"I don't care, this year's Academy Award actor is Lin Baoyi"
Author | Xie Wuji
Edit | Lu Yiming
Title Picture | Under the White Sun
"Hurry up and check if he's still Lin Baoyi, it's too scary. ”
"Give him the award, he even performed the smell, and he smelled it across the screen. ”
Before the Academy Awards were released, many people had already bet on Bowie Lin. Although many people regret that he did not win the best actor, Lin Baoyi has already conquered many audiences with his powerful acting skills.
In the film "Under the Day", although Lin Baoyi plays the dean Zhang Jianhua, although there are not many scenes, the character is complex and deep - from the opening fade out to the later plot reversal, the dark side of his humanity is exposed under the daylight, just like a demon slowly showing his "fangs", every action and micro-expression is real and terrifying, which is creepy.
The most terrifying picture in the movie is the face of the "dean" through the door. (Photo/"Under the White Sun")
As one of the most popular films at this year's Academy Awards, "Under the Daylight" has been recognized not only because of the artistic value of the film itself, but also because of its reflection of social events: it is based on the elderly home incidents that once caused a sensation in Hong Kong, including the 2015 Cambridge nursing home in which the elderly were stripped naked and washed in the open air, the former director of the "Cambridge Home" in 2014, Zhang Jianhua, was suspected of sexually assaulting a female mentally handicapped person, and a 14-year-old autistic boy with intellectual disabilities jumped off a building, etc.
The popularity of the film has brought the original unresolved real events back into the public's view, and the prototype of the dean in the film, Zhang Jianhua, was retried and convicted on March 25 this year after ten years of abscond.
"I was furious when I saw the news, although he was convicted, but he was only fined, and it was the first time I played a character I hated. ”
Lin Baoyi made no secret of her hatred for the role of "dean". On the day when the scene was filmed, he couldn't wait to find director Jian Junjin and confirm that his play did not need to be refilmed. In just two hours, he quickly said goodbye to the film role, which he had never done before.
I met Lin Baoyi before the Guangzhou screening of "Under the White Sun", and he greeted me cordially, and his signature smile suddenly made people feel a lot more relaxed. I couldn't help but praise him for playing this role very well, and he quickly denied with a smile: "He's not me." In the interview, when talking about the role of "dean", he jokingly asked "Do you want to eat ice cream?" in a joke, and turned into a dean in a second, which made me have a movie screen in front of my eyes.
Such a strong sense of contrast has always been intertwined inside and outside Lin Baoyi's role. How to leave behind the emotional color of the role and play a person she hates is the homework that Lin Baoyi wants to hand over to herself this time.
"I used to play this role because I liked it, but this character is really the devil because he can have a lot of space for me to play with the impulse. I've always played very positive roles like a police officer, a lawyer, a doctor, etc., but this time it's rare that I can play the role of a villain, and I want to challenge myself. ”
"On the set,
Acting is like 'cooking'"
took over the filming of the movie "Under the White Sun", in the words of Lin Baoyi, this is a "fateful fate".
Five years ago, director Jian Jun Jintuo's relationship with a friend submitted the script to Lin Baoyi and invited him to play the role of the dean. At that time, Lin Baoyi was busy with the first online drama "Bridge of Sighs" as a producer, and because she had no time to take on another drama, she politely declined.
Later, he had dinner with his friend Louis Koo, and Louis Koo, who happened to invest in "Under the White Sun", took the script and asked him if he was interested in taking it, and the script five years ago was handed back to Lin Baoyi. It was only then that he carefully read the script and agreed to take the role the next day.
This is a film based on real events, in order to present a real texture like a documentary, before portraying this character, Lin Baoyi not only analyzed and understood the script and collected all the news information about Zhang Jianhua, but also contacted a person with low vision through the director and followed him to experience life.
In order to present a sense of reality like a documentary, Palette Lin experienced the life of a real person with low vision. (Photo/"Under the White Sun")
From going down the stairs, walking on the street, to chatting and eating, Lin Baoyi observed the subtle movements and demeanor of the person with low vision, and asked him how he felt about watching people and things on the street.
At lunchtime, he has imitated the body language and demeanor of people with low vision. "Their people with low vision see things very differently, their heads are a little tilted, and they speak at different speeds. They see things from different perspectives, like a person in front of them, but what he sees is a bunch of overlapping figures. Lin Baoyi said as she showed me the angle and expression of tilting her head.
Observing and feeling from the details of daily life is Bowie Lin's consistent performance habits. In addition to filming, he is always used to getting up at 8 o'clock in the morning to buy vegetables at the nearby vegetable market, but during the ten days of filming "Under the Daylight", he rarely took the set and his home as the two points and line, and did not go shopping to buy vegetables, "Every time I go home and see my appearance, I hate it, and I don't want everyone to see me like this."
Lin said it was the first time he hated his character so much. (Photo/"Under the White Sun")
For more than ten days of filming, maintaining a character status that he hated was "painful" for Bowie Lin, and his immersive way sounded quite sentimental - when he arrived at the set, he sat in the dean's office, put on headphones, and a strange piano variation "Gnossienne No.1" played for two minutes, and the role of the dean was summoned.
"It's the soundtrack I heard by chance, and then I realized that a lot of suspense movies use it as soundtracks, and it's amazing, a piece from a French composer at the end of the 19th century, which brought me to the role of the dean. ”
This is also the first time that Lin Baoyi has entered the role in this way. According to his previous filming experience, he is accustomed to sorting out the growth background and behavior logic of the characters, but this time playing the role of the dean, he wants to present a documentary-like realism, so he gives up more experience and presuppositions.
According to him, acting is more like "cooking" on the set, and many ideas are improvised, and a lot of things are combined little by little. For example, when the dean first lured Xiaoling, a female mentally handicapped person, to play with him, he used the hand xylophone that children like to play with - there was no such prop in the original script.
The hand-percussed xylophone in the movie is an improvised prop added on the spot. (Photo/"Under the White Sun")
Lin Baoyi admitted frankly that the most difficult scene she performed was the plot of the dean's sexual assault on Xiaoling. The dean seduced her with ice cream at first, then helped Xiaoling cut her nails, pick her ears, and then crossed the line to sexually assault, which made the audience shudder. And grasping the scale of the details, presenting a sense of reality, and making people believe that this behavior occurs is the most critical part of the film.
"We thought for a long time about what kind of movements we needed, and the distance between cutting our nails was not intimate enough, and then we thought of ear picking. For people with amblyopia, you have to get closer to see what is in your ears clearly, and even be able to smell Xiaoling's body, step by step, in order to make this behavior so real that it is outrageous, as if it is around us. ”
As a film that reflects social reality, what is rare about "Under the Daylight" is that it does not completely mask the "good and bad" characters and turn them into a pale call for justice. The dean played by Lin Baoyi is the most contrasting character in the movie: on the surface, he looks loyal and honest, but in fact he is insidious and cunning. He is both an abandoned disabled person and a guardian dean who keeps his residents from falling on the streets. He shifted from victim to perpetrator, turning the cause of injustice into his own violence, which became the result of the cycle.
The ambition of the film is obviously not only "bad" on the personal level, ironically, the deeper thinking points to the sentence that the dean successfully exonerated after being accused and said to the media with a small note: "It's not my fault, it's their family and society who have abandoned them." ”
After being tried publicly, the dean held a small note outside the courtroom and told the media that he was the "victim", and the plot came from Lin Baoyi's idea. (Photo/"Under the White Sun")
How to play the "righteous and courageous" of the bad guys? Lin Baoyi was asked by the audience several times at the event site of the roadshow how it was to play a "bad guy." He likes to ask the audience the other way around: "How do you judge good and bad? Good and bad are not simply binary questions. ”
Perhaps due to the actor's strong sense of belief, Lin Baoyi said that she had to split the "dean" way of thinking in her brain in order to reach the real side. "I didn't play him as a villain or a bad guy, no bad guy thinks he's a bad guy in reality, no bad guy thinks he's doing bad things, he must feel that he's completely right, and the reality will be more cruel than the movie. ”
"Inside and outside the role,
My Life of Contrasts"
Before playing the role of Dean Zhang Jianhua, Lin Baoyi was the "second-sighted handsome guy" in the hearts of many Hong Kong drama fans, and with the blessing of atmosphere and affinity, he never lacked audience popularity.
He is also the spokesperson of Hong Kong's "middle-class high-quality men", and in TVB Hong Kong dramas, which have always been known for professional dramas, he has played roles such as lawyers, doctors, policemen, and executives, and he can always give people the impression of "living in that role".
Lin Baoyi's personality and temperament of "both good and evil" are also unique in the entertainment industry. (Photo/Image photo of the Academy Awards)
Lin Baoyi's extremely natural and delicate performance style with the texture of life is not unrelated to his life experience outside of his role. He has never received systematic professional training in acting, but before entering the entertainment industry, he has a very rich life experience.
He used to work as an office assistant at Warner Records, and under the conflict between interest and reality, he wanted to find a stable job, and briefly worked as a firefighter and police officer. Later, he went to the record company as a production coordinator, and only then did he officially have the opportunity to enter the entertainment industry, starting as a singer.
Lin Baoyi once released her first music album and was a singer for a short time. (Photo/"Natural" album cover)
As a singer, Lin Baoyi once sat in the candidate position for the Most Popular Newcomer Award with Faye Wong, Wang Jie, Su Yongkang and other singers at the "Hong Kong Top Ten Golden Songs" award ceremony. But when the second record was released, he gave up being a singer and turned to an actor because it went against the style required by the company.
With the idea of "wanting to try different and innovative things", even he didn't expect that the profession of actor would be 30 years old.
In the late 90s of the last century, the police detective Tsang Jiayuan in the Hong Kong drama "Forensic Record" was the first actor in his life, and he set a ratings record that year. Lin Baoyi and Chen Huishan, the rival CP, have become an unforgettable on-screen couple for many audiences.
Lin Baoyi and Chen Huishan are the best screen couple in many people's hearts. (Photo/"Wonderful Hands and Benevolence")
Starting from the professional dramas "Wonderful Hands and Benevolence" and "Mind Reading Detective", Lin Baoyi ushered in her golden age.
TVB has always had no shortage of personality actors, but Lin Baoyi is definitely a color that is difficult to replace - he has a typical "good and evil" yuppie atmosphere, the role has its own contrast, he is professional and rational when he wears professional clothes during the day, and he shows cynical charm at night.
He has both professionalism and down-to-earth side, and he also happens to be a representative of the middle-class white-collar workers in the metropolis of Hong Kong.
"Golden Branch Desire", "Fire Dance Yellow Sand" and "Jewels" witnessed the stage of Lin Baoyi's skillful acting skills, and also won him the name of the emperor of strength. was at the stage of popular fried chicken, he chose to retreat bravely and terminated the contract with TVB. "I think life is very short and you have to find something challenging, so I don't like to stay in one position for too long. ”
Lin Baoyi, who has no shade from a big tree, came into contact with the director team of "Margaret and David Mung Bean" by chance in 2016 and returned to the audience's field of vision as "David". In modern urban romantic dramas, his interpretation is like "moisturizing things silently", injecting emotional restraint and subtle emotions into the soul of the character.
continues to unfold with the story background of "Margaret and David Mung Bean", and "Bridge of Sighs", which he is the producer, has become a Hong Kong drama hit with high scores and high reputation in 2020. It embeds the complex humanity hidden in love suspense dramas into the novel narrative structure of Rashomon, creating a new pattern of Hong Kong dramas.
"Bridge of Sighs" is Lam Baoyi's first online drama as a producer, setting a new record for high scores in Hong Kong dramas in 2020. (Photo/"Bridge of Sighs")
At this stage, Lin Baoyi can be called reborn, and the homework handed over is extremely eye-catching. He let the audience see a completely unfamiliar literary texture under the familiar faces of Hong Kong dramas.
It was also from "Margaret and David Mung Bean" that Lin Baoyi seemed to have found a way to advance her performance. In the past, he was used to ingesting acting ideas in advance, but after that time, he believed more in improvisation and live feeling, which he described as "like an airplane taking off", allowing the character to live in his body.
"'Margaret and David Green Bean' took about three or four months to shoot, but 'David' was with me for two years. In the play, Margaret treated me very badly, and after filming, I didn't want to see Zhou Jiayi in real life, I hated her, it was true, and I called her to tell her. ”
The role of David made Lin Baoyi "reborn". (Photo/"Margaret and David Green Bean")
Living in the role is more like a "painful enjoyment" for him. In addition to the character, the extremely rich life experience gives him a player personality who plays in the world. He is an out-and-out optimist, very focused on the quality of life, in the trade-off between career and life, he has always been inclined to life, thinking that career is just an embellishment of life.
In the conversation with Lin Baoyi, you can feel that he is a person with a strong sense of order, he likes to separate life and work, and prefers to regard acting as an ordinary profession, "It's hard to be an actor, I've never been a star, I don't like people to be around, I like to live freely, just like ordinary people." If I don't become an actor, then I will retire and have time to climb mountains, swim, and have barbecues with friends."
Lam likes to share her daily life on Weibo, and at the end of it will be accompanied by the motto "be happy". (Photo/Lin Baoyi Weibo)
He describes himself as a very typical Virgo, who likes to be orderly and regular in life, and enjoys the pursuit of perfection in details. At the age of 59, he is still used to walking his dog three times a day, about 2 kilometers each time. He doesn't eat any supper after 8 p.m., and goes to bed at a fixed time when he's not filming. "In Hong Kong, if I had the opportunity to use public transport, it would be a natural thing. When you see me, you feel like an old friend. ”
Maybe many people don't know that "Lin Baoyi" is not his real name, but the stage name he gave himself, and staying happy has always been his way of life.
In each of his tweets, he ends with his motto "Be Happy". It comes from a lyric, but Lin Baoyi deliberately omitted the first half of the sentence "Don't Worry", and his explanation further proves his transparency and pragmatism in the present -
"Later I found out that this 'Don't Worry' is wrong, because you can't not worry, and if you don't mind a lot of things, if you don't think about them, you are actually running away, and that won't solve anything. Therefore, only by facing problems with an optimistic attitude can we truly 'Be Happy'. ”
Lam is a veteran dog lover. (Photo/Lin Baoyi Weibo)
Proofreading: Zou Weiyun
Operations: Ono
Typesetting: Duan Meiyu