"Three-Body Problem" casting, "willful" brings surprise|Dialogue with Yiya Media Li Meng

Interview | Meat Pine Cloud

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"Before watching the play, I felt that there was a problem with the casting of Dashi, and after watching the drama version, I felt that Dashi's appearance and Yu Hewei were not like Liu Cixin's problem."

——This is the true feeling of many "Three-Body Problem" book fans after watching the live-action series, and Liu Cixin's authority as the "master" has loosened.

Before the release of the "Three-Body Problem" series, book fans' imagination of Shi Qiang was strong and rough and even full of flesh, but Yu Hewei, who did not have a beard and was not strong, made Yu Hewei, who was probably the most demanding original fan in the world, believe that a veteran who participated in the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam, a friend who can be trusted and relied on by Wang Miao and Luo Ji, should be full of relaxation, and even a little cute.

Book fans also intimately added character biographies to the big history of the series:

A grassroots cadre who does not live a rich life is difficult to achieve long-term five major and three rough because of the lack of sufficient protein intake and systematic exercise.

Similarly, Chang Weisi's connection with the "wall-breaker" Lin Yongjian, and Wang Ziwen's leap from Qu Xiaoxiao to Ye Wenjie, are convincing.

For China's most well-known sci-fi IP, the fit of the character image is a red line, but Yiya Media's "willfulness" in the casting of the "Three-Body Problem" series has produced a wonderful chemical reaction.

One morning in the early spring of 2023, we met Li Meng, the founder of Yiya Media, a casting director who "left home halfway", a former reporter who likes to use martial arts novels as analogies, and talked to her about Shi Qiang, Ding Yi, Ye Wenjie, and also about how a casting team with many female members went from the sensational "Chen Qingling" to the industry's attention "Three-Body Problem", she said:

"Step by step, nothing is difficult."

The following is a transcript of the conversation:

On the casting of "The Three-Body Problem": "More willful"

Entertainment Capital: How did the cooperation with "The Three-Body Problem" begin?

Li Meng: We received the project information from the producer in the early autumn of 2019.

There are many young girls in our company, and the works we have served in the past are relatively based on women's perspectives, which includes the market's judgment on us. At the same time, we have a certain confidence in our own work ability and ability to understand the content, so we hope that there is an opportunity for more people to see the diversity of our team's casting types, so that we will have more opportunities to cooperate in the future.

So when the "Three-Body Problem" project came, we were really happy. But the original work is too famous, although the "big IP" is often discussed in the industry, but it can really reach the national orientation - say this work you know, in fact, there are not many, the audience of the science fiction category is relatively vertical, so we are also very cautious.

Entertainment Capital: This project has the participation of Three-Body Universe (copyright party), Tencent Video (platform), and Linghe Culture (producer), how to divide labor in the matter of casting, and what did Yiya do?

Li Meng: The work of the platform, director, copyright owner, and producer is at the forefront, and the work of our team is also very early to intervene to discuss the selection work, including the core role. (This is true in all the projects we work on.) Whether it is the copyright owner, the platform, the director, the producer, everyone has given us a lot of space, let us imagine freely, and firmly support us to achieve some "more willful" choices, which is difficult, so we are very grateful to them.

Our working habit is to read the script carefully after getting the project, because many details of the characters are difficult to fully reflect in the outline and biography, but from the lines between the lines and the inertia of the action, based on these we make character portraits, this important process, determines whether the casting is 60 points or 90 points.

In some previous projects, on the basis of the completion of the preliminary work, we usually discussed with the main creator once or twice and basically reached a consensus on the direction. But "The Three-Body Problem" is special, and there may be six or seven free discussions in the wild. Science fiction dramas are a very new category in China, so our thinking is very wide and even a little wild, in addition to point-to-point casting, but also to consider whether it can be coordinated with others, after six to seven rounds of discussion, everyone's opinions are basically unanimous, and a tacit understanding has been formed in the work.

This running-in process is precious.

Entertainment Capital: In terms of the new genre of science fiction, what difficulties have you encountered in casting?

Li Meng: The platform, director and producer have repeatedly emphasized: "This project is done by word of mouth", which is also the consensus of the whole team, so every actor, whether young or senior, must be really a powerful person with acting skills.

Like some mature drama types, everyone has a certain clear concept of the casting direction, and then implements it to the actors, but the audience's impression of the sci-fi drama has not actually formed a conclusion. "The Three-Body Problem" is majestic and thought-provoking, but specific to the rigorous scientist Wang Miao, the thick and thin police history, the original book does not describe their appearance much, and the power of the text is more to give readers imagination space, so when it is necessary to visualize these characteristics into film and television images, it is a difficult point.

Entertainment Capital: Yu Hewei starred in Shi Qiang and contributed a surprising performance, how was this decision completed?

Li Meng: This involves the trade-off between "god-like or like-like". At the beginning of my casting, I discussed with the team and came to the conclusion that "The Three-Body Problem" I hope is a process of "God in front and shape in motion".

Mr. Yu Hewei is the "Great History" jointly selected and recognized by platform producers Mr. Huang Xing, Mr. Wang Tiexian, director Yang Lei, producer Mr. Bai Yiqing, producer Ms. Cai Jia, copyright party Jiaqi, and leaders. Then the suitability of the actor himself and this image that I personally understand is not whether he has a beard, or a rough body, in the combination of Wang Miao and Shi Qiang, Wang Miao has been advancing the plot under great pressure, Shi Qiang not only solves problems with him, but also needs to provide a relaxed balance, which is what we understand.

There are many excellent actors, and every actor teacher has characteristics that others cannot replace, and Mr. Yu Hewei's natural sense of relaxation in the performance is very rare, which makes us believe that Dashi should be what he is.

Entertainment Capital: In the choice of Ding Yi (Wang Chuanjun) and Chang Weisi (Lin Yongjian), are there any expectations for the subsequent public opinion response?

Li Meng: Teacher Wang Chuanjun is very personal, so if we want the role of Ding Yi to be unique, he is the best choice.

At that time, the director mentioned that he felt that Mr. Wang Chuanjun had a feeling that could be called persistence or tenacity, and he had a state of forgetfulness when he drilled into a certain field. I very much agree with the director's point of view, in my own words, sometimes it can be called "idiot", of course, this is a very positive evaluation, people often say literary idiot, martial idiot, he is a drama idiot, and the Ding Yi he plays is a "physics idiot" (laughs).

For the role of Chang Weisi, many people's first impression may be some actors and teachers who often play the image of soldiers. But I hope this role can be a little different.

Before I became an actor, I was a reporter and did an interview with Mr. Lin Yongjian, so I have a certain understanding of him off the screen, and in real life, he has a very meticulous, serious, and calm side, so I believe this role can allow him to show this side. I cautiously raised it at the symposium, and the director and several leaders of the collaborators felt that this was an interesting idea, and it was very valuable to realize it, and it was basically a hammer on the head. Thanks again for their tolerance and support of my "willfulness" (laughs).

Entertainment Capital: I just talked about male characters, but in "The Three-Body Problem", two generations of Ye Wenjie are very important, how did Chen Jin and Wang Ziwen decide to star?

Li Meng: Combined with the script and the original work, the audience's first reaction to female characters is actually to look like them, which is the natural difference in the market's cognition of male actors and actresses.

After reading the script, my feeling for Ye Wenjie is: under the thin and slender body and calm appearance, there is unlimited explosive power.

With the direction, you can have a target when casting, and find the person we want in a straight line, and the old Ye Wenjie found Teacher Chen Jin under such circumstances.

After the appearance is determined, the explosiveness and performance are closely related, director Yang Lei and Teacher Wang Ziwen have cooperated on other projects, know her well, once proposed, it has been unanimously recognized by everyone, and Teacher Wang Ziwen has become "Young Ye Wenjie". In addition, in the process of styling and setting makeup, the two actors are very similar in image and figure, and you can very much believe that this is a person's "past life" and "present life" in different time and space.

Entertainment Capital: There are also new characters such as Mu Xing and Xu Dongdong in the "Three-Body Problem" series, how to choose outside the original work?

Li Meng: First of all, original characters are produced at the script creation stage, so they are very in line with the standards of film and television production, and we can also get more specific character descriptions, so the casting work will be relatively easy.

The script characters and the novel characters serve different forms of literary and artistic works. The imagination of literary works is larger and more abstract, such as the description of the "blade-like temperament" in the novel, readers can understand it however they want, but the script serves the figurative image, and it will use the characters' speech and behavior and various details to tell the audience that this person is standing here like a knife, which may be specific to whether it is like the Green Dragon Moon Knife or the Sky Sword Dragon Slaying Knife (laughs).

Entertainment Capital: In the past two years, some "anti-hero" characters such as Ye Wenjie and Gao Qiqiang have appeared in domestic dramas, how to deal with this part of the casting work?

Li Meng: The following views are only my personal opinions.

We often say that "everyone is their own hero", and the so-called "anti-hero" may refer to the fact that the character is not necessarily a tall and complete image, but to characterize the character, I think it mainly depends on how to choose at the end of the story. Ye Wenjie has experienced too many things in her life, and anyone who has such an experience will have a certain impact on her future personality or behavior, and if her final choice is in line with the public's conventional cognition, then I think it is positive.

Whether the audience used to like to watch the flawless tall and complete image, or today they are willing to watch characters with some real human weaknesses, I think there is actually no departure from the mainstream viewing aesthetic. As a casting team, we don't critique the characters, so that doesn't affect the work itself.

Entertainment Capital: This drama has a long shooting cycle and a large amount of engineering, what interesting facts and experiences can be shared?

Li Meng: Our team, each group of leaders has been following the group from the preliminary preparation to the finalization, and I hope that the team can always take the route of being excellent, refined, and not greedy for more.

With The Three-Body Problem, we spanned almost half of a map of China. The crew started in Ningbo, and successively went to Hengdian, Zhangjiakou and other places, and finally finished in Heilongjiang, the winter in the northeast was too cold, even reaching more than minus 40 degrees, our colleagues once froze the soles of their shoes, both for this group and for our entire company, it is an experience worth remembering.

Another highlight is about motion capture. We had done a relatively large esports project before, and I myself worked as a producer on the show. Because that show involved characters in the game, it used some of the most advanced motion capture techniques at the time. So I went through the motion capture process completely, so our team also had a relatively early contact with the casting team of motion capture technology in China, and also understood the whole process better. Therefore, when doing "The Three-Body Problem", communication and cooperation are relatively smooth and efficient.

Talk about group dramas:

How many people the audience can remember is the decisive factor

Entertainment Capital: There are many characters in "The Three-Body Problem", how to understand the group drama, what should I pay attention to in casting?

Li Meng: Personally, I don't really make such strict distinctions.

If you look at the amount of drama and the number of scenes alone, there is indeed a relatively clear ratio, Wang Miao, Shi Qiang, and Ye Wenjie in "The Three-Body Problem" have a very heavy role, as for why everyone sees it as a group drama, I think there are three reasons:

First of all, there is no "waste person" in the work, each character is an indispensable part of the big world, all have value, in our words, called "portrayed", do a good job of the function of the character;

Second, based on the director's skills, each character can be discovered in a limited appearance to highlight or feature, so that people can remember;

Third, I think it has a certain relationship with our casting team, take each role seriously, in order to achieve the selected characters "one by one", if everyone comes out to act well, solid and do every scene, the audience will remember Ta.

Therefore, whether the series can be presented as a "group portrait" depends on how many people the audience remembers.

Entertainment Capital: Can people remember that actor's popularity is also an influencing factor, how to do it to the maximum?

Li Meng: To make the group portrait as a whole outstanding, supporting roles are very important, but the overall cost of actors is boundary, and the matching of work and remuneration is ultimately determined by the market, so the question becomes: how do we find the most suitable people as much as possible within a reasonable budget.

Some actor teachers have not become national stars, not because Ta's image or performance is not good enough, but Ta's image or performance will be more specialized in roles in a certain direction, and these roles may not be on the main line of traditional and conventional film and television dramas, so there will be such a saying as "golden supporting role".

In addition to the choice of the market, actors will also have their own positioning, and suitability and popularity are actually in two dimensions. For example, in our country, many people like the image of serving the country and the people, and they will naturally become the protagonists, but some actors may be good at playing Ouyang Feng (laughs).

This kind of sophisticated, complex personality, good and evil characters, in our mainstream work shaping, sometimes it is difficult to become the protagonist, but such roles as a supporting role is indispensable, so the actors and teachers who are good at this type of role performance are what we call not necessarily stars but absolutely "suitable" people.

Entertainment Capital: So in the group drama project, is it a single point of confirmation or priority for combination?

Li Meng: First go according to the role, and then do a group portrait combination.

I am used to the first step of looking at the characters point-to-point, which is equivalent to the audition, and I hope that everyone will open their minds in the early stage, of course, this is based on reading through the script and doing a good job of character portraits, and in the process of reading, it is necessary to timely circle the places that are not understood or doubtful enough to communicate with the film.

For example, a character starts out as a 14-year-old boy and becomes a monarch at 16, but his story is in the same vein, which raises the question of whether to split into two actors. In fact, there is a great difference between a 14-year-old child and a 16-year-old teenager, he develops and grows, and his image will be closer to that of an adult, but if he changes people, will the audience feel uncomfortable watching the drama? After all, the age span of the characters is not large, so it is also necessary to consider everyone's habits and continuity of watching the drama. Therefore, we will all raise these questions early in the script and discuss them with the main creators in advance.

Each character is indispensable on the board, and subsequent information gaps can easily be magnified into a series of problems, so we will definitely communicate all the details in advance. As for the standard process of collecting massive data, it is relatively mature, and the difficulty factor of group portraits will be a little greater, because there are more candidates and people to coordinate, but our projects over the years have basically been group portrait dramas, and there are few single-line runs.

Entertainment Capital: In 2019, there was a "reshuffle" in the casting industry, and last year the film and television industry as a whole was shrinking, 8 years into the industry, 6 years since the establishment of Yiya Media, what are your feelings?

Li Meng: I entered the industry in the fall of 2014, from a journalist to an actor planner, at that time can be regarded as the first year of domestic online dramas, my first project as an actor planner, is still regarded as a representative work of domestic online dramas "Heartless Mage", such a high-flying career opening, I often feel very lucky, thank me very much for giving me the opportunity to lead a project boss as an actor planner on the third day of entering the industry. 8 years, not long or short, I want to thank many people along the way, because every producer, director, and project leader of the platform is very inclusive, they will take care of my creation, which also allows my team to try something new when serving each play.

In the casting industry, creation and service do not conflict, casting work requires both mental and physical strength, and what really needs to be balanced is wild imagination and actual execution. Putting aside business and the market, talking about creation, literature, literature and art is one way of talking, but if it is placed in the market framework, it is another way of talking, and how to make all parties satisfied, you need to work hard and use your brains.

We, as the nerve endings of the industry, must have a very obvious perception of market changes, and the current situation in the industry has been relatively transparent, and everyone's attitude towards change is quite calm. It's normal for any industry to have volatility. When the industry is booming, we must first work hard to do things, and secondly, we must be prepared for danger in peacetime, so that we can deal with it calmly in the relatively flat stage of the industry.

Maybe the number of overall projects in the industry is tightening today, so I can only ask employees to work hard to improve their business quality and teach everyone lessons from time to time, instead of asking "How can this be done?" every day? When will it pick up? Step by step, nothing is difficult.

In this industry, so many people are optimistic and carrying the pressure to move forward, why are you not optimistic as one of them?

At present, the projects we have in reserve are still very diversified, including fairy tales, martial arts, youth and blood, realism, and there are also road dramas that are rare in China before. The success of "The Three-Body Problem" has indeed made our team better in all aspects, and also made the industry more clearly see our capabilities and our suitability with diversified project types, which has accumulated more possibilities for our company's subsequent project development.

In fact, whether it is following the trend or going against the trend, our company has been working hard in recent years, and the entire casting industry has gradually been recognized by more people, I hope that everyone in our company can do a decent job in a decent environment. For the sake of this down-to-earth and gradually realized ideal, I am willing to work for it optimistically.