C99— Role Breakthrough

Bonus Chap

Thanks for the Kofi izze


“Even the same river, in a different time and space, it will become two completely different rivers, acting is also the same. The same character, when it’s played out twice, the effect will never be exactly the same, the state of mind at the time would also be very different.”

 

“More importantly, that character was too successful,” Xie Yifeng’s eyes were slightly empty, as he sunk into his thoughts, “When playing the role, there’d be more pressure than other roles, I won’t be able to …… I can’t help but want to replicate the success. The paradox arises, because I am not the Xie Yifeng of three years ago, so I can not completely replicate it, and at the same time I will limit myself to this framework.”

“So that’s why actors usually don’t take on the same type of typical characters.”

 

Xie Yifeng was Xie Yifeng.

 

Every word he said simply poked into Zhou Yuhe’s heart.

 

He hadn’t had this experience before, so he thought he would be more comfortable playing a role he had played before.

But in fact, he couldn’t.

 

His enthusiasm for Rong Qian, for the script “Martial Arts”, as early as in his last life, had burned up, there was always a feeling of lack of interest, like passing through a computer game countless times, he knew exactly what boss would appear in the next level, how to defeat it, then when he faced the boss, no matter what, it wouldn’t be like the first time, the the excitement and anticipation would be gone.

 

There was no enthusiasm.

 

His acting was limited to the original framework.

 

No matter how he wanted to embody it perfectly, he had to add some skills, and acting couldn’t rely entirely on skills and experience, otherwise the characters would be rigid, not vivid and not fresh.

 

It became very …… banal.

 

“Then what should I do?” Zhou Yuhe panicked a little.

 

Xie Yifeng thought of a time ago when Zhou Yuhe had taken the lead role in a TV series, which also happened to be a scholar, and thought he was saying that he had no way to break out of this frame, he happened to be quite experienced in this area.

 

Before “Emperor Xuan Tong”, Xie Yifeng had taken hundreds of roles, among which there were many similar roles, but he had been able to discover the highlights in the role every time, so for Zhou Yuhe’s problem, even if other actors in the acting industry couldn’t empathize, Xie Yifeng was able to precisely understand his feelings.

 

“My suggestion is to go back to the root,” Xie Yi Feng nodded to the script in his hand, “From the script, redo the character’s construction.”

 

“Because it is a similar character, so when we receive such a character, we subconsciously use what we’ve already done to interpret it, which is actually a lazy approach. Parse through this script with your heart, you’ll definitely find things that you didn’t notice before. Even for me, if I re-read the script of Emperor Xuan Tong, I’ll definitely see it differently than I did three years ago.”

 

“Look at it with the eyes of now, treat it as a brand new character, don’t be affected by your previous impression, even if you act in a completely different way, it doesn’t matter, because the Xie Yifeng three years later is not the same person as the Xie Yifeng three years ago, and the Pu Yi three years later is not the same person as the Pu Yi three years ago, the acting skill that isn’t limited by experience is the real acting skill. ”

 

Not being limited by experience, was really acting ……

 

Zhou Yuhe finally felt enlightened, yes, Zhou Yuhe wasn’t the same Zhou Yuhe from more than twenty years ago, with such a difference, how could he perform Rong Qian the same way?

 

The only way to create a new Rong Qian twenty years later was to break the previous one!

 

*******

After going back that night, Zhou Yuhe didn’t follow Mike Lee’s instructions to sleep for eight hours, instead he read the script from beginning to end carefully, no word was ignored.

 

Sure enough, he found a big problem.

 

Why couldn’t Zhou Yuhe perform Rong Qian the same way? Because the persona of the character Rong Qian was very unreasonable!

 

First of all, “Martial Arts” adopted a small and big narrative approach, one of the main characters, Lin Hansha, had the highest force value of the script, loved by the Jianghu people, he was the embodiment of “Martial Arts”, he was the “big” in the script.

 

So naturally, “small” referred to the word “Martial Arts” and “Martial Arts” didn’t match the ordinary scholar Rong Qian.

From the point of view of the focus, these two characters were no different.

 

But when dissecting the character level, the gap between the two showed.

 

As a martial arts alliance leader, Lin Hansha’s character was based on his violence, he used violence to counter violence, after this incident, Lin Hansha’s character grew, then he really took up the responsibility of a martial arts alliance leader.

 

But Rong Qian was particularly strange, he had never truly seen the world of the young scholar, from the beginning of the film, he had a “chivalrous” aura, when the people around him needed help, he always stepped forward, so his changes didn’t seem meaningful.

Moreover, in connection with his upbringing, this innate “righteousness” was a bit fake and empty, as if to highlight the theme of “Chivalry is not by strength, but only in the hearts of the people” which was somewhat false, unlike a real and lively person.

 

In his last life, he didn’t find this problem. First, Zhou Yuhe’s acting skills at that time were immature, but he had a kind of spirituality and vividness peculiar to young people, which gave Rong Qian enough vitality. Commercial films paid more attention to story plot and rhythm, and wouldn’t delve into the characters and connotations.

 

Since the shortcomings of the role of Rong Qian were summarized, it was much better now.

 

Zhou Yuhe took out his sketchbook and rebuilt a new persona.

 

Firstly, he increased the hierarchy of Rong Qian’s character, and changed the Qingruan-style Confucian to a sour Confucian who was a little clever, meritocratic and could show off.

 

The second was to deprive him of his “chivalry”, he was willing to take on the identity of the martial arts alliance leader at the beginning, not because he wanted to be chivalrous and help others, but for his own benefit. In the second half of the plot, sitting in the seat of the martial arts alliance leader, he realized what it meant to be responsible, what it meant to be a warrior.

 

— In this way, there was much more room for the character to grow.

 

By the time Zhou Yuhe was done, it was already dawn, he grabbed a few hours of sleep, and then took his results to the set.

 

Zhou Yuhe spotted Mike Lee in the busy crowd and immediately greeted him.

 

“Director, I’ve had some understandings and changed the persona of my character, do you have time to take a look?”

 

Mike Lee looked exhausted, Zhou Yuhe had a lot of bad takes last night, so he had to deal with the work until 2:00 or 3:00 a.m., originally he was a little angry at him, but seeing the notes and instructions he made, it was obvious he put in a lot of effort.

 

Mike Lee reluctantly took the book, casually flipped a little and perfunctorily said: “Okay, when you shoot your scenes today, try it according to this.”

 

After saying that, he handed the notebook back.

 

Zhou Yuhe looked at him and didn’t say anything more, he walked to the side and quietly waited for his turn.

 


 

TN:

Hi, I wasn’t able to update due to family issues, my granny had a stroke earlier this month, and entered a stroke-induced coma, she woke up on Monday, but she’s wheelchair bound now, I’m happy she made it but it’s sad that time is moving, now I have to deal with the fact that she doesn’t have much time left. Either way, MERRRY CHRISTMAS. May you continue to be with your loved ones for as long as you can. Updates will resume for all novels as I spend time with my granny ❤️❤️.

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4 Replies to “C99— Role Breakthrough”

  1. Thanks for the chapter ❤️

    I hope your grandma is ok 🙂

  2. Thanks for the chapter. Please Take care of yourself and hope the situation gets better.

  3. First off, hope your grandma is doinge well.

    Secondly, this director guy is getting on my nerves. Not only is he stubborn in his views he also only knows how to criticise and doesn’t appreciate the effort people put in to change

  4. This guy isn’t any good. He has no respect for others hard work. He doesn’t even have respect for his own work. An actor his trying their best to put forth a great character to create the best end result, but you don’t even try to acknowledge that and further the process. Our MC didn’t even want to take this project at first, so why is this guy thinking so highly of himself.

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