The actor was helplessly reduced to a supporting role in a small production, what happened to internal entertainment?

In 2021, Zhang Songwen, who has not yet exploded, was interviewed once.

Speaking of 99.5% of Chinese actors, their incomes are extremely low, earning thousands of yuan in 4 months, and they are constantly squeezed and no one pays attention.

This sentence seems to have an element of exaggeration.

But if you really know the entertainment industry, you will know that this is actually a helpless fact.

Yes.

Today we decided not to talk about the 0.5% glossy.

Let's talk about a "zero-traffic actor".

Graduated from film school, debuted for 27 years, acted in popular works on the Internet, played well-known roles, won many actors, and even recently was compared with Zhang Yi because of a few minutes of scenes.

But most of the time, he still gets a salary of several thousand yuan and plays some dispensable supporting roles.

Few people know his name.

Once people mention him, they often only sit in those classic roles:

For example, the roaring dog in my childhood memory "Baolian Lantern".

or Fugui in Douban 9.5's "Fugui".

However, in the past two years, he has relied on Fei Jishi in "Tang Dynasty Tricks", Lao Mu in "Sauvignon Blanc", and "Victim's Father" in "Three Teams" to break into our field of vision again and again.

Even in the online drama "19th Floor", which is being broadcast, we can see it, although he doesn't have many scenes.

But it has always exuded brilliance.

Today, Sir would like to formally introduce:

He is actor Chen Chuang.

In him, we see more than just a story of struggle.

can see the other side of the absurd and little-known in this entertainment industry.

01

Why do you want to talk about Chen Chuang? Of course, it's because his drama is better, better than most of the protagonists on the market.

Even when we look back at Chen Chuang's experience.

You will intuitively feel that he is always doing the same thing: making the impossible possible.

How so?

For example, is there anyone who can put a dog on a good show?

Sounds ridiculous.

But Chen Chuang can.

He once played a role that was both easy to play and difficult to play: the roaring dog in "Baolian Lantern".

The reason why it is good is that such a comedic role doesn't really need much acting skills, just need to act according to the dog's behavior step by step.

Just like Chen Chuang's interpretation in the play, he shrugged his nose when he sniffed something, and enjoyed his face when he was touched by the owner, which captured the essence of dog behavior.

This is something that most mature actors can do.

But if that's all there is to it.

I'm afraid this character won't leave a deep impression on our memories, after all, the roaring dog in this show is only a very small supporting role.

According to today's words, the top ten are not in the top ten.

So what Chen Chuang grasped was that in such a comedy role, its sense of tragedy was highlighted.

Under its arrogant coat, it is actually the foundation of the word "loyalty", this kind of "loyalty" is not that I will follow you if you are good to me, but that I believe that all the decisions you make are correct.

It is precisely because of this that we can see that Erlang God has a lot of daily interactions with the Howling Sky Dog, and it is still being turned out by people until many years later.

It is precisely because of this interaction that in the scene where Erlang God was besieged, when the roaring dog changed his "arrogant and domineering" style in the past, knelt down in front of everyone, and bravely died for his master, many people still couldn't help but feel sorry for him.

For Chen Chuang, the most "impossible to possible" role is actually the TV series "Fugui".

As we all know, the actor used in Zhang Yimou's movie version of "Alive" is Ge You, and this movie is not only well received, achieving a high score of 9.3 on Douban, and even making Ge You the Best Actor in Cannes.

Zhuyu is in front, how can the TV series compare?

No one could have imagined that the filmmaker finally used the little-known Chen Chuang to play the leading role.

Directly "confront" Ge You.

The result?

If you watch the play, you will know that although the age span of this character is unusually large, from 20 to 60 years old, the complexity is also unusually large, from the young landlord who is loved by thousands to the lonely and helpless watching his relatives leave, but Chen Chuang, who was 30 years old at the time, still surprisingly showed a very high degree of completion.

Especially the scene of his son's death, Fugui ran wildly all the way, stumbling, from not believing to not wanting to believe, from anxious to angry, the emotions were so strong that people couldn't help crying.

Later, Chen Chuang said that in this scene, if the director didn't shout cut, he might be out of breath and die on the spot.

It is precisely because of such efforts that Chen Chuang's Fugui shows a very different temperament from Ge You's Fugui, not only nominated for Best Actor at the Shanghai TV Festival, but also scored 9.5 on Douban in the final TV series.

It has also been highly affirmed by the original author Yu Hua.

But it's a pity that even with these two roles, what people thought was impossible became possible, but Chen Chuang still couldn't receive any good roles.

In addition to small productions such as "Kong Erpi Enters the City" (this film even made him the actor).

It's almost all about a variety of small supporting characters.

For example, the yellow-eyed king of "Magic Mobile".

In "Life Events", Uncle Wu, who loves Xiaowen but is in a dilemma.

The Jianghu physician Fei Jishi in "Tang Dynasty Legends".

Wei Yixiao in "Heaven and Dragon Slayer".

Why?

Some people think it's an image "problem".

Chen Chuang is not a handsome guy in the conventional sense, and in the era of gradually looking at faces, most of the people who can find him are comedy supporting roles.

But Sir thinks that image may be second (after all, there are too many examples).

Because in a way.

"Good play" is actually not the "just need" of this showbiz.

02

If you want to say that Chen Chuang is different from those actors who mix well at the moment, Sir will feel that he is actually very traditional.

The "old" norms have always been followed.

This is good.

But it is incompatible with the current trend.

For example:

He believes that "good play" is an actor's top priority.

Nothing else matters.

For example, Chen Chuang was once invited to be the executive director of a movie, and the scene reporter of the film talked to him about his favorite film director in Tianqiao after the work was over.

The field notes say I like Kubrick, and Chen Chuang says I like De Niro.

The two chatted very speculatively.

Later, we learned that this scene was the director, and even made box office hits such as "Crazy Stone", which was a smash hit.

His name is Ning Hao.

But even so, Chen Chuang still has no relationship with Ning Haopan.

He knows that Ning Hao's movie is a world of watching dramas without looking at faces, and he also knows that many roles can be completed well for him, but he still insists that the criterion for choosing roles should be "acting", not "relationship".

Socializing cannot be a must for actors.

Equally:

He also believes that the premise of "good play" is culture and accumulation.

This is inseparable from his upbringing.

Chen Chuang was born in a family of operas, his father once served as the head of the city's tea-picking troupe, and his mother was originally an opera artist, but later changed careers to become a teacher.

When he was a junior college student at Beijing Film Academy, Chen Chuang not only took full attendance rain or shine, but also ranked first in the comprehensive ranking of his grades, becoming one of the very few successful cases of college promotion at that time.

And even now, you can see that like the old-school literati, they will express their feelings in classical Chinese on Weibo, shoot videos and sing operas.

He would carry a flute with him.

Inconspicuous, but represents a kind of integrity.

Did it work?

It seems that such persistence is of little use.

But sometimes, understanding a role often requires us to think broadly and horizontally.

And these can only be brought by culture and accumulation.

It is also for this reason that:

Chen Chuang has been persevering along the way and has never given up.

After winning the actor, in addition to playing the leading role in dramas such as "New Big Head Son and Little Head Dad", the roles he received were all supporting roles, second-rate, third-rate and fourth-rate, and those who came did not refuse.

It's not that he doesn't have the qualifications to put in the ranks.

It's that he feels that compared to many actors who are better than him, he is already lucky to have a play.

As he himself said:

"From the moment I entered this circle, I worked hard every day and never stopped. My salary went up from 1,000 to 1,000, 2,000, 2,500, 3,000, 5,000, 6,000, and I didn't take a shortcut. ”

It's love, so to speak.

Again, more, in fact, is helpless.

It's like someone said that he brought the little people to life.

He would also smile and say, "Actually, I'm just trying to survive in the cracks."

Traditional?

Tradition.

We all know that China is a society of personal feelings, and we all know that the topic of this era is king, and for this reason, as long as you enter the entertainment industry, you will inevitably try various "successful" paths.

But Chen Chuang has always insisted on the fact that "acting is acting".

This makes him a rare animal.

In a big dye vat, you also have to work hard to maintain your true colors.

03

Of course, Sir will not exaggerate Chen Chuang's acting talent because of his rarity, in general, he is actually a hard-working actor.

But in Chen Chuang's experience, we can see some absurdities in this entertainment industry over the years.

In 2022, Chen Chuang told a story.

It was a filming scene, and it was a group scene, some supporting characters sat around the dining table, and the protagonist came to fight, stood aside, and said a line.

Chen Chuang thinks, will the protagonist look better when he moves? Will it look better if the camera moves? Is it possible to have some scene scheduling?

The director said, "yes, yes." ”

But what about the starring role?

The soul questioned: "Do you really want to?"

The result, of course, has not changed, because for a work, the convention of reminding each other between actors has long disappeared, and the crew has long been divided into three, six, nine, etc., and the leading actor has the absolute right to speak.

Even if he can only speak, not act.

And when there are too many such things, Chen Chuang has no choice but to keep a low profile more and more, until he is "silent".

荒诞吗?

The absurdity actually lies in the fact that these protagonists do not respect the opinions of others, but they still put on a posture of "respecting the old drama bones".

Do you still remember that some time ago, "Flowers" was on the air, and a bunch of people praised You Benchang?

In fact, in recent years, You Benchang has also published many works.

For example, "Thank You Doctor", "Youth Song Xing", etc., the popularity of the works is not low, but when these works are broadcast, few people talk about You Benchang's re-emergence in the rivers and lakes.

Why?

In the final analysis, it is because the role of uncle is out of the circle and has become popular.

Sir is not saying that they are not sincere.

But most of the time, the so-called respect for old drama bones is often only respect for famous and exposed old drama bones.

And once this old actor is not famous, he can only get this answer as Chen Chuang encountered:

His expression, his subtext, tell you

You don't have to worry about me

I'm the main actor

You're all a little supporting character

Are you still coming to me?

Ultimately.

This is the traffic problem, and in a traffic-oriented era, we tend to only look at quantity (data) and not quality.

Just like a few days ago, Ma Huateng only said three when he talked about Tencent's hit dramas, "The Long Season", "Three-Body Problem" and "Flowers", a group of traffic fans were unhappy: Why do you say that the Xianxia drama with our data is not a hit drama?

They don't understand the dimension of "quality".

I think it seems to be the same as "acting", you can "have" it by buying a few hot searches.

Thankfully, this has gradually changed.

Take Chen Chuang as an example, in the past two years, he has gradually been noticed by everyone.

For example, "The Three Teams", which is obviously only a few minutes of scenes, has been praised by many people, and even compared with Zhang Yi.

That's what a normal environment should look like.

It will not be treated differently by the size of the character, the size of the fame.

Or rather, to give an opinion.

Chen Chuang once ate the white eyes of many protagonists, but recently, he even mentioned that at the start-up dinner of "Tang Dynasty Legends: Westward Journey", Yang Xuwen's agent ran to him, hoping that he would point out Yang Xuwen's performance problems.

Things seem to be on track.

This is the result of his step-by-step approach to being seen.

But at the same time, we also know that there are actually more Chen Chuang in this world.

They're drowning in that 95 percent of the data.

As long as the rules of this industry remain unchanged, they may not have any chance to be "seen" for a lifetime.

What to do?

Sir doesn't know.

Speaking of this, I remembered an experience of Chen Chuang.

It was the night he won the actor, and after the reporters asked the usual questions, they returned to the interview room and suddenly fell silent.

They feel that "this person is nothing to be desired".

You see, even if he is an actor, as long as there is no topic and no popularity, no one cares.

But what does he think?

Seeing this situation, he simply said, "Then let's go."

Is he open-minded?

Not necessarily.

Perhaps, this is just an environment that cannot be changed, forced to get used to it.

The picture in this article comes from the Internet

Editorial Assistant: The second child of the Sakamoto family