This article was published in Sanlian Life Weekly, No. 23, 2019, with the original title "Zeng Meihuizi: Innocence and Darkness Than Imagined"
The 38th Hong Kong Film Awards Best Actress was awarded to Tsang Mei Hui Zi, the actor of little sister in Hong Kong director Chen Guo's film "Three Husbands". It's an unfamiliar name. In her, you'll see ambition, and you'll see self-descriptions like "cold-blooded animals." It has been a long time since I have seen such a savagely growing actress, who used to be like a weed, and whose future may be a big tree.
Journalist/Kason
Photographer Peter Hugo's photograph of Tsang Mei Hui Zi later became the cover of the German magazine artmapp
Who is Tsang Mei Hui Zi?
On the day of the Hong Kong Film Awards on April 14, 2019, when Hui Yinghong announced that the winner of the new film queen was Tsang Mei Hui zi from the New Film "Three Husbands" from Hong Kong directors, she was so excited that she forgot her expression management, and when she stood up, she looked a little confused because she was too excited, accidentally stepped on the skirt during the live broadcast, almost fell, and stood on the stage and said the day's acceptance speech in non-standard Cantonese.
Many people will ask, who is this actor? It's been 15 years since she played her first role. Her debut work is to play Lou Ye's roommate Dong Dong in "Summer Palace" Yu Hong (played by Hao Lei), later play Fan Bingbing's foot-washing little sister in Li Yu's "Apple", and Bi Gan's two-minute ex-wife call machine in "The Last Night of the Earth", the movies she participated in are all well-known works of famous directors, but few people have seen the supporting roles around big stars, and Zeng Meihuizi's role is like an inconspicuous "grass".
In an interview, she mentioned the persistence of more than ten years on the road of actors, "I am a more pessimistic person, I think there is a bright part, must be accompanied by shadows." Behind today's highlights are the dark years of many years, which makes Zeng Meihuizi stand on the podium, with real ambition, more irrepressible joy, even she herself ridiculed, there is a report that she played the "killing red eye" feeling, it is indeed not exaggerated.
Audiences are easily impressed by the face that conforms to the mainstream aesthetic and the actress with acting talent, and Zeng Meihuizi is not such an actor. In terms of looks, her high cheekbones, wide forehead, Dan phoenix eyes and very angular face give her beauty a different temperament. In terms of acting skills, although she once studied at the Beijing Broadcasting Institute, she did not become an actor who relied on "technology" to act, but instead carried a "clumsy energy" on her body, giving the role a different impact.
"Time, that is, it will slowly let you see growth and transformation, and what I have is patience." Zeng Meihuizi said. Although at the celebration banquet after her award, she was criticized by the Hong Kong media for being too ostentatious and did not hide her ambition to "come out".
Zeng Meihuizi and I met and added WeChat to a Beijing party seven or eight years ago, but we can't remember the specific time and place. Over the years, she has given me the most impression not as an actress, but as an independent photographer friend who is very fond of this distinctive face. "A young body lives with an old soul with a story." Said a friend who had photographed her, Huandao.
At this stage, one of the most famous photographs was taken by photographer Pieter Hugo and later became the cover of the German magazine artmapp, with Zeng Meihuizi wearing a Peking Opera hood, smoking a cigarette in her left hand, wearing a long skirt wrapped in gold and a plush coat, with a jade pendant hanging from her chest and a string of Buddha beads on her hand. It was captured by Peter, which later became the cover of the famous photographer's portfolio and was collected by top art galleries. The sense of collision and conflict from Eastern and Western cultures is completely in line with the Western world's imagination of the contemporary East, and Zeng Meihuizi has never changed this photo as a WeChat avatar. To her, this picture seems to be a certain alternation of light and darkness in her heart, and it is also the contradiction and loneliness in her heart.
Zeng Meihuizi is contradictory, and zhang Ming, the director who cooperated with her on "Pluto Moment" last year, said of her, "She is a simple and charming actor, she is powerful enough, and her appearance on the screen is like an air pressure pressing against you." In the film, she plays a rural widow, wearing a red sweater, and her childish face exudes a kind of desire. Later, I talked with many friends who used to be common, and it was this sense of contradiction in Zeng Meihuizi that made her seem out of place in the showbiz circle at the same time, and she was fortunate to be favored by literary and art directors.
Zeng Meihuizi recalled that when Lou Ye's "Summer Palace" recruited actors, there were thousands of students enrolled in different colleges and universities, large and small, and she went without understanding. Because of the large number of people, everyone introduced themselves in half a minute, when she had only been in Beijing for a month and had not undergone formal acting training. Lou Ye wants to find a roommate Dong Dong for Hao Lei, "a bit wooden, can play the pipa, the age is also in line", Zeng Meihuizi can not say too specific why she was confused in thousands of people selected by Lou Ye, and inexplicably entered the crew. Zeng Meihuizi is the youngest in the crew, has no concept of filming, because of lack of security, he also wets the bed at night, so frankly describes the cowardice of the past, it is difficult to connect with Zeng Meihuizi, who is not afraid of the stage today.
Lou Ye told her about the drama like treating kindergarten children: "Dong Dong, one moment you are playing here, the next moment there is a sister (Hao Lei) coming, you see her crying, you cry with her, she does not cry you don't cry, after your sister is gone, you still continue to play." "Zeng Meihuizi recounted to me the experience of Lou Ye telling her about the play, I joked with her, how do you feel like a realistic version of Niu Caiyun into the city to act?
After that, Li Yu filmed "Apple" because I watched Lou Ye's "Summer Palace" and thought that the winter in it was very interesting, and you can find it to see. At this time, Zeng Meihuizi had a consciousness of acting, and secretly ran to the dance hall to experience life for a month in order to play the role, although it was still a supporting role, but the play could already bring some memory flashes to such an inconspicuous role.
Zeng Meihuizi went to school while filming in the crew, no agent, and no other publicity methods, so she lived the life of a "wild actor", until 2010, when she played Niu Caiyun in the TV drama version of "Mobile Phone", she began to receive some commercial film invitations, even the supermarket sister who sold fruit downstairs in her house could recognize, "Hey, aren't you Niu Caiyun?" At this time, Zeng Meihuizi began to take another step closer to her dream of being an actor.
Chen Guo's "Three Husbands" won Tsang Mei Hui Zi the Best Actress at the 38th Hong Kong Film Awards
Exodus and return
Niu Caiyun in the TV drama version of "Mobile Phone" is silly, with a crooked ponytail on his head, blue eyeshadow on his eyelids, and a serious costume bought in a small market, which perfectly portrays a rural child who enters the city and has an actor's dream. After this play, Zeng Meihuizi often received invitations for roles like Niu Caiyun, at which point she began to have a hint of bad premonition and long-term confusion, "Have I always had to play such a role?" ”
Lou Ye and Li Yu gave her a higher starting point than her peers, but she was trapped at this starting point. This was not the first time she had realized the predicament, as a child she had developed earlier than her peers, and stood out from the crowd of girls, which made her feel ashamed, she put on her corset, subconsciously hunched over, hoping that she would be like other children, so that she could live as safely as others. But there's always been a question that bothers her, do I have to be like everyone else to be an actor? So who is "me"?
Zeng Meihuizi remembered a speech on the stage when she was a child, when a light source hit the top of her head, and her inner inferiority, loneliness and poor expression were suddenly completely released. "When I'm watched by others I become another person and I need a spotlight." 11-year-old Tsang mei huizi firmly believes that this is a sense of public loneliness, and this loneliness leads her to a safer place, which is why she has been determined from the beginning that she is suitable to be an actor.
At the low point of life, she pushed out a lot of scripts, the scripts are similar, all similar to Niu Caiyun's characters, can only beg for rice in repetition, which has nothing to do with her film dreams. The depression of that time made her close herself off, getting up early every day to read a book on film theory, conducting physical training in the afternoon, and watching movies in the evening, giving herself a "militarized" regular life schedule. "Discouraged every day, falling once a day, more than 90% of the parts every day are not satisfactory, and maybe the remaining less than 10% of the things will make you feel like eating sugar." 」
Zeng Meihuizi showed me her diary written in the summer and autumn of 2012: "The rainy night in Beijing is undoubtedly a moment of my thoughts, reading Agnès varda's document "Cleo from five to seven o'clock", I saw a broken mirror, like a broken self, not a physical self, but a fragment that could not be put together in memory. ”
In three years, Zeng Meihuizi did not act again, she read Stanislavsky's books in the café, and when she was sleepy, she slept on the table, choosing not to be at home for fear of worrying her family. But that didn't escape her mother's eyes. "My mother thought I was in a silly state at that time, worried that I would look at stanislavsky, Fassbinder, Bergman's theory to see stupid, in fact, later I understood why I always looked at these things at that time, because I felt that this was a kind of self-disguise and protection, and when I didn't know where to go next in life, I could only use these things as a shield for life." 」
In 2014, Zeng Meihuizi decided to go to New York to study, the so-called study tour is to participate in local actor training. As a newcomer, she had a poor foundation in English, and learning languages and acting went hand in hand. "I was living in New Jersey at the time, and when I came home from Manhattan at night, I had to take Line 9 and then turn to path, and I had a lot of time in the subway, and the platform was empty late at night, and my heart was empty." That should have been zeng meihuizi's most helpless time, as she wrote in her diary: "True freedom can only exist if it is accompanied by loneliness." ”
Zeng Meihuizi likes to say the word "loneliness", and Manhattan can undoubtedly express this feeling more intensely. In the year and a half in New York, Zeng Meihuizi is no longer confused, and has re-sorted the theory of film and the mentality of being an actor. "It may be that I came up to contact with literary and art films, and there will be a small sense of superiority." This sense of superiority almost ruined my profession and left me with too many terrible illusions about acting. 'Literature' is a kind of limitation, it is very unreal. ”
What does the real world look like? In this huge city, no one is special, she once saw stars in the subway late at night sitting on the subway home, she felt that this feeling is fantastic, all the roles should not be just verbally unresolved theories, only by integrating into ordinary people, experiencing hardship, mediocrity, triviality, having a real inner self-sufficiency, fullness, in order to find the foundation in the face of the role.
Chen Guo's "Three Husbands"
Chen Guo's assistant director told Zeng Meihuizi that Chen Guo had come to Beijing and was selecting an actor to play the final chapter of the "Prostitute Trilogy". The first is Qin Hailu's "Durian Fluttering", the second is Zhou Xun's "Hong Kong Has a Hollywood", this third is said to have been brewing for many years and has been looking for opportunities to shoot. Zeng Meihuizi was very excited, but this was not the first time she had seen Chen Guo.
More than a decade ago, when she had just finished filming "Summer Palace", she met Chen Guo in the café, when the director wanted to find an actor to play the daughter of the protagonist, but after seeing Zeng Meihuizi, she split her head and covered her face and said: "No! unhappy. The denial of Crisp Li Suo was a serious blow in Zeng Meihuizi's impression at that time. Chen Guo is a director with a very personality, and the actor he was looking for at that time was a thin girl, of course, Zeng Meihuizi's "strong" was extremely inappropriate.
Years later, Chen Guo had forgotten to have seen Zeng Meihuizi, who sat in the corner waiting for her in sunglasses. After sitting for ten minutes, Chen Guo did not speak, still as embarrassed as the meeting more than ten years ago. The assistant director said to see you in a few days. Zeng Meihuizi estimated that this time it was yellow again, so she did not pay attention to it. A few days later, still in the old place, Chen Guo was still curled up in his seat, drinking coffee, this time there seemed to be some difference, when Zeng Meihuizi sat down opposite, Chen Guo spoke for the first time: "How should we shoot this scene?" ”
Without cause and effect, or even an audition, Chen Guo used the word "we", which made her giggle in her heart, "Isn't it? Got a play? Zeng Meihui thought. The hope that had just risen was quickly extinguished again, Chen Guo did not say what scene to shoot, let alone propose to let her play any role, and the meeting ended again after ten minutes.
At this time, Zeng Meihuizi was very different from the girl more than ten years ago. She has seen too much of this kind of meeting and casting, in her words: "Over the years, I have been trained to be a person without any pain, no expectations and no longer have illusions, and I will not be hurt." 」 Strange to say, the night after seeing Chen Guo, she had a dream. Not only are there big waves in the dream, but there are many, many fish. Zeng Meihuizi said that since she was a child, she has not been a person with happy dreams, either dreaming of being chased or dreaming of being killed, only this time, there seems to be some hint in the darkness.
A month later, the assistant director sent a WeChat: "The director decided to let you act." "Just seven words, still vague, no script, no character setting. Zeng Meihui replied: "Okay. ”
There is only one request: "You're not fat enough." So, for a role without a contract and without a script, Zeng Meihuizi began to gain weight. I asked her, have you ever thought that the shooting might be a supporting role in soy sauce? Wouldn't it be cost-effective to gain weight like this?
"No matter how big or small the play is, and this is the director I like." She answered very firmly. You want to say that Zeng Meihuizi wants to be crazy, and it is possible not to give up any role, but I think this girl is a bit "stupid" in addition to "fierce". Before going to Hong Kong, she started a five-day fattening trip to McDonald's and supper. After a month, I gained more than 20 pounds, and at that time, I felt that I would breathe after taking two steps.
The day she arrived in Hong Kong was April 1, 2017, and Chen Guo saw her and told her to continue to gain weight! Not fat enough. Zeng Meihuizi did not understand Cantonese and was not familiar with life. It felt familiar, a bit like the first time I was on the crew, and a little bit like putting myself in big New York. The night before filming began, Chen Guo gave her the script for the first time.
In the script, Zeng Meihuizi saw for the first time that she was about to play a low-IQ woman with a sex addiction, three husbands, living on a fishing boat. The film should be the most explicit one in Chen Guo's "Prostitute Trilogy". At the beginning of the play, it is written: "All the beautiful things in the world are unreal. At this moment she finally understood what kind of person she was going to become, and the big fish she saw rolling in the huge waves in the dream was indeed a wonderful hint.
Strangely enough, Chen Guo never asked Zeng Meihuizi about the acceptable scale, let alone tell her what kind of way she should embody a low-intelligence sex addict living on a fishing boat. On the one hand, the fattening continued, and the pressure of the daily char siu meal and extreme conditions made her figure blow up like a balloon, and obesity made her take a two-month leave and check that the fat accumulation was serious, squeezing the internal organs. On the other hand, in an environment where she works in cantonese, Tsang Mei Hui Zi is like the little sister in the play, and she can't understand what others are saying.
Chen Guo shoots scenes quickly, and between each scene and scene, there is no time to change emotions, "you must be like a sharp blade, accurately find the character settings and kill them with one blow." In the face of extreme anxiety and pressure, Zeng Meihuizi's fighting spirit was stimulated. Even so, at night, she would still cry because she couldn't bear the pressure, until she found that it was dawn in the morning, and every day was like a long winter night.
Later, between filming, Zeng Meihuizi would ask Chen Guo, why did you choose me to make this movie? Chen Guo smiled and told her in Cantonese, "Because I'm stupid!" This is not the answer that Zeng Meihuizi wanted to get, she wanted to know if she was acting well, right? However, Chen Guo did not tell her. Until later Chen Guo revealed in front of the media, "If there is no Zeng Meihuizi, there would be no such play", such a high evaluation made her feel surprised and shocked.
After filming "Three Husbands", Zeng Meihuizi returned home and found that the weight of 148 pounds could not wear the original pants. Body and spirit seem to open an exit in a month of shooting, and I know a completely unknown self. She was surprised and delighted, and on the road of the actor, she really became a piece of "the hob meat that is not afraid of heaven" this time.
Because Zeng Meihuizi was fully committed in "Three Husbands" and contributed to the extreme performance, I asked her one last question, have you hesitated?
"Before I called my mother to communicate, my mother told me that if it was a challenge that I was very eager for in my heart, I could try it. I have such great ambitions today and her support is inseparable. She once told me very calmly that everyone is at a stage in the biological chain and should not hesitate to try and change. After listening to this answer, I finally understood why Zeng Meihuizi was more innocent and dark than imagined.
In two days, she's leaving for the United States, ms. Tsang said, and she's got a chance to prove herself again in Hollywood. Her sharpness would be like a note, all just to shatter the unreal. Ten years ago, hearing her say this, you may think that it might be a good vision, but now it sounds like everything is not impossible...