Lan Li is an actor, and no matter what the outside world says, this has never changed.

All along, he has been trying to explore acting skills and study acting skills in his own way, hoping to find a path of his own and climb to a higher peak of acting, not to surpass a master or create any records, but to constantly surpass himself and improve himself, in the field of art, the pursuit of "perfection" that can never reach or even non-existent.

It's not an easy path, and it may still be a road with no end in sight. However, Lan Li has no regrets.

Last year's "Anti-Cancer Me", that was the first time he touched the breakthrough of acting, which really broke the barrier between the method and the expressionist performance, and initially integrated the two performance methods together, and then gave the character a more real, more delicate, and more three-dimensional texture, integrating the performance with the role.

In the subsequent "detachment", he went one step further, found the common ground between methodology and expressionism in the context of performance, gave the character more power with his own understanding, and integrated the core idea of the script into the character, truly taking the character as a part of the film, and pursuing the harmony and harmony of the whole.

Now "gravity", he has completely blurred the boundaries between the two performance methods, got rid of the shackles of the rules of the performance methods, and examined the role and performance from a higher perspective.

Every actor should know that the method of acting is just a medium, and in the final analysis, the task of the actor is to give life to the character, whether it is method or expressionism, as long as it can achieve this, it is a great performance.

For many talented young actors, they don't know how to act, they just rely on their instincts/abilities to perform, and then give the characters a unique spirituality and texture. This was true of Jennifer Lawrence's performance in "Bones of Winter," as was Timothee-Chalamet's performance in "Call Me By Your Name."

However, if you want to make a further breakthrough in acting, you can't just rely on talent, and methods and techniques are indispensable, and spirituality and temperament will gradually become routines in daily performances, and then lose their unique texture, and you must use skills to improve yourself. This is precisely one of the differences between Hollywood and Europe.

In Hollywood, talented actors like Macaulay Culkin emerge one after another, but they disappear too quickly, like shooting stars, falling rapidly, Hollywood can't wait for them to complete their transformation and evolution, and a new batch of faces have taken their place. As a result, the performance skills are getting simpler and rougher, and the accumulation of the blood of the new generation is becoming more and more difficult.

In the European film industry, whether it is a young actor or a mainstay, they will inevitably go through such a process: simply relying on talent to act, further study and study, acting through skills, and finally completing the transformation again, returning to the basics, integrating skills into their bodies, gestures, smiles and smiles are all performances.

It is expressed in the charm and subtlety of oriental culture, that is: look at the mountain as a mountain, see the water as water, see the mountain is not a mountain, see the water is not water, and finally, look at the mountain is still a mountain, look at the water is still water.

This time, inadvertently, Lan Li opened the door from the second stage to the third stage – not only the three stages of Ryan Stone, but also the three stages of the actor.

Although, in the second stage, Lan Li has not yet fully matured, is not fully controlled, and is not even fully understood, and it is too early to enter the third stage, but ...... Performing arts are never a math problem, it is impossible to follow the formula step by step, everything develops naturally, and inspiration is the only key to progress.

At the beginning, Lan Li was ready to recreate the performance experience of "buried alive", and in a methodological and experiential way, he truly integrated into the character and the environment, feeling the emotions and reality that he had never experienced before.

Gradually, those fictitious facts, circumstances, and emotions found a foothold and a point of borrowing in Lan Li's self and self little by little, and then amplified and expanded step by step, and finally completely evolved into "reality".

Whether it is a methodology or an experiential school, the performance itself gets rid of the framework structure, blurs the boundary between reality and fantasy, and truly empathizes, re-examining the characters' stories, experiences and perceptions from their own perspectives.

Such a statement seems too esoteric and academic to be illustrated simply by example.

In "Buried Alive" and "Detached", the experiences and stories of the characters, Lan Li is truly immersive through the personal experience of the methodology, feeling the emotional ups and downs and mental activities including Paul Conroy and Henry Bass, and even in some moments, confusing the difference between film and reality.

But at the end of the day, Paul is still Paul, and Henry is still Henry. Those feelings, those experiences, those memories, all belong to them, not Lan Li.

Now in "gravity", everything Ryan Stone has experienced is completely integrated with the story of Lan Li-Hall and Chu Jiashu, as if the three characters are different independent individuals, but they are all broken, rebuilt, and fabricated into a new character, which is now Lan Li.

This is a step further than "me fighting cancer", and I have explored a higher level of understanding. It can be said that Ryan has experienced Chu Jiashu's ten years lying on the hospital bed, and it can also be said that Lan Li is really in space and has fallen into a desperate situation. All of these stories have broken down the barriers of time and space and become a whole.

It is always said that art comes from life and is higher than life. In each artist's work, you can more or less glimpse his own memories, stories and even thoughts, and even many artists' works are semi-autobiographical, or the evolution and derivation of autobiography. Painting, literature, music, acting, and so on, all of them.

In the process of acting, the actor's understanding of the character's emotions such as fear, happiness, fear, and joy all comes from his own experience, and it is impossible to shape it out of thin air. This is also the source of the method acting, Robert De Niro has never been a taxi driver, so, in order to star in "Taxi Driver", he really experienced the life of a taxi driver for two months, and so, the inspiration came.

But what's next after that?

What if an actor can't experience reality in a methodological way? It's like Lan Li can't really be in space, become an astronaut, and be in a desperate situation, and so on, there are so many situations that an actor can't experience in person.

So, does this mean that the actor can find resonance with the character and the story in his own body in a methodological way, and then communicate and extend, turn himself into a character, and also turn the character into himself, as if tearing the soul into countless pieces, one of which becomes the character - a character with the actor's personal experience, personal characteristics, and personal understanding.

Back to the roots, the character is a part of himself, or in other words, a doppelganger of the actor.

When the actor and the character are natural and integrated, the actor can reinterpret the story, re-read the script, and re-interpret the specific plot and mood with his own perspective and understanding.

It's like Lan Li now.

Through the experience of methodology, Ryan became Lan Li, and Lan Li became Ryan, and then in the process of performance, Lan Li accurately controlled every emotional node in an expressive way, truly evolving the performance into a freewheeling play, and easily showing the true feelings from the depths of the soul.

After getting rid of the stage of "seeing the mountain is the mountain", now Lanli has left the stage of "seeing the mountain is not the mountain", and has initially glimpsed the realm of "the mountain is still the mountain".

At this moment, Lan Li can really feel Ryan's existence, but it is extremely clear in his mind, he knows that he is not Ryan Stone, nor Chu Jiashu, but Lan Li Hale, but if he is going to shoot now, he also knows what situation Ryan is facing and how he needs to perform.

This feeling is very vague and ambiguous.

To put it in words, after a tirade, he just became more and more rappy, and he was dizzy, but the actor could vaguely feel the difference and implement it in the performance.

Although, Lan Li is not sure whether he is really enlightened, nor is he sure whether his understanding is correct, everything can only be understood through the actual shooting that follows, and can be practiced, and truly integrated, but Lan Li began to see a different level and level.

Take Meryl Streep, for example.

Everyone says that Meryl is one of the greatest actresses in American history, but in fact, after entering the middle of her career, Meryl played more or less similar roles, strong and independent, autonomous and determined, but there is no lack of fragility and softness at heart, following the consistent style since "Sophie's Choice".

Isn't Meryl constantly repeating herself?

But now, Lan Li knows that this is not the case.

Meryl's seemingly cookie-cutter performance, in which she can see her own shadow in each character, is actually different for each character, with differences in details such as eyes, expressions, movements, and tone of voice, revealing the inner and the soul, which are completely different.

Such a performance texture gives each character the characteristics that belong to Meryl and do not belong to Meryl. That's what's so special.

A similar situation can also be felt in old actors such as Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench, and Maggie Smith.

The same situation comes to Tom Hanks, which lacks such a texture, although Hanks's characters seem to be different, but the inner source is similar, so that each character repeats itself. Hanks hasn't been nominated for an Oscar since 2000's "Desert Island Aftermath," and here's why.

The quality of the performance, a professional word that is miraculous, is now touched by Lan Li as if it were nothing, which also makes him look forward to the next shooting.