It's been 15 years, why does Zhang Jiayi love to stay in the greenhouse of the "Uncle Circle" and is reluctant to leave for a long time?

In the national drama circle, "uncle" is a more popular existence than little fresh meat.

I don't know when, older actors began to rattle and kill in the entire film and television industry, attacking cities and grabbing land.

Jin Dong took care of all the elite bosses, Yu Hewei became a short video Internet celebrity, Zhang Yi became an honest police professional in seconds, and Wang Jinsong's villain roles were staged in turn.

In addition to these few, there are also Liu Yijun, Wang Yang, Li Naiwen, Wang Yaoqing, Wang Kai, Chen Daoming, and Zhang Songwen, who has become popular in the past two years, the actor is really getting older and more valuable.

But have you ever wondered who opened the real "uncle circle" era?

Mr. Tomato has a candidate in his heart, and he is Zhang Jiayi.

It has been 15 years since the 2009 national drama "Snail House", but Zhang Jiayi is still active in all types of national dramas.

He has acted in suspense, war, comedy, action, family bosses, and bandits, and then relied on "Mountains and Seas" to become popular again, and a "Loading the Stage" once again pushed him to the peak of popularity.

The well-known actors around him have passed one stubble after another, but Zhang Jiayi is like an evergreen tree standing there, absorbing the nutrients of the entertainment industry all year round, tireless, and will not fall.

Although he has acted in many plays, Zhang Jiayi is best at and best known for ethics.

Almost every popular ethics drama, you can always see him walking one step and swaying three times, his rickety back is the day of domestic ethics, whether he is playing a father or a husband, Zhang Jiayi can always be caught, the women around him have changed from Li Nian to Wang Luodan, from Che Xiao to Jiang Shuying, from Wang Weiwei to Yan Ni, only Zhang Jiayi has been playing the honest man who is chatty and shrewd, occasionally philistine but full of advantages.

In the past two days, another family ethics drama starring Zhang Jiayi has started to hit the air again - "Happy Parents Group".

didn't wait for "Youth Pie 3", but I didn't expect "Happy Parents Group" to be continued, this time Zhang Jiayi is still no different from all his previous middle-aged charming men.

The hunched boss posture, the good popularity of honest friends, the busy househusband, plus the label of "cat dad".

When he was mixed in the middle of the contradictions, bent his waist, and encountered a worrying problem, the folds on his face were squeezed together, and his hunched waist was even more bent, and he was speechless and helpless, which was not much different from the middle-aged man in the family ethics drama he once played.

Of course, the iron-clad Zhang Jiayi, the heroine of flowing water, this time, Chen Hao, who is 8 years younger than him, played his wife.

Compared with Zhang Jiayi's life-like performance, Chen Hao has been away from the screen for many years, and he is obviously a little rusty in terms of performance status and skills.

And Chen Hao and Zhang Jiayi stand together, although the age difference is still in single digits, but the perception is simply two generations. A real 53-year-old actor who plays the father of a primary school student, which is a bit out of harmony.

You must know that Ling Zi, who played his daughter Diao Juhua in "Loading the Stage", has already played the mother in this "Happy Parents Group".

Well, two generations have become a generation, Zhang Jiayi is still playing his father and husband, and Ling Zi, who was born in 1993, has entered the ranks of "mothers".

This once again proves the true proposition that in the national drama circle, actresses have a short flowering period and male actors have a long youth.

When we saw it again, the familiar "Zhang Jiayi"-style uncle appeared in front of us with the same attitude, saying those familiar lines, struggling in those familiar chicken babies and trivialities, the audience sighed on the one hand, is the creativity of domestic ethical drama screenwriters really exhausted?

On the other hand, I am curious, why does Zhang Jiayi keep playing this kind of homogeneous templated role, and he has been popular, and the film appointments are constant?

In fact, Zhang Jiayi's role at the beginning was not fixed.

even said that in the young life of the year, he was the best acting skills, the best ability, the most handsome, and even the most popular.

Zhang Jiayi played around when he was a child, grew up naughty, and drifted north after graduation, maybe because of good luck, maybe because of his strong strength, anyway, the time and place were favorable, and he opened his road to becoming a god.

When he was young, Zhang Jiayi's appearance was also very capable of fighting, not to mention punching Yu Yan and kicking Yanzu, at least he could get rid of a lot of fresh meat in seconds.

But his role has never deliberately leaned on the "vase".

In "Carrying Dad to School", which we all watched when we were children, Zhang Jiayi played the role of Teacher Gao, who was dedicated to helping the protagonist Shiwa. Zhang Jiayi was not famous at that time, but I watched the movie at the time, and I always remember the image of this teacher who was strict and gentle, and had a child in his heart.

has no name or surname, but can leave an impression on the audience, which is Zhang Jiayi's unique charm in the early days.

In the popular period drama "The First Floor of the World" on CCTV that year, Zhang Jiayi also played a role with obvious personality characteristics, Ruiying, the son of Rui Ze, the director of the "Baoha Bureau" (the department responsible for the palace banquet).

Ruiying is a young owner, he is stubborn and willful, and he has the unique aura of all noble sons, Ruiying played by Zhang Jiayi, and even wrote arrogance on his face, looking at people generally nostrils, and his expression is very aura.

But Ruiying also has two sides, his essence is not bad, especially for Yu Yan, he is a rich boy and a good man, and he is the prototype of the contemporary "boss".

It's just that because there are too many famous characters in the play, including Weizi, Wang Ji, Pu Cunxin, etc., the little-known Zhang Jiayi is naturally ignored.

After that, Zhang Jiayi took his expansion of the acting path and the shaping of diversified roles to the extreme.

In "Agent Group No. 5", Zhang Jiayi played the traitor Liu Tao, who did all kinds of evil in his face and beast, and the teeth of people who hated watching the drama at that time were itchy.

In "Mission", Zhang Jiayi has transformed into a public security bureau chief who eliminates harm for the people.

Zhang Jiayi's public security chief is really different from other people's, brave and resourceful and not pedantic, you can see through his inner world from his eyes, and it can be said that the sense of justice that was generally superficial at that time has evolved into flesh and bones.

In "Double Gun Li Xiangyang", Zhang Jiayi is Li Xiangyang of both civil and military intelligence, and in "Night Club", he has become a dumb robber.

From ancient costumes to modern times, from spy warfare to action, from anti-black to business warfare, Zhang Jiayi is interspersed in various types of dramas, and he never gets tired of it.

The turning point occurred in 2009, because of the fire of "Snail House" this year.

Song Siming, played by Zhang Jiayi, has become the dream male god of a generation of women, although he has certain moral flaws, but Zhang Jiayi has endowed Song Siming with unparalleled personality charm.

It was also after "Snail House" that domestic ethical dramas began to develop wildly for 10 years, and Zhang Jiayi was also sought after by the market, the audience, and countless female audiences because he became the "source" of creating middle-aged attractive men, and he became the top of the uncle circle.

In fact, Zhang Jiayi's fire is not purely lucky.

Zhang Jiayi knows what he became popular, so since 2010, we will find that Zhang Jiayi has been around his "circle", in his own successful personality model that has been verified by the market, constantly spinning and deepening.

Throughout the past 15 years, Zhang Jiayi has only used two things to ensure that he has always stood at the forefront of the "uncle circle", and he has never been in the limelight.

First thing, uncle, uncle, or uncle.

The audience has an illusion that after "Snail House", the role of the urban uncle played by Zhang Jiayi can circle the earth hand in hand.

Although the words are exaggerated, the truth is good.

After "Snail House", Zhang Jiayi starred in Liu Licheng in "Look at This Family", Liu Chenxi in "Mental Art", Sun Jianye in "Angry Child", Yang Shu in "One Servant and Two Masters", He Jianyi in "Emergency Doctor", Mark in "My Physical Education Teacher", Xu Tian in "A Better Life", and so on.

Basically every year, there will be a "uncle" role of Zhang Jiayi on the small screen.

With the experience of playing an uncle over the years, Zhang Jiayi even delved into his own unique way of playing an uncle and shaping the personality charm of an uncle.

Zhang Jiayi's uncles, most of them are decent, humorous and kind, honest and hard-working, and their personality is full of charm, they don't worry about food and clothing, and they regard their wives and daughters as their guides, even if they fall into the chaos of life, they can also test their own hard work to survive, and finally get the light.

Especially with Zhang Jiayi's unique walking style and performance characteristics, his face is full of folds twisted together, his mouth is slightly deflated, and he chatters but is never aggressive, which makes female audiences eat this set.

It is no exaggeration to say that many little girls want such an uncle and father, middle-aged women want such an uncle and husband, and elderly women want such an uncle and son-in-law.

If it is said that in "Snail House", Zhang Jiayi's fire still carries the aura of Song Siming to some extent, then the role of the uncle will be out of the circle after that, all of which are blessed by Zhang Jiayi's personal performance charm.

In fact, the uncle market after "Snail House" is also a red sea of competition, but other uncles continue to assist, and finally become Zhang Jiayi's dominance.

Back then, the uncle circle also had a hundred flowers, but Wu Xiubo withdrew from the screen because of his feelings, Jin Dong never returned on the road to the boss, Chen Jianbin became more and more greasy, Zhang Hanyu was intoxicated with tough guys, Huang Lei ruined his reputation in variety shows, and only Zhang Jiayi played triumphantly all the way, occupying half of the uncle circle.

The second thing, work bombing.

If one uncle is not popular, then shoot a few more. With the dividends of "Snail House", capital, market, investors and audiences all have a high sense of identity with similar roles in urban ethics dramas.

Zhang Jiayi keenly discovered this opportunity, so he began the state of "model worker".

Zhang Jiayi's high production is very amazing, from 2006 to 2020, "Loading the Stage" was broadcast, and in 14 years, Zhang Jiayi acted in 28 plays, an average of two a year, and most of them were the only male leads.

Not only that, Zhang Jiayi has won nearly 55 billion views with these dramas, and each Chinese has contributed an average of 40 broadcasts.

Moreover, over the years, Zhang Jiayi has been well aware of the Ebbinghaus memory curve of "repetition to remember", and has always insisted on imprinting his "uncle" impression in the audience's minds through constant repetition.

So over the years, every time he plays another type of role, Zhang Jiayi has to reward himself for playing an "uncle" to supplement the audience's lack of memory of himself.

After acting in "Cliff", he immediately starred in "One Servant and Two Masters"; "The Salt Merchant of the Qing Dynasty" just received a high reputation, and immediately continued "Regret Is Not the Sea"; "White Deer Plain" just became popular, and a "Emergency Doctor" was released......

Zhang Jiayi is not only smart, but also has a keen sense of the script and the market.

In recent years, anxiety about learning, middle age, marriage, chicken babies, etc. has been rampant, and Zhang Jiayi simply gave up the previous "reward" model and devoted himself to the "uncle".

In the past 5 years, Zhang Jiayi has stopped trying different types of roles, he is completely lying in his comfort zone, accepting his inherent personality, and bombarding the audience's brain circuits again and again with homogeneous characters.

As the saying goes, if you eat too much meat, you will get tired.

After all, it has been 15 years since the first generation of uncles, and they always see the same kind of characters on TV, and the audience also has an impatient day.

This time, "Happy Parents Group" hit the street with word of mouth as soon as it was released, and it unintentionally proved this law from the side.

Zhang Jiayi's uncle, the audience obviously no longer buys it, and the audience is a little annoyed with his unique way of walking.

But how can an actor who lies down stand up so easily?

Zhang Jiayi's film appointment has been scheduled for 2025, and most of the unaired and just-aired dramas are still family ethics dramas, including the third part of the "Youth Pi" series, "Uncle and Teenager" with Zhang Yishan, and the "Happy Parents Group" we saw.

Of course, Mr. Tomato knows that Zhang Jiayi has not tried.

But his image and performance habits have long been solidified, how can it be so easy to change?

In order to broaden the way of drama and leave more possibilities for himself in the future, Zhang Jiayi challenged the role of Mayor Chen Yi in "Dawn of the East" in 2023.

But after the play was released, the character he played was not only ridiculed by the group for squeezing his eyebrows, but also the reputation of the play, which also fell all the way and stopped at 6.3 points.

Zhang Jiayi, who was out of the circle with labels such as diversified roles and acting skills, finally drew the ground as a prison, and fell into the trap that he dug little by little.

Some masks are worn for a long time and can never be taken off.

Uncle is only for a while, not for a lifetime.

Although he works hard in his comfort zone, he has been repeating some roles that are easy and unchallenging, and filming some TV series like saliva, which has no impact in the short term, and can also contribute to his acting career.

But in the long run, this is undoubtedly a blunt knife to cut flesh, and it is a slow suicide for his acting career.

Although Zhang Jiayi is old, he is only 53 years old, and there are at least 20 years left in the future of acting.

When the audience is completely tired of the "Uncle Circle Money" who is full of screens, sneers at the same uncle role, has lost the ability to shape other roles, and consumes the mystery of his actor, what else can he rely on to gain a foothold in the entertainment industry?

This may be Mr. Tomato's wishful thinking, but for Zhang Jiayi, it is a problem he has to think about and urgently need to solve.

It's hard to get out of your comfort zone, but sometimes, with the courage to break out of your comfort zone, life may be a different world.

You Benchang, who is 90 years old this year and has only one famous role in Jigong in his acting career, is once again popular out of the circle with his uncle in "Flowers".

This is the accumulation of thick hair, it is cherishing feathers, and it is also the best stamp recognition of one's own strength.

Since the 90-year-old You Benchang can do it, what can't the 53-year-old Zhang Jiayi do?

(Movie Rotten Tomatoes Editorial Department: Miao Miao)