Wang Ziwen: It started with Qu Xiaoxiao, not only Ye Wenjie

"I'm quite bold, I don't worry about my own mistakes, I just think it's fun. ″

On the evening of February 3, "The Three-Body Problem" opened its early screening ceremony. Wang Ziwen charged 18 yuan and stayed up all night to watch the last ten episodes. Then, she sent a WeChat message to director Yang Lei: "I didn't expect you to shoot so well."

In the last ten episodes, the young Ye Wenjie, played by Wang Ziwen, went to the climax of the plot. When carrying others behind their backs to send signals into space, the audience in front of the screen is too nervous to breathe; When receiving the signal "don't answer", a tear in the corner of the eye carries the "weight" of the first discovery of extraterrestrial civilization; When she cut the rope between her husband and Political Commissar Lei, she had become the paranoid, cold and determined Ye Wenjie in the book.

For her experience, Ye Wenjie is not "acted", but she let herself become Ye Wenjie for a short time.

This work, shot two years ago, Wang Ziwen also chased up with the audience. This time, young Ye Wenjie received almost zero bad feedback.

Wang Ziwen told Entertainment Studio that she was happy, but not overly excited, and even felt that some of the comments were a little exaggerated, because it was just her job. Although there are regrets, this is already the best answer she can give Ye Wenjie at that time.

After the broadcast of "The Three-Body Problem", Wang Ziwen also began to think about whether his current self is no longer just an eccentric "Qu Xiaoxiao" in the hearts of the audience? Are there more bold choices for future roles?

Actor Wang Ziwen's masterpiece began with Qu Xiaoxiao, but no longer ended with Ye Wenjie.

Read Ye Wenjie

Wang Ziwen is the first person who comes to mind when Yang Lei, the director of the drama version of "The Three-Body Problem", looks for young Ye Wenjie.

The two are old friends who have worked together many times. Yang Lei knows that Wang Ziwen is an actor who relies extremely on reality, and she will not only play the words in the script, but will substitute herself into the role and experience the joys, sorrows and sorrows of the characters.

During a chat, Yang Lei handed Wang Ziwen an olive branch playing Ye Wenjie.

When he heard the news, Wang Ziwen's subconscious was: Who would want to miss such a rich role as Ye Wenjie, which all actors have dreamed of for a long time? At that moment, her desire for Ye Wenjie's interpretation far exceeded the pressure.

"Ye Wenjie's life ups and downs are very attractive to me, and such roles are very rare. My only pressure is that this character has an original book, and I don't know if the effect presented will be different from everyone's imagination. But I still believe that I can act well, so throughout the performance, I was not affected by the pressure and devoted myself to shooting every day. Wang Ziwen said.

In her heart, the actor must first understand the role, and then like it, otherwise it will be very screwed to act.

When he first read the book, Wang Ziwen understood that Ye Wenjie was timid, and there was a fierce beast in his heart that had not yet been awakened. But when she experienced the death of her father, the collapse of her physical beliefs, the betrayal of her relatives, and the betrayal of Bai Mulin, the beast began to gradually awaken. The courage in my heart gradually turned into paranoia, impulsivity and extremes in a perennial repressive environment.

Although she has played many powerful female roles, in the eyes of Wang Ziwen, Ye Wenjie's power is undoubtedly the greatest, because she has changed the fate of all mankind. In her eyes, the first part of "The Three-Body Problem" is like the story of a little girl declaring war on the whole world - when a small hand presses a red button, the fate of the entire human race is reversed in an instant.

Ye Wenjie's perspective cannot be simply judged by right and wrong, and what she does is not based on universal values. She did not want to destroy mankind, but she pinned her hopes for saving mankind on a civilized world that considered itself to be higher. In fact, she didn't know much about that world, but at that time, she felt that human beings were hopeless. Wang Ziwen said.

When performing, she always thinks that she is Ye Wenjie, and personally experiences the ups and downs of young Ye Wenjie's fate, disappointment in human nature, and a series of crazy actions later. When she played the Qi Jiatun part, she suddenly realized that when sadness accumulates to a certain concentration, the happiness here is so strong, and sadness is the incitement of happiness.

"Ye Wenjie is a very charming character, but she has always carried pain. So Ye Wenjie made me think that pain is a fascinating thing. ”

Interpret Ye Wenjie

Before acting in each scene, Wang Ziwen requires that he must understand the role thoroughly and is absolutely unambiguous.

Many times, she finds that what is written in scripts and novels is phenomena, such as where a person goes, he is running. Then she will think, why is this person doing this? Why run past instead of fast or slow? What is the motivation for the behavior? After rationalizing all the behaviors of the characters and rubbing them into her own body, she can accurately interpret them.

"I don't know what acting is, I don't think I have such skills, I only know how much I feel, how much I understand, how much I can transmit, this is something to eat into the body. I like to look at the problem and see the essence directly, so I like to perform the essence directly. ”

When filming the scene where Ye Wenjie's father died, there was no crying to the plot of "drawing wire". Wang Ziwen ran over to discuss with Yang Lei, saying that Ye Wenjie is a restrained person, but she should lose control once in the whole play, and this is the most suitable place.

After the boot, the director did not shout the card. As she acted, her emotions gradually accumulated, swelled, and finally naturally let out a scream. This undesigned part will make her feel more vivid and infectious.

This drama over and over again also achieved the famous scene of Ye Wenjie crying to "brush wire".

When filming the scene of cutting the rope, the narration of the elderly Ye Wenjie, played by Chen Jin, was: "Calm, without emotion, did it without hesitation." But Wang Ziwen felt that Ye Wenjie could not be completely calm at that time, after all, she was not a murderer, but she had to do this.

So, in the performance of this play, Wang Ziwen integrated Ye Wenjie's "emotions" that he experienced, that is, the tension and fear of killing for the first time. Her hand holding the knife slowed down for a moment, but the great determination made her continue to accelerate in the blink of an eye.

Some scenes from Ye Wenjie's home stadium, the Red Bank Base, were filmed in Heihe, Heilongjiang.

Heihe is located in the northernmost part of the motherland, and the days are extremely short, often dawning in the early morning and dark at 3 p.m. The crew can only get up early to shoot daytime scenes, greedy for indoor scenes, and finish work almost at four o'clock in the morning every day.

After twelve o'clock, the brain is in a state of exhaustion, but Wang Ziwen still has to memorize a lot of awkward physics lines, which is a physical and mental challenge for Wang Ziwen.

So, she thought of a way, that is, before memorizing the lines, she must first understand the theoretical logic of this line, and then crumple and chew it, and say it while drawing. Until now, Wang Ziwen can clearly describe the principle of Japanese interference in the play.

Now looking back at the play in the Heihe part, Wang Ziwen feels that his face has always been swollen, including the water and soil of southerners to the northeast, and the fatigue caused by "jet lag".

In December 2020, the lowest temperature in Heihe reached minus 27 degrees at one point.

In "1942", Wang Ziwen also filmed a cold winter scene, but the cold of Heihe and the cold of Henan are completely incomparable.

In order to protect against the cold, Wang Ziwen used almost all "high-tech" heating products, such as rechargeable heating underwear, rechargeable insoles and so on. Because ordinary heated insoles are completely useless in Heihe, only heated insoles with batteries tied to the neck of the feet will heat up. Relying on these electronic products, Wang Ziwencai "survived" in Heihe in December.

Such a real body feeling also helped Wang Ziwen transmit Ye Wenjie's sense of oppression to the extreme.

The "tender shell" of the heart

When Ye Wenjie was widely praised, Wang Ziwen received another good news from the big screen.

In January 2023, Wang Ziwen won the best actress at the 6th Pingyao International Film Festival with Jue Xiao in the movie "Gentle Shell".

For Wang Ziwen, this is also a new role challenge. When I first read the script, Wang Ziwen felt that the character was a girl who was crushed by life and couldn't help it, a little too ordinary, and even gave birth to the idea of discussing changing the script with the director.

But after the performance, Wang Ziwen felt how superficial he was at that time. Although Jue Xiao did not do anything thrilling, she carried the weight of ordinary people.

"She was an outcast by the world. She just wants the most ordinary life, trying to be accepted again and again, but it is still difficult. When she finally met Dai Chun, who could accept her, she experienced the feeling of being loved for the first time, which was a big reason for supporting her to live. But both of these people are marginal characters with mental illness, both are broken, so "Gentle Shell" is about the bitterness of human nature. ”

The consciousness that is riddled with holes in itself uses the strength of the whole body to heal another person and carry the lives of two people. Her gentleness became Dai Chun's shell against this world. And this is also the meaning of the title of the film "Gentle Shell".

Jue Xiao's profession in the film is manicurist. In order to interpret this role well, Wang Ziwen painted almost everyone's nails. Although she learned how to do nails in a few hours, what she wanted to experience more deeply was the professional characteristics of manicurists.

One is to hide yourself. Compared to other service industries that require a lot of talk, manicurists usually wear a mask and work alone, which is in line with Juxiao's taciturn personality and is also one of the few professions that can accept Juxiao.

The second is to have great patience. In a scene that is cut, the guest who does the nail art is on the phone. Her hand will be placed in front of her for a while, and then it will be withdrawn, and the manicurist needs to wait for the guest to finish the call. Sometimes the guest spends the manicure, and the manicurist has to clean up and redo it over and over again, but there is not a single line in the whole process.

When acting in this scene, Wang Ziwen thought that this situation had also occurred when she was doing nail art, which gave her another experience of the difficulty of this profession. Compared to Ye Wenjie, Juexiao carries the power of an ordinary woman. Wang Ziwen hopes that such a powerful consciousness can meet everyone in a season of spring blossoms and warm more people.

With the movie "Gentle Shell", Wang Ziwen won the best actress at the 6th Pingyao International Film Festival

From Qu Xiaoxiao to Ye Wenjie

In the past, there have been no set criteria for the role of Prince Anthology. Her method of judging is whether the character will make her heartwarm, excited, and full of interpretive desire at the present moment.

When she was a child, Wang Ziwen especially liked to live a family because it allowed her to try different roles in life: today she can be a noble princess, tomorrow she can be a hardworking Cinderella.

This has also become the reason why Wang Ziwen is obsessed with acting - from Qu Xiaoxiao in "Ode to Joy", Yang Shuhua in "The Chaser", Wu Aiai in "Animal Control", and Ye Wenjie in "The Three-Body Problem", Wang Ziwen has been challenging roles that make him curious.

She often laments that when she grows up, she finally plays professionally about living a family.

"I'm quite bold, I don't worry about my own mistakes, I just think it's fun. So this character also wants to try, that character also wants to challenge, has always been such an adventurous mentality. ”

Qu Xiaoxiao's success made Wang Ziwen enter the public's field of vision with eccentric characteristics. But playing this kind of role, more technical practice makes perfect, and the contrast with Wang Ziwen in life is great. Many people say that Wang Ziwen is like a macaron with sea salt flavor, and the taste is not sweet.

In the past, she didn't care about these labels. But with the appearance of Ye Wenjie, more viewers found that Wang Ziwen's plasticity seemed to be underestimated. She can be the lively and obedient Qu Xiaoxiao, and at the same time she can be the deep and forgiving Ye Wenjie.

The feedback from the market also made Wang Ziwen start to think, should he calmly think about what role is suitable for playing?

This question, now she has no answer. But for Wang Ziwen, who is "experiential", her way of thinking about problems is usually to do the things at hand in a down-to-earth manner. This Spring Festival, she has also been working, she does not like to let herself stop, the mobile life is her best class.

"My performance did not come to this state all of a sudden, but accumulated little by little through every attempt and effort. Maybe by Ye Wenjie's time, everyone feels that they are better than my previous roles, which is natural, because as long as you work hard, you will get better and better, and the role will become deeper and deeper as you mature in life. ”