February 6, 2023 issue | Total Issue 3139
Gao Qisheng definitely regretted killing Li Hongwei with frozen fish, but his regret was not about killing people, but about using the wrong tools.
Looking at Cao Bin, a classmate who was drunk in the dark, a brick was slapped up, howling and asking, "Is kimchi bibimbap delicious?" Would you like to try it? "I designed a small detail in this scene, and when I said the lines, I added a little guttural sound to the gasp, hoping to convey the grievances after Kaisheng's emotional outburst with a choked feeling.
When I was a child, I always acted vigorously, and I didn't want to fall behind in every scene. Later, when I became a director and met actors of the same type, I understood that acting should not be a tight string, but a kite that can be retracted freely.
Speaking of the impressive villain in the TV series "Crazy", Sven scum Gao Qisheng, who holds frozen fish and wears a mask, must occupy a place.
In the play, Gao Qisheng often follows behind his brother Gao Qiqiang, the scene is not much, but it is full of energy. From a smart and weak scholar, to a gloomy and paranoid businessman, to a crazy drug dealer, as greed and ambition expand, Gao Qisheng becomes more and more crazy, and the background is becoming more and more complicated.
Because of his family's poverty and his brother's fish selling business, Gao Qisheng was ridiculed and ostracized by his classmates since he was a child because of his old clothes and fishy smell.
People who are humble to the extreme tend to become extremely conceited after turning over, and Gao Qisheng is like this. The first time he dealt with the corrupt Gong Kaijiang, he did not dare to look directly into the other party's eyes, and the toast also appeared shy and embarrassed.
With Gao Qiqiang's rise, Gao Qisheng also wandered in the vanity fair more and more frequently, he began to get used to sycophancy, and wore the mask of the smiling tiger more and more handy, not only can hook up with Gong Kaijiang, call brothers and brothers, but also use a little words to play a group of people.
"Gao Qisheng's death is inevitable, he has been out of control for too long. When a person goes his own way so much as to ignore restraint and empty eyes, there will definitely be no good ending. Talking about Gao Qisheng's character logic, actor Su Xiaoyue said.
"Sun Tzu's Art of War" says: Siege the master must be quen, and the poor must not be forced. The more difficult the situation, the more pressing the corner, the more amazing the power of the trapped beast's counterattack. Gao Qisheng went from a gentle and flattering "little white rabbit" to an executioner who believed in the "golden belt of murder and arson", and he finally embarked on the road of no return.
The following is the narration of actor Su Xiaoyue.
Gao Qisheng was restless, and I was very restless
I have been working with director Xu Jizhou for eleven years, and I have participated in almost every drama he directed.
Gao Qisheng in "Crazy" was directly found by the director, and he said to me: "Xiao Yue, I want to give you a gift." I have created a character for you in the new drama, and if you play it well, it will definitely inspire another aspect of your creation. "We have worked together for so many years, we know each other very well and trust, and when I heard the director say this, I didn't hesitate at all and immediately decided to take over.
In the script, Gao Qisheng is very wonderfully portrayed, from inferiority, to ambition, to madness, the character arc is very clear, and my desire to create is very strong. But this also brings difficulties: how do I become Gao Qisheng?
In order to find a feeling, I watched a lot of movies and novels in the preparation stage, such as the two versions of "Joker" by Heath Ledger and Jacques Phoenix, and the novels of Keigo Higashino and Junichi Watanabe, hoping to find a grip on the classic characters.
Until one day, when I was figuring out the psychology of the characters, I found that the essential difference between Gao Qisheng and other criminals lies in the extremely distorted heart. Gao Qisheng definitely regrets killing Li Hongwei (played by Aruna) with frozen fish, but his regret is not about killing, but about using the wrong tool. What he thought was: Shouldn't I have killed him with frozen fish in a flash? Why didn't you strangle him with a rope? Why wasn't he completely solved at that time?
Thinking of this, I suddenly found that my understanding of Gao Qisheng had become smoother, as if I had touched his pulse.
Preparing biographies of characters is a habit of mine. Because Gao Qisheng's vein trajectory is always tied to his brothers and sisters, when designing the prehistory of the characters, Teacher Songwen and Lonnie and I "string together a confession" in private, connecting the growth trajectories of the three brothers and sisters.
The year Gao's parents died, Gao Qiqiang was 14 years old, Ah Sheng was 6 years old, and Xiaolan was 2 years old. The powerless brother took a compensation of 500 yuan and pulled his younger siblings to grow up alone. He took his younger siblings to the market and introduced them to other vendors, and Aunt Rong, who sold vegetables, and Ah Xiong, who sold fried noodles, often helped take care of the two children. The younger brothers and sisters also know that they feel sorry for their brother, and they will help their brother to fight and learn to kill fish and sell fish by themselves... Just put together the childhood stories of the three brothers and sisters little by little.
After I started shooting, the new difficulty for me was how to catch the scenes of Teacher Songwen and Teacher Zhang Yi. Their character preparation is so thick that young actors will show timidity if they are not careful.
I played a lot with Songwen Ge, and he would often give me "test questions" on the spot. On the set, he would suddenly ask me: "Ah Sheng, where do you think our parents' spiritual hall is appropriate?" "What's our apron?" Is it half-body or full-body? Blue or red? and other questions about the details of life.
Brother Zhang Yi's design of lines and character movements is very accurate, and if I were not an actor who played with him, I would hardly have noticed that it was acted. Being able to catch their play, I am already very satisfied with my performance in "Crazy".
On set, in order to protect the state of the characters, I also tried to keep myself in a state of competition and conceit, and rarely interacted with other actors. I am very good friends with Mr. Li Jian, who plays Li Xiang, in life, but we hardly spoke on the set of "Crazy". I was worried that if I got too close to the positive character, the shadow of Gao Qisheng on my body would be diluted.
A few days ago in the live broadcast, they also complained that I was very cold on the set and did not pay attention to people. For me, creating such extreme characters really does not allow the slightest wavering.
Gao Qisheng in three steps
In "Rage", although Gao Qisheng's story is only told in the second chapter, in my heart, he is still divided into three stages.
The first stage was from delivering food to his brother to opening a PHS store through the relationship of his classmate Cao Bin. At this time, Qisheng's heart was cold, so cold that he only cared about the stomach, and he didn't even have the consciousness to smack his mouth. Even a bowl of pork foot noodles has to be eaten by three people, you can imagine how hard the life of these three brothers and sisters used to be.
I quite understand this state of life that is budget-conscious in order to feed myself. When a child who has just entered college tastes "financial independence" for the first time, it is inevitable that he will spend lavishly, and I was too. When I first entered the Chinese opera, I used up several hundred yuan of living expenses almost in the first few days of each month. What to do when I run out of money, fortunately, the rice and seasonings in our school are provided for free, and I eat bibimbap with different seasonings every day, and I will survive until the living expenses arrive next month.
People, when there was no money in my pocket, I really had no confidence, I didn't even dare to go out of the school gate at that time, for fear of additional expenses, this state was projected on Gao Qisheng by me. At this time, Gao Qisheng must be very inferior and cowardly, and this psychological state will also be externalized in behavior. In the scene of delivering food to his brother, Qisheng was always afraid, and in the face of An Xin, a pleasant-looking policeman, he always hunched his waist, stammering uncontrollably, for fear of offending the police and causing trouble for his brother.
The second stage is from opening the PHS store to celebrating his birthday drunk in Baijin Hanli, and Gao Qisheng is hungry at this stage. If he was hungry before, then selling the sweetness of PHS made him start to overeat after being hungry for more than twenty years, and his desires and ambitions swelled rapidly.
Gao Qisheng's first outburst was beating his classmate Cao Bin. In college, Qisheng has been writing homework for the rich second-generation classmates in school because of his poor family, and he will even be bullied on campus. Just like in the play, they often tease Gao Qisheng by performing chickens and rabbits in the same cage. Gao Qisheng's mind is heavy, will he not remember to hate these people? It will definitely be.
When he finished opening the store, plus drank some wine, the resentment in his heart could not be contained. Looking at Cao Bin, who was drunk in the dark, a board of bricks was slapped up, howling and asking, "Is kimchi bibimbap delicious?" Would you like to try it? "I designed a small detail in this scene, and when I said the lines, I added a little guttural sound to the gasp, hoping to convey the grievances after Kaisheng's emotional outburst with a choked feeling.
This bridge also shows Gao Qisheng's means of exonerating him, he did not kill Cao Bin, but he did make a ruthless move and moved his mind. Gao Qisheng cleverly took advantage of Cao Bin's drunkenness and disguised the incident as a mobile phone robbery. If the audience looks closely, they will find that in the later plot, Li Xiang and An Xin also ran a trip to Bai Jinhan specifically for this case. In the flashback shot, Gao Qisheng also pretended to be drunk to find trouble with the escort women, accusing them of stealing mobile phones with the intention of creating an alibi for himself.
The third stage is from drug trafficking to death, and Gao Qisheng in this stage is hot. In order to make money, he will stop at nothing; Because of his conceit, he will repay it. In his eyes, no matter what he does, he can't satisfy himself, and his desires have become a black hole of dissatisfaction.
Gao Qisheng had several scenes of being slapped by his brother, and in the first two stages, he was aggrieved after being beaten by his brother, and he could quickly calm down. And at this stage, he is manic, twisted, and even uncontrolled. In the game hall, Gao Qiqiang found out that Ah Sheng was selling drugs and slapped him fiercely, Gao Qisheng jumped up directly and slapped himself while roaring: "You love to beat people so much, right?" I sold! Are you satisfied? "The contrast is very strong.
Including later, after he killed Li Hongwei, he said to his brother: "For the sake of the Gao family, I am not even afraid of death!" The brother slapped him again, and he laughed after being beaten. On the one hand, this smile shows that he enjoys the feeling of being worried and protected by his brother. In his opinion, although Gao Qiqiang has become a rich man, he has always been the eldest brother who protects himself behind him and has never changed. On the other hand, there is also a bit of self-deprecation, he is still not strong enough, and he still needs his brother to take care of the aftermath.
Gao Qisheng's psychology is also reflected in his attitude towards his sister-in-law Chen Shuting. Why does Gao Qisheng hate Chen Shuting, to some extent, he feels that this woman has taken away her brother's love, and even snatched her own brother, which is the instinct of animals to protect food.
On the other hand, he didn't like his brother's flattering, hippie smiling face in front of Chen Shuting. In Qisheng's eyes, Gao Qiqiang is a very capable and strong person, how could he be submissive by Chen Shuting and become a "strict wife"? He must have asked more than once in his heart: How did my brother become like this?
He also hated the domineering Chen Shuting for "pointing fingers" at everyone, as if she, a woman with a foreign surname, was the person who spoke to the Gao family. Therefore, Qishengcai always said to Chen Shuting unconvinced: "Why is your temper getting bigger and bigger?" When did the Gao family have her turn to decide? ”
"Crazy" did not jump and shoot, but along the timeline, and the scene of Gao Qisheng's death in the watchtower is also my finishing scene. We prepared for this scene for a week, the director and I and Songwen Ge constantly discussed the details, and I also "isolated" myself for a week, trying to catch Gao Qisheng's desperate state as much as possible.
One wrong step, one wrong step, Gao Qisheng was not without choices, but he always chose a fork in the road, and he went further and further, so that he could not turn back. After playing this role, my deepest feeling is that people must know how to be content, know how to cherish, do not squander the love of their families, and do not take chances on the boundary line. If you are lost, you can still know how to return, and the desperate road really can't turn around.
Film and television creation can also be heavy
To be honest, I really didn't expect "Crazy" to be like this. I do have a lot of confidence in "Crazy" and think it will be a hit, after all, this is a boutique drama that everyone has painstakingly created.
I believe that "Crazy" has boosted the confidence of the film and television industry, as long as everyone creates steadfastly, without doing work to fool the audience, the audience can see the sincerity and efforts of the creator. I believe that every work that can be recognized by the general audience must be inseparable from the blessings of the right people at the right time and place. But the premise is that this must be a good drama. Only good works can be seen and left behind.
I am also a drama actor, and before the filming of "Crazy", I always preferred drama performance. Drama creation pays attention to excellence, every scene on stage has been polished countless times offstage, only by practicing the watch into muscle memory, we dare to stand on the stage to face the audience. As for film and television creation, in the past, I always felt that it was like a business rushing to the construction period, everyone was rushing to the light of day and schedule, and the creative space of actors was often compressed to a very limited extent.
Su Xiaoyue starring in the drama "Two Horses"
But "Crazy" made me see the thick possibilities of film and television creation, and the craftsmanship of film and television creators is also dazzling. Taking Gao Qisheng as an example, I have participated in the character styling of this character at different stages, from clothing and hairstyle to the pattern of the shirt and the choice of glasses frames, all of which hide my design of the character.
Good works must be inseparable from the escort of excellent teams, and I am very grateful to the "Crazy" crew for their support and protection of each actor, allowing me to have my own creative space and room for expression, and to listen to and balance everyone's ideas and suggestions.
Although I have acted in plays for more than ten years and directed several dramas, there are still many aspects that need to be improved. The biggest help of my directorial experience in my performance lies in the control of rhythm and the balance of macro scenes. When I was a child, I always acted vigorously, and I didn't want to fall behind in every scene. Later, when I became a director and met actors of the same type, I understood that acting should not be a tight string, but a kite that can be retracted freely.
Su Xiaoyue directed the drama "Emergency Rescue"
There are pros and cons to everything, and after becoming a director, I also found that I always subconsciously have a lot of distractions, such as paying attention to the placement of props and the performance status of the extras. This state of jumping in and out occasionally interferes with my concentration on the role, and I still have to break up the different work identities a little more.
An actor's vocation is to perform, and we always hope to create more possibilities for characters, which is a pursuit and a selfish heart. But the addition of the play is the finishing touch, and adding more is a bit redundant.
For example, in the scene where Gao Qiqiang and Gao Qisheng gave oranges to Chen Shuting, some viewers commented: "Ah Sheng's eyes seem to say: 'The future sister-in-law smiled.'" I felt that I should hold back a little more and not let the audience get a glimpse of the story from me too early. Acting is always a regrettable art, and I try not to let myself look back and save the better performance for the next character.
Actors may have this concern, once a certain type of character is made to the extreme, it will be difficult to tear off the label in the future, and Gao Qisheng is the same for me. To say that I have no worries about the future drama is really lying, and I don't want to become a Facebook actor myself. In the future, I still hope to try different characters, just like I often say to everyone on the live broadcast: "I can also play a good person." ”
I hope that the teams I will cooperate with in the future can be as serious and down-to-earth as the crew of "Crazy". Everyone should respect creation enough and pursue it in their hearts. For today's film and television industry, which is in desperate need of recovery, it is not easy to have someone willing to invest time and money. If the creator still copes with the minimum standards of work, it really can't be said.
【Text/Yichen】