Li Yu's film "Broken Bridge" is being released, and the contractor in the film, Ju Huaiyi, is the key figure in the entire crime story, but he rarely shows his face, and most of his action trajectory is presented in the "candid" images. Li Xiaochuan, the actor who plays this role, is also an actor who is used to being "hidden" in movies, even if the role is not much, as long as it comes to the role, the audience is certainly not unfamiliar.
The cook who talks to Zhang Jiusheng in the opening few minutes of the movie "One Second"; The mysterious Daoist in "The Red Fox Scholar"; Li Da Dog, a bandit with a grenade in "Crackdown"; In "Send You a Little Red Flower", while eating braised beef rice, his father Lao Lu cried bitterly; Ma Vice County Governor who engaged in formalism in the TV series "Mountains and Seas"; The father in Jia Zhangke's short film "There is a Little Shop Called Childhood"; Zhang Zhijie, the "sweeping monk of the Bali River" in the TV series "Police Honor"...
For a period of time, his works were continuously screened on the big screen and small screens, especially the scene where he ate braised beef rice in "Send You a Little Red Flower", which touched countless audiences and was also on the hot search. This also surprised him, he did not expect that many works have been screened one after another, in fact, it is a coincidence, "I am still quite embarrassed, although there are many works, but how many movies add up to 10 minutes?" ”
Li Xiaochuan played male number one for the first time, in a movie called "Old Seven" made in 2016, and the rest are small supporting roles. But for the role, he is not greedy, claiming to be a "one-second" actor, even if it is a scene, a second, to make the role come alive. He had also thought about becoming popular, from the first day of studying acting, but with the recognition of this industry, red is not important to him. He once went in and out of Beijing twice, and finally gave up his obsession in 2013, returned to his hometown of Yunnan, ran around when there was a drama, and lived well the rest of the time. "We are not that kind of person, all of a sudden on a rocket to the sky", Li Xiaochuan has a very clear positioning of himself, even if there are works released now, but there will be no change in his life, what to do, a good life is the most important.
The following is Li Xiaochuan's self-statement:
The experience of filming "Broken Bridge" without showing your face is wonderful
The "sneak peek" shots in the film were all taken by me
Director Li Yu and I have worked together before, playing a role in a play she supervised, but the film has not yet been released. At that time, in order to let the actors enter the role, she gave the actors acting training, and there were special ways. Some of the attempts she made were something I hadn't met with other directors before, and we were all very impressed with each other.
When it came time to shoot "Broken Bridge", director Li Yu called me and said that there was a role in the play, but there were not many face-revealing shots, and asked me if I would like to. She may also know that the "hi point" of my acting is not in how much I show my face, but in whether I can create a good role. In the last work we worked together, I played a role that didn't show much face the whole time, and I felt that the work itself was more important, so I agreed this time.
Ju Huaiyi, whom I played, was a negative role in corrupting leading cadres, who was rather cunning and secretly filmed many videos as evidence for his own exoneration in the future. Aside from the story and the characters, what attracted me to this film was that all the sneak peeks in the film were made by myself. Although this character does not show much face, his behavior trajectory is shown through my "secretly shooting" lens, which is very interesting.
In "Broken Bridge", Li Xiaochuan (pictured left) plays the "hidden" character Ju Huaiyi.
It was raining that day, and I thought it would be complicated to shoot the scene where the engineer smelled the light and fell into the pier, but after I arrived at the scene, the director of photography Zeng Jian took a very small camera and said, Brother Chuan, today you are the main photographer. I said, is there only this one machine? They say, today it's only you, the machine, you've become, this heavy scene has become.
There were three scenes filmed in total, one of which was because the camera was stuck in the position of my chest, the camera position was relatively low, I was engaged in acting, when I bent down, the face of Teacher Fan Wei on the other side was not photographed. Then I heard the director of photography shouting: Straighten up.
In other crews, the actors are accustomed to as few as two or three, as many as six or seven camera positions, but shooting "Broken Bridge" is sometimes a hidden machine position.
In the nightclub box scene, at first I was outside, facing a mirror, the camera was facing the mirror, and then I could see my face. I sorted out my clothes, hid the camera in my shirt, and then went into the box and started "sneaking pictures." It's a particularly fantastic experience for the actors, where you have to perform while you're also mindful of the angle of the shot. There were several scenes where the director and cinematographer came up to me and shook my hand and said, "It's up to you to schedule the scene."
When the movie was first released, my father fell, I ran to the hospital every day to take care of my father, I was very sorry that I didn't watch the film now, I know how much I will retain my role in the movie.
The film released a hidden clip a few days ago, zhu Fangzheng, played by teacher Fan Wei, pushed Ju Huaiyi down from the rotten tail upstairs. In fact, this scene is quite complicated, at first I was eating in the back room, and then I played with Teacher Fan Wei, he took out his passport and ticket, I came out to thank him, hugged him, and then heard the siren, I was attracted to the window, and finally he pushed me down. During this process, the Wia line has been tied to me, and I have a great burden, afraid of where Wia will get stuck. Because the rotten tail building was not built, it was a live-action shooting, from the back room to the downstairs, Weah has been hanging.
"Broken Bridge" is very bold in creation, it is not a conventional commercial film approach, it uses conventional lens language to present the story, it has some experimental things. Director Li Yu is very sharp, and I was surprised by her several breakthroughs in the entire creative process, and I am willing to try and explore some new methods, which is how I feel when I shoot in the crew.
Starred as the father in "Send You a Little Red Flower"
For the first time in the theater, I "couldn't hold back" tears
In Director Han Yan's "Send You a Little Red Flower" (released in 2020), the role of my father does not seem to have much intersection with the main line, and is a completely independent line, but I quite like this kind of ordinary small person who does not have many brushstrokes and is particularly real, and has a great desire to create.
Unexpectedly, the first scene after entering the group was the scene of emotional outburst. The scene is only a few dozen words in the script, and the description is particularly simple, Wei Yihang (Yi Qianxi) sees the delivery man delivering a bowl of braised beef rice to a father, and he watches the father sitting on the side of the road eating. I don't know to what extent the emotions inside are. The little actor who played my daughter seemed to be waiting for the results of the nucleic acid test at the time, and had not yet entered the group, which meant that my emotional establishment had not yet officially begun.
So everything was a bit rushed, but the staff at every step of the crew created a very nice atmosphere for me. The director chose the shooting location at the gate of Qingdao Cancer Hospital, crowded and busy, I want to come out of the hospital with a large bag and a small bag, cross a road and sit on a stone step.
The picture I imagined at that time may be a subjective shot, Wei Yihang looked at the crowd from a distance, saw this father, did not expect to have such a big emotion. Before filming "Get Out!" When I was playing a character in the hospital (released in 2015), I had a similar crying scene in the hospital, but only one back was retained. So, I wondered if this time it was a panoramic back that brought out a helpless state.
At the beginning, the director said that he wanted to shoot secretly, and I unloaded a burden in my heart, thinking that if I didn't cut the close-up scene, even if the emotions couldn't come out, I could still use some skills. Because the crying scene for me, in fact, has a little baggage. But then the director said no, or normal shooting, have to cut close-up, I felt a little sick in my heart.
At this time, the director said to me that this was a real scene he had seen. This sentence was particularly helpful to me in shaping the character, it was in line with my imagination of the character, and I had a bottom in my heart at that time. Since then, I have never let anyone touch a large bag of props in my hand.
In "Send You a Little Red Flower", Li Xiaochuan plays a father who has lost his beloved daughter.
When I was shooting, because no one knew me, I was able to fit in well into that environment. Every time I walked out of the hospital at the starting point, crossed the intersection, with great grief in my heart, step by step, every time I walked, the feeling of helplessness, loneliness, and loss deepened. Later, the director cut the close-up and said that you don't have to go from the starting point, just take two steps and sit there. I said, no, I'll have to come far. Because I think that section of the road is an action that the father and daughter have to repeat every day when they come to this place, so to strengthen it over and over again, the foundation of this character is relatively strong.
This crying scene, the panoramic close-up scene added up, no more than 10 shots. My emotional foundation was relatively well established that day, and when the director told me about the play, I didn't dare to look at the director, and I didn't dare to watch anyone, because I was afraid of jumping out of the play. In the movie, you can see that my head has been tilted in one direction, but I have been looking at a window in the hospital. I was building an experience with my kids, being there before thinking about my kids, I couldn't be with her again, I lost her forever.
After the scene was filmed, the "daughter" in the play entered the group, and we got along very well. Every day when she went back to her room, she would tell her mother that she missed Daddy Lee. She hadn't seen the sea, and after she was done, I took her to the beach and played for an afternoon.
After the movie was released, I went to the theater with my wife. None of the previous stories made me cry, but when it came to my scene, I suddenly couldn't hold back. It was the first time I had watched my own play and been moved to cry.
"One Second" plays a good little character thanks to Zhang Yimou
"Mountains and Seas" plays the leader "nervous" and "angry"
When "One Second" (released in 2020) came to me, I was filming in Fujian, wearing half sleeves in the summer, and the skin color of the sunburned arms was divided into two sections, the top was particularly white, and the bottom was a little black. I remember that when I was setting makeup, the stylist of "One Second" asked director Zhang Yimou if I wanted to unify the skin color of my arms. Zhang Dao said, no, this is quite natural, and even can be strengthened. He didn't explain much at the time, and said it was gone.
Later, when I watched the film, including many people asked me, I only solved this puzzle, why leave this black and white contrast? I think in those days, it should be called "class white." Because I work in the kitchen, I don't work outside, so this is a sign of identity.
In "One Second", Li Xiaochuan plays a chef.
Such a small person, really only "one second" appeared, Director Zhang Yimou can consider so carefully, bring out the identity, work and other information of this character, Zhang Director is still very experienced, very powerful.
In fact, a character like "One Second", you say how much space you have to prepare, I don't think so. Playing a supporting role is like doing a fill-in-the-blank question, because sometimes what you are given is just a few words, it is flat, you have to add bricks and tiles yourself, turn it into a three-dimensional. This process is actually quite interesting, because in the creative space, I feel that there is infinite fun.
In the drama "Mountains and Seas" (premiered in 2021), I played deputy county magistrate Ma, which is the biggest official I have ever played. There are several meeting scenes, which is equivalent to me presiding over the meeting, in fact, just a word, who is ready to speak below, I am even nervous, because I really have not been a leader, I have not had this experience, but the two directors have cut very carefully in the process of telling me the play, let me find that kind of leadership state, but not too facetious, can not be based on their own bad people to play, that is definitely not right. The tone of the character that the two directors gave me was that this character really thought so, did not feel that he was engaged in formalism, and all the things he had to do were his thoughts. The 4 words "think with your heart" are very critical, and to give you any of the prescribed information, you have to be real to establish.
In "Mountains and Seas", Li Xiaochuan played the deputy county magistrate.
A friend told me, Teacher Li, the father in "Little Red Flower", you cried to death, and vice county magistrate Ma you were angry with me again. Actors are not pursuing this, the drama is bigger than the sky, the characters are more important than the actors themselves, I hope that everyone remembers the role itself.
I'm not greedy for characters either. I said, I am a "one second" actor, it is a scene, a second, you can not give up. Since it is to create a character, even for a second you have to make him come alive. It's the actor's duty.
After graduating from Chinese drama, I have acted in drama and am most eager to act in "film"
Playing "Ukaka" in "Perfect Nine Beauty" has attracted attention
I grew up in a literary and artistic family, my parents are from the literary troupe, tempered on the stage, blowing, playing and singing all will. My father first started acting, and later liked to write something, from curtain words to sketches, and later began to write screenwriting, my mother was a dancer, and my sister studied music.
When I was a child, I studied art, and I was fine at painting, and I was going to go to the Academy of Fine Arts, but I belonged to the kind of person who was not very peaceful, and I listened to rock and roll while painting in the studio. The teacher said that you might be suitable for the kind of profession that has a desire to perform. Later, when I came to "Popular Cinema", there was a report about the acting class in film school, what animal simulations, observation of life sketches, I think it is too funny. At that time, I didn't really know what it was to create a character, but I thought it was very interesting to do this game and play an animal, and it was very simple to think about. I remember that before I went to college, I was very serious about explaining to my mother about the acting exam, and my family was quite supportive of me.
In 1997, I was admitted to the Yunnan Academy of Arts, and in the third and fourth grades of undergraduate, I ran to the 97th class of the Performance Department of the Central Academy of Drama. Yunnan is the enlightenment, ending in Chinese opera. After graduating in 2001, he ran through some groups, but there was no news after the run, and he returned to his hometown in Yunnan a few months later. I left Beijing because the pressure of life was too great, I was not confident at that time, I didn't look good, and suddenly I entered the society, I didn't know how to enter this environment, I was a "stupid" student.
I have acted in dramas in Yunnan. Because my father was a screenwriter of the Yunnan Provincial Academy of Ethnic Arts, at that time, the Yunnan Provincial Repertory Theatre made an appointment with him, whether he could write a drama, his father wrote a drama called "Migrant Work Shed", the protagonist was Wang Yanhui, playing an old branch secretary, I just graduated not long ago, played a migrant worker who wanted to enter the university, and finally the fate was very tragic. It wasn't because my father was a screenwriter that I bragged, but the play was really good, very lifelike, and won a lot of awards that year.
In Glorious Rage, Li Xiaochuan (pictured right) plays Ma Mian.
In fact, after graduation, I completely gave up the path of acting, and I was ready to go to Yunnan Academy of Arts as a teacher. I am very grateful to director Cao Baoping, in 2004 he filmed "Glorious Rage" in Yunnan, and an assistant director friend said, I have a film here, you try it. After I went, I stayed, and that was the first time I was "electrocuted" and played a very small role (playing Xiong Laosi's subordinate "Ma Mian").
After all the actors arrived in the countryside, they first experienced life, and their clothes were taken away by the crew, and they wore the clothes of the villagers every day, and lived there, and these experiences fascinated me. I think performance creation should be like this, it should be a slowly established process, just intoxicated with that creative atmosphere, filming can still have this experience. Later, I told the assistant director who asked me to audition that there was film to find me again.
We kept in touch for years, and every time we called, the opening statement was not "Hello", but "Film, Film". Once he called me, and when it was connected, I said, "Film, film," and he said, this time there was a film. At that time, I was already a teacher at the Yunnan Academy of Arts, and I gave up being an actor more thoroughly, thinking that the actor had nothing to do with me. But as soon as I heard that it was film, my heart began to tickle, and I asked where to shoot. He said in Dali, I said it was too good, it was a holiday, and then I went to see director Wang Yuelun, and soon settled down, let me play a role called "Ukaka", and made my second film, "Perfect Nine Beauty" (released in 2008).
Before the meeting before the film, Wang Yuelun hoped that the people in this place could have an exotic style, and if he said something different, I proposed to speak Yunnan Mandarin, also called "Mapu". Wang Yuelun said, I will listen to you two sentences, and as soon as I say it, he can understand it, so it is fixed. After the film was released in 2008, I got the first attention. At that time, Wang Yuelun and the lead actor Li Xiang called me and said, Xiaochuan, you see, a reporter bought a ticket to see the movie himself, specially written about you.
In "Nine Perfections", Li Xiaochuan played Wu Kaka.
To this day, the role of "Ukaka" is still remembered. When watching "Mountains and Seas", with the barrage open, as soon as deputy county magistrate Ma came out, everyone except said, "Isn't this the father in the little red flower?" Another voice that said the most was "Is Ukaka you?" "The comedy was recognized by everyone as soon as it came out, and then the tragic father in "Little Red Flower" came out and everyone recognized it, and I felt that an actor with both ends was very satisfied.
He has played negative roles such as the bandit Li Da Dog in "Crackdown"
"Police Honor" plays a policeman "playing a good guy is addictive"
After being a teacher at Yunnan Academy of Arts for 4 years, I felt that the little thing in my stomach was not enough, it was hollowed out, I really felt that practice was very important, there was not enough practice, there was no accumulation, how to explain to students, guide students. At that time, I thought I was OK, and I went to Beijing to try it again, and I also accumulated some experience. In 2008, I went to Beijing again, and at that time, I gave myself 5 years, and I did not deliberately say that I had to return after 5 years, but I did return to Kunming after 5 years, until now.
It turned out that when I lived in Beijing, I was also running around filming, and I didn't have much time in Beijing. In addition, I think that the Beijing environment may be a little impetuous, jump out of this environment, live a little calm life, will feel the authenticity of life. As an actor, it is very important to have a stable and calm attitude. People's impetuosity cannot be hidden, and when creating characters, at least for me, there will be some obstacles, and there will be more distractions. Actors must be simple, like a blank piece of paper, before you can write things up. The more undistracted you are, the stronger your sense of conviction, the more focused you are on the role.
I'm a lot more confident now than I used to be, and that confidence is based on my ability to get the script and shape the characters. The direction I am trying to do now is to try to subtract as much as possible in the performance, to grasp the slack energy, and to grasp the sense of proportion more and more accurately.
In "Crackdown", Li Xiaochuan played the bandit Li Da dog.
Before filming "Crackdown" (released in 2020), I had always wanted to create a grounded police character, and I chatted with director Liu Haoliang that day, and we met and talked for half an hour, and the first twenty minutes were talking about the police. Finally, the director said, the police are really good, bandits do you play? I said, act. In this way, we talked about the role of the bandit Li Da Dog.
Before playing a lot of negative roles, in 2021 received the "Police Honor" drama, after wearing a police uniform for 4 months, I really feel that playing a good person is very cool, that is, a righteous, I really am not singing praises, I really feel that a righteous atmosphere will make people upward.
When "Police Honor" was about to finish filming, a good friend of mine who was an actor coordinator saw that the drama party sent some of my stills, so I asked if I would like to help, in the movie "Mom! cameo as a policeman. I said no problem. I especially want to wear that police uniform again, it doesn't matter how many scenes there are, playing good people is really addictive.
In "Police Honor", Li Xiaochuan played police officer Zhang Zhijie.
A long time ago, I had a long-cherished desire to play a policeman, but not a heroic policeman, but an ordinary police station policeman. For this kind of role, I am very confident, as long as I put on the police uniform, I am very much like the film police who walk the streets and alleys around me.
In his spare time, he sang and cooked to raise cats
Having a foundation in life is conducive to creation
I thought about going viral, and I thought about it from the first day I studied acting. I think as long as I want to take the road of performance, no one says, I don't want to be popular. This is unlikely. However, after a long time, including my understanding of this profession slowly established, after life reached a certain rhythm and track, in fact, red is not red, to what extent, think less.
Some of my current roles have attracted everyone's attention, including my students and friends, saying, Brother Chuan, you are red again, I think it is okay. Others say that there will be no changes in life. What can change? Living well is the most important thing.
My current rhythm is really not what everyone thinks, and immediately there are countless people looking for you to shoot. Sorry, it seems that this is not the case, what should you be or what you should be. We're not the kind of people who go to the sky on a rocket all at once, no. I think you have to understand where you are, not to accept it, but you should do it, you are an actor what you are going to do, right? This is a profession, what to do, or that sentence, live well.
For filming, I don't have a plan, as long as it's not too dense. Of course, I haven't had that time, and I think that rhythm is really quite comfortable.
I usually like a lot of things: outdoor sports, riding motorcycles, playing guitar, singing. I also like to cook, I want a dish today, I have to make it tomorrow. In 2008, I went to Beijing, lived alone, cooked my own food, and saved money. While doing it, I found that the craftsmanship was OK, a little talented, and better than the restaurant.
Li Xiaochuan and his pet cat.
I also like pets, and when I was a child, I had dogs, birds, and ducks, which was really a toss-up. Now I have a cat, which was saved. That year, my wife and I went to a scenic spot to play, found a restaurant to eat, and found a security guard with an iron cage wrapped in clothes, and the cage made a particularly strange sound. I said what was inside, and he opened the cage, and inside was a palm-sized, black little wild cat, all kinds of stray hairs, dirty. He was going to throw it in the next village, and I took it home.
I didn't like cats very much before, and I was diagnosed with an allergy to cat hair, and at first I was very nervous, thinking about how to raise it, but then I found that it was okay, completely inseparable. The creature of the cat is so terrible that it enslaves you at once, making you completely lose resistance and become a cat slave. I've thought several times, keep two more. But then I thought, I was not at home for a long time when I was filming, so it all became my wife's business, and I gave up. It is now 5 years old, the big name is Ichigo, the little name is Hugh Hugh, very smart.
Life is particularly interesting, and that's what I like, so I say it's too important to love life and get into life. If you don't have a foundation in life, how do you create?
Beijing News reporter Teng Chao
Edited by Huang Jialing
Proofread by Wu Xingfa