May 1, 2023 | Total Issue 3222
Wang Xiang walked into this season after he was laid off. In 97, he was a very bottom-lived person, and after being laid off, he walked into this season, became helpless, absurd, and the destruction of his family behind him had something to do with his kind of anxiety, I think.
"We are all Van der Biao, but to different degrees", people who can find prototypes in life, this kind of people are easy for people to remember. There are Impressionist paintings, Impressionist music, and maybe "Impressionist Performances", and I will put the words and deeds of life into the plot, and the characters made up out of thin air are always not so interesting.
We are slow and meticulous, and I am not in a hurry, little by little from my youth to now.
"The Long Season" has a Douban score of 9.3, which is the hottest and most well-known suspense drama at the moment.
When the play started, Fan Wei was filming another play, afraid of jumping the scene, he did not follow the drama synchronously, but just asked the people around him from time to time what step the plot was. But before the broadcast, when we sent him an interview invitation, he was very optimistic about the show, and he also reversed Amway, although he didn't know "who the bad guy is and how it ends".
No matter the filming method and style of the story, the director's refreshing quality control ability, or the competition of the leading actors, Fan Wei feels that "The Long Season" "should be a good thing".
The protagonist of "The Long Season" is Wang Xiang, a northeastern man who is frustrated after being laid off, a kind of person that Fan Wei is familiar with. His father, brother, and Uncle Wang, a grade eight craftsman in the alley, are all "Wang Xiang" at different stages and to different degrees.
"Fan Wei YYDS", after watching the play, the audience used this sentence to express their reverence and longing for Fan Wei's uniqueness. Over the years, Fan Wei has made only a handful of dramas, but more and more audiences love him. It is no exaggeration to say that eight out of ten young people are "biao scholars" and regard Fan Debiao, the number one ruthless man in northern Liaoning, as a spiritual idol.
Director Xin Shuang is no exception, he said that he watches "Ma Dashuai" every day, and he also loves to wear the same skull red sweatshirt of Van Debiao. "Long Season" was called "Fan Debiao's parallel universe" by many netizens, and the character played by Qin Hao is called Gong Biao, Wang Xiang's brother-in-law, and even "Gui Ying" and "Victoria" also appear in the play.
If you do not forget, there will be an echo. Fan Wei's role as Wang Xiang in "The Long Season" is a kind of "echo" that has been waiting too long for TV series audiences and Biao fans.
The following is Fan Wei's account.
It hit it off with Xinshuang
In the summer of 2021, Xin Shuang talked to me once, when he took the story called "Winter Blade", writing about the winter father looking for the real murderer for his son, a very smooth and tragic story, and later Xin Shuang wanted to shoot the opposite.
He wants to use the warmer autumn to tell a relatively cold story, wants to tell a suspenseful thing in a humorous life tone, and reflects his inner suffering with Wang Xiang's attitude to old age. After listening to it, I felt that I liked this tune, and I didn't want to follow the performance, so I hit it off.
Half a year later, he came out of the script, the ending was still polished, and we started shooting.
The autumn in the northeast is just a few days, not even less than a month, and we have to shoot this scene for more than three months, and Kunming has always been such a season. In the middle of November 2021, we went to Kunming to shoot, and we crossed the New Year. The cornfield in the play was planted in advance in Xishuangbanna, and Kungang is also particularly like the steel mill in the northeast, so that the sense of industry is more appropriate and the season is more appropriate.
Shooting the scene of elderly makeup will make me feel a little bottomless. My first scene with elderly makeup was the scene with Wang Bei in the supermarket, and I teased him and asked him to go to Beijing to study or something. After I finished asking the director how he felt, he said it was distressing.
This is a cheerful scene, it is distressing to watch, and I have a better bottom. Because I am especially afraid of laughing and funny all day, and I can't achieve the feeling of distress, that's not right, the main tone of Wang Xiang's old age is to make people feel distressed.
This play is divided into several time stages, when filming in 97, the mentality is completely different from 98, the basic logic is that 97 years were not laid off very confident, 98 years is very anxious, there is a northeastern saying that although the heart is bottomless, but still have to support, called "donkey does not fall down", is the state of 98.
By the time he reached old age in 2016, Wang Xiang became very complicated.
In 2016, I divided myself into several stages: before the real murderer who killed my son did not return, Wang Xiang treated Gong Biao as a brother-in-law, with good car skills and mature people; Then something happened to Xiao Lu, he felt very sorry for Gong Biao and Xiao Lu, and began to become weak; Then he found that he could not solve these things, and when he asked for help, he would be even more humble; And when he himself fights alone, it is another state.
"Wang Xiang, I'm too familiar"
Wang Xiang, I am too familiar, whether it is for this role or his energy.
In the past, in our northeast alleys, there were many such northeastern masters. Just like my father and my brother, they are all employees of the Shenyang state-owned factory, my brother took over my father's class, and then my brother was laid off and sold bud rice. He went to the vegetable market to order corn, came back to cook it, and then sold it out, earning 5 cents more per ear.
I felt that their things, that feeling, I had experienced it vividly, and I could see and touch it.
At that time, I was not famous, and I didn't have any extra income, just a very ordinary comedian in Shenyang. I also sold bud rice for my brother, I think I can shout better than him, wear a mask to sell in winter, at that time everyone was fine, and there were more people selling bud rice than buying bud rice.
Wang Xiang is a train driver, which is a bit like a factory craftsman, which is amazing.
When I was a child, there was such a man in our alley, Uncle Wang, an eighth-grade craftsman, who was older than my father, ate a small stove at home, and every day for breakfast, a mooncake, a poached egg, and a glass of milk. My father earned more than 40 yuan at that time, Uncle Wang earned three times that of my father, he was a big craftsman, and the conditions at home were naturally much better than ours, and he was also a skilled craftsman in the hutong, the master of Pan Kang, who was particularly high in our minds.
I have a special feeling for this kind of role that has archetypes in life, including the tone of his speech to his wife and children.
"The Long Season" is indeed writing about Wang Xiang, but I think Wang Xiang entered this season since he was laid off.
In 1997, he was a very bottom-alive person, and since he was laid off, he walked into this season, became helpless and absurd, and the destruction of his family behind him has something to do with his kind of anxiety, I think it is not unrelated.
Why did the director finally let Wang Xiang become like this, because his mind is too heavy, he has experienced too many things, and the gap is also large, Wang Xiang is not as pure as Gong Biao or Ma Desheng, as long as he takes off. Contrary to his youthful appearance, he is plain on the surface but turbulent in his heart, in order to find the real murderer of his son, he is particularly controlling himself, very forbearing, and is a complex and multi-faceted person.
Wang Xiang's last line was a sentence he said to his youth, probably meaning don't look back, from that moment he was out of the season.
"It's worth it"
I haven't made much TV for a long time.
Relatives and friends at home asked me: What are you doing? I said filming. They asked, why can't you act? Because they don't watch movies either, I want to go through the drama and get angry, so that everyone can see me often.
Before it was really a TV series, the amount of lines was large, on page shooting, how many pages must be completed every day, otherwise the cost will not work, and the physical strength is a little unable to keep up. But I didn't think so much about "The Long Season".
The 12 episodes of this drama were filmed for more than three months, and it was not easy to play the role of Wang Xiang, and it took 5 hours to draw old age makeup at the beginning. We started at 4:30, and then we could draw in 4 and a half hours, and we got up at 5. Because the amount of drama is very large, we are also very detailed, and when we make up, we basically sleep while painting, and wake up when we need to cooperate.
During the filming process, we always remained excited, went back for half a day and couldn't sleep, and got up again without waiting for anything, especially tired. Wang Xiang's different levels of experience and emotional division are also very consuming, really gritting his teeth, feeling that this drama is worth it, and he should do it so hard.
Whether it is Xin Shuang's control on the scene, or the actors and photography, everyone is quite competitive. So I think it should be a good thing. Of course, the finishing touch is the hardest. Xin Shuang is a very smart person. In fact, people should be smart, easy not to be diligent, he is smart and hardworking, I think this is too rare.
After we finished talking about the script, he began to write the script and prepare, and when I saw him again in Yunnan, he was like a dish, he couldn't sleep for a few hours a day, filming, repairing the script, and figuring out the plot possibilities, and the face of this dish was until he finally finished.
He told me that three years ago, "Hidden Corner" was a story of three children, and this time "Long Season" filmed the story of three old people, and wrote the story through the perspective of three old people. You can see that he is very thoughtful, not the kind of person who takes it and shoots.
He is a post-80s generation, and the texture of life in our time cannot be found if it is not sensitive and careless. For example, for a family of five, it is 5 chairs at a round table to eat, and guests come to the family and need to borrow chairs. It stands to reason that people born in the 80s rarely have this kind of life experience, but he does not miss any details, he can grasp it.
There is a kind of drama that everyone will easily ignore, that is, the play of the extras. The director is easy to put all his energy on a few leading actors, and the extras behind are particularly unsuitable, and the audience looks very awkward, especially for more sensitive people like us. But this kind of thing is definitely not lost at all, he is very clean for the play, this young man I think he will have a great future in the future.
Still, Van der Biao
Xin Shuang is a "horse fan" and "Biao fan", someone dug up his photo, he once took a photo wearing a cultural shirt printed with Van Debiao's head, so there are many such intertexts in "The Long Season", including Gong Biao's character.
I remember a young man who liked Van Debiao and said that "we are all Van Debiao, but to different degrees", which I think makes sense.
Van Debiao is the advantages and disadvantages of all tell you, often people say that Van Debiao pretends, in fact, Van Debiao is the least able to pretend, or it can be said that he is using the way of pretending to tell everyone "I am not a pretend person", he is very real, this is obvious.
I remember that in the past there was a series of movies in Japan called "The Story of Shinjiro", and one character played more than 40 films. Everyone may find themselves in Shinjiro, so they like such little people. There is also a saying that in the 80s, when the Japanese were under pressure and anxiety, they felt particularly depressed when they looked at such a small person who repeatedly lost battles. I think Van Debiao also has a bit of this healing effect.
Including Li Baoku, the medicine box in "Liu Laogen", is also the kind of person I can find the prototype in life, this kind of person is easy for people to remember.
Later, I said that there were impressionist paintings, impressionist music, whether there were also "impressionist performances", or words and deeds in life, and I put it in the plot. The kind of characters made up out of thin air are not so interesting.
Sometimes I've been working or staying in Beijing, but I actually have to come and walk. Let's say I'm working in a small place right now, and we go to the supermarket to buy something, and then my assistant is checking out and buying whole packs of tomatoes, not in bulk. The cashier at the checkout has nothing to do, just say why do you buy this, do not buy bulk, it's all the same thing; After that, I said that you can obviously carry it in your bag, so I have to buy another convenience bag.
A character like this, you can't find it when you sit at home, she doesn't make herself earn more, but plans for you. The people in this kind of life are particularly interesting.
Rush may be absurd, slow may have good results
I crosstalk from elementary school. I always feel that my talent for acting is better than crosstalk, because crosstalk needs to be a little bit of the actor's true charm.
I especially don't like to go out to participate in activities and chat, today I am talking about topics that I am familiar with, I seem to have some words, unfamiliar topics, I will not talk at all. I put all the sensitivity and cognition of life in the characters, but I am indeed a more stuffy person in life.
When I was a child, I said crosstalk, I took the crosstalk script, memorized it and said it on stage, in fact, it is not called crosstalk, then play crosstalk. The real crosstalk is: I go to the stage, there is no script, I can make the audience happy, I am not like that.
By chance, God gave me another opportunity to act in a sketch, and I think it's much better for me to act in a sketch than I say crosstalk, because the core of the sketch is the character. As soon as I got into the characters, everything went wrong. Whether it is my aesthetic tendency or personal personality, I am more willing to play a character seriously.
The sketch does not mean that at this moment I am acting in comedy, I must make everyone happy, I find that I play this character seriously to the extreme, he is also ridiculous, which helps me again. Later, in the period of film and television works, it was necessary to strictly portray the character of a character, and I also used this method.
The performance of a good actor is nothing more than two kinds, one is methodological, the logical design from beginning to end is very strict, and the other is "rushed". This is a bit like an old driver on a new road, someone is on the road beforehand, look at the route, understand it before going on the road; Some are rushing away, and it counts where to go. I don't think it's good or bad or high or low, depending on the different characters, some need to be tight, and some can be a little more casual.
Fan Debiao is that after the character is possessed, he is Biao, and there are many improvisational things. But Wang Xiang, I think it really needs to be a little more thorough.
I'm more sensitive to comedy, and I find that the current group of comedians has a different way of acting, they are more relaxed, and there is not much stylization.
Their performance is like Guo Degang said crosstalk, why the audience likes it, he doesn't have much stylized things about crosstalk in the past. For example, shake the baggage, in the past, before shaking the baggage, you must strengthen the tone, tell you that you are going to shake the baggage, and then the audience has expectations. Then Guo Degang came directly, you are happy when you are happy, and if you are not happy, I am not a burden.
This is what I feel from the young comedians and will give us a wake-up call. Our wave of actors sometimes pay too much attention to the logic of the characters, and invisibly bind themselves a little. I have made this mistake in the past, my son also likes this industry, there is nothing to watch what I play, once he said to me, Dad, you think too much about this role, think too carefully. In fact, others make this very simple, obviously you don't match the overall style.
There may be people who like me because of Van Debiao, some because of sketches, and some because of movies, I think this may be divided into age groups. For example, when I was eating in the south, a child knew me because of "Broken Bridge", why? Because he likes Wang Junkai, he met me by watching Wang Junkai, which is really interesting.
We are slow and meticulous, and I am not in a hurry, little by little from my youth to now.
I wasn't in a hurry when I was younger, because I started quite low. In 1978, he learned crosstalk, later acted in sketches, cooperated with Big Brother Benshan, and went to the Central Stage Spring Festival Gala, which was slightly better, it was 1995, and many years have passed.
I think whether you are a smart actor or not so smart actor, don't worry, don't worry, if you are in a hurry, you will be ridiculous. Focus on one thing, grind slowly, and in the end it is really possible that the result is good.
【Text/Flying Fish】