1 – Chen Yushan with Tencent Entertainment Firstline
Firstline: About Xiao Zhan, you just spoke about him, you were not worried about him, why did you choose him then?
Chen Yushan: Actually for the role of Ji Chong, I saw the entire X-Nine group, not just him alone. The funny thing was that, I told them to sing and dance for me. They probably thought it was comedic too, as in why would a producer give such a topic. I said, since you don’t know how to act, let’s just sing and dance. Actually I wanted to see what their charm is, I especially felt Xiao Zhan’s an ambitious person.
We were just talking, and they spoke about what variety show they went to. I looked at him, and he was really the one in the group that made a deeper impression on me. I remembered that he wasn’t very young, he was ambitious, he wanted to work hard and move forward, he knew that time would not wait for him.
Firstline: The role Ji Chong is quite a departure from him, very rugged.
Chen Yushan: You see he’s very proper, but I feel that he’s very self-motivated. When we were distributing the roles, I told him, I’m quite different from the others, I know you’re handsome to begin with, this can be seen on the television, but you have to have other special qualities. For example, Ji Chong is a wanderer, he needs to be rugged, but Xiao Zhan’s delicate, he’s very thin, very exquisite. I clearly told him, I need to destroy this “exquisite”. His eyes brightened, said “alright, alright”.
I like those people who don’t really care about their looks, an actor must have an awareness of being an actor. We need to be close to the role. Since Ji Chong is like this, he should look coarse, which was why I wanted him to have stubble. I even double confirmed this: You have stubble right? You stop shaving that stubble. I want to see how you look like with stubble, I even confirmed stubble. In terms of costume and make-up, the foundation was greyer, like there was a layer of dust on the face; in order for the role to have the feeling of strength, he said “Ok, ok, I will try to put on weight”, and worked hard at eating on set, in order to have the feeling of strength. At night, after filming, he would discuss with me the questions and understanding on acting.
These children are all quite hard working, all felt that it was difficult to get a good script, and they all suffered filming in high altitude.