Date: 1-Apr-2024
Video: (From 10:27)
Keywords: In Blossom, Penyue, Panda,
Opening
… Talking about “Get onto the table” (Metaphor of “Becoming famous”), just let all the people get onto the table.
… I love to go beyond my comfort zone, keep going beyond it.
… After accomplishing a stage play, the most satisfying moment definitely is not the process, but the applause in curtain call.
… One day, when I feel psychologically exhausted, I will just quit this actor job.
… Before playing a role, you have to learn to play yourself.
Title: Don’t change or shape myself into someone I don’t know in order to get a better position.
Liu: Hello everyone who is watching this interview. My name is Liu Xueyi.
Q: Have you ever looked into those hot topics about you, for example: “Pepin”, “Get better traffic due to a drama” and “Get onto the table”
Liu: What is Pepin? (Note: All the roles in the drama are romantically involved with someone.). Azer (Panyue’s guard in “In Blossom” ) and Rin’s romance is sweet, and I love this couple. I know what “Get onto the table” means. A good drama comes from the effort contributed by all the crew. So when talking about “Get onto the table”, just let all the people get onto the table. We actors take about 3 to 4 months to complete the acting parts, and the crew takes more time, maybe one year or 1.5 years to complete the post production. We all contribute to it. You can not say someone should get onto the table, but someone doesn’t deserve it. If the drama gets better reviews, then all of us get onto the table. But if it is not, then we all have to take responsibility for the bad result.
Q: How do you pick the script? Which kind of people do you love to work with?
Liu: A good team, a good script, and a good role. I look into these three points. Good means “professional”. First of all, I am here to do my work, and the next is to make friends. I would rather work hard without making any friend, than we work happily and joke all the time to create a drama like a piece of sh*t. So first, everyone has to work professionally. Second, the role can touch my heart. All the performance on the screen shows what I feel about the role and the story. If I can not feel anything from the role and the story, I will not pick the script.
Liu: In the very beginning when I started contacting this script, the role Penyue was the key I wanted to join this project. PanAn’s given name is Panyue. (Background story: Panyue 潘岳 is a real person in Chinese literary history. His courtesy name is PanAnJen, and is well known as PanAn. Panyue is called the most beautiful man in Chinese history. In “In Blossom”, another word “樾” replaces “岳”. 樾 and 岳 share the same pronunciation.) The real Panyue is also the county magistrate in Heyan county. His wife passed away at a very young age. Panyue found his hair turning grey like what we show in the drama. This real person, PanAn, had not yet been played in Chinese dramas, so I would like to give it a try. I play a lot of noble roles, like Gods, immortals, and mighty bewitchers. Or other great roles like “I want to be the emperor” or the leader of a suzerain. Panyue is just a county magistrate, and what he wanted to do was to make Heyan County become a better place. Turning Heyan from literally “A good security place” to real “A good security place”. After rectifying four clans in Heyan, he manages to turn the county to a rich and safe place. He shows his pure and true love toward his wife, he is very different from what I have played before.
Q: Did you expect that “In Blossom” would become “dark horse”?
Liu: Never. It is becoming famous. The first day on air, I remember only 5 episodes were released. I reviewed the “Danmaku” (=barrages written by the audiences on screen. Audiences show their reaction to the drama by danmaku.) Audiences’ reaction was nice. Then the next day, one of my friends called me, and we talked about what storyline would go in the following episodes. I started to sense that we might get some better reviews. I checked danmaku again, saw audiences’ reaction, saw what made them happy and what made them heartbroken. If the audience's reaction doesn’t meet what we expect, what can we do to improve our acting. Danmaku can help us to get us better. It is like customer feedback. I always focus on the audience feedback, instead of seeing the traffic numbers or the viewership ratings. And this time some of my friends told me that it is becoming a blockbuster. So I was just like “alright let me check the numbers”, and “oh the numbers are nice”. Well, I am happy to see that the results are good.
Q: What do you think about the linkage between costume design and the role?
Liu: Actors are only the tools to serve the roles in the dramas. As long as the body parts can be reproduced by my body (I am okay to remove them)… I will not really break my leg or arm for a cripple role, it will not be possible for me to do so. I really don’t mind cutting my body parts off as long as they can be reproduced. (Remark: He has his hair cut for WuXin in “Blood of Youth”) I like all of the costumes in “In Blossom”, especially the county magistrate uniform. We have been seeing more hat designs from Tan and Song Dynasties in dramas, but we seldom see the hats from Wei and Jin dynasties. (Remark: Guan Li = Hat ceremony, Come of age ceremony, is a very important ceremony in Chinese tradition. Men can start wearing hats to represent them becoming adults. Hat is a very important costume in Chinese traditions.) We didn’t see lots of Wei and Jin hat style in dramas before. (Caption: The hat is called JinShen hat, standard officer uniform in Wei and Jin. People can tell the officer's position by the hat design.) And the beard style, I had not yet had a beard on my face before. It is very stylish and makes me feel like a warrior living in martial art world. I asked my assistance to pick 2 photos, and updated them under Weibo account.
Q: You are around mid thirty. Do you find it is difficult for you to transform yourself from your typical character images?
Liu: No, I don’t think I have any typical character image. Someone says I am a romantic drama type actor, but I don’t only play in romantic dramas, but also in many daily life types, power struggle types, and of course ancient custom romantic types. I always love to break the audiences’ typical images about my characters, and love to challenge myself. In the earlier stage, I am very successful at God characters, so audiences think Liu is only good at playing God and he is a civil servant in God's world. And then I play some characters in power struggle type dramas, then the audiences think Liu has a “power struggle” face. And after “In Blossom”, they start saying I am the most beautiful widower. The thing I love the most is to put lots of different labels on myself, and keep ripping them off from me, then again put some new labels. This is what I love to do and I am good at. I have to be good at one certain type first, then I can start to think about what I can do next. If I were not yet the best in one type and started getting myself into the other type, then one day someone would replace me in that type. I prefer doing everything solidly, and showing my best to all the audiences. I might play two similar type characters first, then play another type to make some breakthrough. There is always space for improvement… I am going to play an insane character in the next drama, which will be released soon.
Liu: I don’t think I am. Being hilarious is to please other people, and being insane is to please myself. When I was in my twenties, I would mind (what people thought about me,). But what I am looking for now is to enrich my spiritual life. Work puts pressure on me, and consumes me a lot. So I don’t want to overthink anymore. I did overthink before, and always worried if I did complete some jobs well enough, and thought how I should have done better… if I had faced a similar situation in the future, what could I have done to resolve it. I worried about my future all the time. But actually I overthought too much, and those things consumed me a lot.
Q: What made you get rid of overthinking?
Liu: I changed my state of mind in a certain period. Things just went by. Now I look back on what I have done before, it was just like that I was stuck in a small box; just like a frog in the well knows nothing of the great ocean. For example, I wore the face mask and applied the facial mask on the way to work. I just don’t want the paparazzis to get the costume photos of my characters, and leak out the drama information. The audiences will feel less surprised because of those leakages. So I always tell my fans and my audiences, don’t come to see me even if you have time to do so. I will schedule a proper time, and proper place to gather both the fans and me. We can have some food, and we can have some chat. But I really don’t want them to come to see my makeup and costume (on-set). I would like them to spend more time with their parents, or read some books during their leisure time. Maybe just make your parents some dishes, or just spend the money on yourself like buying some new clothes. Do not spend the money to purchase the flight or train tickets to come to see me. I would like to focus on creating new and good dramas, but I don’t want to be consumed by something unnecessary.
(Q: Do you think the experience accumulation leads you to the position that you can get more autonomy to choose what you want and what you don’t want?)
Liu: I am not an ambitious person. I don’t want to change or shape myself into someone I don’t know in order to get a better position, or to be the top in this industry. I don’t look for fame, and I don’t have a certain target. Acting is job a job to me. As long as I can do my job solidly, I don’t mind being put in number 7 or 8 in the cast list. I think I am luckier than most of the people in this industry. I have some works that make people know me more. My spiritual life is richer. I don’t limit myself to play some types of roles, or ask for a better position in the cast list. Now I am getting better traffic, so more scripts are coming to me. I feel quite satisfied with the current position. But only having traffic without acting skills is risky, on the contrary, having acting skills without traffic is risky, too. Traffic and acting skills are complementarity. I will well use the traffic to create better dramas to show to the audiences.
Liu: Tony Leung. (Happy smile)
Lieu: Xiao Yicai in “Noble Aspirations” (2016). I started getting audiences’ attention from that role. My career starts a new chapter because of Xiao Yicai. Every time I look back, my career is like a bag with water, and Xiao Yicai is the needle that punctured a hole in the bag, then the water started flowing out. And now more and more water is flowing out.
Q: There are acting styles called “Stanislavski system”, “Method acting”, and “Expressionnisme”. Which style do you apply to your acting?
Liu: I am unorthodox, I apply all types of acting skills in my performance. What we learned is “Stanislavski system” in the university (Note: Liu studies acting in The Central Academy of Drama, one of the best acting universities in China), which is listening, watching, and feeling. You have to feel everything in your heart first, then you know how to act. There are also many good parts in other acting styles. “Method acting” is experiencing. We actors have various kinds of experience, but the point is how you can make the difference among all your performances. We can see lots of similar tropes in dramas, what I have to think is how I can act differently from what I have done before. And this is what we actors should do.
(Q: After you get into your character, you put your true self aside…)
Liu: No, I don’t think I can separate my true self from my character. If you say that is possible, then I will tell you it is totally bullshit. (Laugh) Definitely, your smile is your character’s smile, and your sadness is your character’s sadness. So how could it be possible you can separate yourself from the character? My characters always have some of my characteristics. I don’t think it is bad that my characters have my own characteristics, and I also don’t think it is bad that I have some of my characters’ characteristics. Before I get into the set, I will just remove those characteristics that don’t fit the character, and keep and enlarge those that fit it. And some new elements will be input into it as well, then a good character will be created. I do think before playing a role, you have to learn to play yourself.
(Q: We have to play ourselves?)
Liu: Of course, you need to know your features, characteristics and qualities.
Q: Netizens say “Just let Liu Xueyi go viral”. What do you think about that?
Liu: I am quite satisfied with my current status. I can get into the drama I want to join, and do something for the dramas and characters. And I still have some leisure time to get my body rest. Now I am under the best status I am looking for. Of course, more traffic means more opportunities. You’ve got to take the good with the bad. If I have to get into that situation,some leisure time will have to be given up. Then I might pull in my retirement schedule.
(Q: Have you set up a retirement schedule?)
Liu: Yes. (Smile) Not about the age. One day, when I feel psychologically exhausted, or nothing I can contribute to my characters, or always act the same way, then I will just quit this actor job.
Q: If you could take the time machine back to the past, which timeline would you like to go back?
Liu: Back to my childhood and experiencing what I have experienced once again. I don’t want to change anything in my past.
(Q: So you are very satisfied with your own life?)
Liu: Yes, I am. I am very content.
(Q: Talking about a roughly and manly type of character, it is like Ethan Juan in the very famous file “The Pig, The Snake and The Pigeon”. The beard makeup changed his image to the audiences.)
Liu: It is very nice, and that topic attracts me very much also. I would like to do something new as much as possible.
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