A few days ago, Xi Meijuan won the movie "Mom! The role of Feng Jizhen, the daughter in ", won the 35th Golden Rooster Best Actress Award in one fell swoop.
This year, she was 67 years old.
Many people say that this time Xi Meijuan became a movie queen, it is well deserved, standing on the stage, she holds the Golden Rooster trophy in her hand, slowly saying her acceptance speech, like a normal speech.
The speed of speech is gentle, and the voice seems to float from farther away, creating a slight echo in the scene, peaceful but unquestionable.
"These three years have been the most difficult for us filmmakers, but we have not given up pursuing our professional ideals in our hearts, let alone giving up our film ideals.
I was only in my thirties when I first won the award, and now I have doubled my age, but I feel that in acting work, characters can give us a colorful life, our life and age, it seems that we can always go up..."
More than thirty years have passed since she first won the award.
Xi Meijuan did not wear a Chinese dress, her makeup was also very elegant, she was wearing a white shirt and black trousers, and she looked like a heavy lifter. Even if you are no longer young, you have experience everywhere.
Tears welled up in her eyes, and she didn't let them flow.
In the past many years, Xi Meijuan has lived by that forbearance, with a big river and sea in her heart.
"Mom! The film is starring Xi Meijuan and Wu Yanshu, telling the family story of an 85-year-old mother taking care of her 65-year-old daughter with Alzheimer's disease.
"Mother professional" Xi Meijuan finally played her daughter once.
In the context of no men in the family, this pair of elegant intellectual mother and daughter staged a touching mother-daughter relationship for the public.
The 2022 movie "Mom! 》
Stills of mother (played by Wu Yanshu) and daughter (played by Xi Meijuan).
When her daughter Feng Jizhen suffered from Alzheimer's disease, Jiang Yuzhi, the mother who was originally taken care of, changed her role in an instant, she no longer had a small temper, but used gentleness and tolerance to cure her sick daughter, as well as the devastation of the past.
"Don't worry, when these sentences grow up, they will come out on their own."
The slightly bookish and not very grounded lines in the film fall into a figurative interpretation, which does not make the audience feel dramatic, which tests the actor's performance skills.
When Wu Yanshu talked about filming the mother-daughter duo with Xi Meijuan, sitting on the bed and recalling the scene about her deceased father, she said:
"I was dumbfounded by that scene, I was out of the play, watching Xi Meijuan like an audience, it was really a textbook performance."
After the character played by Xi Meijuan suffered from Alzheimer's disease, her body was shrouded in the ruthless solemnity of the years, and she fell into the trap of memory.
The 2022 movie "Mom! 》
Stills of mother (played by Wu Yanshu) and daughter (played by Xi Meijuan).
Xi Meijuan, who has acted in plays for more than 30 years and created countless roles, said that "Feng Jizhen" is her biggest challenge since her career.
"With my experience and age, playing most roles can go with the flow, but this role requires all the creative passion, and I decided to restart the creative switch for her, because this story, this role is attractive enough for me, moving enough."
This is an unprecedented story of women, when the body is old and the memory is lost, how an intellectual mother and daughter can face the cruelty of illness and the uneasiness of human nature.
At the end, the mother and daughter duo who walked towards the sea shed tears together, beautiful and sad.
The 2022 movie "Mom! 》
Stills of mother (played by Wu Yanshu) and daughter (played by Xi Meijuan).
This movie hits the softest part of people's hearts.
Some time ago, on August 20, at the Beijing International Film Festival, Wu Yanshu won the best actress for her mother Jiang Yuzhi in the movie, when she stood on the stage and said regretfully:
"I want to thank my daughter Xi Meijuan, this award has half of hers. How I wish it was a double yellow egg that I could share with my daughter Meijuan. ”
This time the Golden Rooster Award, "daughter" Xi Meijuan also became a queen, and she also thanked her mother Wu Yanshu on stage.
Movies are never something that can be done by one person.
Wu Yanshu sent a congratulatory message in the air, and the two fulfilled each other.
In the play, they are a mother and daughter duo who rely on each other for their lives in their twilight years; Outside the play, Wu Yanshu and Xi Meijuan are performers who stick to their identity as actors alone.
Xi Meijuan and Wu Yanshu
Life is paradoxical and complicated, and the beginning of the journey is not something you can decide.
In 1955, Xi Meijuan was born in Shanghai to a family of ordinary workers.
Her father is a skilled worker in the Shanghai Film Studio, her mother is a female worker in a textile factory, and there are four younger siblings.
As the eldest daughter in the family, Xi Meijuan has been very sensible since she was a child, taking the initiative to take care of her younger siblings, and her forgiving character is slowly forming.
Xi Meijuan when she was a child
The father loves to read, and after dinner, he will describe the stories and beauty in the book to his children, Xi Meijuan longs for the world in the book, she began to read novels such as "Tess of the Durber House" and "The Revenge of Monte Cristo".
Xi Meijuan will read during the day and night without a night, and in the dim light, covered with a quilt to read it overnight, she feels satisfied in her heart.
Love of reading has made her have an inexplicable confidence since she was a child.
In childhood, my father often took the projector of the film studio home and projected the movie picture on the wall for the children to watch, although there was no sound, but it was Xi Meijuan's best childhood memory.
Her movie dream had begun to germinate at that time, but just after graduating from high school, Xi Meijuan's dream was shattered, and she was arranged to join the queue in the countryside of Chongming Island in Shanghai.
It was 1973, 18-year-old Xi Meijuan hoeing the ground, picking up dung, carrying water...
Xi Meijuan in her youth
Lying in the strange countryside at night, Xi Meijuan could see the stars in the cracks of the thatch on the roof, listening to the mournful cry in the bamboo forest in the distance, she felt that there was some kind of life comforting herself.
Thinking that the sky is still dawning, her heart is panicked, she is not afraid of the hard work of her body, but she is afraid of the future.
Xi Meijuan didn't know what was ahead, and the place she came to was unbearable to look back.
It soon dawned, and a month later, when the Shanghai Theater Academy enrolled students, the local leaders who cut the queue encouraged them to try it, and Xi Meijuan didn't even know what drama was, but she still went to take the admissions exam.
The captain who cut the queue said to her: "Go to the drama exam, you go with Xiaohong, you see how she plays you." ”
This Xiaohong is the later well-known actor Pan Hong.
Pan Hong in her youth
Xi Meijuan looked at the beautiful Pan Hong, and felt that she must have no drama, but she decided to try it hard.
In the examination room, the teacher asked her to act out a story she had experienced, and Xi Meijuan performed the scene when she cut the queue in the countryside.
Suddenly, the teacher shouted: "The pig shed is on fire!" ”
Xi Meijuan reacted quickly, immediately took a porcelain basin for washing her face and ran out, only after running a few steps, she returned to carry the bucket.
What she didn't expect, such a real and clumsy performance, let herself pass the exam smoothly.
Xi Meijuan when she was young
Entering the institution of higher learning of Shanghai Theater Academy completely changed the trajectory of Xi Meijuan's fate.
In the play, she often heard the phrase "your face shape is not very photogenic", because in the seventies and eighties, it was not her kind of thin and long face, and everyone preferred a fleshy face.
The beauty of the play is like a cloud, all talented, Xi Meijuan looks ordinary, she is always isolated by her classmates, but she never has low self-esteem.
Xi Meijuan when she was young
In her sophomore year, the drama "Jubilant Little Lianghe" came to Shanghai Theater Academy to recruit a female lead, and Xi Meijuan went to sign up.
I didn't want to go, but I was politely rejected by the crew: "Classmate, I'm sorry, your appearance may not be very suitable for the requirements of acting." ”
At the same time, her classmate Pan Hong was selected by the crew.
Pan Hong in her youth
Xi Meijuan is a little lost, she has known since she was a child that she is not beautiful, and she is also confused, is she not a beauty, is she destined to have no drama to play?
She is waiting for life to give her an answer, and she did not flinch from this, Xi Meijuan is in the play, seriously studying acting professional courses, repeatedly pondering the script, pondering the inner world of the character.
After entering the acting department of Shanghai Opera, her reading trajectory began to have a texture under the guidance of her teacher, including professional performance books, from theory to practice, and then back to theory, as well as novels.
Xi Meijuan has always been soberly aware that a person engaged in the profession of acting must not give up his attention to literature.
The thinking logic and psychological change process of the characters in the novel are used in the shaping of characters in a play, perhaps just a shot and a look in the presentation, which is also very useful.
In 1977, 22-year-old Xi Meijuan was assigned to the Shanghai People's Art Theater because of her solid acting skills.
At that time, she did not expect that she would spend a long and fulfilling time here, and she would also encounter a bad fate.
At the Shanghai People's Art Theater, Xi Meijuan began to shine, and she became a drama actress.
Acting in drama is never an easy task, it requires a very high level of performance, and the natural conditions of drama also doom actors to not get as much attention as film and television dramas, and the reality has always been cruel.
In the winter of 1979, Xi Meijuan starred in the drama "Save Her", and it was the role of "Li Xiaoxia" in this work that attracted the attention of Mr. Huang Zuolin, president of Shanghai Renyi.
Mr. Huang Zuolin is a respected master of Chinese theater in the industry and an artist who has dedicated his life to drama.
After watching Xi Meijuan's drama performance, Huang Zuolin appointed her to play Yin Fu's mother in the drama "Life, Love, Freedom", and personally went to the stage to give performance guidance.
In the end, Xi Meijuan portrayed an old woman in her seventies into a successful one and earned enough tears from the audience.
Only two years into the industry, Xi Meijuan won the Shanghai Young Actor Outstanding Performance Award, and the stage play "Romeo and Juliet" was regarded as a classic, and the blood and tears that were silently shed will surely bloom in the future.
Mr. Huang Zuolin even published an article in the newspaper, affirming Xi Meijuan as "a drama actor with deep potential and broad prospects".
From left to right: In 1981, director Huang Zuolin, script translator Cao Yu, and Juliet played Xi Meijuan
Xi Meijuan, who has a successful drama career, soon met love.
In 1982, Zhou Yemang was assigned to the Shanghai People's Art Theater and became Xi Meijuan's junior brother, and the two also loved drama and were obsessed with the stage, and their fates were intertwined.
They often rehearsed dramas together, and at that time, Xi Meijuan was already a pillar of Shanghai Renyi.
Zhou Yemang appreciated this senior sister very much, always took the initiative to care, and the two gradually fell in love and came together.
Xi Meijuan and Zhou Yemang, in the recording studio
In 1985, at the urging of both parents, the two soon married.
That year, Xi Meijuan was 30 years old and Zhou Yemang was 29 years old.
Not long after marriage, Xi Meijuan became pregnant, and Zhou Yemang was overjoyed. In those days, two people who married late could have a child smoothly, which was extremely precious.
Xi Meijuan on the drama stage
But God has always liked to play tricks on people's fate.
Xi Meijuan ran all day on major drama stages, and because of high-intensity performance work, she accidentally miscarried.
The loss of the child was not Xi Meijuan's fault, but a thorn was planted in the heart of her husband Zhou Yemang, and the two gradually drifted apart.
Three years later, the husband and wife co-starred in the drama "Chinese Dream", and Xi Meijuan won the highest honor in the drama industry "Plum Blossom Award", which made Zhou Yemang, who has a strong sense of self-esteem, have a mustard in his heart.
A still from the 1988 drama "Chinese Dream" Xi Meijuan and Zhou Yemang
At the age of 39, Xi Meijuan finally became pregnant again, and she was already an advanced mother, and she was overjoyed to tell her husband the good news.
She thought that the arrival of this child could ease the relationship with her lover and look forward to the happy life of a family of three in the future, but during the confinement period, Zhou Yemang filed for divorce, saying that she was in love with someone else.
Xi Meijuan did not make a noise, did not retain, and only put forward one request: "Divorce is okay, the child should have my surname, I will take care of it." ”
She has never lost her own dignity and self-fulfillment, but this fulfillment is mixed with too much forgiveness.
Not long after the divorce, Zhou Yemang remarried.
Xi Meijuan temporarily retired from the entertainment industry, in order to accompany her son, she tried her best to be a good mother and did not want her children to be left out in the cold.
She named her child "Xi Nan", hoping that her son would not lose his manly spirit when he grew up in his father's absence.
Xi Meijuan and her son Xi Nan
Walking off the screen, she is an ordinary and unusual mother.
When she was just divorced, she also suffered, and it was her parents who always accompanied her and comforted her, which allowed her to gradually come out of the shadows.
When Zhou Yemang married Wang Zhixia, who was 3 years younger than herself, and enjoyed life, Xi Meijuan endured great pain and became a single mother and raised her children alone.
Before her son Xi Nan was four years old, Xi Meijuan put all her energy into taking care of the child, fell into the boundless darkness, and she was not decadent.
In 1990, Xi Meijuan, who had been practicing on the drama stage for fifteen years, stepped onto the big screen and starred in her first movie "Fake Female True Love".
Before the filming began, Xi Meijuan said to the director: "I may not be very photogenic. ”
Director Wu Zhennian said: "In my impossible thing, that's the photographer's problem, you just have to act boldly." ”
In the film, Xi Meijuan plays Wang Yujuan, a female middle school teacher, who is mistaken for his daughter by veterans who have been away from her hometown for 40 years.
In order to stabilize the mood of the old man, Wang Yujuan will make a mistake and has been taking care of this elderly and lonely old man as a "daughter".
A still from the 1990 movie "Fake Female True Love" Xi Meijuan
When filming the cutscene of stir-frying, Xi Meijuan has a hot hand grinding action, vivid and real, which is designed by herself.
When the film first decided on the actor, photographer Zhang Yongjiang told the director that Xi Meijuan was not beautiful and was not suitable for being a heroine, and the director insisted on his own vision.
As it turned out, she was right.
Xi Meijuan won the Best Actress Award at the 11th Chinese Film Golden Rooster Awards for her sincere and touching performance.
This year, she was 35 years old.
Debut is the peak, this is Xi Meijuan's debut.
In China in the 90s, the aesthetic changed, and the public no longer preferred the fat face, but thin for beauty.
Xi Meijuan often hears others tell her that your thin face is photogenic, and she said: "I never became a photogenic actor and then became a photogenic actor, which is very fun." ”
Three years later, Xi Meijuan starred in "Joy Luck Club" with Yu Feihong, Wu Junmei, Lu Yan, Zhou Caiqin and others, which became a milestone for the first Hollywood all-Asian cast.
Making movies has become an indispensable mission in Xi Meijuan's life.
In the movie "A Tree", Xi Meijuan, a native of Shanghai, interprets a rural woman in northern Shaanxi without a sense of contradiction.
Niu Yuqin is the prototype of the character in the movie, curing sand and planting trees, and she regards each tree as her own child.
Xi Meijuan and Niu Yuqin chatted all night in the county guest house in Yulin, Shaanxi, and also went to live at her house for a while. Xi Meijuan wore the old clothes of the locals and followed Niu Yuqin up the mountain every day to plant trees.
A still from the 2000 movie "A Tree" Xi Meijuan
During the shooting, Xi Meijuan accidentally sprained her waist, and in order not to affect the shooting progress, she insisted on completing the shooting on a stretcher every day.
Xi Meijuan's performance is very relaxed, especially life-like, and makes people want to believe.
So far, she feels that the watermelon that Niu Yuqin grew in the desert is the sweetest watermelon she has ever eaten.
In the eighties of last century, the market economy had a great impact on the field of art, and Xi Meijuan's friends knew that she was still acting, so they said: "Xi Meijuan, you are still ploughing the land." ”
She replied, "Yes, I will only plow the land, I will not do anything else, because the land is there." ”
She knew she was going to act for the rest of her life.
Over the years, Xi Meijuan is the "mother" of many people, she is the mother of Zhou Xun in "Red Prescription", the mother of Zhou Dongyu in "The Love of Hawthorn Tree", and the mother of Zhang Yi in "The True Story of Hot Mother"...
After returning to the entertainment industry, Xi Meijuan, who is already her mother, played her first role as her mother.
In the 1997 TV series "Red Prescription", 23-year-old Zhou Xun played a drug-addicted girl Shen Pei, and Xi Meijuan played Zhou Xun's mother, an anti-drug doctor.
There was a scene where the mother and daughter quarreled fiercely, and in a hurry, Xi Meijuan slapped Zhou Xun.
1997 TV series "Red Prescription"
Clip between Shen Pei (played by Zhou Xun) and Shen Ruoyu (played by Xi Meijuan).
Zhou Xun later said that she was stunned at that time, and it was at that moment that she knew that acting must come for real.
She thanked Xi Meijuan for the slap, it was the seniors who gave her a deeper understanding of the reality of the performance.
1997 TV series "Red Prescription"
Stills of Shen Pei (played by Zhou Xun) and Shen Ruoyu (played by Xi Meijuan).
As soon as the play is true, it is all right.
In 2002, Xi Meijuan partnered with Chen Sicheng, who was still a junior at the Central Academy of Drama, and starred in the movie "Judge's Mother".
In the film, Zhang Shuai, a juvenile delinquent played by Chen Sicheng, has a bitter hatred for Judge An Hui, played by Xi Meijuan, and later learned that everything is his imagination.
2002 movie "Judge Mom"
An Hui (played by Xi Meijuan) and Zhang Shuai (played by Chen Sicheng) stills
This is Chen Sicheng's debut, he has won multiple awards and nominations, and the film actually hides a mass actor - Wang Baoqiang.
At that time, Wang Baoqiang and Chen Sicheng had not yet intersected.
Wang Baoqiang
Over the years, Xi Meijuan has been pursuing real performances.
In 2017, 62-year-old Xi Meijuan starred in the period drama "That Year the Flower Bloomed and the Moon Was Full" starring Sun Li and Chen Xiao, and played Cixi in the play.
This is not her first time playing Cixi, before that, Xi Meijuan had already starred in Cixi three times in "Zuo Zongtang", "Sun Yat-sen" and "Beijing Fayuan Temple".
Among them, the drama "Beijing Fayuan Temple" is adapted from Li Ao's historical novel of the same name.
An action, a look, she doesn't need too much body and language to embody, standing there, it is the horn.
She is also known as the "Cixi professional", but for Xi Meijuan, no matter how many plays she has acted, there are only small actors and no small roles.
When filming "The Blooming Moon That Year", there were only 10 scenes in total, Xi Meijuan was a friendship starring, and she also portrayed "Cixi" as a complete role.
She thought a lot, the background of Cixi's escape to the west in that era, why she talked so much with a folk girl at that time, and the content of the dialogue was profound.
Perhaps although Cixi was down, the imperial momentum in her heart had not disappeared.
2017 TV series "That Year the Flower Blooms and the Moon is Full"
Cixi (played by Xi Meijuan) stills
In the end, Xi Meijuan vividly interpreted this controversial empress dowager in history, and her life was arrogant and domineering, and she could not match the change of times.
The afterglow of the last years of the Qing Dynasty was reflected on her face, with loneliness and despair.
Xi Meijuan has acted in the play for more than 30 years, and she has long ceased to force the protagonist, and her cameo appearances are also performed with heart.
In Zhang Yimou's "Hawthorn Tree Love", she starred as Jingqiu's mother, a single mother who lives on pasted envelopes.
2010 movie "Hawthorn Tree Love"
Jing Qiu's mother (played by Xi Meijuan) stills
She was taken by Zhang Yimou to experience life at the home of a teacher who pasted envelopes in Jiangxi, and the director asked Xi Meijuan to paste envelopes for two hours after filming every day, preferably to achieve the effect that paper can fly.
Xi Meijuan insisted on this action for many days, and a month later, the paper finally flew.
She was finally no longer afraid and could do it skillfully, and her ability to paste envelopes was no less than that of factory women.
Xi Meijuan pasted envelope in the movie "Hawthorn Tree Love"
Over the years, with this tenacity, Xi Meijuan has successfully created many classic roles, and her ex-husband Zhou Yemang is also known for playing the role of "Lao Wu" in Xu Zheng's movie "Love Myth".
Lao Wu studied in France when he was young, and one year during spring break he traveled to Rome, and an unforgettable love story occurred, he met an Italian actress in Rome and had a one-night stand.
Since then, the swinging old Wu has had many girlfriends, but he has never been married in his life, and after telling it, he said after drinking a lot: "Is the story good?" I made it up. ”
The day after telling the story to everyone, Lao Wu died, and his love story became a myth.
The role of "Lao Wu" made Zhou Yemang loved by many people, and after the 5-minute long shot was shot, the scene burst into applause, which was the moment he enjoyed the most.
2021 movie "Love Myth"
Lao Wu (played by Zhou Yemang) stills
In real life, Zhou Yemang, and his second wife Wang Zhixia insisted on Dink, and they have also loved each other so far.
Xi Meijuan never told Zhou Yemang's fault in front of her son, and never prevented the father and son from meeting because she had already let go.
His son Xi Nan has grown up under the care of his mother, and he did not follow his parents' path as an actor, but went further and further in the field of painting and had his own piece of art world.
Xi Meijuan and her son
In 2020, Xi Meijuan, who has been divorced for many years, and Zhou Yemang, cooperated in the TV series "An Home".
65-year-old Xi Meijuan plays the calm and self-contained Grandma Jiang, and 64-year-old Zhou Yemang plays Tiantian's father.
After many years, the two have nothing to do with each other, and the love and hatred of the past have dissipated in the wind, and they are no longer persistent.
Xi Meijuan just wants to act seriously and live a plain life, and she will never lower her price to the sea of exile.
, duration 02:49
65-year-old Xi Meijuan, a delicate clip in the TV series "An Home"
Xi Meijuan is 67 years old, in this life, she has interpreted too many classic roles, the curtain does not fall, she still has to shine on the stage.
The firmness and unshakable strength in her is the result of the character of a girl who has followed her father's love of reading since she was a child, and in a long and orderly life, active and passive condensation.
Xi Meijuan when she was young
Xi Meijuan looks back on her youth, and her happiest memory is that in the summer evening, after dinner, housework, moved out a rattan chair, sat in the small yard at home, and read while enjoying the cool.
Sometimes, she would also sit alone on the ground by the canal not far from home, aging seriously and reminiscing about the past.
When she came back to her senses, Xi Meijuan was already a mother, and she was still the agile Shanghai girl.