The film The Rescue is the fourth cooperation between Lin Chaoxian and Eddie Peng Yuyan. In every previous cooperation, both of them constantly challenged the limits with the support of each other. When they co-produced Guild Wars for the first time, Eddie Peng Yuyan was trained as a professional boxer, and it took him three months to learn Thai boxing, lock technique and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. When shooting against professional boxers, I hope to "convince the audience". In the second collaboration of Breaking the Wind, Eddie Peng Yuyan participated in training for four months, and during the training and filming process, he rode over 110,000 kilometers, almost three times around the earth. In the third collaboration with operation mekong, the challenge between Lin Chaoxian and Eddie Peng Yuyan rose to a new height again. When shooting, Lin Chaoxian was even accidentally bitten by a six-inch centipede, while Eddie Peng Yuyan was fighting with a real gun, and every action instruction was close to reality. This time in The Rescue, they will challenge the "water play" which is recognized as difficult to shoot all over the world. The Rescue is the first Chinese-language film about maritime rescue, which is based on real maritime rescue events. Eddie Peng Yuyan said that the director has changed from "Devil Forest" and "Explosion Forest" to "Monster Forest".
As soon as the director looked for me, he came to shoot.
Q: Why did you take on The Rescue? The shooting conditions are very difficult. What mental preparations did you make before taking the show?
Eddie Peng Yuyan: Director Lin Chaoxian came to me as soon as he asked me. I knew that filming the director’s play would be particularly interesting and enjoyable, and of course there would be certain challenges and difficulties. That’s why I wanted to shoot the director’s play, so I was ready long ago. I just didn’t expect that I was not prepared enough this time. Every day when I arrived at the scene (shooting for 8 months), it was a variety of difficulties, which was very challenging, and it was an unprecedented surprise both physically and mentally.
Q: You play the captain of the Maritime Secret Service. How much do you know about the real salvage team?
Eddie Peng Yuyan: My name is Gao Qian in the play, and I am the captain of the Maritime Secret Service. He is a man with great courage, experience and a strong sense of responsibility. He has performed many tasks and saved many people.
Before shooting, the director showed us some information about the rescuers, so we would know their lives and train with them. We were like friends. They all look like ordinary people, but when they receive the task, they are completely different. Once when they were on a mission, I followed them. You can’t imagine these ordinary people hanging on the helicopter, and you will feel as if they were in another world. As salvage team members, they need extra concentration to save another life, because sometimes, you have to give up something to save other people’s lives. You can only save two people in the water for three to five minutes, but there are twenty or thirty people around. What do you do? This is what they have to face. They have to face the human tragedy every day when they go to work, and they have to be a normal person when they get home. If they don’t have faith, they can’t do it. This is what the director wants to talk about in this play. We also experienced it ourselves and found out how great they are.
Rescuers are giving "hope of life" to others. They are faced with the tragedy of life. Without faith and firm heart, there is no way to meet and complete the task. In this profession, they must have enough courage and faith to forget themselves and their own lives to save others.
Q: Did you find it challenging to play your father for the first time in The Rescue?
Eddie Peng Yuyan: I think it is very difficult for the director to give me this role. The director is very interesting. He knows that I am a single-parent family, so it takes me a lot of time to convince myself that there is no father in my life. Thank you very much for giving me this role. The actor who plays my son is very smart and cute. It is natural and great to act with him. Because the child is very real, he can recite his lines by heart and act naturally. I also hope to keep this innocence and nature when acting with him. Directors and screenwriters have done a lot of homework in advance to understand the lives of rescuers. Family is also very important for rescuers, which should be an important reason to support them to be so brave and responsible. Maybe everyone thinks this is an action movie, but I think it is actually a drama full of love.
Being abused by all kinds,
Every time you go into the water, you should be mentally prepared.
Q: What scenes impressed you the most in this shooting?
Eddie Peng Yuyan: There are many scenes that impressed me the most, usually the first time is the most unforgettable. For example, the first time I was blown up by fire, I was blown up in a fire of 600 to 700 degrees Celsius, and I thought it was all right several times. As a result, I was going to be blown up by water later. After the explosion, the director said excitedly, "Eddie was finally blown up by me with water." Before, I didn’t know that water could be used to fry people, but the next day after the frying, it was hung in the air for a day, until it was almost vomiting. But it’s also quite enjoyable, because the real shooting is hung on the helicopter, and the height is very high, so it’s also unforgettable. I thought it was all right when I came down, and then I had to flood with fire, and then I flooded with water, so this time it was all kinds of experiences, basically all kinds of "abuse". This is the director’s style, and he just likes to "abuse" artists. But in fact, actors can get a lot of nutrients in this process, which is also the reason why we fall in love with the director, so that we can make a very unforgettable play.
Q: Are all the security measures in The Rescue in place this time?
Eddie Peng Yuyan: Yes, of course, there’s still a possibility. Although I’ve tried all the heat insulation suits, after all, the fire is at least 300 degrees Celsius, and my whole fire protection suit is on fire, but that’s what I want to feel when shooting. Although I am fully armed, I am still afraid, and I can still feel my skin burning. I am still afraid if I shoot like this every day and I am suspended every day. Moreover, when I finally get into the water, the water temperature is 6 degrees Celsius. I didn’t think I could make it. It was really cold.
I think I am the kind of actor who is not afraid as long as I have the conditions to do it, but I really have to prepare myself before going into the water every day to make this film, because the water is too cold and there are chemicals in it. There are many things in the play that I need to take off my equipment. Without goggles, chemicals will get into my eyes and I can’t open them. Those photographers wear goggles when they go into the water. When they take them off, they can’t stand the water flowing into their eyes. They should always wash them. But I soak for more than ten hours every day, and I may stay for 15 minutes at a time, because it is too cold. Wash your eyes every day, and at the end, your eyes will always shed tears and your eyes will be red. The director is also distressed, so he will go down to accompany me. After filming this play, I don’t want to swim until now, and I feel that the quota of touching water has been used up this year.
Q: Did you get any serious injuries this time?
Eddie Peng Yuyan: I drowned several times. One scene that impressed me most was that I was hooked by Weiya in Mexico, and then I was pushed under the bottom of the pool. Everyone is scared, and I can’t get out. I found that the Viagra that tied me was stuck on the base of the truck, and the rescue team had not come to save me. So I thought that I would save myself first, and I would find out if I had any tools to cut the rope, but I couldn’t open it. Later, I found the hook point, untied the rope desperately, and then came out. The director kept saying, "Are you all right? Are you all right?" I said to have a rest. Because the rope was too tight to open, I tried my best to pull it. My nails were all lifted and my hands were cracked. The director was scared. This was the most horrible thing.
Another time, I was in the water, and my oxygen bottle was running out of gas, so I could only suck eight spare cylinders. The deeper the water pressure, the more I sucked, so I had to save my eight mouths every time. Later, I took a long shot, and the rescue team had to withdraw far away. When I finished swimming back, my oxygen bottle was out of gas and I couldn’t find the spare cylinders, so I held my breath to find an exit. This kind of situation often happens. I always think I am a good swimmer, but when you are really more than ten meters underwater, it is completely different from you in the swimming pool, and we carry a lot of lead on us, so I can’t float. Coupled with the water temperature of 6℃, I feel like I am in the freezer.
Looking back on filming the scene in the water now, I will be scared. I remember that after shooting those scenes, we went to dinner, and the local staff in Mexico would take the initiative to greet me and praise me. Friends of our rescue team told me that local rescuers felt that this was beyond the ordinary people’s ability. Many people couldn’t believe that we China actors went down to shoot by ourselves, and foreign countries went to that scene to make movies, but body double went down.
Q: Are these self-help things in the water the methods you learned from training before filming?
Eddie Peng Yuyan: Yes, basically. All the training was used in filming. If you don’t train well in advance, you may not dare to shoot this play. We followed the real rescue team to rescue outside. The rescue process was very hard, and we really experienced the fragility of life. There was no way to imagine the power of nature. It was really terrible. After making this film, I feel I must cherish my life.
Q: In addition to feeling the fragility of life, what influence has it had on you after making this film?
Eddie Peng Yuyan: Now, if I fly, I will read the rescue manual, see where the escape pod is, and see the people nearby. If something really happens, who needs help. Not before, but now it becomes instinctive, and then I will imagine the filming situation at that time. I will count several old people, and several of them came up in wheelchairs. These are all realized after I finished filming, and I can’t help but think it is quite exaggerated. As soon as I talk about the escape pod, I will think of the horrible scenes of training in the past eight months and saving people in the plane. I always tell myself that if something really happens today, I can save people.
And director Lin Chaoxian are also teachers and friends.
Q: This is your fourth collaboration with director Lin Chaoxian. Do you feel that his films are getting more and more difficult?
Eddie Peng Yuyan: If the difficulty hadn’t increased, I don’t think it would be directed by Lin Chaoxian. Since I met the director, I think the greatest thing about him is that he has not changed what he likes, and he is persistent about what he likes, so when the director makes a movie with such enthusiasm, you will be infected, and then you will feel, why not do it?
He is very good every time, and I believe he will only get better and better. This time, there are many scenes that he wants to shoot, as well as many action scenes and emotional scenes. He finished writing the characterization of the characters and then went to the scene to schedule, which he has always loved, so I think the director is very good. Moreover, the director becomes more and more challenging, because every time he shoots something new, just like this underwater shooting, we have never experienced it before, and many of them are unknown. We can only follow the camera when we go to the scene to shoot, and then we can shoot after training, and we have to rehearse before shooting. It is conceivable that many scenes are actually difficult to implement. We are all studying, and the director will give me a lot of confidence.
Q: Is Director Lin Chaoxian different from other directors you have worked with?
Eddie Peng Yuyan: I think it’s fate. He appreciates me and I respect him. Few actors can work with the same director four times, so it’s rare. And to some extent, there is also a habit problem. In many cases, we can omit some running-in things, which is a bit like "family". I have experienced four different lives in seven years, and these four lives are not what ordinary people can experience.
Q: One saying is "Eddie Peng Yuyan while the iron is hot, Lin Chaoxian while the iron is hot". Do you agree with this sentence?
Eddie Peng Yuyan: I’ve heard it (one of the leading actors with the most cooperation times, second only to Nick Cheung). When I heard this sentence before, I felt that it made our feelings smaller, as if it was only tempering, but after The Rescue, I felt that it was too accurate.
Because I think The Rescue is really like "grinding", which is very dangerous. I have been throwing caution to the wind several times. If the director wasn’t Lin Chaoxian, I would definitely have questions. In fact, when I finished filming operation mekong, the director told me about it. At that time, I really wanted to shoot it, but I felt I needed to take a break. It happened that the director had other plays at that time, so I took a break.
I didn’t take this play because it was dangerous, but because of the theme and role. It is much more difficult for the director to give me this role than I used to play, and it is quite different from my previous image. (Difficulty) Mainly in the emotional aspect, I play a father, and the other is the difficulty of this profession.
The relationship between me and the director is more like mentoring. It is natural for the director to shoot a man’s play and talk about the feelings between men. I think the director has quite a pattern in dealing with this very real human nature. He sees things a lot and is very real, so I think acting his play is an immersive experience to some extent. From MMA fighting to cycling to The Rescue, I don’t need to think about how I want to act, just experience it.
So I think the director and I are also teachers and friends. He thinks I should shoot something at my age, so he asks me to shoot it. If I haven’t reached that stage, then maybe the drama at that stage is not suitable for me. He hopes that I can grow up slowly, and to some extent I can understand what he really wants to pursue. There is a tacit understanding between us (appreciate each other), and I feel that there is such a person in the film industry, which is a kind of existence that will be infected with each other. Needless to say, I can see from what he wants to do, so I get along very well. I quite appreciate the director’s point.
From the first collaboration of Guild Wars to now, neither the director nor I have changed. Luck is true. I never thought I could have so much cooperation with the director after Guild Wars, and he probably never thought that Eddie Peng Yuyan could still be used as an actor. The director also gives me a new thing every year or two, so I also feel lucky. The director did a very good job in his field of work, and I tried to play every role well in my own school.
Will cherish the opportunity to cooperate with each other.
Q: Have you ever had any conflicts or differences with the director?
Eddie Peng Yuyan: There will definitely be some. Maybe I have some ideas about some performances. The director also knows that the actor must be given space. On this basis, I try to surprise him. When he sees it, he may think that the role I created is more three-dimensional than he imagined in his mind. The director will feel very valuable. I have also been addicted to acting, so I must trust each other.
A person’s ideas are limited, and maybe we are infinite together. When you are willing to share your things, he will certainly share his things with you. The difference between me and the director is often that he may feel enough, and I want to give more. He will let me play and make me happy. I think one advantage of filming with the director is that what he sees will never be the same as what others see me.
Q: If you have the chance to cooperate with the director for the fifth time, do you have a subject you want to shoot?
Eddie Peng Yuyan: Actually, we have talked about too many topics. Every time we run and chat, we will think of a topic. He will ask me what I like, and I will ask him what I like. Before, we discussed many things like racing, action and gunfight. Usually, the director said the type he wanted to shoot, but I don’t have any restrictions on his films because I believe him.
Q: Are you worried that the director will choose more and more actors in the future?
Eddie Peng Yuyan: It’s possible. The director has the right to choose the actors he thinks fit. It doesn’t mean that we have to cooperate with the fifth film now that we have cooperated with four films. That’s why this is very subtle. Also, I have a choice whether to continue to cooperate with him or not. I think sometimes it’s just a magnetic field between us. We can give each other what they want, and we all know it’s hard to come by. Therefore, when shooting every play, I try my best not to regret it, because this is the only thing I can control. I will gain experience and wisdom in the process of doing my best within our control, which is very worthwhile.
Text/Xiao You for the picture/Tian Tian
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