In "The Wild Goose Lake", we saw the best Hu Ge!
1905 movie network news What exactly is an actor’s face? Is it because the character finds it? Or is it because of this face that a character doesn’t exist?
In 2018, Cai Mingliang shot a 78-minute film with 14 shots aimed at 13 faces. The faces of these ordinary people were quietly scrutinized by Cai Mingliang’s camera, with wrinkles and pores, telling the plain and dusty past. "Can we just gaze at the most subtle changes in life?" Cai Mingliang said about the film that only shot faces.
Diao Yinan felt the same way about the actor’s face. He wrote a story about a fugitive, about which he also imagined: "Animals at night, like in the jungle on the edge of the city, lurking or attacking at night, or evading hunters."Finally, the face became Hu Ge, and the character was called Zhou Zenong.
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Before Zhou Zenong, Hu Ge didA handsome guy for over 20 years.When he was a child, he was a member of the Shanghai TV Station Xiaoying Star Art Troupe, and the middle school was the head of the Xuhui District Student Repertory Theatre Troupe. After that, he was admitted to the Shanghai Drama Academy naturally.His senior sister, Wan Qian, who was in the play, remembered when Hu Ge first started school:"When I first met him, he was a young man who was very handsome. He was also one of the most handsome guys in our school."Because he was handsome, Hu Ge got the chance to play Li Xiaoyao, the protagonist of "Legend of Immortals and Swords" in his junior year.
Hu was then classified as one of the earliest beneficiaries of typing among the young actors who startled him with China’s first Xianxia drama– – At that time, there were not many actors suitable for male leads in domestic costume dramas.
During that time, he played a lot of young heroes in ancient costumes who flew around, giggling and carefree. In "Legend of Immortal Sword and Flying Immortal" and "Flying Immortal Outside Heaven", he had similar hairstyles and played similar roles.
Until 2010’s "Myth", when he played the role of a general, he suddenly felt that if there were bangs, the role would not be valid. At Hu Ge’s own initiative, Qin Dynasty general Meng Yi became the first character of Hu Ge to show his whole face in ancient costumes.
A colleague of Hu Ge’s company once recalled this incident to the media:"Since he has already adjusted his mentality, why can’t I adjust my mentality, so I agreed to him."
After "Myth," Hu Ge deliberately avoided his familiar costume idol dramas. He got Chen Cong from "Bitter Coffee," then the Kangba man Tashi Pingtso from "Shangri-La," and then Xie Feifan, the head of the fashion group of "Modern New Humans."
Do everything, but don’t act in costume idol dramas.This was probably Hu Ge’s first attempt to step outside his comfort zone. But his most successful TV drama in those years was the ancient costume idol drama "Xuanyuan Sword" created by the Tang Dynasty.
Transformation sounds like a simple word.9 pinyin letters, 17 strokes. But achieving these two words has never been easy.
At an event, he met fellow actor Yan Ni, who then recommended him to the crew. In Yan Ni’s intuition, Hu Ge would not resist playing a sister-brother relationship with herself.
This time, by chance, Hu Ge found a door to knock again after shrinking back to "Xuanyuan Sword". This play he finally received that he wanted to play, the three satellite TV broadcasts once included the top three ratings at the same time, and the final audience ratings were all brokenOne percent.
And then, yeah.In 2015, "The Pretender", "Langya Bang" and "Good Times" were broadcast in three parts, including spy warfare in the Republic of China, ancient costumes, and urban idol emotions.
Hu Ge became the absolute brightest actor in the TV drama circle.But for actors, there is always a dream of starring in a movie of their own. Hu Ge has made many cameos, but he always seems to miss the lead role.Until, until Diao Yinan.
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Diao Yinan hesitated about choosing Hu Ge as the lead in her first film, but the producer Shen Qian persuaded him to meet Hu Ge. In Shen’s eyes, Hu Ge is like Abe Kuan and a bit like Zhongdai Daya. She sent a photo of Zhongdai Daya to Hu Ge and said that the older he gets, the more he looks like you.
At Shen Yan’s suggestion, Diao Yinan went to watch "Langya Ranking" and suddenly found the face of the fugitive from Hu Ge. In 2017, Diao Yinan met Hu Ge in Shanghai. The next day, Hu Ge rode his motorcycle to find Shen Yan to get the script. After reading it that day, he called Shen Yan and said:
"I’m very willing to join this movie."
What kind of movie is this? The first scene of the opening scene, in a cold rain, dim and ambiguous colors, Hu Ge appeared. His first scene was a close-up of that face.
With a snap, it was projected on the delicate and clear screen of the Lumière Hall of the Cannes Film Palace.
This face was thin and dark. It was completely different from those optimistic young heroes before.
Mr. Diao said he would not tell Mr. Hu that he had been given extensive close-ups during the shoot. He took pictures of Mr. Hu’s face because of its linear and expressive contours: "His face reminds me of an animal at night, especially his gaze and eyes."
Wan Qian remembered seeing Hu Ge in the crew once. There was no opposite scene between the two. That was when she left work and he finished work. Wan Qian found that Hu Ge had become completely different from "Hunting Ground". "Very thin. Black and thin, the whole person is very decadent."
This slump is the state Hu Ge found for Zhou Zenong. After joining the cast, he deliberately kept a certain distance from the other actors in the crew. "Maybe in my past personality life, I would quickly integrate with everyone and become one with each other. But in this drama, I made myself isolated," Hu Ge said.
He is indeed someone who is easy to make friends with others. Shen Qian talks about Hu Ge in life, and he is a person who gets along very well with non-professional actors.
The actors also met three weeks ago when the film was remastered at the film’s late-stage company on South Station Road. "It’s very interesting, it seems that the South Station has been moved to Shanghai again."
In addition to maintaining this isolation, he watched a large number of movies and books before filming began. Ryan Gosling’s "Drive to Death," Alain Delon’s. Diao Yinan let him watch Camus’s novel "The Outsider," and a large number of Antonioni movies.
The reason for watching these movies and books came from Hu Ge’s uncertainty about his performance. "I have a lot of concerns, because I may have acted in TV dramas before, and there will be more commercial ones. I’m very nervous, and I don’t know how to quickly adjust my state from the performance state of TV dramas to the state of movies."
Before filming, he went to Wuhan to experience life. In addition to learning Wuhan dialect, he also walked around the streets with his language teacher to observe the lives of the locals. The language teacher took him to the most ordinary streets. But this face, which used to appear on the screen for three quarters a year, and was broadcast on three TV stations at the same time, always had the possibility of being recognized.
Hu Ge thought of a way, he customized a few sets of cleaning workers’ clothes online, and printed four words on the back: Zenong Cleaning. As soon as the clothes were worn and the hat was worn, no one recognized it. "It’s very good, no one will pay attention to us." When talking about this matter, Hu Ge smiled.
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These were all preparations for the character’s external image. But for the character’s heart, Hu Ge felt that he had never found a way.
After a month and a half of joining the group, he had been using his usual experience to build up his confidence, but suddenly realized that he was wrong. Diao Yinan saw the change in Hu Ge’s state, and when chatting with him, Hu Ge said that he felt that he was not fully integrated.
This chat made Hu Ge think about what kind of state he should be in in this movie where he starred for the first time. He thought that maybe he should keep both the good and the bad. This idea was approved by Diao Yinan. So Hu Ge slowly linked his true mentality to Zhou Zenong.
Hu Ge began to try not to sleep, trying to look a little tired and more haggard. For Zhou Zenong, he imagined the changes in his facial muscles caused by the haggard feeling when the fugitive had no food or water. This change, in Hu Ge’s view, was the effect of makeup.
85% of the scenes in "The Wild Goose Lake" are night scenes. The movie is a smooth shot, which helps the actors step into the character’s heart, but is a willful choice for the director.
Shooting in order, there will be a period of time without Hu Ge’s role. During this time, in addition to resting, Hu Ge relies on fitness to keep himself thin and at the same time maintain fatigue.
It’s not the first time he’s added a lot of design to his character. Before "The Wild Goose Lake," he had a cameo role as director Shunji Iwai.
For the role that didn’t have many scenes, he imagined the feeling of many characters and the rhythm of the performance. But when he came to the scene, he found that the director’s requirements were far from his own.
Speaking of this role again, Hu Ge said that making a movie made him realize that he needed to find a way to satisfy the director and return to expressing his role.
But "The Wild Goose Lake" is different. Hu describes the director’s torment as "boiling a frog in warm water." Television directors rarely demand that an actor’s breathing rise and fall or how often he blinks, but Diao asks him not to blink twice after turning the camera on Hu Ge.
"Did I think it was that much different at the time? But it’s really a different feeling! We sound like this subtlety is impossible for the audience to detect, but when the big screen amplifies the performance, that’s it." Hu Ge said that the TV series gave the audience 40 episodes, and the audience can slowly believe in the character. But the movie is only 2 hours long. How can the audience still resonate with the character’s experience on the blank screen after the end is really a challenge.
Gui Lunmei, who has worked with director Diao Yinan, also feels uneasy. But she thinks Hu Ge is a quiet and composed presence. "I’m lucky to have such an opponent, because sometimes when you meet some actors, he will interfere with your performance. But in addition to interpreting his own role, Hu Ge also gives us a lot of space, and the chemistry between the two of us is very comfortable." Of Hu Ge, Gui Lunmei said.
Recalling their collaboration with Hu Ge, Gui Lunmei felt that their rivalry scenes were slowly brewing. Speaking of being on the set, she suddenly realized that there was not much verbal discussion during filming, "But during the process, even I sometimes had some feelings that he was supporting me."
The most important scene between the two took place in a boat on the lake. That scene was difficult to shoot because there were too many uncontrollable factors on the lake. There needed to be waves, but the wind was fast and the waves were big, so the movie couldn’t be shot. Later, the wave boat was used, but as soon as the first shot started, the wave boat went too fast, and a big wave hit Hu Ge’s face. "I thought it was too absurd at the time," Hu Ge said.
Is jumping out of his familiar circle telling the audience that Hu Ge is also changing? When we threw this question to him, Hu Ge said that he was naturally hypocritical, or liked to toss.
He said that his toss is to see if he has more room. Because until now, he has not seen his end.