Original Madame Figaro Madame Figaro
Forging and polishing the body as the container of the character, extreme self-discipline, concentration, and almost symbolic masculine aesthetic template, these characteristics related to beauty and will character constitute Peng Yuyan, or rather, the established impression of Peng Yuyan facing the outside world. After more than 20 years in the industry, the accumulated works have continuously consolidated this side. Peng Yuyan is no longer a name, but a label bound to many entries.
When he leads his dog on the red carpet and beach in Cannes, people are in a trance for a moment: Peng Yuyan is actually 42 years old? – Yes, he has reached the age of a middle-aged actor, and time has left natural marks on his face. In the upcoming movie "Dog Formation", Peng Yuyan plays a northwestern man released on parole, dark, hunched, silent, and almost without lines. On the cold and desolate Gobi, forsaken by human society, he and an equally lost black dog depend on each other and redeem each other.
After the film was completed, he adopted the partner who helped him complete most of the filming and named him Xiao Xin. On May 24, "Dog Array" won the Best Film Award in the "One Kind of Attention" section of the 77th Cannes Film Festival by a unanimous vote. Xiao Xin also won the "Golden Palm for Dogs" jury award specially designed to honor animals at the Cannes Film Festival. Peng Yuyan accepted the award on his behalf. He smiled and teased that he came to Cannes with the "Roll! Ashin" crew 13 years ago, but did not win the award. Xiao Xin won the award the first time he came.
At the seaside of Cannes, passers-by asked Xiao Xin’s name was "Xin" of "Hard"? He gently corrected: It was Xin of Cinderella.
Like Erlang in "Dog Formation", he is also back on the road. With Xiao Xin, there is also a stable heart.
Before "Dog Array," Peng Yuyan had not been filming for two years. The pause button was initially pressed by the environment, and he himself wanted to seriously consider the next development direction, so the pace naturally slowed down. Over the past decade or so, his amazing will for movies and performances has become a self-discipline sample: substantial muscle gain, fat loss, various professional-level skills, high cooperation without fear of hardship, and willingness to "suffer". The director who has worked with him commented, "Peng Yuyan can use his soul to command the body. He doesn’t care how much damage, laziness and coquetry his body has."
When suffering becomes the norm, the outside world is naturally full of curiosity and inquiry, and the bitter swallower himself can only give his own answers again and again in interviews and inquiries. In this interview, the 42-year-old Peng Yuyan was much more peaceful, just smiled lightly, "I need a breakthrough point and landing point for the performance, otherwise how can I act? The process of preparation and learning can help me enter faster. Is there a real happy creation in the world? I want to say I have it, that would sound cool, but it turns out that I don’t, I really don’t have it."
In this industry, "hand familiarity" is almost non-existent, and any actor with creative requirements will tighten in front of the camera, hoping to give an expression that meets the standard or breaks through his own. Peng Yuyan has expressed his reverence for acting more than once, and to this day he still worries that he will not be able to act well and that the homework for the role is not enough. "There are still a lot of helplessness and doubts in the acting, and there are too many uncertainties in the process. But I can’t help it. I try my best to do it, and I can only believe in myself at that time."
When the cast of "Dogs" was announced, some netizens expressed skepticism that Peng Yuyan, who is regarded by the public as tall and handsome, is difficult to connect with the social fringes released on parole in small towns in the west. But after the film was screened in Cannes, it received a warm response. Zavier Dolan, who is the chairperson of the jury of the "One Focus" section, said, "This is a master director’s work."
The story takes place in 2008 in a small town on the northwestern border. Peng Yuyan plays Erlang, who is released from prison on parole. He has a shaved head, dark complexion, and a little hunched back. From time to time, he purses his lips and shrinks, his eyes are indifferent and dull, and he is full of vigilance and defense. The whole film may only have dozens of words, and the silence that borders on aphasia also represents Erlang’s departure and break from society. Because of his special status, he is banned from leaving the town and has no hope of a new life. Forced to make a living, he can only join the local dog fighting team that rounders up stray dogs.
In the pursuit of a black dog suspected of carrying rabies virus, Jiro and the black dog "don’t bite and don’t know each other". It is also because of the mutual company and redemption of the black dog that Jiro has gained the courage to go back on the road and break through the "array" that once limited him. The film’s tone is cold, and there are a lot of large-scale vistas of the desolate landscape of the Gobi, where one person and one dog are particularly insignificant. But even such a person who struggles to survive in harsh weather and embarrassing situations still has real desires and dreams. He wants to have a new life.
Unlike most of Peng Yuyan’s screen images, the character of Erlang can be said to have nothing to do with good-looking, and the whole person is withdrawn and gloomy. In order to be close to the identity and local environment, he has to be tanned and rough, and with aphasia and silence, the performance can hardly be expressed by lines. Peng Yuyan initially received the script and thought Erlang was dumb. "Later, it was found that he did not know how to speak, but did not want to speak. He took the initiative to cut off the language and only communicate with people he trusted. This made me feel quite challenged."
Before 2020, Peng Yuyan had been in a state of intense output, shooting seven consecutive plays in one year. His screen image ranged from gymnast to police officer, college student to air-conditioning repairman, and the role map was very broad. But the role of Erlang, Peng Yuyan admitted that it was unprecedented, "I really want to experience this process from the perspective of an observer. And the timing is quite coincidental. I got this script at the age of 40, and it has a strong touch and resonance. If I had seen it ten years earlier, I might not have had these empathy."
There was another reason why Peng Yuyan was moved by the love of the director Guan Hu. "I think the director is a person who loves animals very much." He counted the director’s previous works, "Bullfight", "Killing Life", "Old Pao’er" and "Eight Hundred", all of which had various animal shoots.
The filming was concentrated in Guazhou and Yumen, Gansu Province, where the climate was dry and the ultraviolet rays were strong. Peng Yuyan went to experience life in advance, and learned about the customs, living habits, and intonation and accent. These preparations were no different from every time he entered the group in the past. Step by step, he started to change from the environment and moved closer to the role. But there were also very different content from the past. For example, he didn’t have to over-carve his muscles, and his training programs were replaced by motorcycle and animal rehearsals. The crew hired a professional team to train animal actors, and he also had a lot of training to do.
Animals are extremely difficult to shoot, and there are many uncontrollable factors. There are hundreds of dogs on the crew of "Dog Formation", as well as tigers and other large animals in the zoo plot. These all require Peng Yuyan to rehearse in advance to reduce mistakes on the scene. "Animals are not actually performing, they are just showing natural and real reactions, obeying human instructions, and each reaction may be different," he smiled, feeling that he had become the one being taken away, "I will be influenced, I am not acting, everyone is the real performance."
The director Guan Hu also mentioned in the Cannes interview, "It’s more important to pay attention to the wildness of Peng Yuyan. In many movies, it is difficult for him to show the strong wildness and the loneliness in his body. In fact, he doesn’t need to act. As long as he is given a state, he will naturally show it."
In the film, Jiro tried several times to ride a motorcycle out of the town, but failed. One of the falls, Peng Yuyan has a shot of wiping the blood on his forehead with his hand, with a bit of the mythical mystery of Erlang’s eyes opening, indicating that he is about to break through his inner demons.
However, Peng Yuyan did not specify where Jiro’s awakening was. He felt that the artistic judgment should still be handed over to the audience. After the performance was edited and arranged differently, the final feeling belonged to the audience.
In reality, when I really came into contact with Peng Yuyan, I couldn’t feel the "wildness" that Director Guan Hu said at all. His speech was low-pitched, he loved to laugh, and occasionally he would make a few humorous jokes. In addition, this time he brought Xiao Xin, and he had to appease his emotions from time to time. The whole persona is very soft. "I also hope to say that I can create happily, and I can act simply and easily, but I still want to tell everyone that the filming is not as good as I thought. Sorry, it’s a little ruining my beautiful imagination," he smiled wryly, "Sometimes it rains half the time, or when I have a meal, I have to wait until I come back and then shoot. The mood has been broken, and the state of the human and the dog is not compatible, so I can shoot again, and I can’t help it
But there was a small detail that flashed by, but it could give a glimpse of how he and Jiro fit together –
"Peng Yuyan, who has been repeatedly discussed and written by the outside world, what are the differences between the Peng Yuyan you personally know?"
After listening to it, he almost didn’t think much about it, and immediately replied: "I don’t even know what kind of person I am, and I’m still looking for it. The outside world’s opinions definitely don’t represent all of me. The online world we are in contact with now is used to showing the delicate and beautiful side, but good or bad, I am myself. It’s normal for others not to know or misunderstand, and I don’t care that much about it."
Jiro is speechless and withdrawn. He doesn’t care about the outside world’s opinions, and he doesn’t care about his own injuries. He just wants to ride a motorcycle and leave the town. As a result, he rolls around in the wind and sand, and bleeds in embarrassment. But if you can’t do it once, you have to come again. He is a marginal person in society, but he also has a little enthusiasm in his heart. When he met this role at the age of 40, Peng Yuyan felt that the timing was right. "He gave me some new ideas about the emotional communication between humans and animals, including my own cognition and pursuit of performance. Animals are very simple. They live in the moment and will not hide their feelings. They can receive the kindness and sincerity you release. Now it is all about emotional internal friction. I think it may be that the desire and self-awareness are too strong? You see, I only live with dogs in the play, what’s the point of internal friction, right? "
During his time in Cannes, photos of Peng Yuyan walking his dog on the red carpet and being met by passers-by while walking his dog on the beach appeared frequently on domestic social platforms, and the comment section praised his relaxed state. This is in sharp contrast to the extreme self-discipline that once became his label, and it is also like a strange intertext of fate – Peng Yuyan has indeed entered a new stage of life.
After the pace of work slowed down, Peng Yuyan spent more time with his family and enriched himself. He was very filial to his mother, and he took her to travel around the world when he had time, including this time at Cannes, to share the joy of winning awards directly with his mother. Studio footage recorded him and his mother hugging and cheering, like lively children. During the previous period of recuperation, he also accompanied his mother to do various experiments. "I will accompany my mother to practice the piano and take piano lessons with her. I follow my teacher to learn pottery by myself, sometimes practice calligraphy, read the" Tao Te Ching ", and meditate. The main thing is to experience a lot of different things, and my family likes to do them together."
Before coming to France, Peng Yuyan was deeply impressed by the scenery and architecture of Nice and Lyon, as well as the flower fields of Provence. At that time, he also took his mother to the nearby "clay city", Roussillon, where the soil is rich in red ochre sand mines, famous for its magnificent red cliffs, orange-red house facades and ochre quarries. The town was originally named Viscus Russulus, which means "red mountain" in Latin. The aerial view of the picture is full of red, and it looks full of vitality. – Peng Yuyan introduced with great interest, trying to pronounce the word starting with R, with a serious and funny expression. Everyone laughed.
"I remember that there are shows everywhere near Red Earth City, so I took my mother to play. The houses over there are also red and orange, which is very beautiful. After the ochre is mined, there will be large mines that turn into caves. We watched the projection animation in it, and it felt great."
Of course, the trip was also deeply touched. Peng Yuyan also went to see the room where Van Gogh lived before his death, just like the painting of "Van Gogh’s Bedroom in Arles". The room was low and narrow, and it did not look so comfortable. He also thought about the artist’s creation and life there, some things that were not pleasant and light. As an actor, the sensitivity of the senses cannot be turned off, and it will be hit at any time.
He had to admit that there were too many moments when he was "hit", and there were many moments of confusion and pain in his life, and the tempering from the body was only part of it. "This question is too difficult," he began to smile bitterly again, "There are so many things happening in the world every day, and there are all kinds of natural and man-made disasters. If emotions can be put into words, wouldn’t it be too simple? After all, people are so complicated."
Just now, he was still talking about how he only lived with dogs when filming "Dog Formation", which was easier than people. Soon, the interview questions from human society stumped Peng Yuyan. "You will ask me how my birthday was, how my life changed, who remembers?" He laughed in distress, showing a child-like expression, but complaining was a complaint, but he still racked his brain to recall, and took the answer out of his head, "Oh, I remember! I’m taking a break for my birthday this year. In the past, every birthday was filming, and it was rare to take a break this year."
In his early twenties, Peng Yuyan made a name for himself by his hard work. After the age of thirty, these hardships were left on his body as medals, along with the wounds and scars left by training and shooting. In the interview during the promotion stage of the movie "Emergency Rescue", he said that the wounds and scars he fell in the past still itch at night. But people rely on their will to survive and use their energy in what they think is right. Now in his forties, he wants to save energy for things he likes in the future, and when he encounters the moment to fight again, he will fight again.
"Experience, I came to this world to experience," he chose to accept all the feelings that appeared, "There is a voice deep in our hearts that we may not be able to hear, but intuition exists, guiding us to do something. I like to climb mountains and go to sea, ski and ride, go to different places around the world to see different cultures, these energy from the outside world are injected into the body, very happy."
If you are not happy occasionally, it doesn’t matter. Peng Yuyan recently received "One Hundred Years of Solitude" from a friend. In the long story, there are so many ups and downs, but the book is over when closed. Returning to his own life, he believes that the key is "forgiveness", "People will be internal friction and fragile, but that is still myself. If it is not good or perfect, I will forgive myself, and these shortcomings will not affect me to become a complete and real person at all."
Produced by PRESENTED KAN Hongjie
Producer & Styling SUPERVISOR & STYLING Chen Liming
PHOTOGRAPHY Alex Huanfa Cheng
SHOOTING COORDINATION French fries
MAKE UP Jane Weiwen
HAIR Yun
Produced by PRODUCER Mai Mai
Interview & Writing INTERVIEW & WRITER Gu Xiang
Video Director VIDEO DIRECTOR Shen Hui
FASHION ASSISTANT Guo Lei, Zi Qi
COVER DESIGN Zhao Youjia
Original title: "HOMMES Cover Story | Peng Yuyan: Strongly Through the Desolation"
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