Wear a plain down jacket and walk with both big and fast steps. When chatting, he is full of emotion and can passionately come up with a classic line at any time. Wang Luoyong was interviewed because he played Lu Xun in the recent Shanghai drama "Outpost" and received applause. Wang Luoyong played many positive energy figures throughout the ages, happy to take on such roles, Wang Luoyong replied with the famous words of his favorite musician Rachmaninoff: "An artist does not cry for his mother, does not shout for the land where he was born, his life will never have power." ”
1. Find the basis for playing Lu Xun in your heart
Lu Xun is difficult to act. Wang Luoyong knew this very well in his heart.
"Almost all Chinese are familiar with Lu Xun's image, and you will first encounter the problem of not looking like luminous." Secondly, for Lu Xun, everyone has their own imagination, not to wear a long shirt and hold a cigarette in his hand to convince the audience. This is not a typed profession, and when you wear a painted overalls, you can immediately convince the audience that you are playing a worker. ”
Wang Luoyong spoke frankly. That day he was discussing the casting of "Outpost" with Huang Changyong. Wang Luoyong sat in a backlit seat, Huang Changyong suddenly became excited, he said to Wang Luoyong, you don't move, you must play Lu Xun.
Horizontal eyebrows cold to the thousand fingers, bowing down to the cow. Before Wang Luoyong, there were three actors who starred in Lu Xun's drama bones. When Pu Cunxin made the movie "Lu Xun", he was in his early 50s and had both forms and gods. Li Xuejian starred in the movie "Red Star Shines on China" in the year of his flower armor, and there are not many scenes, but the spirit is still there. In the movie "Golden Age", Wang Zhiwen is a tall man of one meter and eight meters, playing Lu Xun, who is less than one meter and six meters, and only relies on a back shadow to let the audience feel the lonely and arrogant wind bone of Mr. Wang.
"Can I provide the audience with a convincing image of Lu Xun again?" Wang Luoyong said that he was hesitant at first to play Lu Xun, until he once gave a lesson to students who played the play. It was Wang Luoyong rehearsing a musical for the students, and for a moment, he seemed to disappear into the scene where Lu Xun talked to young people in the art salon in "Outpost". Suddenly, Wang Luoyong touched the blood connection between Lu Xun and the young man. "At that time, it suddenly occurred to me that you could play Lu Xun. At this moment, your experience, as well as the roles you have played before, are superimposed, giving you the confidence to take the role of Lu Xun. Whether he looks like him or not, I have found the basis for playing the role in my heart. ”
Wang Luoyong has his own unique view of playing Lu Xun: "I want the picture that the audience feels is cold, and a beam of light on the stage comes in, and the contrast is particularly strong." I want to strengthen Lu Xun's image with two props, one is his cigarette and the other is his pen. His hands are either cigarettes or pens, giving the characters some fireworks and popularity. Playing Lu Xun, every time before going on the field, you always have to sigh and go out again. I want to let the whole person down, soft on the outside and strong on the inside, in the slack, to transmit his kind of power, not hoarse, not nagging. ”
Under Wang Luoyong's interpretation, Lu Xun is not only the warrior who exists in our minds and emits the cry of the times, but also an "extremely everyday" Mr. Lu Xun. It is said that when screenwriter Huang Changyong saw Wang Luoyong sitting alone on the noisy stage, he had the temperament of "being alone like a guest" like Lu Xun, and the courage, arrogance and warmth in his eyes made Huang Changyong unable to burst into tears for a while.
2. Want to give what you have learned to young people
Wang Luoyong laughed and said that in terms of experience, he was emotionally similar to Lu Xun in at least two points, one was to stay in the ocean to see the world at an early age, and the other was to completely hand over what he had learned to young people.
Born in Henan in 1958, Wang Luoyong left home at the age of 11 to study Peking Opera at an opera school in Shiyan, Hubei Province. Every morning, he began to practice the basic skills, crawling and beating, dancing with knives and guns. After 5 years of such a life, he practiced a solid basic skill of physical performance. At the age of 17, Wang Luoyong went to the Wuhan Conservatory of Music to major in horn. In 1981, he was admitted to the Shanghai Theater Academy, and after 4 years, he stayed on to teach with excellent performance.
In the spring of 1985, the Batun Roadbed University in Louisiana, the United States, threw an olive branch to Wang Luoyong, he won a full scholarship from the university's drama department, and the leaders of the Shanghai Theater Academy also gave him great support. But on his fourth day in the United States, his poor English overwhelmed him, and as a result, his scholarship was canceled. After hitting a wall again and again, Wang Luoyong went to great lengths to finally study in the Theater Performance Department of Boston University in the United States.
At the beginning of 2018, Wang Luoyong's "Teacher's Table" recited in English in the "Sound Immersion" program was widely circulated online. This also leads to a story that he has been quite inspirational in the United States. In order to learn pure English pronunciation, the language teacher made him a small tool for practicing pronunciation with the cork of a red wine bottle, which was practiced in his mouth, but the cork would taste after a long time. Once, on a small island in Seattle, Wang Luoyong picked up a small stone, similar in shape to a cork. After that, he took the small stone with him and wiped it clean with alcohol after practicing. Until the end, all the edges and corners of the stone were rounded by the teeth. Today, Wang Luoyong still holds this stone: "Under that pressure, there is that passion and impulse, when I encounter difficulties again, I will look at it." ”
In a foreign country, Wang Luoyong relied on the unique tenacity of Chinese, endured great hardships and endured great hardships, and finally earned a place on Broadway. In 2008, Wang Luoyong chose to return to the Shanghai Theater Academy as a teacher, and in 2012, he became the director of the Shanghai Opera Musical Theater Center. Playing Lu Xun has given him a reflection on his years of teaching experience. "When I was playing Lu Xun, I suddenly thought of such a question, what prompted Mr. Lu to reduce his writing, and even spent a lot of time communicating with young people. But Lu Xun was the most annoyed with the teacher, he said that I am not a mentor, I am not a direction, I just said some other possibilities. Wang Luoyong said that he felt the same way about Lu Xun because he also cherished young people.
Being with the students is the happiest thing for Wang Luoyong. He took them to rehearse, adjust their posture, correct their pronunciation, and make their own props. He attaches great importance to the sense of form, asking everyone to brush their teeth collectively before each performance, freshen their breath, and respect the audience and their partners on stage. At the end of each performance, the protagonist should thank the classmates who ran the crowd for him, and shake hands tightly to thank him. After the performance, we must have the heart to ask the audience to provoke. In Wang Luoyong's eyes, the new generation of young people are confident, knowledgeable, and have an international perspective, and they cannot be suppressed, but can only be sincere, give trust, release responsibility, responsibility for culture, and responsibility for society.
3. The artist is to cry out for the land where he was born
After returning to China, Wang Luoyong filmed "Lin Hai Snow Field", "Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army", and "Jiao Yulu", shaping the images of Yang Zirong, Yang Jingyu, Jiao Yulu and so on. Wang Luoyong picked the role, "I have a potential standard, as little as possible to play fake foreign devilish things, I want to play the most familiar character of the whole Chinese people, to embrace the people and their most ordinary life." Wang Luoyong said that the kind of roles that drive sports cars, live in high-rise buildings, and hold beautiful women are not played. Wang Luoyong said, "If artists do not sing for their mother and motherland, their voices will never have power." I used to do too little for my country, and now I have a chance. The voice of an artist bursting out from the bottom of his heart must come from the land that gave birth to him and raised him. ”
The positive characters played by Wang Luoyong also inspire him at the same time. Wang Luoyong said that when he starred in Jiao Yulu in 2012, he first followed Jiao Yulu's footsteps, and his understanding of Jiao Yulu went beyond textbooks and news reports. In the Luoyang Mining Machinery Factory where Jiao Yulu had worked for 9 years, some of the retired old workers were playing chess, some were watching TV and playing mahjong, and when they heard that the people who played Jiao Yulu had come, they immediately surrounded him and commented on him, saying that he looked like where he didn't look. In Lankao, when he was acting, he said such a line: "Folks, as long as we unite as one, no matter how big the disaster can be overcome." "An old grandmother ran down the hillside and told him: Secretary Jiao doesn't talk that way. He would say that people are diligent and not lazy, and there are golden mountains everywhere. "When Wang Luoyong played Jiao Yulu, as long as he walked to the side of the field, he would constantly cover the grass in the field with his hand." He doesn't go to the grass, he loves the land. Only if you understand Jiao Yulu, you will understand many of his subconscious actions, when he talks to the people, he never faces you, but puts the people on the side to talk to you. Wang Luoyong sighed that he starred in these positive characters, hoping that today's young people can understand who is the real hero of the Chinese nation from the characters he has created, so that they can better face the difficulties of life and shoulder the heavy responsibility of history. He said that many positive energy figures still seem to be moving today. Why is our life superior, our desires stronger, but our endurance and vitality weaker? He truly hopes that he can inspire and infect young people through one role after another, not only to let them understand the truth of art, but also to let them understand the current world.
Always full of passion and vitality, in the eyes of the students, Wang Luoyong is not only like a gentleman who is elegant and deeply educated, but also like a child with a warm heart and a pure heart. (Shen Qihua)