Period Dramas – An Analysis on Xiao Zhan’s Character Portrayal Part 1

This is a series of short articles by the same author which will be a 6 part analysis on Xiao Zhan’s various roles.

• Part 1.1 – Wei Wuxian
• Part 1.2 – Wei Wuxian
• Part 1.3 – Wei Wuxian
• Part 2.1 – Yan Bingyun
• Part 3.1 – Period Dramas
• Part 3.2 – Period Dramas

Original Article: https://www.weibo.com/ttarticle/p/show?id=2309404475300028219446
Original Author: 诗债累累

We frequently read about actors being so good that they meld into the role and become unrecognizable, and these performances showcased the actor’s ability to differentiate their roles and produce unique features. To the actor, this is also a mission of highest importance: to complete a performance with his creativity and imagination, and imprint an unique touch to his roles – “I acted this”.

Although this is not some technical jargon, this brings forth some curious questions from the audiences:

• How did the actor enter his role to create a vivid, living and realistic character?
• How did the actor forget his own personality?
• How did the actor create his roles such that they are unique?

One of the common methods used in actor training:

“When you are portraying a character, it is like you finding an astonishing item, and then you run into a house full of people, but now you have to explain to them this incident with your back facing them.”

Perhaps you may find this requirement strange, but to the actor, after being asked to portray a specific scene in several different manners, to reposition themselves multiple times to match the camera angle – sometimes, it seems as though you are facing your partner, but due to camera positioning, you were actually positioned facing away.

So, how do you portray the character?

We would have to start with the relationship between the actor and the character.

For easy understanding, I have tabulated Xiao Zhan’s main roles thus far, using their character features in the drama as the basis, since “Jade Dynasty” was only the first portion of the novel, and might have adaptation differences.

Character	Feature	Emotion	Appearance	Relation	Inner Self
Beitang Moran	Military Power Regent	Restrained	Noble, discreet	Diplomatic	Apathetic
Wei Wuxian	Intelligent Strongest Cultivator	High strung	Energetic	Teasing Sharp	Unyielding
Yan Bingyun	Elite Nation-minded	Restrained	Cold, acute	Concise	Righteousness
Zhang Xiaofan	Kind, sincere Tragic background	Direct	Warm, simple	Simple, straightforward	Confused

This is something that all of us can consider – while the emotions for Beitang Moran and Yan Bingyun were both restrained, what differences were there? What are the differences between Wei Wuxian’s teasing and sharp words, and Zhang Xiaofan’s simple and straightforwardness? From the tragic story lines of both Wei Wuxian and Zhang Xiaofan, what were their differences when they were seeking their own deaths?

(1) An actor does not create a character —- The first layer comes from the completeness of a character

A character is actually created by the script writer, then the director. If the drama is adapted from a novel, it is first created by the author, then the script writer and then finally the director.

When the actor receives the role, it is, in fact, an already processed piece of work, and this piece of work contains his lines, his basic emotions and actions (usually written by the script writer), how the positioning of the character is like, and how he is supposed to interact with his partner (usually written by the director).

As such, the first thing the actor needs to do is to clearly understand his performance mission, understand the actions which the character needs to do, and the purpose of the character. Using the actions and the purpose, discover the main story such that he will be able to sustain the performance regardless of the retakes, and also aid him in clearing his thoughts quickly.

Based on the above explanation, we could say that the performance missions for Beitang Moran, Wei Wuxian, Yan Bingyun and Zhang Xiaofan were complete.

Example: Beitang Moran and Wei Wuxian

(1) Beitang Moran

Background: Regent with military power
Action: To create resistance and difficulties for the protagonist
Purpose: To improve the eventual ruler

This character is the nation’s second highest in power. He honed the Emperor’s ruling skills, and also honed his own. He knew that the nation was their home and while he was given great power, he wanted to return the power back to the Emperor once he had matured. This sets Moran apart from the other court officials.

Besides Xiao Zhan’s looks, this character was attractive because of the sense of power. This power came from the political power as well as the strength of the character. The underlying line was “Everyone desires peace, if you are not worthy, I will take over”.

With this in mind, Xiao Zhan’s portrayal included a hidden sense of pressure, a sense of gravity that contrasted greatly with the general comical script. This quickly added charm to the character, and he also adjusted his vocal tone higher in consideration that this was a web drama (hence more lighthearted) and the age range of the target audience (teenagers), the direction was more haughty than noble.

If this character was written in a serious political drama, and 40 year old Xiao Zhan redid this character again, he would have gone for a deeper vocal range, portrayed nobility and regalness, and added more gravity to the role.

(2) Wei Wuxian (during Guanyin Temple)

Background: Self reconciled, moved on
Action: To understand the truth, to rescue everyone
Purpose: To save everyone’s lives (it was not important for Jin Guangyao to die, nor to understand the mystery behind Jin Guangyao’s actions)
Additional Surprise: To discover the ridiculous reasons behind his demise

The scene at Guanyin Temple was the most complex, as there were many characters joining the scene one by one, escalating the incident with every step:

1. Discovering the truth behind the Sword Spirit
2. Unveiling the truth behind Qiong Qi Path – the turning point of Wei Wuxian’s life
3. Understanding Jin Guangyao’s background

After every step, the Wei Wuxian’s stance and attitude kept changing. When facing every other participant of the scene, he had to show different details to convey their relationship. This was one of Xiao Zhan’s most complex scenes – with each unveiling of the truth, every interaction and attitude with other characters had to be adjusted.

To Jin Guangyao:

1. He was at a disadvantage, hence trying to buy time and discover his opponent’s weakness
2. He was in shock, after understanding that his demise was based on nothing but unreasonable and unprovoked malice and hatred

To Jiang Cheng:

1. He discovered that the truth about the Golden Core was made known
2. He had to comfort Jiang Cheng
3. At the same time, he was released from the burden of hiding the truth

To Jin Ling:

1. He had to rescue him
2. He released himself from the guilt of accidentally killing Jin Zixuan, but also knew that he had an indirect relation to it

To Lan Wangji:

1. He realised that the truth about the Golden Core was made known
2. He felt that there was no need to hide the truth anymore

To Lan Xize (Zewu Jun):

1. He studied his interactions to understand his attitude, since he and Jin Guangyao were close friends

To Su Minshan:

1. He understood why he rather be Jin Guangyao’s lap dog
2. He understood why Su would set him up.

The completeness of the scene was done extremely well, with high concentration of lines and interactions between different characters. The emotional flow and attitude changes after discovering each piece of truth was clean and smooth. The emotions went from anxiety to anguish (for one self) to resolution, interlaced with psychological and physical fights.

(2) An actor needs to add his own touch to the character —- The second layer comes from the special touches he adds to the character, besides what was scripted

There was once a great drama teacher who once said, “Even though everyone acts a character in the same way, you should still try to twist your thumb differently.”

Here, we will use the example of Zhang Xiaofan to see how the performance of a classic character is created. (TN: Jade Dynasty is a very popular classic fantasy novel.)

Zhang Xiaofan had quite a few scenes where he had to act without props, such as the scene with the Water Dragon, as well as the stick that was not there.

Action: To counter his lack of progress in skills by cooking and cleaning, or taking on the blame for his fellow disciples
Purpose: To repay his benefactor sect (and to court his Shijie)

Xiaofan was a character that was easy to have performance ideas: to portray the kindness and innocence of the character, with optimism and open-mindedness. As compared with his (Xiao Xhan’s) other characters, he made the following adjustments:

• He changed the way he smiled, by raising his head, and to openly smile by showing his teeth.
• He added a lot of miscellaneous movements, such as scratching his head, wiping his hands and touching his face.

And we summarize his performance points below:

To animals:

1. He treated all creatures equally – he treated everyone the same, regardless of person, monkey, Water Dragon, or dog

To Shijie:

1. He had puppy love – immediate facial expressions upon seeing her
2. He always wiped his hands before holding her hands
3. He felt he was jilted (he thought his Shijie liked him too), and ran to the mountain top to shout his thoughts out

To vengeance:

1. Although he kept saying that he did not have the ability to do anything, the thought always remained in his heart. The moment he found out the truth about his village, plus he had gained enough power to take revenge, he did not stop his hand

To truth:

1. He wished for his own death, fragile but sincere, after his dreams were shattered, it was all just his ill fate, and he was defeated by it.

After all of these designs, Zhang Xiaofan became someone that was more relatable, with blood and soul in the earlier part of the movie, and contrasted greatly with the latter part when he fell to evil, and this contrast elevated the tragedy.

Conclusion

Actors are like a sponge for emotions, a machine for rationality. They have to be absorb all emotions but yet memorize these emotions and actions rationally, in order to repeat endlessly.

In contemporary works, a common theory used is “emotional memory”, to let the actors use their own past experiences and emotions to directly or indirectly apply on their character, and understand how the performance is generated.

During this type of performances, the weight of the role hinges on the actor himself. For example, in “The Most Beautiful Performance” where Xiao Zhan acted in the short clip “Buying Ears”, because Xiao Zhan was brought up by his grandmother, he was able to apply that emotion when he acted the role of a hearing impaired deliveryman calling his grandmother (who was also hearing impaired). Or in “Family Rules”, where his lifelike performance of getting beaten up by his father, was probably also inferred from his real life – in his People Magazine interview, he spoke about how his parents would take turns in disciplining him.

Life experiences are a valuable treasure trove to actors, as they contain living material. The more living material there are, the better and faster it is for actors to be able to find the right emotional experience. As such, realistic material + lifelike performance + relatable experiences will have an advantage in reaching his audiences.

In the current day and age where scripts are often from the fantasy genre, the characters abandon realism, experience great ups and downs, have beyond human capabilities – these roles will need to move the weight from the actor to the character. Actors need to participate in the creation of the character, simply drawing from their life experiences will not be enough, and thus attempt to discover how the character felt. With more experiences, their treasure trove will contain more living material, and they will be able to inject realism in their characters.