In "Fireworks" that aired a while ago, Meng Mingwei, played by Xu Fan, was frequently searched. The relationship between the mother and her daughter was commented by many netizens as "suffocating", "too controlling" and "difficult to understand". Xu Fan's performance was also praised.
"This script may not be perfect, but it inspired my passion in creation." Xu Fan said that she put a lot of mother-daughter relationships and details that she had heard about, experienced, and pondered into the play.
"Fireworks" poster
Attracted by Meng Mingwei’s tenacity
During the interview, Xu Fan did not mince words about the "suffocation" of this role. She mentioned Su Daqiang in "Everything is Good", "I felt that if an actor can play such a character, why can't an actress play such a character? Finally, Let me meet Meng Mingwei, so I feel that since I have met her, I will complete her well." Xu Fan said frankly: "I have seen a lot of family dramas in recent years, and I always feel that there is a layer of veil between me and real life. I especially hope that To pierce this veil, let the audience directly feel the pain or healing.”
"The tenacity of the character Meng Mingwei is very attractive to me." Although she has seen the audience's evaluation of this character, she still has an open mind to accept this character. "The audience may need a lot of patience to watch it from beginning to end, because the conclusion you draw after watching only half of it is completely different from the conclusion you draw after watching it."
Stills from "Fireworks"
In Xu Fan's eyes, Meng Mingwei has her own pressures, experiences, unbearableness, and inappropriate ways of loving. Everyone has their own difficulties. "If you don't lay a solid foundation for her in the front, the contrast in the back will not be established. She is annoying at first, but then you feel her pressure, her helplessness, and her willingness to take the initiative to improve the relationship with her daughter. You feel sorry for her," Xu Fan explained, "These things must be shown first before you can explain her reasons later."
In the play, clips of various disputes between Meng Mingwei and her daughter Li Yijin were widely circulated on short video platforms. "I also saw them saying that this character is suffocating, but I don't think so." Xu Fan said, "If it is really suffocating, , then Li Yijin didn’t know what to do for a long time. I think this may be something Li Yijin can bear.” Until one day when Meng Mingwei’s casual thoughts were made by Li Yijin and he rolled his eyes, “This shows that my daughter is strong. Actually, parents want their children to be strong. If you are strong, it doesn’t matter if I am weaker. I want me to be weak, and I want you to be strong.” In Xu Fan’s view, Chinese mothers are willing to give everything to their children. "I was thinking that there must be that annoying mother in life who no one wants to see, but she is really strong and loves her children."
"Fireworks" poster
"Suffocation may be the feeling and thought of many young viewers, because after watching it, older people like us will sympathize with the difficulty of being a mother. But our generation is not very good at surfing the Internet, so many of us viewers You can’t see your feelings online.” She expressed her feelings bluntly, “The young man watched two episodes and had the same reaction as four episodes. He was anxious about all his feelings and wanted to summarize and express them.”
"The breast glands are blocked" and "the emotions can't be tolerated." Xu Fan has seen these statements. She said with a smile that in fact, young viewers can express their voices online, which is also a kind of relief, but their parents' generation "doesn't have a place." vocal”. "Their parents are watching the same plot as them, but they may feel it silently."
Some viewers did not understand Meng Mingwei's reconciliation with her mother, daughter, and family after going through a lot, but in Xu Fan's opinion, it was simple and natural. "From the time she entered this family, the emotional foundation of decades was indestructible. In the end, no matter what the problem was, it looked like a 'forced reconciliation' to others, but to her, it meant that I was 'unworried'." She said, "When the worries are solved, they are solved, because all emotional foundations are greater than this. If you have something on your mind, don’t hold it in your heart like a big weight.”
Stills from "Fireworks"
"Families are broken if they have ups and downs every day."
In the play, the interactive scenes between actors such as Song Chunli, Xu Fan, Sun Qian, and Ma Sichun are quite tense. The emotions and conflicts of several generations of women in a family have made many viewers sympathize.
Xu Fan praised Song Chunli for her powerful acting skills. Even though it was her first time working with her, she felt that she had a special tacit understanding. "She always knew what I was going to do when I said the lines and made my eyes look like them. I felt like acting opposite her." There will always be someone to hold it up, so the play won’t fall to the ground.”
In her eyes, Sun Qian is a very lively child, "Her performances are informal and very relaxed. Her liveliness and energy during the performance are also very good. This is also the rhythm of my performance driven by young people." .”
When acting with Ma Sichun, who plays Li Yijin, what Xu Fan admires the most is Ma Sichun's sincerity: "Sometimes when we film some mother-daughter emotional scenes, she shows her true feelings very naturally, which is quite rare." She said with a smile, Ma Sichun was at the scene. Sometimes I'm "afraid" of her, "Generally speaking, if it's the first time we collaborate, we need to get familiar with each other quickly, as if we've been together for decades. But I think it still depends on the relationship between the characters."
"Fireworks" poster
In the play, the relationship between Li Yijin and Meng Mingwei is tense. Therefore, Xu Fan feels that Ma Sichun's "fear" of her in the early stage of filming is the correct character state. "I think this is good, but she has to be 'fearful' of me, because This is the relationship between the characters in the play, and it is our first time to work together. If she is not in an accurate state, it will be difficult for us to perform well. But after the performance, I felt very sorry for Ma Sichun, because she was always 'tortured' by her. I do feel embarrassed sometimes.”
For her, the filming process of "Fireworks" was enjoyable. "From Teacher Song to Sun Qian and Ma Sichun, we, the old and the young, are all together. When we are tired after filming, sometimes we sit together, drink some wine, and chat about everything. It is always very pleasant, and I feel like blinking. In a short while, the filming of the scene was finished, and I was a little bit reluctant to leave it."
Xu Fan said frankly that he has been acting for decades and has reached the age to play mothers, but he always wants to make them more colorful when playing various mothers: "The title of 'mother' is the same, but every time Each mother's personality, behavior and behavior are all different." At this point in his acting career, Xu Fan said bluntly: He no longer pursues dramatic ups and downs. "Ups and downs are drama. There are not so many ups and downs in life. If a family has ups and downs every day, it will be broken." But she is also willing to try more, "In this work, I will add a little more of this part. Maybe it can be done in the next work. Emphasize other aspects." She said, "Anyway, I will be an actor for the rest of my life, and I want to make myself happy while doing it."
Stills from "Fireworks"
