Interview with Zhang Xincheng : Touching the Moon that Never Sets
For all beings in the entertainment industry, bleak means close to disappearing. So the artist needs to be eye-catching at all times, and he also needs to radiate heat in all directions - just like the sun.
However, in the communication with Zhang Xincheng, I accidentally caught a glimpse of a beam of light similar to the moon:
When we talked about "Love Like a Bouquet" (a Japanese movie), he calmly described the difference between himself and Shanyin Mai (the character’s name on the movie Love Like a Bouquet).
In the past few years after leaving the campus and entering the entertainment industry, he has not become a so-called adult who hurriedly picks up sixpence every day, "Instead, I have become more emotional and more sensitive from rationality, and I want to strengthen my ideals."
There was no trace of aggression in his words, but they revolved in my mind with certainty.
My understanding of him began to gradually overlap with the man in the vlog who looked at the moon.
He said at the time, "The moon has always been there, you just never noticed it.”
Yes. Just like a passer-by must follow a map, he always reaches out and touches the moon that never sets.
01
This interview started when Zhang Xincheng's new drama "The Murder in Kairoutei" was about to end.
Cheng Cheng, played by him, may not conform to the public's consistent impression of Zhang Xincheng—— He no longer looks like a good boy, but always wears a denim jacket and a pair of ruffian sunglasses.
I asked him, what word would you like to use to describe Cheng Cheng.
He pondered for a moment, then smiled and gave an answer: "Unexpected."
In Zhang Xincheng's eyes, Cheng Cheng is more like a mangosteen: "There is a difference between his surface and his heart."
When he was born, he was sent away by his mother suffering from depression, and when he was a child, he was abandoned by his adoptive father and sent to an orphanage. He finally reached the age where he could control his own life, but the entanglement of his adoptive father almost drained him.
As a result, Cheng Cheng naturally gave birth to a hard shell, which seemed to be black, shadowy, and even cynical. But once he breaks through his outer shell, he will find that there is still soft pure white inside. This layer of complexity builds the tension that belongs to Cheng Cheng, and also differentiates him from Zhang Xincheng's past roles, which made him very excited when he first saw the script.
The complexity of the characters' backgrounds and stories is a good thing, he said.
Everyone is always more accustomed to seeing a perfect person in the play, but perfection from the inside out often means falsehood. So, a character with variability and realism needs to have some shortcomings. These tragic pasts are the other side of Cheng Cheng, and make him a more three-dimensional and vivid person.
The other layer of "unexpected" originates from the twists and turns in the process of shaping "Cheng Cheng"——
"The Cheng Cheng that everyone sees now may not be the original version."
Due to the epidemic, the crew of "The Cloister Pavilion" has suspended filming for a period of time. The design of Cheng Cheng's character has also been revised a little during this time: In the original script, Cheng Cheng didn't speak so much, and was even a bit ruthless.
When I asked if there would be a character adaptation period after filming was stopped, he said that in order not to spend too much time returning to the character, he never stopped thinking about the character during the break.
Thanks to this, everyone can see Cheng Cheng now.
These changes and adjustments are also those "unexpected" about Cheng Cheng in Zhang Xincheng's eyes.
02
In the time of communicating with Zhang Xincheng, he also brought me a lot of "unexpected".
I am used to making an assumption about the answer before the artist answers the question, but Zhang Xincheng is always able to jump out of the routine—— I thought that artists would find it a challenge to try a role they've never played before.
However, he told me in a determined tone that this was not a challenge for him. Many people have a hard time imagining him playing such a role because everyone has not seen this side of him.
But he had already thought about "who Cheng Cheng is and how to interpret it" in his mind, so he knew that he could master it.
When you take it for granted that Zhang Xincheng should be a particularly confident person, he appears cautious and calm again—— I asked him at the time how he felt when he learned that the show was about to stop.
He used two particularly positive words: happy, happy.
Of course, this does not refer to the kind of happiness and joy that you can take a holiday, but another kind of joy:
"With longer time to adjust and consider the characters, the final result will be more stable."
So, I seem to understand these "unexpected" in an instant—— He's not the type to hide his true self beneath the surface, he has sincerity.
03
I feel that Zhang Xincheng is not afraid to open himself up. He can always smile and express his heart easily—— Just like talking about the biggest difference between student and work, he thought about it for a while and then said directly:
"Before other people pushed you, now you have to push yourself"
In fact, very few artists can clearly realize this: When you were a student, teachers would point out your shortcomings; but after you became an artist, other than the occasional corrections from seniors, people around you often wouldn't point out their problems.
In this process, only you can be your own ruler and become the only driving force for your own growth.
After chatting here, he confessed to me again that Zhang Xincheng, who was always willing to push himself in the eyes of others, was also a very lazy person. It is precisely because he is well aware of this point that he will force himself to take one more step forward as much as possible.
It's like he said that many books can't be read, but he still forces himself to read: "Because there are really too few books to read, and I don't want to be deceived in society, so I still need to read more books." We laughed loudly.
And, he also desperately controlled himself for the role—— During the Chinese New Year, he gave up delicious and greasy food and forced himself to do the running that he hated the most.
The effect is very obvious, he dropped from 135 pounds to 115 pounds in a month; there is also a price, during that time, he basically fell ill two or three times a month. Therefore, he has been emphasizing, "I suggest everyone not to be too eager for success, because We can't help it."
He, who is so dedicated to his work, laughed when I asked him "how to balance work and life after so long on set".
He said that this question really touched my heart.
The life of an artist in everyone's imagination may be colorful, but in Zhang Xincheng's view, his life is boring most of the time.
He said that working on the set for more than 300 days a year has indeed deprived him of a lot of life, which is definitely not acceptable.
So, he began to think about what changes he should make; The first is fitness, and the second is to expand your reading volume. Then slowly add more things like camping, writing, and researching coffee.
And once you decide to go to a movie, you must be immersed in watching the whole movie perfectly.
These ritualistic things will make him feel that his life is coming back—— In this way, in addition to filming, he can finally have a more common topic to communicate with others.
He said that there are fixed things to do every day, and then, turning acting into a commute-like job, "makes me feel better."
04
Zhang Xincheng after "opening" is actually more emotional and ideal—— I asked him about the sentimental sentence he left on Weibo two years ago when "The Cloister Pavilion" was completed, "Dionysus' blessing."
He also instantly returned to the emotions at that time, and his tone was immersed in memories.
For him, the filming process of "The Murder in Kairoutei" was like "taking off a layer of skin".
This drama not only has a very long cycle, but the script was not completely completed when it entered the group. Afterwards, it experienced many twists and turns, and everything seemed difficult and long. Therefore, on the day of the final filming, he was very emotional, so he had a dinner with his colleagues in the crew, chatted freely, and put an end to this period of time.
Between half-dreams and half-awakes, he looked at all this, and suddenly felt that this was Dionysus' blessing to him.
In his statement, I also seemed to have captured the moment when the sensual light flickered.
Perhaps it is because of this sensibility that after becoming an adult, he did not begin to pursue orderly happiness like others, but rather wanted to touch the ideal moon on tiptoe—— "What I once thought was more realistic and certain is not so certain now."
This growing yearning for the ultimate ideal also made him uneasy. For example, he described the process of "delivering" his new work as opening a blind box. The mood is tense, but also a little anticipation, and occasionally a little lost.
The expectation is because I feel that I have given the time, and finally I will take out the carefully prepared cake for everyone to taste. And nervous because I don't know how everyone's reaction will be. For the actors, the series is very variable, and no one knows what it will bring when it comes out.
However, even if he is uneasy, he will not become a rash person because of this.
In the past two years, he began to learn to slow down the pace step by step, accept himself, and reminisce about the books he read when he was a student, and even realized a point of truth:
"Objective laws cannot be changed, and people can only properly exert their own subjective initiative."
He said, that's right - in the past, he always wanted to destroy everyone's past impression of himself, but now he found that it was an external object that could not be interfered with. Now he is more willing to accept it calmly and leave a steelyard in his heart.
In this way, you can quietly tell yourself when you are at a low ebb: In fact, you are not bad;
When you are sought after, you can always remind yourself that there are still many places you need to improve.
He has always believed in a belief:
Time is the best ship.
With the accumulation of experience year after year, he can naturally grow from one point to three points and sail to more distant ports.
Don't be nervous, don't be anxious, don't worry about the long journey. The moon was always there, he just had to look up at it.
He also instantly returned to the emotions at that time, and his tone was immersed in memories.
For him, the filming process of "The Murder in Kairoutei" was like "taking off a layer of skin".
This drama not only has a very long cycle, but the script was not completely completed when it entered the group. Afterwards, it experienced many twists and turns, and everything seemed difficult and long. Therefore, on the day of the final filming, he was very emotional, so he had a dinner with his colleagues in the crew, chatted freely, and put an end to this period of time.
Between half-dreams and half-awakes, he looked at all this, and suddenly felt that this was Dionysus' blessing to him.
He also instantly returned to the emotions at that time, and his tone was immersed in memories.
For him, the filming process of "The Murder in Kairoutei" was like "taking off a layer of skin".
This drama not only has a very long cycle, but the script was not completely completed when they entered the group. Afterwards, it experienced many twists and turns, and everything seemed difficult and long. Therefore, on the day of the final filming, he was very emotional, so he had a dinner with his colleagues in the crew, chatted freely, and put an end to this period of time.
Between half-dreams and half-awakes, he looked at all this, and suddenly felt that this was Dionysus' blessing to him.
Translation may contain inaccuracies since I used google translate. The purpose of this post is merely a personal archieve.
cr : https://weibo.com/ttarticle/x/m/show/id/2309404789750895607871?_wb_client_=1
