Ding Liuyuan: Every role, I give up my life to play

Ding Liuyuan profile picture

【Approaching the Writers】

In order to restore the real scene of "Sister Jiang" when she was tortured, she ignored the director's strong opposition and asked for the real action when she was executed, and as a result, she was "strangled by the rope on the beam to the eyeball and almost suffocated", "was pressed into the water tank more than a dozen times, choked to the lungs", and "felt the pain of the bamboo stick tapping on the finger belly". She said: "There is no shortcut to creation, and if you want to create a real image of martyrs, you must first feel their pain." For each role, I gave up my life to act, trying to connect emotions with the role. ”

Recently, at the premiere of the movie "My Father Jiao Yulu", the audience's sobs sounded from time to time. Everyone was not only touched by Jiao Yulu's deeds, but also infected by the grief of his wife Xu Junya. The lights started, the main creator appeared, and some people were surprised: How is Ding Liuyuan?

Even the audience familiar with Ding Liuyuan did not recognize Xu Junya, who she played, and the two people were completely judged on and off the screen: the person in the film, with pale face, rough skin, sunken cheeks, and a face full of hardships of life; people on the stage, smiling and smiling, acting calmly, a gentle and dignified person.

The audience applauded the actor's interpretation, but Ding Liuyuan said: "It is said that actors create heroic roles, but I think that the red spirit has shaped me." Creation provides a provider for my life, and I grow little by little in the process of shaping the characters. ”

This is not a scene. Gao Junman, the wife of Chen Duxiu in "Hit the Water in the Middle Stream", Yang Kaihui in "Loyalty and Betrayal", He Zizhen in "Quenching into Steel", Jiang Zhujun in "Sister Jiang" and "My Best Friend Jiang Zhujun", Wang Xia, the anti-Japanese heroine Wang Xia in "Armed Workers Behind Enemy Lines", Sun Weishi, the adopted daughter of Premier Zhou in "Haitang Still", Xu Luxi, the wife of Deng Jiaxian in "Hundred Refining into Steel", and Gong Quanzhen, the "old aunt" in "Chu Xin"... For more than 20 years, red has always been the background of Ding Liuyuan's acting career, and playing a "red character" has become a part of her life.

Although he is familiar with the female characters in different red theme film and television works, this time he approached Xu Junya, ding Liuyuan felt tormented.

There is not much information about Xu Junya, in order to find out the personality characteristics of the woman behind Jiao Yulu, Ding Liuyuan asked Jiao Yulu's second daughter Jiao Shouyun about her mother's story as soon as she had the opportunity. Jiao Shouyun told her a detail: every year Chinese New Year's Eve, Xu Junya made her own dumplings, and then silently returned to the house, not watching TV or eating. The family thought she was asleep, but in fact she was hiding in the quilt and crying silently. After crying and sleeping, she woke up and cried again, she missed Jiao Yulu too much.

These moving details and fragments, like puzzles, gradually spell out the true appearance of the characters. But Ding Liuyuan fell into boundless pain in the process of approaching the role step by step, during the shooting, she felt that she was Xu Junya, who was tormented by thoughts all the time, "eat sleeping pills every day, eat three tablets and three pieces, otherwise you can't sleep, you lose ten pounds a month."

When filming the scene when Jiao Yulu was dying, Ding Liuyuan had already integrated with the character and was trapped in the plot and could not extricate himself. The director shouted to shut down, she still looked at Jiao Yulu on the hospital bed, and whispered in pain: "I don't want to live!" There is no such line on the script, which is a natural outpouring of her selfless emotions.

It is this kind of wholehearted devotion that allows the audience to see Xu Junya, who has flesh and blood. After the movie was finished, Jiao Shouyun took Ding Liuyuan's hand and said excitedly: "Thank you for letting me see the shadow of my mother back then." ”

Ding Liuyuan said: "There is no shortcut to creation, I belong to a relatively stupid person, slow to enter, come out slowly, for each role, I open up my life to act, trying to open up emotions and roles." ”

In the TV series "Sister Jiang" and the movie "My Best Friend Jiang Zhujun", she played "Sister Jiang". In order to restore the real scene of "Sister Jiang" when she was tortured, she ignored the director's strong opposition and asked for the real action when she was executed, and as a result, she was "strangled by the rope on the beam to the bulge of her eyeballs and almost suffocated", "was pressed into the water tank a dozen times, choked to the lungs", and "felt the pain of the bamboo sticks tapping on the abdomen". "To create a true image of martyrs, you must first feel their pain." Ding Liuyuan said, "Actors can only create good works in the process of their own most entangled tearing. ”

Ding Liuyuan, who is good at "stupid kung fu", has been in the arts for more than 20 years, starred in more than 40 film and television works, and still insists on not relying on "inertial experience" performances. After "Sister Jiang" and "My Best Friend Jiang Zhujun", she refused to continue to play the role of "Sister Jiang", and she did not want to rely on the aura of "Sister Jiang" to indulge in the comfort zone of performance.

Ding Liuyuan is very serious about everything related to the performance, giving people the feeling of "gong baht must be compared". During a certain filming break, several young actors played in front of her, and Ding Liuyuan, who has always been gentle and elegant, was anxious: "I want to make trouble for you to go out and make trouble!" We are playing the story of a martyr, if the actor can not enter the role from the emotions and state, how can he play well? Ding Liuyuan further emphasized that actors should have a reverence for the role.

However, once she left the role, she did not have a bit of a star appearance, "no makeup, no beauty, no mask" outside the play, and spent her time reading and walking. She once walked alone to the Border Oferic-Meite-China border in Tibet to deliver books to the soldiers stationed there; she also walked into the depths of the Daxing'an Mountains to feel the drudgers; and carried supplies after the Wenchuan earthquake, changed to 6 passing cars and walked 4 kilometers to yingxiu Town, the epicenter of the earthquake, to participate in the earthquake relief. These experiences are regarded by Ding Liuyuan as a precious opportunity given by life, and she always maintains her enthusiasm for learning from the people who have struggled on all fronts in the motherland, and is always ready for the next role.

In Ding Liuyuan's view, these are not only the self-cultivation of actors, but also the basic requirements of society for a Communist Party member. Ding Liuyuan, who has more than 20 years of party experience, has always regarded being a "people's actor" as her career pursuit, and she has always kept in mind the message sent to her by the old leader of the Bayi Film Studio: I hope that you will always be "red" - a pun, both a blessing and a trust - I hope that she will inherit the red gene, create more vivid red character images for the audience, and also hope that she will conquer the audience with her role and get more recognition and love from more people.

(Reporter Li Yuan, correspondent of this newspaper, Jing Zhaoyan)