from the dimension of acting, but he uses the kind of seriousness of performing "baked sweet potato observers in life" to experience the transformation from "Zhu Yilong" to the role again and again, to complete the growth from "Zhu Yilong" to the actor. He once said: "In fact, the actor's job is to create a role, you constantly try to find a way to become another person, and then live in another role, showing different roles for the audience." 」 I think it's the job of an actor. This somewhat old-school "professional spirit" has long been rare among young people, and it is even more valuable in the relatively impetuous film and television industry.
Many people use the word "boiling" to describe the ten years after his debut, but Zhu Yilong said that he is "not a talent type, can only say that there is probably a little talent and hard work", which is a rare soberness and calmness of young people who are just starting out, and it is also this kind of sobriety that makes him choose to enrich himself with continuous filming, use the performance in front of the camera to examine and calibrate his state, and establish a sense of faith that belongs to the hearts of professional actors. As an actor, Zhu Yilong, who is not so "mature", spent ten years bypassing the voice of the outside world, concentrating on growth, absorbing and condensing, gathering himself into a point, waiting for his own thick accumulation.
Under the fame, his gentlemanly appearance is young heart
In 2018, Zhu Yilong met the first important role in his life, or three roles - shen wei, the reclusive and restrained professor in "Town Soul", the black-robed messenger who is cold and rigid, and the paranoid and crazy Night Zun. These three characters present Zhu Yilong's advantages from different angles: their own warm temperament, excellent costumes and the contradictory setting of "convergence" and "release" of the characters. The first two points belong to Zhu Yilong's own characteristics, so that he has the basic conditions for "big explosion out of the circle" in "Town Soul", and the opportunity of one person with multiple angles is an effective acceptance of his business ability, and it is also a reward for his ten years of accumulation. In the end, he staggered multiple characters with very different personalities, and each character was able to convince and empathize with the audience. The successful appearance of "Town Soul" not only allows Zhu Yilong to establish his own recognition in a large audience group, but also shows people more possibilities as an actor.
But it's just possible.
Let's apply the current fashionable multiverse setting, with zhu Yilong, who became popular in "Town Soul", can actually have another development path on a certain timeline - through "good production" and "doing side business on reality TV variety shows" to maintain their popularity and even go to a higher level. However, "not on the reality show variety show" is the red line he has drawn for himself, and the occurrence of good production is not easy. He knows all too well how valuable the film and television industry is: "Sometimes you come across a script that feels good, but if the overall team is not professional enough, you will not be able to exert yourself." ”
Therefore, in the year of entering the 30-year-old, he chose to return to the starting point again in his own gentle way, gathered himself together and condensed, and entered another accumulation in the actor's life cycle. The affectionate but cowardly "little grandfather" in "Do you know if it should be green fat red skinny"; The designer with strong artistic temperament in "My True Friend" is well-organized; The young elite in "Dear Myself" whose dreams are worn away by the big city; The innocence of clean eyes and innocence in "Restart"; There is also the piano teacher who always has a warm smile in the anti-epidemic movie "Embracing You Through the Cold Winter"... His outstanding eyebrows, always with the same deep affection, show the beauty and gentleness that belong to Zhu Yilong.
People who couldn't wait began to question: Zhu Yilong really only had a good skin bag. Although the audience pursues "beauty", it has a deep-rooted understanding bias against "beauty". Just as Matthew McConaughey in "The Dallas Buyer" did not hesitate to lose weight to play the dying AIDS talent to get Oscar recognition, not to mention Leonardo DiCaprio after contributing to "Infernal Affairs" (American version), "Wolf of Wall Street" and other outstanding performances, still politely accompanied at the Oscars, until he completely gave up his appearance, fat and bearded, and drank blood in "The Wilderness Hunter" to win the Emperor of The Film Trophy. The double-edged sword of "good looks" made Zhu Yilong go to the peak, and also raised the difficulty of him to go to a higher level.
Life events, or constantly returning to the starting point
Fortunately, Zhu Yilong's other important role in his career as an actor did not make him wait too long.
As a character with the longest growth line in "Rebel", Zhu Yilong's "Lin Nansheng" spans the hot-blooded and youthful adolescence, the confused and persistent "lurker", and then the "rebel" with a firm direction. The characters completed the growth and transformation of their lives in the play, and in the face of heavyweight drama bones such as partners Wang Zhiwen, Wang Yang, and Li Qiang, Zhu Yilong also completed a smooth tempering of his own, and took another step closer to the goal of erasing the mark of "traffic star". When asked in an interview how to catch the plays of these old drama bones, he repeatedly mentioned the word "feeling": "Let yourself in the whole performance process, do not have to deliberately design, do not deliberately do anything, just try to walk into the character, and then face him realistically, face all the people you meet along the way, and then feel it." ”
When encountering a master, simply let go of all the intentions and tricks, and use a naïve and calm posture to absorb and learn, which is probably the best reaction that Zhu Yilong can make when facing a talented and mature actor like Wang Zhiwen who can easily grasp different roles.
Compared with his previous film and television works, Zhu Yilong's role-shaping ability in "Rebel" is undoubtedly on a higher level, but rather than saying that he has received all the old drama bones in the play, it is better to say that the old drama bones have supported the whole drama with superb acting skills, so that the obviously weak male and female protagonists have also gained different degrees of growth. Zhu Yilong used a calm and gentle way to avoid the glare that exposed the shortcomings and accumulate strength for his own transformation.
Mo Sanmei appeared in front of him at this time.
For any actor, "Life Events" is a rare opportunity: a cold but topical funeral theme in China, and a group of talented young actors to play against each other, interpreting the story of small people in the city. It is not difficult for us to see the shadow of "The Mortician", "White Rabbit Candy", "Kikujiro's Summer" and the Japanese drama "Mother" from "Life Events", as long as the production and actor configuration are in place, this is a film that is destined not to be quiet, the difference is only in the end word-of-mouth and commercial win-win "big hit"? Or is it another bead that doesn't make a name for itself? Zhu Yilong's participation in "Life Events" undoubtedly gave the former another 10 percentage points more opportunities.
Director Liu Jiangjiang once said in an interview that when he first met Zhu Yilong, his heart was cold and half cut, which was not the Mo Sanjie he wanted. But as soon as he arrived in Wuhan, the filming location, at the beginning of the line, the director saw the side of the first-line star Zhu Yilong as a professional actor. Indeed, returning to the place where he was born and raised, speaking his own dialect, and shuttling through the familiar street markets has given Zhu Yilong greater freedom in character shaping.
Of course, in order to play the role of "Mo Sanmei", Zhu Yilong, in addition to shaving his head and becoming stronger in appearance, went to the funeral home with the crew to observe life, just like when he first enrolled in school, observing baked sweet potato vendors, serious, meticulous and down-to-earth. In the movie, "Mo Sanmei" hunched her back, shrunk her neck, tilted her head and smoked on the van where wreaths and other funeral items were placed, listened to the Internet divine comedy, and randomly pronounced voices, all of which came from his observation and imitation of funeral industry practitioners.
This Mo Sanmei and Zhu Yilong's beautiful appearance actually formed a strange sense of harmony, reminiscent of Zhu Yilong, who before becoming a top star, kept talking on Weibo and often skinned. He magnified a certain part of his own characteristics, making the image of "Mo Sanmei" more plump and real.
Generally speaking, the opponent scene that actors are most afraid of encountering is children and animals, children have an unassailable sense of faith, and animals are silent genius actors. Most of the opponent scenes and famous scenes that are hotly discussed by everyone in "Life Events" come from the confrontation between Zhu Yilong and the child star, and "crying" has also become an indispensable plot setting. We can't define the overall ability of an actor from the dramatic conflict so fiercely, but it is also from these crying scenes that we can feel that Zhu Yilong in "Life Events" has finally achieved self-breakthrough as an actor.
With the current box office and topicality, "Life Events" is very likely to make up for this shortcoming for Zhu Yilong, who lacks big screen masterpieces, and become a "life event" on his acting road. However, only one "phenomenon-level" work is not enough for a good actor, which is still a long way from his goal of "leaving a name in the history of film and television".
Regardless of success or not, every topic star or actor will have a corresponding mark of the times. Zhu Yilong's popularity as a "traffic star" is obviously behind the impetus generated by the rapid expansion of China's film and television industry in the past decade. In recent years, his continuous attempts to transform into a "strong actor" are not only his own self-consciousness of the "actor profession", but also the thinking and layout of him and the team behind him in the face of the cold winter of the industry.
I hope that one day in the future, when we look back at Zhu Yilong, he will no longer be just a footnote to the aesthetics and flow of the times, but also his professional skills and attitude as an actor can also be affirmed by people.
Wen | Peng July
Editor 丨 Wu Zebin