"Why does the director ask the actors to kneel?"
In 1992, Zhang Jianya, the director of "Sanmao from the Army", did not hesitate to kneel in order to invite Wei Zongwan to play the role of the "old ghost" in the play.
Liu Bei asked Zhuge Liang from time to time for Gu Maolu, and there was a saying circulating in the director's circle: "There is no role that Wei Zongwan can't play."
So, how attractive is Wei Zongwan?
How is his life today, at 83?
01、
In 1938, Wei Zongwan was born.
In the era when people died of destruction and starvation every day, his life was not much rich, but he was also a well-off family, eating and drinking without worry, and occasionally watching a movie to cultivate his sentiments.
Parents attach great importance to their children's education, although they do not need to be the dragon and phoenix among people, but at least they must have education and decent work in the future.
When he was 5 years old, his parents sent Wei Zongwan to school.
Unlike the other children in the family, he always tries to escape his studies, and he only goes to one place.
"Dad, I want to learn to sing."
Every time his father learned that he had skipped class, he would go to the nearby theater Wei Zongwan, and he also expressed his liking for Peking opera.
If it were placed now, the Wei family would definitely be happy for their children to learn the essence of the country, but due to the influence of the general environment at that time, those who sang operas could not enter the hall of elegance, collectively called "operas".
Ordinary people will not let their children learn unless they have to, not to mention the Wei family's big family with a head and face in the local area.
The resoluteness of his parents did not make Wei Zongwan give up, he shuttled through the lanes of Shanghai, as long as there was a stage to sing, he would definitely be able to see his figure.
Out of his love for opera, he began to try to memorize the lines and melodies sung by the actors in his head.
Gradually, he was able to hum two simple lines and sing the complete repertoire by the age of nine.
Through this, he once again proved to his family how much he loved theater and wanted his father's support.
But things still didn't go as he wanted, as long as he went to school obediently first.
He has always been at the bottom of the class, so he has not asked parents less.
Wei's father hated that iron could not become steel, and his head was big when he mentioned his son who did not fight for it.
Because of his different interests, he was like an "alternative" sibling in the family who didn't have a good relationship with him.
In 1955, at the age of 17, Wei Zongwan dropped out of high school and entered a steam turbine factory under the arrangement of his father.
Although he was only the lowest worker in the car factory, this position was a dream of many people in the era when hunger and food were a problem, and many people wanted to replace it.
Even with a master at that time, he still suffered a lot of losses, and he was often assigned to the most tiring and difficult position at a young age.
Many people thought that he would soon be unable to hold on, but they did not expect him to do his job quickly and well without a word.
Soon, he gained everyone's recognition.
During this time, he never gave up his hobby, and he would give a third of his salary every month to go to the theater.
Once, when the workers in the workshop suddenly had a power outage, they all gathered together to chat, and suddenly someone proposed that Wei Zongwan sing a piece of opera to relieve everyone's boredom.
Unable to coax, he took a step up the steps behind him, and as soon as he opened his voice, the audience was silent, and they were all amazed by his professional singing.
With this voice, he became a celebrity in the factory.
Everyone regretted that he could not become a professional opera actor, and everyone who sings must practice from an early age, and he can only regard it as a hobby, but he is unwilling in his heart.
After working for four years, Wei Zongwan accidentally saw that the newspaper was recruiting students, and he decided to sign up for a try.
In order to enter the re-examination, he first needs enough cultural classes, so he used his monthly salary to buy a lot of review materials.
During that time, he went to work during the day and went home to read at night, and when he encountered problems, he wanted to ask his brother for advice, but when he thought that he was hiding the name of his family, he had to study it himself.
Because his foundation was poor and there was no one to teach, he was not admitted to university.
But he did not stop there, but continued to work hard and took the exam twice, most of the first year of study, the second time he knew a little, and by the third time he answered the paper with ease.
The moment he got the admission letter, Wei Zongwan held it high with tears in his eyes, but in addition to being excited, he made a difficult mistake, how to talk to his parents?
Seeing that it was almost time for the start of school, he forced himself to show his parents the acceptance letter.
Going to school meant leaving the factory, giving up a stable job for a "dramatic" profession, his parents scolded him fiercely, and his brother accused him of not doing his job.
In order to get his parents to agree, he vowed that "he will definitely become a good actor in the future and will not disgrace his family."
In this way, 21-year-old Wei Zongwan started his acting career.
02、
After entering school, Wei Zongwan was not the most outstanding in terms of appearance and height, but his grades had changed drastically from when he was a child.
Every morning I can always see him standing on the playground practicing tongue twisters, and he concentrates on completing the characters assigned by the teacher.
At that time, the teacher asked everyone to model an animal the next day, and the main point was to grasp its characteristics.
During the performance, many students could not let go of their thin skin, but Wei Zongwan's performance was unexpectedly perfect, not only showing the characteristics, but also interacting with the classmates, who relieved a lot of emotions under his demonstration.
In the four years of school, he is definitely a top student, has ideas, dares to implement, and he must be the main planner of the class drama every semester.
Both teachers and classmates recognized him, and he also felt that the time was ripe to prepare for a big job after graduation.
In 1963, Wei Zongwan was assigned to Shanghai Renyi with excellent results and became a stage actor.
When he saw the stage of the theater, his eyes lit up, and his mind was full of fantasies about the picture of himself performing on it.
The ideal is full, the reality is cruel.
The classic repertoire had already been arranged before he entered the troupe, and he could still fight for the role unless he didn't need to speak, and the newly rehearsed repertoire was not favored because of his appearance.
At first, Wei Zongwan was somewhat unconvinced, but after he saw the performances of his predecessors with his own eyes, he realized the gap between himself and them.
When there is no scene, he will observe the performances of his predecessors backstage, and will also discuss his views on the role with them at the first time.
As he grew older, Wei Zongwan soon reached the marriageable age, and his mother began to help him arrange girls of the right age, but none of them succeeded.
Originally supposed to be at the age of starting a family, but he had no wife and children, and no career, Wei's father was very disappointed in him.
At this time, his brother got married and had no place to live, so he occupied the house where he originally lived.
In desperation, he had to rent a house near the unit.
The indifference of his family disappointed him, and for many years he was too busy with work to go home for the Chinese New Year, alone in a rental house.
Every time the landlord sees him alone, he will invite him to his home as a guest, or send him some homemade sugar packets.
At the same time, he will occasionally buy some fruit for the owner and send it over.
Back and forth, the landlord's daughter Zhou Weiming was attracted by Wei Zongwan's unique temperament and began to pay attention to him.
In fact, Zhou Weiming is a man with a husband and a daughter, but their marriage has long had problems and they are discussing divorce.
After the divorce, she returned to her mother's house with her daughter.
The number of times the two met increased, and the landlord had already seen her daughter's thoughts, so she opened the skylight and said bright words and told Wei Zongwan.
After a period of contact, the two confirmed that they became husband and wife.
Zhou Weiming is 6 years older than him, with children, for this reason, many people are talking behind his back whether Wei Zongwan is trying to make money?
It was not that he had no car, no house, and no name at that time, and he began to live for dozens of dollars a month, and the other party could live by collecting rent.
He did not pay attention to the misunderstanding of the world, and only wanted to run his small family well.
A month's work is not as much as his wife's rent, but he does not keep it all for the other party, and he also cares about his stepdaughter.
At first, the child was very resistant to him, did not want to be alone with him, and never called him.
In order to make the other party accept himself, he sent him to school every day, after school, and bought white rabbit milk candy for the other party from time to time.
At his insistence, the child began to accept him, but he still called him uncle, but he was content.
Before he got married, he was cold when he came home from work, and now in addition to a table of steaming meals, there are people who are always at home looking forward to him coming home, and every time he thinks of this, Wei Zongwan feels very happy.
Soon after, his daughter was born.
But he did not take sides for this, and the two children in the family were his sweethearts and livers, and they loved them equally.
At the same time, he also sees his wife's hard work, as long as he is at home almost all the housework.
Almost everything in the family is decided by Zhou Weiming, but in terms of children's education, Wei Zongwan has to have an absolute right to speak.
When he was a child, his hobbies were not supported by his parents, which became a pain for him all his life, and now he is a father, and he fully supports his children if they are interested.
Seeing that many colleagues have turned into film and television actors, Wei Zongwan is also very red-eyed, but in order to stabilize his salary, he has been running in the troupe for ten years.
Until, he met Zhang Junzhao.
03、
In 1982, Wei Zongwan was selected by director Zhang Junzhao to play "Wan Old Man" in "One and Eight".
Although there are not many scenes, he did not fool things, but seriously analyzed the characters and thought about how to interpret them.
After the official start of shooting, it only takes a few shots to firmly capture the director's eyeballs, and even many shots are all at once.
The people present couldn't believe that he was the first to participate in the filming of film and television dramas.
With the popularity of this play, Wei Zongwan has attracted the attention of the audience with his eye-catching performance.
Compared with the glorious protagonists in the crew, his appearance is indeed not comparable, but with ten years of experience in stage plays, his sense of proportion and belief is incomparable.
This moment began, and it belonged to the advent of the Wei Zongwan era.
In 1987, the troupe had a new drama called "Wanting to Be Wrong".
At this time, Wei Zongwan was 49 years old, but he stood on the stage alone with full emotions to complete the drama.
From the moment the red bra rose to the fall, no audience left the table throughout the process, and when the only protagonist came on stage to close the curtain, the applause was thunderous, and the audience shouted excitedly.
This drama has become a classic drama of Shanghai Renyi, and it was Wei Zongwan who made the drama.
It was also in this year that he was hailed as a national level actor.
Many people specially flew to Shanghai in order to watch this drama, and director Zhang Jizhong was one of them.
In 1990, Zhang Jizhong was planning for the filming of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and never found an actor to play Sima Yi.
Seeing that filming was about to start, he suddenly appeared in "Want to Be Wrong", a foreign old man played by Wei Zongwan in "Want to Be Wrong".
Whether it is from temperament or acting skills, Zhang Jizhong believes that he is the most suitable candidate.
But when he invited the other party with confidence, he was ruthlessly rejected.
The reason for Wei Zongwan's refusal is also very simple, first of all, he has not acted in costume dramas, and he is afraid that he will not be competent, and secondly, Sima Yi is a white-faced treacherous and cunning, he likes red-faced roles since he was a child, and he does not like this role.
However, Director Zhang has already determined in his heart that he must be allowed to act in everything.
So, he found Sima Yi's portrait, personally went to the rental house where he had lived for decades, and made his incorruptible tongue.
His determination to never give up if he did not achieve his goal made Wei Zongwan moved, and finally chose to act.
At this time, he was more than half a hundred years old, and when the crew proposed to use horses as a substitute, he chose to refuse and practiced horseback riding with other actors every day.
In addition to studying Sima Yi in the script, he also studied the characteristics of the characters in the original work, and often found the screenwriter to discuss and revise it repeatedly for a line.
After the official start of filming, Zhang Jizhong once again felt that his insistence at that time was correct.
Under Wei Zongwan's interpretation, the role of Sima Yi seems to have come out of an ancient book, and there is no trace of acting skills.
Since then, Wei Zongwan's "one corner of the god" has become the ceiling of the audience's acting skills.
In the face of an endless stream of scripts, he did not have any interest, not close to the truth at all.
In 1992, Zhang Jianya, the director of "Sanmao's Military History", wanted to invite him to play the "old ghost" in the play, but was also ruthlessly rejected.
In order to express his sincerity, Zhang Jianya specially visited the door with the assistant director, but Wei Zongwan was still indifferent.
After some fruitless lobbying, only listening to the sound of "plopping", the director knelt down on one knee and said, "Please, Teacher Wei agrees."
This action frightened him and his lover, and Zhou Weiming blurted out, "How can the director ask the actor to kneel back?" ”
The reason why the other party did this, even if he knelt down, he invited Wei Zongwan to play because the role of "old ghost" was specially designed for him.
In the original work, there was actually no such role at all, and when he discussed the script with the screenwriter, he wanted to add some freshness to the drama conflict.
It just so happened that he remembered Sima Yi played by Wei Zongwan, although he was a villain, he was a loyal man.
Therefore, there are shrewd, treacherous, greedy, but at heart is a kind old ghost.
With this drama, Wei Zongwan won the title of Best Supporting Actor.
At this time, he was 54 years old.
With his explosion, some netizens regretted that he did not play the leading role, but he did not think so.
He once said that "as an actor, you must be willing to pay, regardless of the size of the role, you must be clear about your positioning, and use your advantages to choose the right role, in order to produce high-quality products."
Rushing to achieve quick results will only be bad, and continuous accumulation of experience will one day shine.
summary
Wei Zongwan has been in the industry for 58 years, creating countless classic roles, and Sima Yi has also become his unsurpassed classic.
Throughout his life, he can describe "frank" in two words.
When he was interviewed, he was asked, "Why don't you take commercials?" ”
He said, "What do you do with so much money, more than 4,000 yuan a month is just enough to live." ”
After decades in the industry, he has always adhered to his principles, acted seriously, and acted according to his duty.
Today, 83-year-old Wei Zongwan and his wife live in the original rental house.
In his spare time, he would take his lover on trips to fulfill the promise he made to his wife when he was younger.
Be a person, be idealistic, act openly.
Wei Zongwan spent his life to confirm this sentence!
Note: It is not easy to be original, plagiarism and manuscript washing will be studied in depth.
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