Chapter 2 Chapter Four

The truth about the life of actors and stars (1) After returning to Taiwan from New York, I found that the impression of "I Don't Know Where the Clouds Are" still left a lingering impression on the audience and the media. Some friends from the press I met a year ago came back to me again, hoping to know all about me in New York. experience.At that time, I had already cut my long hair into a Chinese doll head, and the bangs on my forehead hung on my natural-looking double eyelids. Yu Yeying, the big brother in the news industry, told me directly that he still prefers me with single eyelids , In addition, some friends in the arts and literature circles also miss my former oriental classical beauty.I have found that most of the friends who tell the truth to me can maintain a longer friendship.Through media reports, I seem to have contributed to the Chinese craze in Taiwan's clothing industry. As I grew older and deepened my self-awareness, I became more and more aware that Chinese style is the most suitable style for me, and I don't need to follow the already poor skills Western designers follow the circle season by season, expending precious energy in materializing and seeking outward with low self-esteem.

In addition, fashion is nothing more than a mentality of getting rid of the old and bringing forth the new. If the mentality is old and stale, no matter how fashionable the clothes are, there will be no new ideas. China Film Company sensed my potential from the public's reaction and decided to sign a basic actor contract with me.To be honest, I still didn't know what real acting was, and I don't think the other actors were very clear about it either. Even the director and screenwriter were operating their creativity half-gropingly and half-intuitively.Compared with the Western technological world, which is all about methods, Taiwan's film practitioners can be regarded as geniuses, because under such simple conditions, locally produced films can dominate the entire Southeast Asian market.In terms of creativity, screenwriters are the true creatives of all film practitioners, and actors and directors are strictly interpreters.However, there was a shortage of screenwriting talents at that time. Except for Zhang Yongxiang, Qiong Yao's works were the most marketable. As a result, every film looked similar. The voice actors are the same two or three people.

Apart from the older generation of directors Li Hanxiang, Hu Jinquan, Bai Jingrui, Li Xing, and Song Cunshou, Liu Jiachang should have the most prolific production. At that time, everyone called him "Crazy Liu".Crazy Liu walks fast, moves fast, thinks fast, and scolds him out of the cage quickly; like a typhoon, he blows the entire staff to pieces.He asked himself to be a time-saving, money-saving, and manpower-saving director, so he set an amazing record of finishing a film in three days.The actors in his films ran from the living room of one play to the dining room of another, and then all crowded into the coffee shop again.At the end of the film, he usually uses montage techniques to let the hero and heroine walk on the beach with rolling white waves, accompanied by pop songs composed by himself, ending one after another "three-hall movie".

Crazy Liu is my good friend to this day, he is really a human being worthy of study.Obscene words from other people always give people a negative feeling, but even if his "six-character quatrains" are vomited a hundred times, you still feel childish.His character is cynical, and his life has ups and downs, but no matter how he struggles, he can always maintain a scary scene.He seems disloyal and unfilial, but at every critical moment, he turns out to be "loyal to the party and patriotic".His emotions are always written on his face, and his plans are always on his lips, but you must not think him naive, because even the shrewdest businessman has succumbed to his charm.Of course, these are the simple conclusions of bystanders, and only you know the complex aspects of human nature.

Among the actors, there are many high-energy people who are not stingy with expressing themselves. The ones who really attract my attention are usually the reserved ones. Among them, Lang Xiong is the most interesting for me to talk about.Although there are not many opportunities for cooperation, I always feel that some directions of the hearts are similar.Although entertainers are not all well-informed, few are dull.Working in this circle may not gain much intellectually, but the communication of emotions and emotions is often unimpeded, and the visual enjoyment is also sufficient.At that time, many stars were "actors favored by the camera"—their bone structure, facial muscles, body proportions, skin color and texture, emotional expression and body language, all of which could bring the audience a sense of beauty and attraction. force.There are also many charismatic actors abroad, and most of them can become superstars, although they show themselves rather than the characters in each play.

In objective comparison, I have already recognized that I am an "actor that the camera doesn't love" - ​​my face is not a "small face as big as a palm" (this is a very critical condition for being photographed), and my weight must be maintained at forty-five About one kilogram, the face can show beauty on the lens.In addition, my temperament is a bit glamorous, but my figure is not feminine enough. However, I am not satisfied with myself to the extent that I need butt augmentation and breast augmentation, so I play embarrassing roles that are not girls and pornstars, such as The female teacher who committed suicide by jumping into the sea in "Plum Blossom", the virtuous wife Gao Zhihang committed suicide by jumping into the river in "The Legend of the Heroes of Jianqiao", the maverick dancer in "Tell Me You Love Me", the rebellious female painter in "Tell Me Love Me", and the "Wine, Sex and Wealth" The wife of a veteran who stole a man, the female ghost in "Six Dynasties", the girl who has sex with a white horse in "Six Dynasties", etc.

When I was preparing for these roles, I usually only got the script a week before or on the same day, and there were even cases where the filming started without a script.The historical background and psychological portrayal of the characters are only briefly explained, and the way the director uses the mirror mostly relies on editing and series of short shots, so the actors are cut off emotionally during the performance.Usually it takes a few steps to reach a fixed point, and then turns around to the most photogenic forty-five-degree angle to make an inner drama of contemplation, meditation or monologue.Whenever an actor needs to act opposite a partner, it is often the assistant director who sticks out his fist because he or she has gone to the bathroom or to take a break.So whether you are crying, laughing, talking, or silent, what you are facing is often a fist.

Popular patriotic war films, monster films, and martial arts films at that time often used special effects, and the actors suffered a lot from the blasting technology of indigenous steelmaking and the high and low hanging steel wires.I once wrote an essay about the thrilling blasting process in the film "Ghost of July" and published it in a newspaper column.The technician in charge at that time was a retired soldier, and the actor Shi Feng and I heard that this man killed several soldiers who were acting as extras during the filming of "Eight Hundred Heroes", so in every gunpowder-related Before the camera starts shooting, they will remind each other with the mood of watching and helping each other.

The truth about actors and star careers (2) When the director gave an order, Shi Feng and I started running and jumping desperately. The moment we leaped over the mound, the explosives were detonated, and the power was greater than we imagined.A wise man often says: Whatever you fear, something will happen, but it was not me who was hit by the dart, but Shi Feng who was trying to protect me.He saw that his suit pants were covered with small holes, and when he lifted them up, he found that there were at least a dozen wounds on his legs, all of which were hit by small stones that were blasted around by explosives.It was usually difficult for actors at the time to obtain compensation when encountering such problems. Li Tao’s ex-wife Zhang Helen had her entire hand blown off while filming in Thailand, and later committed suicide.Misadventures like these abound in this world of work.

In addition, once on Wang'an Island in Penghu, the location of "Six Dynasties" was filmed. The director of this film, Wang Jujin, persuaded several friends from the arts and literature circles to perform as guest stars.The concept of the film is not bad, and the combination of staff and actors is not bad, but the budget is limited, so it must be shot in the most economical way.The plot is based on the legends of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. It is divided into three parts. The tone adopts the mode of Japanese ghost stories. I am in charge of performing the heroine in the first part.The relationship between the heroine Xiao Yin and her pet white horse is so extraordinary that it even reaches the point of agreeing with each other.It turns out that the white horse is not a beast but a spiritual thing. In the middle of the night, it transformed into a scholar and Xiaoyin to complete the important affairs of men and women.The elders in the family felt that there seemed to be differences between humans and animals, so they slaughtered the white horse on their own initiative.The white horse's skin was peeled off and spread out in the yard to dry. At this time, Xiao Yin, who was about to be married, came to see it for the last time. Unexpectedly, the horse skin flew up and wrapped Xiao Yin heavily, hanging on the top of the tree and forming a cocoon. .This story describes the origin of the cocoon.

Like the shooting process of other films, "Six Dynasties" also needs to overcome various personnel problems, technical problems and communication problems. The staff and director did not get along well.I remember that the director racked his brains to shoot the scene where the horse skin flew up and wrapped around Xiao Yin, and finally decided that the heroine would wrap herself in the horse skin and turn around by herself, and then use the high-speed camera lens to present the effect of rapid rotation.My whole body was wrapped in the horse hide, my arms could not move at all, and my feet had to spin on the uneven ground while maintaining the stability of my body. As I expected, something happened not long after spinning.I couldn't stand still, and fell straight on the ground. My head just hit a stone, and I passed out on the spot.When I passed out, I entered a near-death experience—a series of rewinding scenes of my life quickly appeared in my mind, and each scene seemed to be arguing with others. I thought that if I really died at that moment, my spiritual consciousness must Will rush to the Shura Road of the inner dimension.As a result, the scene of "sacrificing for art" only appeared on the screen for a few seconds. It narrates a ghost story among folks in Taiwan, and with the addition of some director's imagination, I play the heroine whose body is possessed by a ghost.I remember that the filming time of this drama was around November. At that time, I had a bad cold and a fever of more than 39 degrees, but in order to catch up with work, I still had to stay up until early morning.There are many scenes in this play that require killing.In order to create bloody scenes, the director added many shots of killing chickens, ducks, geese and snakes in addition to the original structure of the script, and even prepared to kill pigs.I had a high fever of thirty-nine degrees, and I was wearing a translucent white gauze robe. I stood in the icy stream, holding a kitchen knife in my hand, and followed a group of white geese with a red-eyed expression.At that time, Li Ao and I had just divorced and were in the process of going to court, so my heart was already full of anger, and performing such a meaningless and disgusting scene would add fuel to the fire.After a few days of filming, I couldn’t hold back any longer. I told the director that although I didn’t have to kill any living beings myself, there are many tricky techniques in making movies, and I don’t need to kill any living beings. If I continue to shoot this kind of shots, I will announce strike. At that time, most of the contracts were one-sided to the management. I actually had to pay a large sum of money for calling a strike, but I really couldn't bear it-a bad movie was released in the cinema for a few days at most, and it was worth it. Is this killing and hacking?Later, after weighing the importance, the director decided not to add killing scenes, so he saved the lives of a few pigs, although those pigs would eventually become sacrifices in the temple of human five internal organs.Brother Shucheng went to see this play when it was shown, and he told me many years later that in this film, I played the resentful female ghost very well.I told him that I was not acting, but that I was really angry. A few years later, I performed the play "The Big Stupid Thief" with a group of baby eggs in Hong Kong. The male lead was Xu Guanwen, and the female lead was me.In one scene, Xu Guanwen fantasizes that he is a prince riding a white horse, and I am the princess sitting behind him.When the two of us were talking and laughing on the horse, the horse was suddenly frightened and raised its front hooves.Xu Guanwen couldn't control it, and I fell to the ground along the horse's buttocks. Xu Guanwen's 87-kilogram body and the acceleration of gravity fell on me. I couldn't move on the spot, and I couldn't even stand up.The staff hurriedly invited a famous bone trauma doctor. This old lady from Guangdong baked a dog skin plaster and stuck it on my tailbone. It took me an hour to stand up and walk. The next day I took a plane back to Taiwan. Rush to Hsinchu for the stage.A young Dieda master in Hsinchu massaged for me for a week before the pain improved, but from then on the right side of my body often suffered from dull pain. It was not until I was in my thirties that I met a master of Qigong—Master Tang, who sucked out the pain with bare hands After clearing the deposits in my tailbone, the pain healed.As a result, the scene of "sacrificing for art" did not even appear for a second. It turned out that the entire scene was cut by the director. In the 15 years of filming, I have made nearly 40 films that make people laugh and cry (it is very close to life). From the perspective of appreciation I have cultivated from watching Western films since I was four years old, only "A Day on the Beach" is among these films. It's a masterpiece.Director Yang Dechang is an intellectual of our generation. He is better able to grasp the conflicts between the generation influenced by existentialism and individualism and the previous generation who are subject to the concept of transitivity. He is also more capable of dealing with the reflections of modern women. and grow.He gave me plenty of time to contemplate the pianist role I played, and at the same time invited two teachers who supplemented my performance skills, one was Huang Yunling before his debut, and the other was "Fatty" "Fan Zongpei (now an outstanding film scorer).They assisted me in imitating a section of Chopin's etude "Winter Wind" repeatedly for more than a month.For me who can hardly play the piano at all, this is really a difficult challenge. However, the skills of the two young teachers are very high, and the pictures presented on the screen are quite convincing.In addition, this film, which uses simultaneous recording, also uses my "Snow White" level of German.My pronunciation has always been standard, and I was guided by a teacher during filming, and the German dialogue presented on the screen was also quite convincing.Overall, this movie finally gave me a taste of professionalism and self-respect. The truth about actors and star careers (3) At that time, Taiwan's film industry was under the efforts of several cutting-edge directors, and the trend of the New Wave had gradually become clear.I remember that Xiaoxian was editing "The Man from the Wind Cabinet" when we were watching a raw film in China Film Group. Lao Yang saw the super long shot taken by Xiaoxian, and couldn't help shouting excitedly: "How dare you do this! Then I will also Do it like this!" I stood aside admiring the joy they showed for being brave and loyal to me, and my heart throbbed, as if a pleasant smoked wind was blowing in the musty air.It was at that moment that I began to reflect on myself. In fact, I have never had a real sense of dignity in my acting work in the past ten years. I often jumped out of the plot while performing and laughed at the absurdity and superficiality of the dialogue; force response.I have occupied a place in this field for ten years, but what have I contributed?What can I do for my acting partners?I started to face these problems. stage performer's bible Not long after, at a dinner at the "News Bureau", I met Dana Wynter, a British actress in "When My Heart Was Broken on June 6th". This intellectual and personable lady attracted me quite attention.That long dinner gave me plenty of time to exchange ideas with her.We talked very congenially, and I expressed to her my frustration and expectations for acting work, and she seemed to understand; she suggested with great concern that I could go to the HB studio in New York for further studies.She says the small acting school, founded by the brilliant German actress Uta Hagen and her husband, is a fusion of "inside-out" and "outside-in". A mainstream performance method and sui generis. The so-called "inside-out" performance method was inherited by Stanislavsky (Stanislavsky), and carried forward in modern times by Lee Strausberg and Stella Adler ( Stella Adler).There are many Western actors who learned from Lee Strausberg, among which the more famous ones include Marlon Brando, James Dean, Paul Newman, Jane Fonda (Jane Fonda, ), Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman (Dustin Hoffman), Jack Nicholson (Jack Nicholson), etc., through long-term training (usually about five years), they continue to They explore certain specific emotional and sensory memories in their personal experience, and try to evoke these memories and imaginations when they perform, so as to interpret the psychological state of the characters.Although this pathway has successfully produced many outstanding actors and superstars, unfortunately it places less emphasis on physical training or external skills, so some "method acting" actors are always acting themselves, while acting classrooms become became a center of psychoanalytic treatment. The "outside-in" performance method is originally a tradition of British stage training.Actors must be proficient in pronunciation skills, body movements, makeup and the use of costume props. Through this approach, many talented British actors have also been cultivated, such as Vanessa Redgrave (Vanessa Redgrave), Peter O'Toole (Peter O.Toole), Albert Finney (Albert Finney), Jeremy Irons (Jeremy Irons), Alec Guinness (Alec Gennis), etc.This approach has been criticized for its mechanization and superficiality, but truly outstanding actors can always naturally integrate these two approaches in their performances. The acting training provided by HB Studio is to combine these two methods into a complete approach. Dana Winter sent me a copy of "Respect for the Performing Arts" by Uta Hagen soon after returning to Ireland, and I am still grateful for her sincerity and caring.Known as the "Bible of American Actors", the book is divided into three parts. The first part mainly clarifies our concepts of actors and acting skills, and discusses methodological replacement, emotional memory, sensory memory, impromptu rehearsal, etc. Wait.The second part clarifies the target training, that is, when the actor is alone in private, he should use two minutes of his life to conduct self-acting training with the help of trivial things and psychological truths around him.In this part, Uta also proposed three ways to appear on the stage, psychological suggestions for facing the fourth wall (audience seat), monologues, and speculation on the behavior of the characters in the play, etc.The third part discusses the research and discovery methods of scripts and characters.Uta's emphasis is on creating a character "from the ground up" without adding artificial or artificial affectation.Uta believes that great actors subconsciously store up the essence of this book, but we still have to learn the techniques in it as a blueprint for work. I read this actor's bible in detail from beginning to end. It was really an enlightenment experience. I feel ashamed of the Taiwanese film industry that "acts with my head up", and I feel duty-bound for my laziness and lack of professionalism.The eastern intuitionistic style of vagueness and generalization in everything seems so rough and sloppy under the reflection of the Western methodology of rational testing and excellence, so I decided to translate the book "Zun" into Chinese and provide it to domestic performing arts partners and aspiring to become The actor's progress is used as a reference.To this day, this book is still one of the few works on acting that can be found in China.Some directors, such as Ang Lee, even asked the actors in his plays to use the "Zun" book as homework before the performance. One year before the book "Zun" was published, I went to New York alone to enter the HB studio for further study.I bought a small steerage of more than 20 square meters on West Broadway, the busiest area in Soho, New York.I painted this lovely studio in four vibrant shades of blue, black, red, and white for a modern space; it is the brightest home I have ever owned.With the help of friends, I arranged the house in a DIY way, and then I started to go to class every day to hone my acting skills and relive the feeling of being a student.My advisor at the time was William Hicky, who went on to do two films, Prizzi and Honor and The Name of the Rose.He played an old prophet in the monastery in "The Name of the Rose", who used his spiritual vision to help the Franciscan monk played by Sean Connery to investigate the case, and finally solved the bizarre murder in the monastery.I like this drama very much. The main purpose of the plot is to expose the conspiracy of traditional religious organizations to deliberately cover up the mystical meaning through the murder case, and at the same time skillfully criticize the distortion and pathology of asceticism and abstinence. The students in the HB studio called William Hickey Bill (Bill). He was already in his early sixties at the time, and with years of alcoholism, he looked skinny, down and out, and slightly neurotic.However, he is really a good teacher full of wisdom. If there are any pretentious or imitative elements in the performances of the students, he will definitely expose and correct them after the performance.I remember that my performance partner was a Greek youth at that time, and we performed "Othello" and "The Thief's Carnival" together in English pronunciation, which was well received by the teacher. actor's deep meaning During this period, I began to think about what the deep definition of an actor is.Whether it is the East or the West, actors carry all kinds of intricate projections of human nature in their social images and human hearts.He is not only a model of fame and fortune envied by everyone and the focus of excessive attention, but also an easy object of contempt and ridicule. Even the most outstanding actors cannot escape this fate.He stood naked in the black and white formation of the media, and was sometimes bombarded with bullets, and sometimes flattered to ascend to the sky; he seemed to be the person with the most mass power, and he seemed to be an outsider with no power or importance.He always plays the role of licorice for fundraising at parties hosted by politicians and chaebols. Even on the big screen or small screen, he is just a medium, a tool to convey other people's outlook on life. Then, the meaning of the job of an actor And what is the importance?I later discovered that the answer to this question was answered most deeply by anthropologists and psychologists. In the primitive society, the actor appeared in the form of shaman or witch, and his function at that time was to act as a medium between gods and humans.He was the earliest singer, sage, dancer, cultural transmitter, fortune teller, healer and life advisor.He heals and diverts people's fear and confusion through religious rituals, and even directly becomes a channel of invisible energy, showing divine power; for example, Japanese Noh plays, Indonesian and Tibetan ritual dances all have such mysticism.In other words, in primitive societies actors once had theocracy and lofty status, both in the East and the West.However, since the rise of the orthodox Christian church in the West, the tradition of witchcraft has been gradually degraded as heresy, the role of intermediary between man and God has been replaced by priests, and the lofty status of actors has since been reduced to an artisan for entertaining others.In the Eastern world, too, the actor was gradually reduced to an actor, a comedian, and a symbol of prostitution, ruthlessness, and hypocrisy. However, the truly outstanding actors have a rich spiritual world, and there are many people who have mysterious experiences.They seem to have achieved an integration and balance between mind and emotion, and thus can display advanced forms of understanding and unhindered emotional expression.When I looked back at myself carefully, I found that in the fifteen years of acting work, my focus was not on emotional and emotional expression, but on intellectual activities.I almost always have a book with me when I'm filming, be it philosophy, psychology, metaphysics or religion.The performance in the drama does not seem to be the focus of my heart, but intellectual activities are what I am passionate about.Uta Hagen once said: "An intellectual actor may over-rationalize the real impulse to perform." Obviously I belong to this type of actor.I found that no matter how hard I put on a show, I was still as fresh as water on screen or screen, and I cared much more about theoretical and metaphysical thinking than about theatrical performance.As I began to recognize my own identity and potential, my deepest calling became clear and audible, and I knew that I must devote myself to the search of wisdom instead of deceiving myself and others.So I told my mother that I will no longer work for money and I will do what I really want to do.I had just turned thirty-five that year.