Beijing News – Good news, no end

2024-02-13 02:20:00

The movie “We Shake the Sun Together” directed by Han Yan and starring Peng Yuchang and Li Gengxi was released nationwide on New Year’s Day. As the final chapter of the “Life Trilogy” series directed by Han Yan, the movie “Let’s Shake the Sun Together” tells the story of “brainless” Lu Tu (played by Peng Yuchang) and “unhappy” Ling Min (played by Li Gengxi), two Young people who are seriously ill, because of the agreement of “Relay for Life”, accidentally embark on a healing journey full of love and power. The film continues the first two films of director Han Yan’s “Trilogy of Life”, “Get Out!” The warmth and delicacy of “Tumor King” and “Send You a Little Red Flower” continue to focus on the living conditions of ordinary people, and while paying attention to reality, they deeply explore life issues.

Peng Yuchang and Li Gengxi respectively played two seriously ill young people, “brainless” Lu Tu and “unhappy” Ling Min, in the movie “Let’s Shake the Sun Together”.

In an exclusive interview with the Beijing News, two actors, Peng Yuchang and Li Gengxi, said that following receiving the script, they were deeply moved by the story, which “can touch the softest place in everyone’s heart.” Before starting filming, the two went to experience life, visit patients, communicate with them, and fulfill their roles with reverence for life. For them, the biggest difficulty in performing in this drama is “being real, not acting”.

【dialogue】

Real, don’t act

Beijing News: Both of you play patients in the film. What preparations did you make for your roles before filming started?

Li Gengxi:The two of us were actually pretty much the same. We read the script, experienced life in Changsha, went to various scenic spots, and got to know the city a little bit. After half a month, we went to the hospital. He went to visit some tumor patients, and I went to visit some. Uremia patients, chat with them and learn regarding their lives.

Beijing News: How did going to the hospital to experience life and communicate with patients touch you?

Peng Yuchang:Although they are going through hardships, they bring us a lot of warmth and encouragement, and they also let us see a positive, optimistic and warm power. I am sometimes a very fragile person, but when I saw them, I felt shocked and moved, which gave me more courage to complete the role with reverence for life.

Li Gengxi:They allowed me to see a different side of the world. Everyone is facing their own problems in life. In fact, they are quite powerless and have no way to change their current situation. As a bystander, I entered their lives for a few days and chatted with them. In fact, it shocked me quite a lot. I found that I was very small and mightn’t do anything. I didn’t know how to digest that feeling. I can only put this part of my mood into the movie.

Beijing News: You are playing the two roles of Lu Tu and Ling Min. What is the biggest difficulty in performing?

Peng Yuchang:Be real, don’t act.

Li Gengxi:I think reality may come from various levels. We have experienced life and visited many patients before, hoping to restore the current state of the characters as truly as possible, as well as the emotional reality, the emotional relationship between Lu Tu and Ling Min. A lot of changes have taken place. We didn’t discuss too much whether it was love or some kind of relationship between them before. We slowly felt it ourselves following nearly half of the filming.

The image of Lu Tu played by Peng Yuchang is particularly down-to-earth.

Beijing News: How will the rehearsals done in the early stages help the subsequent performances?

Peng Yuchang:It can deepen our mutual understanding and establish a trusting relationship. Our scene layouts were all based on real scenes, including when we went to live at Ling Min’s house. The familiarity was completely different. When filming, it felt like we were living there.

Li Gengxi:It will help us quickly integrate into the story, and we can also know in advance what the crew is like, what everyone does, and the various departments can be better integrated together.

Beijing News: Lu Tu’s image in the film is particularly down-to-earth. What was your reaction when you saw your own look for the first time?

Peng Yuchang:I believe in this character myself, and the styling helped me a lot.

Li Gengxi:He suddenly became like that, no matter what expressions he made or what actions he made, I didn’t get used to it at the time.

Beijing News: Lu Tu, played by Peng Yuchang, has many image-subverting performances in the film. Which ones require psychological construction?

Peng Yuchang:This does not do any psychological construction at all. Because we actually did a lot of preparation work in the early stage, I felt that Lu Tu needed to be like this, and any look for this character would be correct.

Beijing News: Now when you think back to the filming set at that time, what is the first scene that comes to mind?

Li Gengxi:The first image that came to my mind was that downstairs of our new home, a few of us often sat on the bench, dazed there, with a fan blowing behind us. Teacher Gao Yalin (who plays Ling Min’s father) said, don’t blow to the back.

Peng Yuchang:During the filming of the tour group wedding scene, I had to carry her on my back. I still remember that when we were filming, we also asked the executive director to time the lap. It had to be completed in one minute or so. This left a deep impression on me.

When Peng Yuchang and Li Gengxi were filming some montages of life interactions, some of their performances were improvised because they already had a tacit understanding.

Beijing News: The film has some comedy parts and many tear-jerking sections. What was the atmosphere like on set when you were filming?

Peng Yuchang:The atmosphere is normal, and the director has actually given us a good atmosphere to put into the working environment.

Li Gengxi:Basically, when filming some serious scenes, we will have a tacit understanding. No one is in the mood to chat, but we will not deliberately not talk. We will encourage each other.

Beijing News: Will you rehearse some heavier scenes several times in advance, or just shoot them directly?

Li Gengxi:We have rehearsed, but because of some emotionally-heavy scenes, the director did not ask us to be emotional during the rehearsal. He just let us know in advance that emotional scenes basically come later.

Beijing News: Will the two of you perform impromptu performances in the film?

Li Gengxi:Fortunately, I think it depends on how to understand improvisation. Some of the montage scenes of Ling Min and Lu Tu’s life interactions are basically improvised. Elsewhere we won’t have anything beyond the script.

Beijing News: How did you two young actors feel regarding working with senior teachers such as Gao Yalin, Xu Fan, and Liu Dan in the film?

Peng Yuchang:In fact, I was always in a relatively tense state at the beginning. Later, the closer I got to the role of Lu Tu, the more relaxed I became. Including when I was shooting with Teacher Xu Fan and Teacher Gao Yalin, I felt so friendly.

Peng Yuchang shaved his head to film the replacement wedding scene.

Beijing News: The scene at the end of the film where Ling Min and Lu Tu hold a make-up wedding was particularly touching. It was easy for the two actors to get into the scene during filming.

Li Gengxi:It’s very natural. That was our final scene. Peng Peng had already shaved his head, so the part of the scene with the bald head was saved for the end. We originally thought the ending would be happy, but in the end both of us burst into tears. At that time, I felt very complicated, not only because of Ling Min and Lu Tu, but the two of them finally had a happy ending. I felt that our own emotions would be more or less substituted, and I thought regarding saying goodbye to this character soon.

Beijing News reporter Teng Chao

Editor Huang Jialing

Proofread by Zhang Yanjun

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