A few days ago, the campus love drama "To Our Sweet Little Happiness" adapted from Zhao Qianqian's highly popular novel landed on Tencent Video solo, which is the third part of the "To Us" series of works, and a group of loyal fans of the IP have been accumulated before the start of broadcasting, and they have been waiting for this sweet and not greasy dessert-like work for a long time.
Expected casting
Unlike many large-scale dramas with grand narratives, such small-scale campus love dramas usually do not involve too many social science and ethical topics, and the plot is relaxed, and most of them impress the audience with sincere emotions. As a "carrier" to convey emotions, actors are the top priority of the work, and casting is particularly important. It is precisely because of the emphasis on the selection and collocation of actors and the guidance of shooting that each work of the "To Us" series of IP is like a small student and a small flower weather vane, and the actors can always go to a higher level in the near future.
In "To Our Sweet Little Beauty" (hereinafter referred to as "Little Beauty"), Zhu Lu, played by An Yongchang, is called the goddess of the art department, with an aura of not being close to people, and is the kind of person who is "not easy to get along with" in the mouth of his roommate's mother.
Bully, scum, obscure good students, club lovers, etc., these are the main characters in the campus drama. Among them, "school flower" is the most difficult to gain the audience's favor in the first time. According to the law of drama creation, most of these roles are at odds with the pleasing protagonist in the early stage, which will inevitably make the audience who substitutes the protagonist prejudice against it, and the "school flower" is mostly accompanied by more advantages, when a character has too many advantages, it is easy to stimulate the natural hostility of the audience - how to make the role regain the audience's love is the problem of the actors of this type of role.
How to interpret "not getting along"? An Yongchang did not fall into the cliché, simply showing people with a proud expression, but chose to create an aura with details.
The roommate's family damaged Zhu Lu's painting, and although An Yongchang wanted to show anger, he also realized that the other party was an elder after all, so he only expressed his dissatisfaction with his eyes, and did not roll his eyes or stare routinely, but more like he was sulking.
Therefore, although the audience perceives that Zhu Lu is not an easy-going person, they are also willing to admit that she is angry for a reason. Similarly, when mistaken by the people around him as difficult to get along with, An Yongchang does not really show indifference, but is more prominent in immersion in his own world, not excluding people from the outside world, which also gives space for later reversals and does not make the characters chaotic.
In film and television dramas, there is a type of role that is very similar to "Flower of Gaoling", beautiful, but can only be envisioned and difficult to touch - An Yongchang is like a spokesperson for the role of "Flower of Gaoling". In addition to Zhu Lu, the same is true of Princess Jiang Yingyue of Zhao in the famous work "The Promotion of the Crown Princess".
In that costume comedy, An Yongchang has brought a different style of painting since her appearance, and in the shooting scene of only one blower, her clothes are fluttering, showing the image of a crane that can make the audience ignore the barren props, always with aggrieved eyes so that although the audience has hatred for it, she has to understand the reason why the people in the play are dumped.
In addition to the negative characteristics of the human setting itself, a large part of the reason why a role causes discomfort to the audience is that the actor failed to perform the role's "last resort", but An Yongchang grasped this point. In film and television dramas, three-dimensional roles are not black and white, but have multi-faceted, An Yongchang knows how to find the hidden side of the role and enlarge it, so even if it is a high-cold role, it always attracts the audience to want to understand and be close. Coupled with the cool temperament of her body, many viewers ridiculed her as a "goddess role professional household", which is not surprising.
Unexpected reversal
Jiang Yingyue's personality and appearance are extremely suitable, and throughout the play, and in the "Little Beauty" starring five years later, Zhu Lu, played by An Yongchang, has some reversal dramatic effects.
After being stamped as "not easy to get along with" by her roommates, roommates' parents, classmates, and other people around her, a drunkenness made her reveal an unconfident side that seemed to be unconnected with her appearance. Her indifference stems from the lack of friendship, because she believes that she is not welcomed by her roommate, she chooses to take the initiative to close herself, resulting in misunderstanding.
When she calls herself "Fawn" with a red face, the audience is surprised with the characters in the play, but it does not feel abrupt. When getting along with badminton star Xie Yixing, she once again hid herself in a high-cold shell that could not enter the oil and salt, but she revealed a girlish side in her slightly childish mouth again and again, and the audience shouted "sweet and sassy", in other words, An Yongchang very flexibly showed Zhu Lu's ab noodles at the same time, making it more vivid.
Perhaps because of the innate hostility of the same kind, many female audiences are wary of the "school flower" type of character, but they are also impressed by An Yongchang. When there is Zhu Lu's lens, the bullet screen is often not stingy with any words of praise.
An Yongchang prefers a full character like Zhu Lu that cannot be seen through at a glance, and the same is true of Meng Huai in "Youth Must Be Early". This drama is like the urban version of "Little Beauty", the role has left school and entered the society, she plays a little girl who does not understand the world, after experiencing a series of events, she has grown into a strong woman who can stand alone, and her personality and views on love have grown in social experience.
Whether it is from high cold to playful, or from ignorance to self-improvement, it is not easy to show changes within the prescribed space, and film and television creation is not filmed according to the timeline, and there are often multiple scenes of opposite emotions filmed in the same day, which tests An Yongchang's ability to understand the role, and needs to have abundant emotions for "calling" at any time. This is her sensual side as an actress.
"I have a habit that when I get the script and read it, I will comb through the characters from beginning to end, and clearly understand the personality characteristics, growth environment, family background, etc. of this person before filming starts."
When filming My Fox Fairy Wife, she needed to show both the (alien) human and fox fairy states at the same time. Before filming began, An Yongchang watched a large number of film and television works with alien themes to find a balance point that reflected the "sense of reality" in the fantasy theme. At the same time, she has watched a large number of fox-related documentaries very carefully, trying to find an anthropomorphic fulcrum in real foxes.
This is her dedication as an actress.
The combination of the theory and the accumulation of materials in the early stage of shooting, and the understanding of the character's heartfelt sensibility during shooting, she truly becomes a character and can also show the various stages of the role. She has played many characters with changes, and they often carry unexpected reversals, but because the performance is in place, it is not surprising.
Hide behind the character
Since her debut, An Yongchang has played eight roles, large and small, and many viewers know her through her works, and also speculate on her own personality because of the character image she has created. Perhaps because playing the role of The Flower of Gaoling is too deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, the keywords surrounding her are mostly "cold", "quiet" and so on.
"I'm a more straightforward person who likes to go straight. And my usual dressing style is mainly casual, rarely wearing skirts, because I often have a big grin and are not very suitable for wearing skirts. ”
In fact, An Yongchang is neither as weak as Jiang Yingyue in "The Promotion of the Princess Princess", nor is it similar to Zhu Lu, who seems to be somewhat arrogant in "Little Beauty", she has thousands of postures in front of the camera, but she is different from them, more lively, and her temperament is stronger.
The cool appearance often stimulates people's desire to protect, but An Yongchang considers himself very independent. Indeed, although many children have dreamed of being an actor, there are very few like her who are not from an actor family, but are still at a young age of 14 and have no acting experience and connections, and actively pave the way for their own acting career.
"The Elevation of the Crown Princess" is her work when she was a student. That year she was a sophomore, before that, acting was only textbook knowledge for her, she had no substantive filming experience, but she did not show any timidity among a group of mature artists, and immediately returned to school to study after the success, and came and went freely in the two worlds of different identities of women in the deep palace and college students.
She likes to challenge, and the positioning of her image by others will not affect her choice of drama path at a large length, and the script and shooting team are the priority references for the selection of drama.
Perhaps, the next time she appears on the small screen, she is no longer cold and weak, but lively, kind, and may even be gloomy and dark. The audience can't guess her, and they can't guess the next character. But as an actress, she can hide behind all kinds of roles and become every role.
"To Our Sweet Little Beauty" starts in July and ends in September; "Youth Must Be Early" starts in July and ends in October - in the past two years, An Yongchang has always entered the group in the hot summer, and the weather has turned cool in the early autumn. Every summer, she has the opportunity to be someone else.
Who do you guess she will be this summer?