She was the first Chinese entertainer to appear on the cover of Time Magazine, known as the "Chinese Nightingale"; She has a high status in the entertainment industry, and is the only actor in China who starred in a film and won the highest award at the three major European international film festivals; When all the Internet celebrities squeezed their heads on the Cannes red carpet, she enjoyed exclusive clearance treatment and became the queen of the spotlight.
She is Gong Li.
In the Chinese entertainment industry, there are many actors known as Hua Dan, but Gong Li is honored as "Gong Huang", not only because of her honor of being proud, but also because of her powerful aura, which comes from her self-confidence and her perseverance.
Gong Li was born in 1965 to an intellectual family in Liaoning Province and moved to Jinan with her parents when she was less than a year old. As the youngest daughter in the family, Gong Li is very favored, she likes to sing and dance since she was a child, and is the backbone of the school's art team.
Gong Li tried to pass several art schools, but they all failed, and her parents saw that their daughter hit a wall one after another, and did not want her to continue to take the road of art, and the helpless Gong Li could only work and study at the same time. It was also at this time that Gong Li met Yin Dawei, his enlightenment teacher in performance.
Yin Dawei saw Gong Li's talent and taught her to act, and in 1985, Gong Li took the college entrance examination again, this time the professional class passed, but the cultural class was 11 points behind. Fortunately, there is no way to be invincible, and the teachers of the admissions team of the Central Academy of Drama are very talented, and specially report to their superiors to admit Gong Li in a breakthrough.
When Gong Li was in school, Zhang Yimou cast for his first movie "Red Sorghum", and Gong Li happened to be out of school and missed this opportunity. And Zhang Yimou also quickly settled on the heroine, Shi Ke, who has a plump figure. But the Chinese opera teacher tried his best to recommend Gong Li to Zhang Yimou and won an audition opportunity for her.
After comparing the two people, Gu Changwei thought that Shi Ke's eyes were too clever, unlike Jiu'er, who had a resolute and stubborn personality, but Gong Li's eyes, which impressed him deeply. After many discussions, Gong Li was successfully selected, but she was also under great pressure.
"Red Sorghum" is Gong Li's first film, and Zhang Yimou also attaches great importance to it, taking the whole crew to grow sorghum in high density and experience life.
In order to play this role well, Gong Li worked in the field every day, fetched water and planted sorghum, and when the left shoulder was swollen, he changed it to the right, a flat burden, and was picked out by Gong Li for Jiu'er's soul, picked into the Berlin International Film Festival, and successfully won the Golden Bear Award.
During the filming of "Qiu Ju Fights the Lawsuit", Gong Li, who could not speak Shaanxi dialect, lived in the village for two months, ate and lived with the villagers, washed her hair with washing powder every day, deliberately made her hair frizzy, wore a red cotton jacket and a green scarf, and the villagers who did not know her still thought that she was a relative of whose family, and many people did not recognize Gong Li when the movie was released.
With the release of "Red Sorghum", "Qiu Ju Lawsuit" and "Ju Dou", Gong Li's image of a village girl is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and many people criticize Gong Li for looking dirty, temperamental, and not good-looking.
But they ignored that the year before "Qiu Ju Fights the Lawsuit", Gong Li's role as Ruxian in "Gambler 2" was not only Ah Xing's dream lover, but also hit the audience's heart.
Appearance does not bind Gong Li, immersive experience is Gong Li's most basic requirements for her acting, she never feels that she is talented, only believes that diligence can make up for it.
During the filming of "Ju Dou", Gong Li came to rural Anhui, dressed in local clothes and worked with them. In order to be close to Ju Dou in thought, she always maintained a suppressed and heavy mood throughout the filming, and after filming this movie, she became dark and thin, seriously ill, as if she and Ju Dou, through her bumpy life road.
When filming "Memoirs of a Geisha", her single fan swing was enough to make the audience believe that she was Kyoto's first red geisha. In this short few seconds of footage, Gong Li practiced for 5 months, and he had to throw 2,000 times a day, which was the amazing thing about this breath.
White bone essence is the character who is farthest away from Gong Li, in the movie, the white bone essence is abandoned under the cliff, gnawed into white bones by vultures, collected the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, and was cultivated into a demon by the essence of the sun and the moon. In her heart, people are more terrifying than monsters, so she eats Tang monks just to be a demon in the world.
In order to play Bai Bone Essence well, Gong Li spent 3 months figuring out the script and figuring out the role. The body of the white bone essence is a white bone, and she can't breathe, so throughout the movie, the audience can't see Gong Li having any gasping movements.
Lang Ping in "Winning the Championship" is the head coach of the Chinese women's volleyball team familiar to everyone in the country, and the difficulty of playing her can be imagined. Gong Li refused three times, but in the end he was moved by the spirit of never giving up.
In order to shape Lang Ping, Gong Li went to the women's volleyball training base and the competition site several months in advance, followed Lang Ping to carefully figure out her movements, demeanor, and tone, and even the small detail of Lang Ping's hunchback, she imitated exactly the same.
Even if it is filming magazines, Gong Li is as serious as filming. Ordinary artists shoot magazines, and it will be finished after filming on the same day, but Gong Li is very difficult to do. From fitting and shooting to the final copywriting, she took matters into her own hands until she confirmed that everything was fine. This is not Gong Li playing big names, just to be responsible for himself and the public.
The red carpet that everyone flocks to is just an affirmation of her acting skills and works in her eyes. Gong Li walked the Cannes red carpet 19 times and was jokingly called "Cannes' own daughter", a slightly ridiculous title that Gong Li bought with one work after another.
Many people call Gong Li the big heroine, as if her life has been a cool text, smooth and smooth, but only she knows how much suffering she has endured and how many tears she has swallowed.
When filming "Farewell My Concubine", my sister died of illness, and Gong Li did not take a day off and insisted on filming in the crew. This is her professional quality as an actress, and she must forget about Gong Li and devote herself to the role.
Gong Li has been debuting for 33 years, starring in 32 movies, with an average of only one a year, and the output is extremely low, but the movies she starred in have almost no bad films, no repeated roles, and thousands of faces.
She can be an opera celebrity, a charming geisha, a white bone demon, and a Tianshan child. Although Gong Li plays different roles, professions and personalities, there is always a sense of power in them, that is, the power of women.
Gong Li's eyes are always tough, her charm lies in the sense of strength, which is a heavy power, "the beauty of the earth mother" is a beauty that belongs to Gong Li alone, with both an unshakable momentum and compassion to see through the world.
On Gong Li's body, she never needed flaming red lips to set off her aura, and her every look and movement showed her heaviness as an actor. This heaviness comes from time, from confidence, and more from the work.