Putting Yourself in the Role 2

Chen Qi had been a hundred times unwilling when he practiced, but now that he was actually performing, he didn't care. What hadn't he seen before?

And so the two big, 178-centimeter-tall goofs planted themselves in the middle. The older one was handsome, with fair, smooth skin; the younger was strikingly good-looking, carefree and unrestrained.

What a pair of pretty boys!

The music started, and as the prelude played, Chen Qi's arm snapped out. His eyes brimming with feeling, the corners of his mouth twitching slightly, he rose onto his toes and lifted his chin, striking a pose worthy of Pavarotti.

"Fine wine sends its fragrance drifting, songs take flight! My friends, please raise your cups and drink!"

Damn it!

Tang Guoqiang's eyes widened. You show-off! Weren't you unwilling to do it?

"Hahahaha!"

Everyone present was already doubled over with laughter. It was like doing exercises between classes in primary school: everyone else was going through the motions, and then one classmate suddenly got dead serious about it. Nobody knew why, but they just wanted to laugh.

"Come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come... In October, spring thunder rolls, hundreds of millions raise their golden cups..."

Tang Guoqiang had thought himself outgoing, but only after meeting Chen Qi did he realize he belonged with the introverts. The bastard was belting it out at the top of his lungs, acting with his face too, his eyebrows dancing as he sang, his heels never once touching the ground.

"Bravo!"

"Little Chen, impressive! Not a single line was in tune!"

"Stick to telling stories!"

When the song ended, everyone joined in the teasing. Without so much as a blush or a flutter of his heart, he cupped his hands. "You flatter me! You flatter me!"

Back in his seat, he calmly picked up a potato and ate it. Small potatoes!

The party started at five and ended at seven. It didn't go on for too long.

The daylight outside had yet to fade completely, and it was nowhere near bedtime, so everyone went off to find something to do. With today and tomorrow off, the two-day holiday had put everyone at leisure.

Chen Qi stayed in his room for a while, but he was so bored that he went out for another stroll.

He followed Hexi Road northeast until he reached the cinema. Beside it was a small grove with a large rock. He liked sitting on the rock, doing nothing in particular, just spacing out and looking at the grass and trees.

The crew had arrived in August and could head back in mid-October.

Then they would shoot the interior scenes at Beijing Film Studio, which would take another month, making it about three and a half months altogether. Movies these days usually ran ninety minutes. No one dared waste film, so there were very few discarded shots. They made the most of everything and saved wherever they could.

They could finish shooting by the end of the year, then do post-production. If all went well, the film could be released next year.

"Romance on Mount Lu, ah..."

Chen Qi suddenly smiled. The real test lay ahead. This was, after all, a shockingly transgressive film, and it was bound to face a storm of scathing denunciations.

He was happy to fight those people; that was where the fun lay.

Rustle!

Rustle!

He was sitting on the rock, lost in thought, when he suddenly heard footsteps. A figure passed through a screen of dense foliage, revealing a pair of low-heeled, soft-soled leather shoes, their brown, cutout uppers enclosing two small feet in white socks.

"Little Chen?"

Gong Xue only spotted him after passing a tree, and he gave her a start. "What are you doing here?"

"Cooling off. Out for another walk? Where's Zhang Jinling?"

"She went to ask the head cook for something to eat. I couldn't eat another bite, so I came out for a walk."

After that exchange, she didn't know what else to say. But she wasn't worried, because he was sure to find a topic. Sure enough, Chen Qi said, "You sounded pretty good singing just now. Practiced in secret, did you?"

"I practiced for two days... Mm, you weren't bad yourself."

Remembering his performance, Gong Xue couldn't help pressing her lips together.

"I'm the sort of performer who shines onstage. Today I was at seventy percent at most. Wait until I'm at a hundred percent, and I'll sing you all another song."

"Then everyone will..."

"Ahem! Ahem!"

She was just about to speak when a cough suddenly sounded. A crew member strolled past and smiled. "Having a chat here?"

"Everyone's got time on their hands today. I've run into quite a few people already. Out for a walk too?" Chen Qi greeted him without changing expression.

"Mm, just wandering around."

With his hands clasped behind his back, the man ambled on.

"I, I'm going over that way. I'll be going first..."

Gong Xue suddenly grew a little flustered and turned to leave, but for some reason she stopped. Her delicate brows knitted slightly, and she looked torn. She had a question bottled up inside, and opportunities like this were rare.

After hesitating for a moment, she turned back and asked softly, "May I ask you something?"

"Of course!"

"That scene I shot the other day, the one where I ran while crying-did you think there was something wrong with my acting?"

"No, it was good!"

"Really nothing wrong?"

"Truer than a pearl is real. Didn't everyone praise you?"

"..."

Gong Xue lowered her head. "I've never studied acting, and I don't have much experience. It's thanks to you and everyone else that I've managed. I may not be clever, but I still want to do my very best to make this film well. I hope you can tell me where else I'm falling short..."

She's this serious about it?

Chen Qi was quite surprised. She looked so delicate and pretty, but she was rather stubborn at heart.

"All right, then I'll give you a brief explanation... Shall we walk over that way?"

"We have to go over there?"

"How am I supposed to explain with people coming and going here?"

Chen Qi dusted off his backside, stood up and led the way down a side path. It was more secluded there, unlike Hexi Road, where there were too many people.

"..."

Gong Xue looked at him, bit her lip and silently followed.

She wore a white long-sleeved blouse and gray trousers, and her pretty face was free of makeup, utterly unlike her appearance in the film. She held her hands together in front of her, keeping two paces behind Chen Qi.

She had walked this path before, but for some reason it seemed especially quiet today.

After walking a short distance, Chen Qi said, "You really didn't do that scene very well."

"Why?"

"Did you actually cry at the time?"

"Yes!"

"Then were those genuine tears, or did you force them out?"

"I worked myself into the emotion."

"Judging by the result, the emotion you worked up wasn't much good either. Broadly speaking, there are about three approaches to acting: the experiential school, method acting and the representational school..."

The experiential school emphasized truly listening, truly seeing and truly feeling. Apart from illegal or criminal acts and things that were genuinely impossible, an actor had to experience everything firsthand.

Method acting emphasized putting oneself into the emotion. If a character's father died and they wept in anguish, for example, the actor couldn't actually have their father die, so they could think of something else sad to achieve the same effect of grief.

The representational school turned the actor into a kind of storage device. For instance, they would practice a sad expression repeatedly in front of a mirror until it became muscle memory, then pull it out and use it when acting in a similar situation.

As long as the result was good, it didn't matter which school an actor used.

These theories would be commonplace in later years, but Gong Xue had never studied acting, so they sounded entirely new to her.

"Zhou Yun is heartbroken beyond measure after breaking up with Geng Hua. You haven't had a similar experience, so you need to put yourself into that emotion..."

"How do I do that?"

Gong Xue asked urgently.

Chen Qi stopped and stood by the path, gazing at the autumn evening scenery in the distance. A streak of slanting sunlight sank into the mountains, and he suddenly said, "I heard about your parents?"

"You!"

She came to an abrupt stop, anger showing for the first time on her gentle face. "What are you trying to say?"

"Just making conversation. You want me to speak frankly, and I hope you'll do the same."

"Then why don't you talk about yourself?"

"There's no story in my family. My parents both work at Xinhua Bookstore."

Gong Xue was stung all the more. She didn't know how to curse at him, so she could only bite her lip and say nothing.

"You were the one who asked me to talk. Now I'm talking to you, and you're unhappy again. Let's go back, then."

Chen Qi shrugged and turned to walk back.

Gong Xue followed without a word.

October had brought autumn, and the mountain nights were cool. Just as Chen Qi thought she wasn't going to speak, she suddenly opened her mouth.

"My father was a photographer at the Shanghai Photo Studio. He often photographed prominent people..."

"Then your life must have been good when you were little."

"I wouldn't say good. Their wages were just a little higher, and they had more friends..."

Gong Xue suddenly smiled and sighed. "You know, if you had relatives overseas who sent foreign currency, your family in China would receive overseas Chinese remittance certificates, which you could use to buy lots of good things at the overseas Chinese stores.

"When I was little, I really envied those other children, but my family just didn't have any."

"Then life must have been hard for you."

She shook her head gently. "It wasn't much. I was ordered around to do work every day, and as soon as I graduated, I volunteered to go to the countryside."

"So you went to the Yangqiao Commune?"

"Mm. I farmed alongside the villagers then. I was tired, but I didn't dare say so, because the villagers were even more tired. Luckily, I knew a little dancing and joined a performance troupe. We put on shows for them in our spare time.

"Once, I twisted my right foot while dancing. It hurt terribly, terribly badly. I felt sure it was broken, but the local doctor said it wasn't, and the commune told me to keep working. So I bore it and bore it, until the pain was truly unbearable. Only then did the commune let me return to Shanghai for treatment.

"When I got back and had it checked, it really was broken. The doctor said that if I'd waited any longer, my whole foot would have been ruined."

She gave people the impression of being introverted and quiet, but now that she had opened the floodgates, it was as though she had finally let it all out. She went on, "But I suppose it was a blessing in disguise. While I was in the hospital in Shanghai, the army came to select arts and entertainment soldiers. The person they sent knew my father, so I was chosen.

"That was in 1973. I'd just joined the army, and we went on a winter field-training march.

"The commander took good care of us arts soldiers and didn't make us carry packs, so we walked empty-handed. But we had to cover fifty or sixty li a day, and I gradually fell behind. I was small and thin back then, walking along at the rear by myself.

"Later, when we reached our camp in a village, I took off my shoes and found a huge blister on my foot, as big as a small egg. I didn't even know how I'd managed to keep going."

Gong Xue glanced at him. "I'm not saying I had it hard. I've never dared say that, because so many people have had it much harder than me. I've already been well looked after. I just..."

"You just missed your mother and father?"

"Mm!"

Gong Xue nodded hard. When she looked up again, she was like a pear blossom drenched in rain.

She was a classic Jiangnan beauty, with clear, lovely features and an elegant bearing. Her eyes in particular seemed to ripple with light, making her look all the more delicate and graceful. She truly deserved the words "a beauty who would stir anyone's pity."

"..."

Looking at her face, Chen Qi couldn't help sighing too.

She was originally supposed to appear in a Shanghai Film Studio movie this year, then work with the studio on several more films and transfer there as a matter of course. In 1984, she would win both the Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers best actress awards for Under the Bridge, becoming one of the most popular actresses of the time.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have lost my composure like that!"

Realizing that she had actually cried, Gong Xue hurriedly wiped away her tears, both shy and embarrassed. She wasn't good at exposing her inner world. "I think I said too much. I've put you in an awkward position," she stammered.

"No, you've already done wonderfully!"

Chen Qi spoke from the heart. "Someone else might have given up on themselves long ago, or even killed themselves. Look at you: you're still so positive, and you've even acted in a movie. You're an outstanding person. You just need a little more confidence, like your character."

"Then why did you criticize me?"

"Those are two different things. Bad acting is bad acting."

Chen Qi smiled and asked, "When you cried just now, did it cut deep?"

"Hm?"

"I mean, do you still remember how you felt when you were crying?"

"I do!"

"Good. Remember that feeling. You can use it."

(That's all...

I want to buy some green tea. Any recommendations? Nothing over fifty yuan!)

(End of chapter)