Huang Xuan's respect for the story and the importance of life make him follow in his performance. Even if he uses a more clumsy method - carefully observing and experiencing the surroundings, he can paint the simple and complete vision he has obtained into a vivid story, which slowly extends to the hearts of more people.
Huang Xuan was originally prepared to reject "Wuhai", but after he met with director Zhou Ziyang, he changed his mind.
Wuhai, in a continuous, empty, desolate desert, the twilight is dull, and the sky seems to have a solid thick ink, pouring down and covering the earth. Huang Xuan, who was shaking with the car in front of the camera, only had a side face and scars, and he clutched the steering wheel in front of him without uttering a word. The atmosphere is heavy, and you can faintly feel the dark tide surging under the calm surface, like a deep and quiet sea, and it always feels like something will suddenly break out of the water and set off a monstrous wave - this is the most impressive clip in the promotional film of "Wuhai".
When he first received the script of "Wuhai", Huang Xuan was filming "Only Yun Knows", and he was going to take a good rest after filming this one, so he decided to reject Zhou Ziyang. Unexpectedly, after two months, Zhou Ziyang sent a long letter with deep affection. In the letter, he sincerely wrote that the protagonist in his mind, Yang Hua, is none other than Huang Xuan, so he hopes that Huang Xuan can star no matter what, "I remember that he also wrote in the letter: 'We are all post-80s filmmakers of the same era, and I think we should be able to collide with many sparks.'" Huang Xuan recalled.
"Wuhai" is a heavy story of reality, the protagonist Yang Hua's setting is very depressing, he is a husband with strong self-esteem, in the face of his well-off wife Miao Wei, often feel at a loss, and the company that partners with friends owes a bunch of debts because of investment failures. In just two days, he experienced the betrayal of friends, the resentment of his wife, the breakdown of his family, and the shattering of his dignity, which plunged the once promising man into a painful quagmire and could not move forward. The role setting that was deeply tormented was indeed a little too heavy for Huang Xuan, who had just finished shooting the last scene at that time, he felt a little difficult, and he wanted to rest well for the time being, but at the same time, he also felt the director's sincerity, thinking that no matter what, he would invite the other party to eat a meal as a thank you, on the other hand, he was also prepared to politely refuse in person. However, it was this meal that made Huang Xuan change his mind.
Zhou Ziyang, who directed "Wuhai", is a native of Inner Mongolia and a new generation of young directors. "Wuhai" is his second film work, and the director and screenwriter are him. When he meets and eats with Huang Xuan, he tells Huang Xuan that he wants to create this film, inspired by a series of real experiences that have happened to him and his friends around him. They also talked about their childhood, sharing the days when they clenched their teeth and desperately tried to survive during the "North Drift". Deep in love, Zhou Ziyang also once again launched an invitation to Huang Xuan, hoping that he could star. At that time, Huang Xuan's heart was moved, on the one hand, he had empathy for the similar experiences of the two, on the other hand, he was ignited by Zhou Ziyang's state of enthusiasm for film creation.
"He (Zhou Ziyang) told a lot of stories about himself and his friends, [he] felt that it would be a deep social impression, and wanted to portray the story of a group through the fate of the individual, so he had the impulse to make this movie." I think that the filmmaker himself is emotional and easy to empathize with, and this story just touched me," Huang Xuan said, "whether it is the character experience or his (director's) expression, people's emotions must be moving, I think the creator also needs to be moved, even if it does not need to be strictly seamless logic." After feeling the emotions between people and the collision of feelings, it will make me want to do something with this person. So, he no longer hesitated and took over the play, "I swore to the director that we must create this movie well." ”
The film title of "Wuhai" comes from Wuhai, a new industrial city in Inner Mongolia. During the banquet, Huang Xuan asked Zhou Ziyang: "Director, why is it called "Wuhai"? Zhou Ziyang also sold a special Guanzi: "You will know when you go." As soon as the voice dropped, Huang Xuan immediately answered: "Otherwise, we will go to Wuhai in two days." So, two days later, they arrived in Wuhai smoothly.
As an inland industrial city in Inner Mongolia, Wuhai has a special landform, located in the upper reaches of the Yellow River, and is also "three mountains, two valleys and one river", the city has both mountains and lakes, and there are deserts and hills around the city. In order to familiarize themselves with the story, Huang Xuan and the director visited several large and small places mentioned in the script according to Tu Suoji. At this time, Huang Xuan understood why the director put the story in Wuhai, "There is the Yellow River and the artificial lake, so you will see that half of the water is yellow and the other half is blue." If you go out of town for fifteen minutes by car, there is an endless desert outside, with a lake in the middle of the desert. There is also a stone mountain in the city. All in all, the whole city is very special. At that time, I understood that surrounded by such a special geographical environment, a special chemical reaction will arise in people's hearts. ”
Huang Xuan and Zhou Ziyang went back and forth, shuttling through all corners of the city, while imagining how the story would happen in the city: why Yang Hua came here, how he would feel, where his hometown was, where he grew up, and where he would go when he came to Wuhai..." We relied on these imaginations to grope in the city, gradually restoring the trajectory of this character's actions, and taking this as an opportunity to start our creation. ”
At present, we can only see a few words about Yang Hua in the promotional film of "Wuhai": the taciturn character, the deep economic and spiritual difficulties, and the despair and avalanche-like heart-rending pain that erupted in the silence, all of which were composed of a kind of calm before the storm. "Whether it is a coincidence or the result of life choices, he (Yang Hua) makes people feel that it is too difficult to live, too much to hold back."
Huang Xuan slowly recalled his first impression when he first saw the script, "I think this character is very deep, very heavy, and difficult. He reminds me of my familiar friends in life, who are people who have experienced similar experiences and emotional shocks, and one wrong step is a wrong step. Because of the similarity, it makes me empathize and makes me miserable. This is also another reason why Huang Xuan initially rejected "Wuhai".
Fortunately, Huang Xuan did not miss "Wuhai" in the end. From another point of view, it is Yang Hua who was jointly created by him and the director. The script that Huang Xuan got his hands on was actually not the final version, but just had a skeleton, and the flesh and blood were still waiting for him to slowly add up. In order to make Yang Hua in the script become a flesh-and-blood person on the screen, Huang Xuan must take out his own efforts to irrigate. So since joining the group, he has not spent a day discussing with the director how to portray Yang Hua, and sometimes he will argue.
"The director is stubborn, I am also stubborn, we both insist on our own ideas, so what to do, then frankly tell each other their views, persuade each other, have to find a conclusion." 」 Because the script is not yet complete, there is also a certain amount of creative space for the actors, and Huang Xuan can interpret according to his own ideas for the role. He and Zhou Ziyang began to discuss frequently in the preparatory stage, and the discussion occasionally became more and more intense during the shooting, and even in the later stages of editing, Huang Xuan was still relentlessly studying the rhythm of the story with Zhou Ziyang, such as the two people would discuss "whether this part of the editing would be better if it was used in another way". "As long as the film has not been cut and released, it means that we still have room for modification." So, every time we meet, we're constantly asking questions and then trying to figure out a way together. Huang Xuan recalled.
I was impressed by several impressive discussions. Once, Zhou Ziyang told Huang Xuan a scene, hoping to shoot according to his understanding. However, Huang Xuan felt that in the background of the story of that scene, the emotions of the characters should not be like this, and suggested another way. Therefore, he said to Zhou Ziyang: "I think this play is not good. Zhou Ziyang asked rhetorically, "Why?" I think it's pretty good. "Well, let's go, let's go out and talk." Then, Huang Xuan and Zhou Ziyang arrived outside the door, and there was a heated discussion between them, both of them were extremely serious people, and they refused to admit defeat and tried to convince each other. "We are both very serious about filming, and since we want to do it, of course, we must do the best." We are the same age, and when we discuss, we are not polite, we are all straight forward and honest. The end result of that argument was that Huang Xuan persuaded Zhou Ziyang. At the end, he told Zhou Ziyang: "If you don't believe it, you will know that I am right when you cut it out." Later, when the film came out, it was really as Huang Xuan said, much smoother than the original, so Zhou Ziyang also specially informed Huang Xuan: "I think that scene is indeed what you said." ”
There is also a scene where Huang Xuan and Yang Zishan's wife Miao Wei, played by Yang Zishan, quarrel at home. When he watched the replay after the first filming, he and Zhou Ziyang had their own opinions, and no one could convince anyone, but this scene was a particularly important scene. Therefore, Huang Xuan, Yang Zishan, and Zhou Ziyang simply suspended filming, and the three of them nestled in a small room to begin discussions, and a discussion lasted from noon to night, and the discussion lasted for five hours, and finally unified opinions. "Creation itself is solving problems, and when one problem is solved, then another problem comes. Therefore, we will always maintain communication and believe that there must be a solution. ”
Zhou Ziyang once mentioned an episode in Huang Xuan's shooting of "Wuhai" in an interview with the media, which he later learned from other staff members, "The staff told me that when the film was filmed, in order to better brew Yang Hua's obscure personality and emotions in the movie, Huang Xuan also deliberately changed from the original well-lit room to a dimly lit room." Huang Xuan admitted the truth of this matter, but he believes that the actor's proper preparation is also a way of creating his own, "If you want to get close to a character's mentality and state of mind, you must restore the conditions that occur in the story as much as possible through a variety of living environments, and find feelings from the external environment." This is indeed a more stupid approach. ”
"I know that the crew usually tries to give the actors as good a room as possible, in order to make everyone more comfortable. But Yang Hua is not a 'comfortable' person, and he often does not see the sunshine in his heart. Then, I could only be like him, as far as possible without seeing the sun, and then I asked the crew to find a shady room for me, with poor lighting. He described the change as a room that "even drops several degrees of body temperature after walking in," "And you'll be uncomfortable in this atmosphere for a long time, but that's when you're closest to the character."
The deliberately replaced cold room environment, from the outside to the inside, gave birth to the gloomy emotions in Huang Xuan's heart, so how to obtain the internal cause of pain close to despair? In order to be able to experience this "pain", Huang Xuan began to watch various documentaries on realistic directions day and night, as well as some news videos reporting on the difficulties of ordinary people's lives. The bits of despair that run through the lives of ordinary people seeped into his body like rain. What he showed about their suffering was not sympathy, but empathy. This kind of suffering is not poverty on the visual level, but despair and pain from the heart. I have seen some people who are unable to solve problems because of difficulties in their lives, whose looks, states, words and deeds are broken, confused, helpless, and overwhelmed. When I see them, I will recall some memories of my own past, and it will also make me feel more empathy for Yang Hua's fate. He described the whole month he had been as Yang Hua, and everything he saw in his eyes was "dim." "Even if you know you're acting, but the emotions are not fake, you still feel pain, and that month was really exhausting." This fatigue was inevitable, because he collected all these external feelings and emotions, hid them in his heart, and then relied on Yang Hua's body to tell the story.
Yang Hua in "Wuhai" won Huang Xuan the honor of best actor in the Chinese section of the rookie film competition at the 45th Hong Kong International Film Festival "Firebird Award". In his acceptance speech, he said: "Yang Hua is a very important role in the stage of my actor's career. Today, we have deliberately pulled out this testimonial, ready to ask the bottom line: If the actor's career can be divided into different stages, then what criteria does he divide it according to? What will each stage look like?
"(Stages) that are not distinguished by physical time. If a lot of things happen to you in a year, then your growth in this year will change dramatically, but if you are living a cookie-cutter life every day for several years, then maybe the changes in these years are not as huge as that year, so the stage is a personal feeling of cognition. ”
It is the duty of an actor to act well. On the other hand, acting for actors, is like playing a puzzle, you can spell out only the piece of pattern given to you, you can only do is to spell the pattern as fast and good as possible, as for what use the pattern will be after the spelling, this seems to be an area that the actor cannot touch outside his job. Rather than frequently looking back on the past, Huang Xuan is more inclined to go down the river, "People have to go forward, just like the river, the past is not in love, always can not stay in a state, or when I always look back at that state, I can only quickly return to zero in my heart." After performing a play, after watching it, I will silently leave a summary of 1, 2, and 3, and that is all, because I will continue to start and face a new stage and life. ”
In a sense, the dilemma may be different, but pain and confusion are common human emotions, Yang Hua has it, Huang Xuan will also have it. The development of careers and the changes in personal lives will have dilemmas that vary from person to person. "But you'll still see where the borders are. Many times, each of us, every day, every month will encounter problems that we have to solve on our own, and if we solve them, it means that we have moved forward for a while. ”
Do I have to look forward? yes. Huang Xuan gave the answer. "Looking back will not help." But there is no need to look too far, the best way is to pay attention to what is happening in front of you, to have a wish, but not to be a target, but also to perceive the happiness of the moment. In daily life, the sense of accomplishment that comes with completing a goal can bring him happiness: today's goal was originally to swim 800 meters, and the last thing to complete was 1300 meters, he would be happy because it represented his breakthrough; a bottle of toner just happened to be used up today, and then when he threw it into the trash can, he would also be happy, because it proved that there was a beginning and an end; there was also a big tidy up of the bookcase or sharing things that could not be used to friends and making the most of it... These ordinary little things made him taste the happiness in life, although not so grand, but enough to ignite his optimism.
"Have you ever thought about what kind of life you would live if you weren't an actor today?" The hypothetical question is not answered here in Huang Xuan, because the hypothesis cannot replace the accumulated past that so many real occurrences. He said sincerely, "Because I'm not there, I can't tell you the answer." I have come here as an actor for more than ten years, my experience, the people I have met, all make up the current me, another state of life I have not experienced at all, I can not imagine, do not want to lie to you, so there is no answer. "Yes, it is like stepping into a continuous, forward-flowing river, the mind is becoming more and more detached and quiet, and he slowly moves forward with the flowing water, never looking back.