Special feature of 1905 film network From moviesLove Letter for Beijing Meeting Seattle, Love each other., toHello, Zhihua, See Nara againAnd the new film released this week.A Hustle Bustle New YearYanshu Wu is definitely a frequent visitor who plays "Grandma" in recent film and television works. Although the character is unified in nature, she lets the audience see a "changeable grandmother".
Looking through her resume, we can see that she has only gradually become active in film and television works in recent years and has become the "national grandmother" in everyone’s mind. In many film and television works in the past, the role of "grandma" is often flat and one-sided, and can even be used as a conceptual tool. However, the appearance of Yanshu Wu has enhanced the "sense of existence" of such characters.
Like the characters in her movies, everyone used to call her "Grandma Wu" when they saw her in reality. She is elegant and kind, and treats everyone very kindly. Even if she is over 80 years old, whenever a movie is released, she will spare no effort to participate in publicity, miss every movie roadshow and interact with the audience at close range. The staff who have had contact with her will say, "Grandma Wu is just like her grandmother."
01
A Hustle Bustle New Year is one of Yanshu Wu’s most recent films. Whether the play between actors is beautiful or not is not the pursuit of "outshining others", but the value of "1+1>2". The cooperation between her and the actors maximizes this value.
In the movie, Yanshu Wu left the audience with the deepest scene that her neighbor gave her a candied date, but her son (WU GANG) asked her to throw it away because of her health problems. In the whole dispute scene, their spark is not only the interaction of actors, but also the documentary presentation of the time that mother and son will encounter in their lives.
"This is a mutual play, and the actors push each other. His fierceness is due to the consideration of my health, and it is also a kind of love, and my role in the movie is actually very stingy. It is a jujube, how precious it is, so I really want to taste it. " When two actors were in the right mood, all the scenes were lit up in an instant. This is the first time for two actors to cooperate. At first, Yanshu Wu was worried that he could not keep up with each other’s play. As a result, when WU GANG met her for the first time, she came over and said "Mom", and the distance between them was shortened instantly. No matter in or out of the play, the two get along like mother and son, and this kind of emotion is naturally substituted into the filming.
Empathy is the key for an actor to enter the role. "When the actor enters a role, you can naturally reveal these things." Yanshu Wu didn’t make any designs before acting. In her opinion, things designed in advance may not be used at the scene, and she must make the response that this role should have according to her opponent’s play.
In A Hustle Bustle New Year, Yanshu Wu thinks this role is the traditional mother image of China. She is kind, tolerant and understanding of children, and will also be very economical. "I will communicate the positioning of the role when reading the script, and then understand and create according to the director’s requirements, but my ideas must also be approved by the director."
02
"I don’t want you", Yanshu Wu’s line in "Love each other", became the tears of countless audiences. When she first saw the script, she politely refused the assistant director. The story line of this role is not complicated. After her mother died, the daughter wanted to move her father’s grave from the countryside to the city and be buried with her mother. But in the countryside, my father’s original match, that is, "grandma", clung to the old grave and refused to let go.
"This role is too far away from me. I am not sure. The only thing I can understand is that I used to go to the countryside to experience life when I was on the stage of drama." After the deputy director was rejected, director Zhang Aijia did not give up. "I have to meet and talk to me in person." Besides the sense of distance from life, Yanshu Wu is actually very stressed about the last scene in the movie. Because she is particularly sensitive to dust, she will sneeze all the time, and she doesn’t want to ruin the scene. "No problem, as long as you play, I will solve this problem." Zhang Aijia made a guaranteed ticket to Yanshu Wu.
In the end, Grandma Wu took over "Love each other". She visited the rural areas of Henan with the director, got close contact with a centenarian and chatted with the old ladies in the village. She understands that in the heart of such a woman, it is sacred to stick to love. This person is hers. Maybe this person has many wives outside, and she will not complain. Because in her mind, her husband is the belief of life.
In the movie, after grandma went to town, she saw a photo of her husband and the wife, and then she took a step back subconsciously and bowed deeply. Here, she sees a strange man. He is her husband who has been waiting for many years, but she doesn’t know the person in the photo in front of her. His appearance is no longer the impression in her mind. "People are a family, and they are well matched. I should let go."
"I actually understand the intention of director Zhang Aijia. This role looks calm on the surface, but the inner emotions are turbulent." This kind of emotion is not a one-sided cry, but a person who has experienced the experience of life and years, and can incorporate all emotions into all the action details. Every move seems impeccable, but Yanshu Wu is still not so satisfied with his acting skills. At the end of the scene, she said to her dead wife’s bones, "I don’t want you. Let’s go and go to town." She thinks that when the character sees the bone, the emotions that have been precipitated for a lifetime immediately emerge, and she should leave time to think about it. "But the director wants to compress, and I didn’t adjust it at once. I took it twice, but I still don’t feel sure. There is no word’ let’s go’ in the last paragraph. "
Every time Yanshu Wu gets a script, she studies her role thoroughly. In addition to her own scenes, she will also carefully study the lines of other actors. On the one hand, it comes from the professional inertia brought by past drama experience, on the other hand, she can enrich the pattern of characters from the lines of the other side. As a screenwriter, her daughter once advised her that movies are shot in segments, unlike dramas. The lines can be recited separately, but she doesn’t care. A whole page of lines will be memorized before shooting. "For example, in the movie, there is a word’ Grandma is in good health’, so I can imagine the state of Grandma as a whole."
03
After watching it, Zhang Aijia decided to ask Yanshu Wu to star in "Love each other". Although the roles in the two works are very different, in Zhang Aijia’s view, Grandma Wu has the most charming wrinkles on her face. When she was young, she didn’t pay much attention to maintenance. When she was old, she never avoided wrinkles.
"Actors have to live, and wrinkles are part of life. If my face is still smooth, you will find those characters untrustworthy. Years make up the story of my life. " The reason why the director chose her to star in "Beijing meets Seattle 2" is the same. "I just like her wrinkles. Now the elderly have no wrinkles and have bare white hair. I hope to have a textured old lady whose wrinkles are particularly kind. "
In reality, she is really an old lady with curiosity and girlish feeling. Even Zhang Aijia said that she was "extremely fairy".
Every time she participates in an activity, she calls a car online and never mentions all kinds of needs. At that time, when she went to Taiwan Province, China to participate in activities, she also took a puppet doll named "Xiao Kaixin" with her, and made all the trips by herself. Although she has come to Beijing to live with her daughter, they still live separately, but they still make regular appointments to read the script, and everything is as independent as possible without interference. Even when continuous shooting met Seattle 2, she went abroad alone. Before leaving, she asked her daughter to give herself a dictionary, and everything was solved by herself.
On the plane, she first found the passenger next to her, helped her write English on paper, and then marked her pronunciation in Chinese. When she entered the country, the customs officer asked her what she was doing in the United States, and she told her to act and play "grandma". During filming in Las Vegas, she went out alone in her spare time and solved various life problems with the simplest words and dictionary function. Every time she passes a corner, she will film it in case she gets lost. Her grandson also downloaded an APP to her mobile phone to ensure her real-time positioning.
This "frozen" girlish feeling is perfectly integrated in "Beijing meets Seattle 2". This grandmother was spoiled by her grandfather all her life. At the late wedding, when she heard the other person’s heartfelt words, Grandma Wu looked at her lifelong lover, suffering from tears, biting her fingers from time to time, and was afraid of losing her voice.
All emotions are moving at that moment. Love doesn’t seem to grow old with age, but is treasured and fermented more mellow.
04
What Xue Xiaolu asked Yanshu Wu at that time was to perform her sister’s feelings, but in reality, she was older than. "I have a unique condition. I have been spoiled since I was a child. This feeling is there." Born in a Kochi family, she was a rare only child in that era. She was loved by the whole family and had a good family education since childhood. In particular, my mother’s discipline is very strict, and all details are required to be elegant since childhood, and she is brought up completely according to the requirements of a celebrity.
At first, her father wanted her to study medicine, but she was afraid of dissection. Once I went to see a play with my father. She was shocked by the performance, so she chose the stage. At that time, the public still had some old-fashioned ideas about "actors". But her father is very open-minded and feels that he is the best in his profession.
After graduating from high school, she went to Shanxi Repertory Theatre, where she made a film and has never participated in any film and television works since. After retirement, she has been taking care of her husband and mother at home. Until 2010, after the death of relatives in Shanxi, her daughter took her to Beijing and began to contact film and television works. She first played The Journey to the West, and later she played several dramas directed by Shen Yan. Until 2015, she came into contact with the movie "Beijing meets Seattle 2".
In 2016, she was nominated for the first film award for her film "Beijing Meets Seattle 2", and she also made up for various domestic film awards with great interest. The following year, she won the Golden Rooster Award for Best Supporting Actress for her film.
"In the past, there was no award for our troupe to perform drama. At that time, I was worried that everyone would be proud after winning the prize." In grandma’s memory, her drama Liu Hulan was performed for Premier Zhou and other leaders in the auditorium of the Great Hall of the People. "That is a reward." That day was March 19, 1965, and it was an unforgettable time for her. After experiencing various film and television works, Grandma Wu has been loved by many young audiences. At the Golden Rooster Film Festival in 2020, when she bought coffee in the cafe next to the cinema, people went up to greet her grandmother from time to time and asked for a photo and signature.
After the screening of the movie "See Nara Again" starring her, countless audiences raised their hands, and many people threw questions at her. Someone asked her how she managed to interpret a different "grandma" every time.
"I don’t think there is any skill in shaping characters, that is, it is true, that is, it is necessary to get into the heart of the character, to find the most shining place of the character, and to give the character a bright spot. This is what the actor should do. If you can’t give this character a bright spot, the role will fail."
Perhaps it is this kind of "drilling" that allows her to get into our hearts.
