The Paper's reporter Yang Qian
Dai Xu is an actor who has made an impressive impression in recent years. He has not been bound to the "blockbuster" and has not been frequently searched, but after watching his plays, he knows that this is an actor worthy of the audience's trust in watching time.
The most recent role he attracted the attention and discussion of the audience was Ike Yauchi in "Dream Hualu". "Dream Hualu" is a costumed women's group photo drama, Chi Ya Nei is not the official match of several heroines, just a stupid and cute rich kid who does not know himself, Dai Xu performed a paper tiger bully who does not attract annoyance and has a sense of comedy.
Chi Ya Nei in "Dream Hualu" is a funny man.
The popularity in the pool is an unexpected gain of this drama, just right and not greasy funny, so that many netizens spontaneously screenshot the emoji. The reporter asked Dai Xu, how to make the producers and directors believe that you have comedic talent? Dai Xu with a thick Beijing accent, "Hey, this question is asked, I also think it is a mystery, I still don't know why Director Yang Yang and the producer chose me, I don't know how they can see that I can act in comedy." Dai Xu felt quite helpless, "Really, I met the director, and gave me the first 20 episodes at the time, I didn't see that this was a comedy role, and then how it became a comedy when I acted..."
Emojis within the pool
The reason why Dai Xu also feels that it is "a mystery" is that he has almost never publicly played comedy roles before, and has only acted in college. In Dai Xu's mind, the attraction of tragedy is greater than that of comedy.
"I'm not a pessimistic person, I'm full of yearning and enthusiasm for life, but tragedy makes people get more things, it makes people think, as an actor there will be an impulse to act. If I put two scripts, one comedy and one tragedy, I will definitely choose tragedy. ”
Played a lawyer four times
Since his career, Dai Xu has starred in the most professions as a lawyer, and to the recently broadcast "Battle of the Roses", he has played a lawyer a total of four times. The first time he acted, it was Guo Yu in "Undocumented Crimes" that made him suddenly stunned in the industry.
In "Undocumented Crimes", Guo Yu appears as a newcomer lawyer in northeast China, and eventually gets involved in a murder case that changes his life. Guo Yu is not a good person, selfish and calculating. Dai Xu played how this evil man went from a small white rabbit to a revealing nature.
Stills from Undocumented Crimes
Guo Yu's ending was really chosen by Dai Xu himself. Before the drama started filming, director Lu Xing called him and asked him if he had a good man ending and a wicked ending, which one to choose? Dai Xu did not hesitate to choose the latter, and he hit it off with the director. "There are such people in real life, and I want to give the audience a more realistic, different ending from the usual script, from the work, the visual impact is very large." Originally it was a more experimental drama, why not do it to the extreme? ”
Playing an evil person, naturally also has to bear some pressure from the audience, especially when it is still very good. After the drama was broadcast, he was "scolded" by some netizens, which was the first time he played such a bad person, "that would be very uncomfortable in my heart."
The second time he played a lawyer, he played an uninhibited lawyer with a strong sense of justice in "Black Lighthouse", and the third time he played a depressed lawyer who worked for two or three years in "Elite Lawyer".
In the first three lawyer role experiences, professional, unprofessional, good and bad, Dai Xu has all acted, so at first he was more hesitant about the role of Fang Xu in "The War of the Roses", when the character in the script was more similar to Mai Fei in "Elite Lawyer". But hesitation could not stop him from wanting to work with Sun Hao, the director of "Battle of the Roses".
After the two met, Sun Hao opened the door to the mountain, he trusted Dai Xu very much, and knew that looking for him to act must be insured in acting. Regardless of how Fang Xu is in the script, he hopes that Dai Xu can present a lawyer who is different from the past, which makes Dai Xu interested. "He respected me more and said we both made a little effort. I also want to challenge, if you really get a role that is more similar to the previous role, how can you perform something different? Director Sun Hao said that you can watch it live again, and this kind of (can play) space will also be very enjoyable for actors. ”
Stills from The Battle of the Roses
Dai Xu believes that the role of Fang Xu in the script, "written a little vaguely", is not easy for the actor to grasp, after the start of filming, you can only grind and modify every day on the spot, "He experienced this matter before, some words can not be said like that, otherwise the character of this character is gone." ”
From the character to the line behavior, the change is great, and finally he determined that Fang Xu is a bully lawyer, "all his ways of speaking are more stubborn, but he is also a righteous person, he as a workplace white, and Gu Nian to compete for a position, and finally he failed, there is no disgrace, he still left with the pride of his cognition, he has the energy of a young man." ”
Dai Xu hopes that this role will give some resonance to young people who are really in the workplace. He has seen American dramas with similar roles, but he thinks that the two functions are not the same, "That boy is very good-looking, he will use his own side to get some intelligence, which is also a little bit smarter, but in a domestic drama, you can't write this character like this, the reference is not particularly high." He also said to Sun Hao that he would never imitate, "You want me to copy alone, I may not go to pick up this drama, I can only throw myself in the role of Fang Xu to feel this story." ”
Many of the changes are also based on the status quo, Sun Hao thought that when the epidemic first broke out, many overseas college students could not go abroad after graduation, and some people really went to deliver takeaways, so Fang Xu also delivered takeaways after resigning from the law firm in the play, "Colleagues look stupid." This is particularly good, he will have a feeling of not dying, he is not saying that he hates this law firm, if he loses, he will admit it, he has to live, and he does not feel that it is humiliating to deliver takeaways. ”
Stills from The Battle of the Roses
An effort to act against the wall
Dai Xu put some of his first feelings into Fang Xu's workplace. Dai Xu's starting point is not low, and he was selected to participate in the movie "Deserted Village Apartment" in his junior year, but it is also very stressful. "I know I can't do it," he thinks he doesn't know anything, and the director says he's "frustrated" every day.
Not long after, Dai Xu was selected by director Cao Baoping to participate in the movie "Dog Thirteen", which was an experience that would be envied by his classmates in the drama academy. "Dog Thirteen" was released seven years after filming, and Dai Xu, who was sitting in the cinema watching this work at that time, had a very different mentality and state from when he participated in the show, "I think it was really good to be young at that time." If you want me to act now, you can't do it, only then there will be the youth that the director wants in his eyes. ”
Stills from Dog Thirteen
That experience of filming with director Cao Baoping is still influencing Dai Xu.
"I went to school early, when I was not yet 20 years old, and he said that seeing a future actor gave me confidence. I know that I don't have any skills in acting myself, I completely learn drama, you go to make movies, there are many ways to do it without getting along with the film industry, but that will be particularly hard, especially hard. I would go to the scene when there was no scene, and at that time the filming was still on film, sometimes I would shoot overnight, and I would not sleep, so I would accompany the director, and I would watch his monitor. At that time, the director told me that you are a very hard worker, and then go down, and one day people will see. Dai Xu recalled that at that time, because there were not many opportunities for practice, he seized the opportunity to ask Cao Baoping a lot of questions, "Ask him everything, Cao Dao is really good, he is a graduate student, I am only a junior, but when I ask him he will give me answers." I especially thank him. ”
"He didn't comment that you act well, but said that you go backwards, one day you can find a way out, and you have to remember your unremitting efforts now." Cao Baoping's patience and encouragement helped Dai Xu endure a period of "no drama". "Sometimes after shooting a scene, I can't take the scene for half a year." At the same time, he cherishes every opportunity even more. "Because I can't shoot a scene, I will cherish an internship opportunity, practice against the wall every day, memorize the lines and then act against the wall, not like the opponent actors." The first few TV series on Dai Xu's resume are repeatedly practiced and improved against the wall in this way.
Dai Xu explained that the difficulty when he first entered the industry was also related to the market environment at that time, "We were better at that time, the kind of Haiqing teacher, all of whom were in their thirties, I would have just been 20 years old, I could only play a child, whose child I said, whose brother, at that time, the drama was also small, and there was no traffic to these statements." "At that time, Xu prayed that the time would pass quickly, when he would be thirty-five or six years old, he would no longer play his brother and son in the TV series."
"Up to now, I know that this industry is completely God's reward for rice, and since God has rewarded me with this bowl of rice, I will act." Which road is very difficult, it depends on whether you can stick to it, as long as you persist, one day you can find an exit. He still silently remembered Cao Baoping's words and was encouraged by those words.
Stills from Undocumented Crimes
Waiting until you don't have to play "child" is another challenge. For example, Guo Yu in "Undocumented Crime", that is the first time That Dai Xu has played such a bad character. "Suddenly one day, you receive a role that is too far away from you, there is a lot of homework to prepare, how to step by step into this role, the process is very difficult." 」 Because he had watched a lot of movies before, the reference was enough, he was staying at home, often looking out the window, sitting for 6 hours, doing nothing, just in his head to conceive, or write something, "I mainly rely on imagination, at that time I completed a character biography of more than 10,000 words, from where this child was born, what happened in front, written in detail. ”
"I have to understand that I chose him to be an evil person, then we must pay attention to how he became evil, he was not an evil person when he first came out, he was a blank piece of paper that had just come to a first-tier city from a third-tier city, he showed the process of an evil person level 1 to 10, showing how he went step by step to the abyss." On the actor's side, it may be reading books, there is my own understanding of 'evil', after I understand it myself, I put the understanding in the role to present. ”
In Dai Xu's eyes, "Good people are good at acting, and bad people are not good at acting." "Because of the bad guy you have to find logic for him." Playing a good person, you have to find shortcomings for him, I believe that people have shortcomings, but you play a bad person, you have to find advantages for him, this is also to see how you look at the world as a creator itself, including what your outlook on life values are, you do not believe that the world is binary and opposed, black and white, you first make this clear, I think there is nothing absolutely right and wrong. ”
He also likes to speculate, "On the other hand, I think it is still necessary to know people well enough." You first know what kind of person you are, and then slowly look at the world and what the people around you are like. In today's life, some people are considered bad people, but do you have any impressions of why he became like this? This is something we should consider as a profession as an actor. We are not thinking about putting a bad guy's hat on him, and when the doll first landed, he was not such a person, but there were many factors around him that caused him to become like this, and he had to think about it. ”
"Understanding is one thing, you have to believe that there is such a person, but whether you dare to act like this is another layer, because you end up facing the audience, I know that there will definitely be a lot of scolding, do you dare to bear it." I also asked myself, dare to bear, that's it. Dai Xu added.
But too close to the abyss, it is easy to be engulfed by the abyss. The first time he played a role so far away from himself, he was still an evil person, and he also wholeheartedly pondered the psychological state of the evil person, "too close to the role, too far away from himself, it always takes time to jump out." Dai Xu completely eliminated Guo Yu's influence on him, and it took a while.
But he immediately cheered himself up, who didn't have the first time, now play the villain again, or step out of a role, it won't take that long anymore. Through "Undocumented Crime", the books handed to him for a period of time are all bad guy roles, and there are some dual personalities, or characters with particularly distorted personalities, the directors also come to talk to him, Dai Xu said it was funny, every director who saw him for the first time was a little surprised, Dai Xu was not gloomy at all, he was an optimistic and enthusiastic big boy, "I am so different from what they imagined me, I am really far away from Guo Yu." ”
Of course, the audience's anger towards Guo Yu also gave Dai Xu some mood swings, although the people around him thought that this was an affirmation of him, but his sadness was also because there was something deeper about this character that he wanted to tell, and at that time he felt that few viewers understood it. "It's okay for the audience to vent their emotions after watching it, but there should also be reflection, and the time for reflection is too long." This reflection arc is even up to several years long.
Two years ago, Dai Xu was still watching the discussion about Guo Yu, only to see someone reflect on this role, "I am actually playing a particularly inconspicuous person, we are everywhere around, maybe you have been unfairly led in your work, the whole environment of your life, the social environment is like that, one day this environment has changed you, you don't know it yourself." That's what I really want to express. Dai Xu was a little arrogant, "There is reflection that proves that my choice at that time was still successful." ”
Guo Yu is far away from Dai Xu, but Fang Xu is close to him, and when the newcomers face the problem of competition, Dai Xu changes some of Fang Xu's attitudes and reactions in the script of "The War of the Roses". "It wasn't like this in the original script, it turned out that he was very angry about the competition, and he couldn't accept it. When I went to interpret, I brought in my own ideas, and I felt that I had to accept, accept competition, and accept failure. I've had some competition over the years, and I feel like I should be prepared for it, and I'm done waiting. "Dai Xu has always believed in a life motto: the motive is the best, and the selfish heart is nothing." As long as you work hard, have a kind heart, and do not have any selfish heart, this thing is done for yourself, not for outsiders to see, what do you have to regret? ”
Stills from The Battle of the Roses
I want to be a dancer and I want to be a doctor
During the interview, the reporter found that Dai Xu was an interesting person and often had some unexpected answers.
Usually the actors talk about the beginning of acting, all related to enjoying the performance, but Dai Xu is very practical, young, and always has the desire to win or lose. "I am a competitive person, acting is not the same as dancing, after the dance the teacher told you that it is not OK, I have to practice this thing well, I will let the teacher go to see it." But acting can't work, you are on the spot, every day to talk about you, you will have frustration, I want to prove that I can do well in this industry. Of course, he also explained that now it must have nothing to do with the desire to win or lose, "Before it was really the desire to win or lose." But when I met director Cao Baoping, he told me to take it slowly, and my mood was different. Later, I found that in fact, I didn't need to prove it, and I did a good job in a down-to-earth manner as a matter for myself. ”
In his original dream, Dai Xu wanted to be a dancer. At the age of 5, he thought that the matter of turning over his head was very cool and fun, and slowly learned to come into contact with dance, and he fell in love with it uncontrollably, but at the age of 16, because of the injury, he could only choose the path of life again.
"When I was in college, my friends around me sometimes asked which one you would choose if you had to choose another dancer and actor. I said I was still dancing, I didn't want to be an actor, I wanted to be a dancer. When he went to college, he felt a little forced to study, "I was completely forced to enter this university, and I knew it in my heart." It wasn't until I graduated from college and started acting that Dai Xu gradually felt that acting was quite interesting, "Filming is not something that one person can accomplish, it is a collective strength, and this thing is quite magical." ”
It sounds like a very painful story, giving up the love of life and being forced to choose another path.
"It's not painful. There are many things that you don't have to worry about, then you know that you can't jump, just like playing, you have injuries, it limits you, then you are forced to hurry to choose another profession, you have to rely on this profession to survive. I said I had stage experience, I used to be able to speak only by my body, but now you can speak by language, and I can at least have one more skill. After graduating from college, I didn't say that I wanted to go out to shoot TV series, if I could be a drama actor, or go back to dancing, there is one more way, you can also be a voice actor, at least you can survive later. ”
But sometimes when talking to friends about dancing, Dai Xu still thinks that the life of dancing is very good, "Don't look at a body injury, but it is rare to be able to hone a person's will." You can't take shortcuts, you want to jump particularly well, you have to play the game to practice the same, you can't practice little by little, you can't deceive people, one day you practice well, show the teacher to the audience, practicing for a day is completely different from practicing for a year, this is not deceiving people, you have to work hard. ”
Acting is not the first choice or even the only choice daisuke has set for himself in life. "Because I'm an acting profession, I usually have a lot of hobbies." For example, an interest in medicine.
If dancing and acting were excluded, would any other work be done? "Be a doctor." Dai Xu quickly replied, "At the beginning, I actually wanted to be in good health, but in the future, I felt that this thing can have an output and bring happiness to others." Previously, in a live broadcast, Dai Xu read the types of plays that fans wanted him to play, criminal investigation, xianxia, etc., and let him choose himself, he wanted to play a doctor, "Through acting, you can learn more about this profession from different angles." He even recently read Ge Hong's "Baopuzi" and "Elbow Reserve Emergency Fang", and recommended it in a serious way, "Everyone can look at "Elbow Reserve Emergency Fang", which is more practical. ”
As can be seen from Weibo, Dai Xu really loves life, is bright and cheerful, recommends all kinds of books, and regularly updates the vlog of broken thoughts. His hobbies also include cooking. At the beginning of 2021, Dai Xu took a short vlog and set up a flag to complete the "Russian-style push-ups". This is a common movement in gymnastics, only through the support of the arms to keep the whole body in a flat suspension static state, which is a super difficult fitness action for ordinary people. "I originally wanted to spend a year to complete a thing that I couldn't do, and I wanted to tell the audience that everything was possible." Dai Xu explained the original intention of this vlog.
Gradually became the "Russian stand up" vlog of cooking teaching.
After filming one session of training, in the second period, he sent a breakfast he made himself, but he didn't expect that the fans were very interested, "They also asked a lot of questions, then I will try to record another issue." Because usually he cooks and eats by himself, recording it effortlessly, and finally, this vlog called "Russian-style stand up" gradually became Dai Xu's cooking demonstration teaching video. For the Russian-style stand-up training that never appeared again, Dai Xu also had a "chicken soup" in the opposite direction to say, "Life is rare to give up." Then tell everyone that giving up is also a very normal thing, don't feel ashamed, you see I have given up, everyone is a normal person, don't think too tall, I am a public figure, I am the same. ”
Dai Xu's interest in cooking also stems from "forced", "My father is a chef, cooking is very delicious, after leaving him, I can't eat delicious, of course, cooking for my own health." He can feel the enjoyment of cooking, "cooking can bring happiness to others, which is the most direct feedback." ”
"I dare not say that I am a professional actor"
These hobbies, as well as the expression "acting as a profession", do not mean that Dai Xu does not have requirements for acting. On the contrary, what he calls "being a professional actor" is a high standard. He and director Shen Yan cooperated in "Chinese-style Relationship" and "Tiansheng Long Song" two works, when filming he likes to chat with Shen Yan, talking about his own requirements and expectations, Shen Yan told him, "I want to be a professional director, pay attention to the first two words, career." "Shen Yan believes that it is a very difficult thing to be able to do the two words of occupation." So you also have to be a professional actor. Shen Yan said to Dai Xu.
Dai Xu also remembered this sentence for many years, "I feel that I should at least be a professional actor first." ”
"It's a very demanding one, and the profession is not something that can be said for a while and a half." Your professional performance is not up to the level that everyone recognizes? When I graduated before, I said I was going to be Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, to be a great actor, and then slowly demoted, I want to be a good actor, so what is a great actor? What is a good actor? They are first and foremost professional actors. My ultimate goal is also to be a professional actor, and if I want to change careers, if I want to become a doctor, I will also be a professional doctor. This is already very demanding, and only a professional actor like Daniel Lewis can call it. Until now, I dare not say that I am a professional actor. ”
In order to be a professional actor, Dai Xu has maintained his movie-watching habits and reading habits since college, "There are some films worth thinking about, and after watching them, you may feel that you don't understand it, but when you are alone, you turn off the lights and lie on the bed, reminisce about the film, and there will be some changes in the values of your outlook on life, and there will be some thinking." However, this stable aesthetic and requirement is not necessarily suitable for the TV drama industry and suitable for TV drama audiences, which is a new thinking brought to Dai Xu after entering the industry later.
"This thing is the same as cooking, there are many philosophies in cooking, a dish should be more and more delicious, you may have to add some materials or spices, including its plate, packaging will be better and better, put on the acting, you have to think about whether it is in line with the audience's appetite." 」 For example, I can make a very high-style meal, but the audience does not want to eat today, he wants to eat a relatively simple fast food today, some things you have to pull back, give the audience some of what they want to see, but also let them taste the taste of the dish itself. ”
But the process of pulling back, for Dai Xu, is full of struggles, "this industry, there is a relationship of watching, after you finish the performance, the last face is the audience, if one day you go too fast, you have to run back two steps, you have to wait for others, can not put yourself too high." First of all, you have to understand yourself first, and you have to understand others better. ”
The balance is the problem that he always needs to solve and break through at the moment, "Now that the society is developing rapidly, including the convenience of obtaining information, everyone has no patience to think about something." So what we can do in our own industry is that we have to meet what they want to eat now, they can have some thinking after eating, you can't give him too much, you can't let him think about this dish after he doesn't want to eat, you have to make him feel delicious first, and then you can think about it after eating. Of course, our own aesthetic is also very important, because you have to think about what you want to convey to the audience, and you can't blindly give them what they want to see. ”
Since graduation, Dai Xu has acted in good movies and also acted in word-of-mouth or good or bad TV series, he believes that this is all a process, "I think the audience's scrutiny gives us praise or spit, they are all right, but also give us a lot of restrictions." The drama that I let you see today is also made after experiencing thousands of obstacles, maybe in another 50 years, the film and television circle will not be like this now, I like to look back, what do you see in the 60s and 70s of the last century? The video material of that meeting was "The Red Detachment of Women", which was all black and white. After 60 years, we have all become like this, and in another 50 years, what will we be able to develop? ”
At the moment, what Dai Xu wants most is a character that he really thinks has a challenge, the subject matter can be anything, he knows that this wish sounds simple, but it is actually difficult. "In the current market and environment, it is difficult to get a very three-dimensional, or very tense role, and it is even difficult to write it." It's all waiting, and I can only be ready at all times. ”
(Dai Xu recommended books: "Axis Age" Recommended movies: "Extreme Occupation", "Heavenly Dynasty")
Editor-in-charge: Cheng Yu
Proofreader: Luan Meng