Tang Yan: No, no

In silence, she gradually gave birth to a kind of steadfastness, a kind of fullness.

Text: Jiang Yue

Edited by Sang Liu

Photography: Shao Di

Modeling|April 瑶

化妆|春楠(Naan Beauty)

发型|陈陈(Naan Beauty)

Crime

Facing Wong Kar-wai's camera, actor Tang Yan, who has acted in dramas for more than ten years and has broadcast more than 50 works, was stunned. She had a sour nose and ran to the monitor.

What's wrong with you? Wong Kar-wai asked her in Shanghainese.

"I don't know how to adjust myself, I can't seem to do it anymore. Tang Yan said, and tears fell out.

The first time I heard from my agent that Wong Kar-wai was going to make a Shanghai story and wanted her to play Miss Wang, her reaction was, "Really?" She was always afraid of a phone call telling her that there would be other changes. In the following months, she did not ask her agent about the progress, "for fear that the greater the hope, the greater the disappointment." 」

Wong Kar-wai said that he wanted to see her, and this time, she didn't wear any foundation, put on light makeup lipstick, wore a black T-shirt and jeans, and wore a hat and round-framed eyes. I was actually apprehensive, but as soon as I entered the door and saw Wong Kar-wai, who was still wearing sunglasses, showing her a toothy, bright smile, Tang Yan said, "It seems that I am not nervous all of a sudden. 」

The role of "Miss Wang" was finalized on the same day, and Tang Yan also began to prepare, trying on costumes, taking makeup photos, and determining the shape of the long wave and high-heeled suit. Later, she also specially studied with two female white-collar workers in Shanghai in the eighties and nineties found by the director, observed how they spoke and walked, and understood what kind of era the white-collar workers were in and what kind of life they would live.

But Tang Yan still has no bottom in her heart. "I definitely want to play her well, but my criterion is that I can do it very well, and I don't know how much I can do. 」

There is a mysterious legend about director Wong Kar-wai - filming is known for being "slow", and the actors are often not given scripts, only a few pages or a few sentences. Many actors don't know what they're playing after joining the group. Tony Leung, who has worked with him many times, is still not satisfied after filming a pear-eating scene 27 times, and Leslie Cheung and Maggie Cheung played a look at each other and filmed 47 times.

These "uncertainties" also carry over to "Flowers". According to media reports, when the script was never finished, before the start of filming, screenwriter Qin Wen provided at least five versions of the script, and it was constantly overturned during filming. Actors can only receive flypages for the next day's filming the night before, and sometimes they have to change it, so the screenwriter has to live in the crew, and even go to the set with a printer.

Without a complete script, the actor's understanding of each scene depends more on the director's explanation and the actor's own understanding.

Three days before joining the group, Tang Yan "didn't dare to speak", she found that she "couldn't understand" Wong Kar-wai's opinion - she and Hu Ge were like two primary school students, looking at each other and wanting to ask for help, but found that they "didn't understand" each other, but they didn't dare to ask, so they had to nod to the director while speculating in their hearts. She remembered the sound of her footsteps in Xiao Wang's high heels, and after one row, she would run to see the monitor, and the high heels were a rapid "click", and she stood next to the director, watching the replay, while listening to him talk about how to adjust the next one. After receiving the director's opinion, she returned to the performance area, and at this time, the sound of high heels became "click, click, click", and she thought about the director's words in these deliberately slowed steps.

Photo source: TV series "Flowers"

Tang Yan recounted the changes of "da" and "da," and the experience of shooting was so clear in her memory. She used all her senses to try to capture the director's intentions more accurately, and even tried to find the eyes behind the sunglasses.

"When an actor creates a role, he needs self-confidence and the power to believe, and I must not have been enough at the beginning. Tang Yan said. She talked about a series of "uncertainties", "I'm not sure if I'm acting correctly, I'm not sure if I'm acting accurately, I'm not sure how I'm performing. 」

One day, when he was having dinner, Wong Kar-wai stopped Tang Yan and said that he wanted to show her something, he asked the editor to turn on the computer, and broadcast the scene of "Miss Wang" running while eating breakfast before Master Jinhua entered the door, and said to her, Look, this is what you played one by one, you know that you can.

In Tang Yan's heart, this is like an opportunity for change. But as she gradually builds her confidence, Dong Yong shows up — Tang Yan describes him as "a high mountain."

Dong Yong was born as a Peking Opera actor, playing a martial artist, with a serious face, and after entering the film and television industry, most of his roles are policemen and soldiers. Tang Yan's first impression of Dong Yong was "not smiling", she was a little scared, but soon, they were going to play a major scene together: at the door of the small noodle restaurant, Mr. Fan, played by Dong Yong, persuaded Miss Wang to go to Shenzhen to find a factory to gamble. This was a turning point in Miss Wang's fate, and there were many group performances on the scene. Tang Yan took a few shots, but she always felt that something was wrong.

Dong Yong also remembered that scene, the two were not familiar with each other at that time, but he could feel that Tang Yan was carrying a very heavy thing. "She wants not to make a mistake in her lines, and she is afraid that she is not good and that people will have opinions about her. Dong Yong said.

For Tang Yan, this state has been going on for a while, and she collapsed halfway through the filming of her rivalry with Dong Yong. She tried to adjust her breathing, but to no avail, she felt like a big stone pressing down on her heart, and she couldn't breathe. She told Wong Kar-wai about these feelings.

Wong Kar-wai told her not to worry, sit down for a while, drink some water, and then said to Tang Yan, don't trap yourself in an anxious mood, everyone will encounter a bottleneck, how to overcome this difficulty, is what Xiao Wang has to do, and you Tang Yan has to do.

Fruit hard candy

It is easy to feel the sweetness exuded by Tang Yan.

At the filming site of the cover of "People", Tang Yan appeared with her laughter, and her voice was hearty and bright. Before the camera turned on, she asked the staff next to her, "Do you have dark circles under your eyes?" and "Do you have high and low shoulders?" and she laughed when she got a "pretty" answer.

A staff member of Tang Yan stood on the other side of the machine, she and Tang Yan had worked together for more than ten years, and she was the first to capture the sweetness of Tang Yan. She recalled to "People" that when she first met Tang Yan in the office, her most direct impression was, "How can this girl smile so good-looking, and she has the feeling that the whole world will melt for her." 」

At that time, Tang Yan was 25 years old and had just played Zixuan, the descendant of Nuwa, in "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 3". Although many actors have created descendants of Nuwa with different feelings before, Tang Yan's version still makes people feel "amazing at a glance". Even after more than ten years have passed, some viewers commented that Tang Yan was "really beautiful and rich in performance", not only lively and innocent, but also added "a little charm" and "calmness after vicissitudes" to the role.

If a new actor wants to be recognized by the public, to be remembered, and then to be familiar, he needs to strengthen a certain obvious characteristic to lay a market foundation for his subsequent interpretation. In the eyes of the brokerage company, Tang Yan at that time had such an unforgettable trait as "sweetness".

In 2011, the "sweet" character was consolidated in "The Three Thousand Golds of the Xia Family", in which Tang Yan played the innocent and kind-hearted third daughter Xia Mei, which achieved secular success - it was the champion of satellite TV ratings that year, and Tang Yan also won the "Most Popular Mainland Actress of the Year Award" at the National Drama Festival with that role.

After that, Tang Yan started a few years of rapid operation. Before 2015, she had to act in three or four plays a year, 365 days without rest, the hardest time, filming until 2 o'clock in the middle of the night, and getting up at 6 o'clock the next morning to put on makeup, many times she could only go back and forth to Shanghai and the filming location, or between changing makeup and hair, and seize the time to sleep a little more.

Such a high-speed operation was also related to the rapid development of the entertainment and communication fields at that time. The staff member told "People" that during the blog period, Tang Yan would write a lot of blog posts and paste small flowers, which looked "very cute and vibrant", and gained the first batch of fans who liked her. After transitioning to Weibo, she was also one of the first actresses to have many fans. Since then, the market has become more and more favored by idol dramas, and traffic has gradually been transformed into specific commercial value, Tang Yan has also stepped on the traffic, received endorsements from domestic and foreign advertisements, and ran forward step by step, becoming one of the most sought-after head actresses in the entire market.

This state of affairs lasted until 2015. That year, Tang Yan had 9 TV series, 1 movie, and 2 variety shows broadcast, the most out of the circle was "Why Sheng Xiaomo" adapted from the novel of the same name, Tang Yan partnered with the popular actor Zhong Hanliang, this is the first TV series with more than 300 million online broadcasts in a single day.

But from the beginning of this drama, "sweetness" doesn't seem to be enough to support Tang Yan.

In the comments on "Why Sheng Xiaomo" on Douban, some people said that Tang Yan performed the indescribable gentleness, and some people said that her acting skills "became stiff", her expression did not change, she would only lower her head or stare at her. In the "Golden Thief" and "Living Color" that followed the broadcast, Tang Yan played a similar role, sweet, kind, stubborn, with the aura of the protagonist. Some people say, "Tang Yan is gone on the road of 'silly white sweet'". Some people also say that Tang Yan herself is a "silly white sweet", "acting and acting is playing herself".

Photo source: TV series "Why Sheng Xiaomo"

What do you think of the label "silly white sweet"?

Almost at different times, Tang Yan was asked this question every time she was interviewed. She once replied, "No matter what kind of label others use to put on me, it doesn't mean that it's me, it's only the perception of some people, but they may not really understand me." She added, "I never deny my past. But behind these words, did she feel hurt? Could she be confused? How to find an outlet to express something deeper beneath the "silly white sweetness"?

When talking about this paragraph, we have finished the video shooting, Tang Yan closed the door of the dressing room, there were only her and us in the door, there was no agent, no assistant, she sat alone on the sofa, to face the curiosity of the outside world about herself.

She still remembers how she felt when she first heard the word, "Silly, sweet, and white-skinned, it shouldn't be a bad thing, but it becomes a derogatory term, and I think, why is this happening? But if I say I'm not 'silly and sweet', but does anyone listen?" Tang Yan said.

"Because the label is set by someone else, but it doesn't mean it's you!" she said in an interview. But she didn't explain anything explicitly. "It's like 'no sound' in the novel 'Flowers', I just 'don't make a sound', and I'm never willing to explain myself. When she was most injured, she didn't show the wound, and only posted a picture on Weibo: the sky was gray, it was raining lightly, and a little sparrow lowered its head, and the rain hit it. Tang Yan said that the little sparrow was herself at that time, and in the dense raindrops, she felt pain and struggle.

But she didn't cry. Under the sweet appearance, Tang Yan has a kind of perseverance, "Everyone thinks she is very sweet and a candy, but she is actually a 'fruit hard candy', not a soft candy. The staff said, "She's not as fragile as everyone thinks. 」

After 2015, Tang Yan began to slow down, and in terms of roles, she consciously began to choose different scripts. But it was also at that time that she felt that the same type of character was approached, although the characters had different experiences, but the core was the same. Tang Yan would think, "How can I perform differently?"

She's also trying to make some changes. For example, in 2016, she took over the role of "Splendid Weiyang", which tells the story of a princess who died in the country and took revenge all the way, and finally became the queen mother, a powerful story that is biased towards the growth of women. Tang Yan hopes that through this drama, she can break away from the image of an idol a little and stimulate the potential of the other side in performance. This drama was a hit that year, and some people criticized it, thinking that the plot and shape were suspended, and Tang Yan's performance was "missing something".

Photo source TV series "Splendid Weiyang"

craving

How does an actor who is known to the public for idol dramas transform? This is the confusion that Tang Yan is facing, and it is also the confusion of many people in this industry.

Before "Flowers", actors Hu Ge and Tang Yan had partnered 4 times, and the two were old friends for more than ten years. In an interview with "People", Hu Ge said that his trajectory was similar to Tang Yan, and he was once limited to the framework of ancient idol dramas. It's just that he was troubled earlier than Tang Yan, and when filming "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 3", Hu Ge found that his performance had entered a routine, but he couldn't find an exit. After 2010, in order to transform, he consciously took on some modern dramas and period dramas. It wasn't until the broadcast of "The Pretender" and "Langya Bang" in 2015 that he completely broke the shell of his idol.

 "In the face of transformation, some people are lucky, this period is shorter, but some actors may be longer. Hu Ge said. What he knew was that Tang Yan had to go through this process. "Because we don't want to be stuck in a play with a similar theme, or the same type of character. In addition to idols and stars, I also hope to be recognized by everyone and say that I am a real actor. 」

Tang Yan didn't want to be an actress since she was a child, but she has been a good student since she was a child. She was born in an alley, and she is the kind of typical Shanghai girl - if there is one word to describe a Shanghai girl, Tang Yan chooses the word "independent". Her parents taught her from an early age that girls should be on their own, mentally independent, and financially independent, and these words were passed down from her grandmother.

She grew up in this creed, and was used to being strict with herself, always ranking at the top of her class, and even when she scored 97 points, she would feel that she did not do well because she did not get a perfect score. In the family, she is the oldest child of her generation, and she feels that she has to be a good role model, win the love of her elders, and let her younger siblings learn. She is also a well-behaved child, and when she comes home from school, she cooks rice in a rice cooker and waits for her parents to come home. When she was an adolescent, the most "rebellious" thing she could think of was when she volunteered without her father's support.

Tang Yan in childhood

Because of the words of her classmate's mother, Tang Yan temporarily signed up for the art examination and was admitted to the Central Academy of Drama. But soon, she felt a deep sense of frustration. Many classmates in the class are from art schools, have performed since elementary school, and are comfortable with the teacher's homework, but she doesn't understand anything, and she is always slower than others to hand in her homework. When she was a freshman, the school would eliminate one or two students at the end, and Tang Yan kept thinking that she "couldn't be screened". "You go back one day and say I'm back. What's wrong? Dropped out. Isn't that a joke? You're not going to allow that to happen. She told People.

After her junior year, Tang Yan started filming. She was still unfamiliar with the trade. She asked the opponent actor how to prepare the lines? Did she memorize all the lines from the first scene? Do you start acting from the first scene? The other party did not answer, looked at Tang Yan and smiled. Tang Yan didn't understand at the time, but when she entered more and more sets, she understood, "People were stunned by my question, and they didn't know how to answer at all. 」

At the beginning of her career, she played the daughter of a big family, there was a scene, the positions were all designed, everyone in the family stood in a row, she was in the C position in the middle, and then came out from somewhere. But as she patted and patted, she instinctively hid behind the others, and the director shouted, "Where are you? What are you doing behind others?" She was scolded and realized that she was not right, that was not right.

During that time, she made up for her shortcomings with seriousness. It is customary to hold a pen in your hand when reading a script, in order to record the feelings of the moment, and then use it for specific performances, and when a play is over, the script has been densely drawn.

In this interview, when we talked to different people about Tang Yan, each interviewee talked about her seriousness.

Yang Chen and Tang Yan are college classmates, living in the same dormitory, after graduation, she chose to act in dramas, although the specific industry has changed, but the two of them will meet every year, make appointments, friendship from seventeen or eighteen years old, has been maintained until now. Yang Chen remembers that when she was in college, because she had no contact with acting, Tang Yan was always worried about her homework at the beginning, and often asked her for help, "She seems to be smiling all the time on the surface, 'heartless and lungless', but in fact she is very serious and motivated. Yang Chen was most impressed by the fact that once the two collaborated on the assignment of "observing life", the theme was "lonely and widowed elderly", Tang Yan and her visited the social welfare institute together, observing and taking notes, and later integrated Shanghai's language, culture and living habits into the performance. The teacher gave a high evaluation of that homework.

Director Yang Yaya, who has directed many high-scoring works such as "Empty Mirror" and "Eight Brothers", has a cooperation with Tang Yan. What impressed him the most was Tang Yan's seriousness and tenacity. It was 2008, Yang Yaya was preparing the filming script of "Life Without Language", and after the role and style were determined, he needed to find a beautiful young actor, and he was introduced to Tang Yan. At the beginning, he didn't know much about Tang Yan, and the reason for choosing her was very simple: her image was "pure and beautiful", which suited the needs of the role, and after graduating from Chinese opera, he believed that she had certain acting skills.

Many scenes of that drama were filmed in the river, and once he went to the scene, he found that Tang Yan had been preparing in the water for a long time, and later learned that Tang Yan was on the second day of her period, although the river was very cold and deep, she did not propose to choose a stand-in. Yang Yaya felt that Tang Yan was not only beautiful, but also had "a special desire to create characters".

However, these seriousness, this desire, did not seem enough for Tang Yan after 2016. She feels that in every play in the past, she is striving for progress and performing soberly, but looking back, she feels "confused" and does not seem to have found a clear direction. She felt trapped.

Yang Yaya believes that there are three reasons why it is difficult for actors to transform. First, capital is biased towards idol dramas, resulting in not many types of good scripts to choose from in the market. Second, the filming of TV dramas is becoming more and more streamlined and industrialized. The third point, which is also painful for many actors, is that being an actor is a passive profession. The establishment of a new image requires a good script, a good role, and a good director who is good at excavating acting ability, and it is very rare to have these elements at the same time, and the actor is in a state of being selected, if there is no opportunity to find it, it is difficult to break through in the genre.

Yang Yaya said that it was also because of this natural professional defect that he changed from an actor to a director and made a career of selecting others.

For Tang Yan, this is a "heart-piercing" problem.

"I think actors are passive, and sometimes it's not just a role you want to play...... But actually, I've been waiting for ......" she said about the kind of anxiety she often felt when she was on the crew, and there were always people shouting next to her, "Okay, okay?" "Hurry up, hurry up!" Many times, these words were not said to her, but when she heard them, she also felt panicked. She talked to her peers about it, and everyone felt a little sad.

"Am I just here to finish the words? as long as the words are not wrong? Is it just for this?"

In the past, when she saw a good script, she would substitute her face into the role, and form a picture in her mind, so she knew how to play a scene. But when the role and the script are repeated again and again, she becomes "no feeling", or "still the same feeling".

In 2018, after more than 10 years of continuous work, Tang Yan decided to stop. In 8 months, she learned to paint, piano, skateboarding, languages, and planted flowers and plants.

It's a long holiday for an actress. In fact, she never had the feeling of "I don't want to act anymore", she was just waiting for a script that really moved her, a role that moved her.

No sound

The first scene of the filming of "Flowers" is on the rooftop of the Peace Hotel, under the golden bright little star, Miss Wang and Po are New Year's Eve together. That scene was filmed all day. In the subsequent shooting, every time Wong Kar-wai shouted "pass", everyone couldn't help but start applauding.

Tang Yan's staff went to the scene, and she remembered that on the second day of filming, Wong Kar-wai suddenly ran to Tang Yan from the monitor and asked, why are your eyebrows different from yesterday? After a while, the makeup artist came over and said that maybe his hands were shaking, and it was indeed a little different.

It was in this atmosphere that Tang Yan began the filming of "Flowers", and what she said most later was, "The director is a person who can read people's hearts very well", she found that her confusion about acting was seen, and those love for acting were encouraged.

For Tang Yan's performance, actor Dong Yong used two curves to give us an analogy: at the beginning, he and Tang Yan's curves went up, but Tang Yan rose slowly, and he went to 5, and Tang Yan was still at 3; Dong Yong said that in the filming of "Flowers", the more he played with Tang Yan, he always had a feeling that if a shot was only shot 3 times, he would not be too afraid of Tang Yan, and if Tang Yan was given a few more chances, "Then be careful, her explosive power will make you unimaginable." 」

Although he was already very familiar with Tang Yan, in Miss Wang, Hu Ge still saw a completely different Tang Yan. What touched him the most was Tang Yan's every crying scene at the scene, going to Zhuji to save Bao, seeing that Bao was slapped in the face, different scenes, Tang Yan cried with different connotations. The strong emotions will even flow until the director shouts "pass", Tang Yan's tears still can't be stopped, and it takes a long time to come out of the emotions.

It was these emotional moments that made Hu Ge feel that Tang Yan's performance was "completely unskillful", and "it is precisely this kind of acting without skill that has the greatest energy". He said, "Once her true emotions explode, all the states, all the details, all the expressions, all the body movements, all right, may be unexpected and reasonable. 」

Hu Ge finally said, "She (Tang Yan) is a respectable opponent. 」

For Tang Yan, these are things that have been exchanged for a long time. In those three years, she only filmed one film, in her words, most of the time she was doing Miss Wang, and only a small part was Tang Yan. Even when she returns home from work, she removes her makeup and takes a shower, and her mind will look back on the scenes filmed all day long like a movie screen. Sometimes I can't figure out whether the shampoo has been used or not, and I really can't figure it out, "Forget it, wash it again." The family said that she was doing things faster and faster, and she used to remove her makeup and take a shower slowly and methodically, and she couldn't finish it in less than an hour, but when she and Miss Wang became more and more integrated, she also had traces of wind and fire when she spoke and did things.

These are changes that can only be seen by close people, and for the audience, Tang Yan has almost disappeared.

Searching for "Tang Yan" on the Internet, there is a popular entry is: "Why is Tang Yan not popular?" Related entries are: "Why did Tang Yan disappear?" "Why is Tang Yan out of play?" "What happened to Tang Yan?" Many people went to check Tang Yan's last three years, there were no works, no topics, and some people speculated, is Tang Yan at home full-time with children?

Before the broadcast of "Flowers", fans were very anxious, saying that they hadn't seen Tang Yan's works for too long. In June 2022, because the studio announced that Tang Yan had "no itinerary" for the whole month, fans were angry, how could an actress be like this?

In fact, for a long time, the partners in the studio didn't know what Tang Yan was doing. Sometimes, the staff also feel "big" and "confused", and sometimes they have to hold meetings with commercial endorsement customers, and "the PPT is not good-looking". The most popular question from customers is, what is Tang Yan's job this year, what drama will be broadcast, what activities will she participate in, and will there be any reality shows? The staff could only explain that Tang Yan was filming "Flowers" with her heart. The other party asked again, if only this one drama was filmed, when would it be broadcast?

Tang Yan still "doesn't make a sound".

has been friends for more than ten years, and the first word Hu Ge said when he talked about Tang Yan was "no sound". He remembered that a few years ago, Tang Yan told him that he would not be on Weibo and would not read the comments. But what exactly happened, she "didn't make a sound". Hu Ge said that Tang Yan is a typical Sagittarius personality, and when she is with a group of friends, she talks a lot, laughing, and optimistic. But when faced with setbacks or doubts, she became less talkative. "She still has a lot of self-esteem. She doesn't mean that she has to stand up as soon as possible, maybe after a period of time, she will prove it with her actions. 」

Hu Ge felt that Tang Yan was a very simple person. This kind of simplicity is not naïve, but always maintains a childlike heart, from the first time they met to the present, he feels that Tang Yan has not changed much. Sometimes, Hu Ge found that Tang Yan was more mature than he imagined, for example, when he encountered something depressed and was depressed, Tang Yan would make a long phone call to him, using the tone of "three axes to cut up", "educate" him, and "talk to him", but the more he listened, the more reasonable it became. After hanging up the phone, Hu Ge thought about it, and smiled, "I think it's cute." 」

For Tang Yan, living a simple life seems to be a habit from childhood to adulthood. WeChat only has more than 300 contacts, friends are the ones who are in fixed contact, she is not good at socializing, so she is less social. Entering this industry, I was somewhat mistaken, and therefore lacked strong ambition, and never felt how close I was to "Vanity Fair".

In fact, at the same time that "Flowers" was found, there were two dramas that found Tang Yan, and in the face of three choices, the staff was very entangled, especially "Flowers", with little information, only knowing that there was a novel, plus a Wong Kar-wai. This worry is very realistic: how heavy is the role played by Tang Yan, and what if only a little bit of the scene is retained in the end?

After filming began, it was repeatedly postponed, but no one knows exactly how long. During the filming process, which I don't know when it will end, the team once gave some good scripts to Tang Yan, "All the actors may not show up because you don't have a scene, do you want to consider taking on another one?"

Tang Yan very firmly rejected the invitation for other works, telling the team, "It's good if you believe me. Other than that, it's "silent." What kind of story does "Flowers" tell, and what kind of Miss Wang does Tang Yan play in it, the team is the same as the audience, and they don't know until the series is broadcast.

Directors Wong Kar-wai and Tang Yan picture source Weibo

That night, closing the door of the dressing room, we chatted with Tang Yan for more than three hours, she spoke quickly and chattered, like a little girl who had been silent for too long and suddenly wanted to pour herself out. The staff knocked on the door a few times to remind her that it was not early, but she said "no hurry, no hurry" and closed the door again. Such honesty and openness are very rare in today's actors' interviews. After talking about those "silly white sweet" evaluations and those "I don't know how to act" troubles, we asked, aren't you really anxious?

Tang Yan said that these problems are "beyond the norm" for her. "I may have a simple mind and didn't even think of it. Tang Yan said, "That's the advantage that I think too little. 」

She grew up in a loving family. When Tang Yan applied for the acting department, in order to have a better chance of admission, she also applied for the Beijing Film Academy, but Nortel did not have a branch examination room in Shanghai, so she needed to take the train to Beijing for the exam. At that time, her father did not agree with her choice and felt that being an actor was too far away, but seeing his daughter so persistent, he also expressed his support.

The original plan was that his father would send Tang Yan to the train station and let her go to Beijing alone, but after everything was settled, he walked outside the train station, turned back, and said to Tang Yan, "I'll make up a ticket and go with you." Because the decision was so improvised, he only bought a standing ticket and got on the train. Tang Yan's father said that he really couldn't watch his daughter get on that train, go to a place more than 1,000 kilometers away, and face the choices of life alone.

But in the end, Tang Yan said that the real sense of security comes from herself. "I have something I love and I'm doing what I love, and every day is fulfilling. At the beginning of 2022, the filming of "Flowers" was suspended, and Tang Yan often dreamed that she was back in the crew. In those months, she has always maintained the state of Miss Wang, her weight and hair length have not changed at all, and she thinks that she must "return to work at any time and shoot at any time". It was 2 o'clock in the morning when Wong Kar-wai looked at the monitor, "Xiao Wang, you are so happy!" Tang Yan said, "Director, I'm really happy. She shot the scene that later appeared in the opening credits, where Xiao Wang walked out pushing his bicycle into the sun, smiling brightly.

Tang Yan once asked Wong Kar-wai why he could choose her so firmly and believe her? Wong Kar-wai's answer was that he saw a "stupidity" in her. Wong Kar-wai also said that she was an "honest person". Tang Yan didn't understand, "No one dared to bully me since I was a child, how can I be an honest person?" Wong Kar-wai said, you and Hu Ge are both honest people.

Sense of belief

At a recent class reunion for the 20th anniversary of graduation, my friend Yang Chen met Tang Yan again. She told "People" about the day she went to the Chinese opera report, she was the first to arrive at the dormitory, and then she saw a tall girl at the door, smiling, with a southern accent, very open-minded.

That girl is Tang Yan.

Yang Chen is a Beijing girl with a direct personality and low laughter, and later she found out that Tang Yan is more powerful than her, and she can make any jokes. The similar personalities made the two girls get together very quickly. When I was in college, my classmates went out to eat together, and when others got together, they sat in the corner and chatted, and had a small world of their own. After graduation, the two girls seemed to have made an agreement, and when they arrived in each other's cities, no matter how late it was, the first thing they did was to send each other a message, where was it? Until this class reunion, they found that they were almost 40 years old, and they both became mothers, so why did they still shrink in the corner like they did in college, chatting about delicate and interesting topics between girls, and laughing non-stop.

Last year, they also met in different crews in Hengdian because of filming. Yang Chen said that Tang Yan broke her leg at the time, was holding a splint, and was still doing various martial arts moves, looking like a "one-legged woman". Some scenes were filmed in the mountains, Yang Chen went to find her, the two of them ate big skewers together, it was dark at night, Tang Yan was wearing an ancient costume, holding up the skewers in one hand, and taking a selfie with her with her mobile phone in the other.

At that time, the filming of "Flowers" had ended, but it had not yet been broadcast, and Yang Chen did not know Miss Wang. It wasn't until she was chasing dramas with the public that she saw such a big change in Tang Yan's performance. Yang Chen said that in Miss Wang, she saw many similarities with Tang Yan, such as being simple, optimistic, and not looking backward in everything. The same is true for Tang Yan, who looks like a weak idol on the outside, but on the inside she is "a very resilient person who is not afraid of hardship".

She has always been sober. In 2012, in the market is generally "n artists under a large company", artists can easily feel some kind of restrictions. And Tang Yan realized early on that only by building an independent team can she control the autonomy of destiny. She set up a studio, which allowed her to take on the show as little as she wanted.

"In fact, she knows very well what kind of person she is, and [therefore] what kind of person she chooses to be. The staff said, "It's sobriety that makes her who she is today. 」

"Flowers" has passed, and the most important thing for Tang Yan is that in the past three years, something has germinated on her and grown little by little.

Yang Chen noticed that Tang Yan's sensibility was getting richer and richer. In the past three years, every time she went to Shanghai to perform a drama, Tang Yan would go to the scene, and for the comments on the drama, she would only say at first that the performance was too good, but then she began to discuss the script and role, and her cognition became extensive and profound.

Yang Chen said that this kind of profundity not only comes from "Flowers", but also from Tang Yan's real life. During that time, Tang Yan was no longer just busy for filming, and they had more opportunities to meet. The most impressive time was in Shanghai, Tang Yan took her daughter and made an appointment with her to eat in a restaurant, and the two chatted for a long time. After the end, Tang Yan took her daughter to get vaccinated, Yang Chen felt that this was very good, "I am filming again, and I have my own life." 」

New power grows, and Tang Yan believes that she is a malleable actor who can go where she wants.

In the first year of filming "Flowers", Tang Yan participated in an event, and some people said that Tang Yan was in such a good state, "Maybe they think I am picking my feet every day!hahaha", Tang Yan laughed, "But I know that I am working every day, I am not messing up, I know that this state is good, because my heart is abundant." 」

In the past, she felt a little uncomfortable attending certain occasions because of work, but now, when there are many people, she will also take the initiative to greet her friends and show herself very freely. In the past two years, she has made some new friends and some of her habits have changed. In the past, she rarely went out, and when she did, she had to go with a staff member, but now she no longer wondered if people would recognize her.

As if coming out of a shell, she opened up her senses, and her sensibilities were born. In a sense, Tang Yan is indeed a "silly, white, and sweet", and her "stupidity" protects her in this era of efficiency, allowing her to obtain returns that cannot be calculated.

After those three years, what often comes to Tang Yan's mind is the morning and night that the crew enjoys one by one. Some scenes were filmed at two or three o'clock in the morning on the Bund, so she saw the Bund sleeping, the neon lights have been extinguished, the bustle and bustle have faded, leaving a special quiet and beautiful. She took out her mobile phone to take pictures, and if the time was right, she would also take pictures of the moment when the sun had just risen and illuminated the Bund, and she heard the sound of milk being delivered and the sound of sweeping the floor on the street. In these vivid images, she gets off work.

After getting in the car, she completely relaxed, biting on the beef patty for breakfast, sometimes looking at the road where there was no one in the morning, sometimes thinking about what scenes she filmed today, and sometimes falling asleep while dangling in the car.

"Can you feel that happiness?" she said, feeling grounded and full.