Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro tells the story of a smart solar-powered robot Klara accompanying the young master Josie in his new book “Klara and the Sun”. Josie was poor in health due to genetic modification and was eventually cured by the sun (Klara thinks so) and Klara completed her mission after Josie entered the university. It seems to have a science fiction shell, as if it is depicting people’s minds, with no distance from reality. Every child who is under the pressure of parents and class, the one who needs a companionship is Josie. And Wu Lei, right next to his fans, sometimes plays Klara and sometimes plays the Sun.
Is he Klara or the Sun?
In 2002, 3-year-old Wu Lei was invited to perform in the first commercial “Golden Partner”. In two years, he performed more than 50 commercials in succession, and his talent was discovered at the same time. From 2005 until now, he has produced film and television dramas every year. There are various counts of how many celebrities he has been the son of and which celebrities he has been embraced by. In 2018, he was admitted to the Beijing Film Academy with the first place in the professional course. From cute to good-looking to handsome, from talented to acting to acting professional, from childish to sensible and comprehensive, these are all with him. If “Wu Lei” is entered on the search engine, these descriptions can be seen everywhere. The little baby gradually grew into a graceful youth and a sunny youth in everyone’s sight. It’s not the kind of child star who was suddenly discovered to grow up. He grew up little by little on TV and on the screen.
Everyone’s requirements for “child stars” have always been harsh, and they often compare the appearance of child stars when they were young with the present time. Wu Lei has never been attacked. He has grown into a model that an idol should have. Everyone likes to use magnifiers to show off “bad deeds” and make a fuss on these self-named children. Wu Lei did not give them a chance, and was wrapped up by the compliments of the predecessors all the way. Qin Hao said, “I like Wu Lei’s performance very much. The performance is very sincere”; Hu Ge said, “I am far inferior to him at his age”; Zhang Yimou said that Wu Lei is modest, low-key, conscientious, and promising…
At the entrance ceremony of Beijing Film University, as a representative of the freshmen, his speech was simple and sincere. He wanted to “keep his feet on the ground (down-to-earth), work with the most modest attitude, and the most authentic enthusiasm for artistic creation, and become a true art professional”. He is determined to professionalize his passion and improve his profession in practice while studying.
Bite down on the green hills and do not relax, the roots of the original in the broken rock. A thousand strokes but still strong, regardless of the east and west winds.
Zheng Xie, “Bamboo and Stone
When you walk into Lianquanxianggu (濂泉响谷) in summer, the lush greenery comes to you in no time, and as you look around, the trees are shaded, birds are singing, clear water is flowing over the strange rocks, and the sunlight is reflecting through the staggered leaves of the trees. It took nearly an hour of climbing to get here. We found a secluded corner in the middle of the mountain, and here, Wu Lei shared his recent insights with us.
After the busy shooting, I like to ride my bike through the streets and alleys, the breeze fields, when I ride I usually do not think about anything, just listen to the sound of the wind blowing past my ears, that feeling is particularly calm.
At this time, I am just a wanderer, looking at the scenery along the road, looking at the people along the road. I will enjoy this feeling of being treated as a passerby, in this kind of dusty (travel-worn) situation, people will not have a defensive mentality towards you, the randomness of life will make us feel happy, I also always believe that we must have our own life, if you can not find your own life, there is no way to act in a particularly good state.
When I was about 13 or 14 years old, I established my life’s goal – becoming an actor, then I thought acting was very good and wanted to keep acting. I will try to squeeze in more time to read some scripts, and sometimes people will say, “You are so busy filming every day, how can you have time to read the script? What if you miss one (script)?” I said I missed it is not destiny, it all depends on fate. I will keep myself in good shape, when the opportunity comes to seize it, so it is enough.
I usually talk to my friends in my circle and ask them what is good and what is bad about my performance. I think actors must be objective, because if you live in your own world and don’t care about the opinions of others, then you are arrogant, and you can’t make progress. After all, an actor’s performance is for the audience, and the audience represents the aesthetics of different groups of people today. After we have achieved what we want to achieve and what we want to convey, we have to consider the view of the receiver in both directions, that is, the audience’s thoughts and feedback, so that the character we perform is like a real person.
We, as a special group of people who are often selected, everyone is looking at you, and inevitably will be compared. Going to the show/audition is also a comparison. But my mind is actually very calm, now the film industry is always moving forward. We, as young people, competition is a good thing and will promote the whole industry together to progress. My idea is to keep myself in a good state, not think about competing with others, and do a good job. I just want to be myself, it’s useless to think more.
The way I do well for myself is to enrich myself, live well, act well, and improve my acting skills.
I think actors have a special happiness, that is not to think about promotion and other issues, we just need to act well, which is very simple. But if people ask me if I have any pressure, my answer is yes. I always say that I have to put in more effort, to work harder, because we are protected by many people, so when we encounter difficulties, we have to bear these pressures and stand up, which is also a responsibility.
Knowing that the theme of our shooting is “Good Men of China”, it reminds me of my role as Ma Chengfeng in “My Country, My Parents”, as an anti-Japanese fighter, it is a great thing to fight to protect our family and country. Although our parents were sacrificed during the war of resistance, their lives are carried on in us, which is a kind of life heritage. This is true of the soldiers, all walks of life, we actors are also the same, the film and television industry is now left for us by our predecessors, we have to protect it well.
The so-called “Good Men of China” are not only the “strong youth makes a strong country”, but also the courage to face the difficulties encountered. The character I played in “Our Times”, Xiao Chuang, is a boy with a lot of courage, and his name has the word “Chuang (to venture out into the world)” in it, and the most important thing is the courage to get back up after a fall. He only did one thing in the whole drama, that is, fall, get up, fall again, get up again, and the adversity he encountered became more serious and desperate every time, and I felt heartbroken/distressed when I read the script, but he would get up again every time and tell everyone with his most energetic spirit: “I, Xiao Chuang, have not fallen!” This kind of bravery has been passed on to me, and I hope that this kind of strength can be passed on to everyone. In my opinion, we young people should do our best to contribute to our country and not forget our roots. Act well, be a good person, and strive to be stronger are the most important things in my opinion.
Wu Lei has always liked the term “Ground-based Flight”. He used this word to describe an ideal state of life in his mind, “moving forward at a constant speed on his own life path”, like walking against the wind. He seems to follow his heart, no matter where the goal is, the direction is firmly in his hands, and the traces left when flying gradually lay the foundation for the meaning of his life.
At the age of 20, Wu Lei published his first book, “Ground-Based Flight”. He wants to keep the past time and the once-in-a-lifetime 20-year-old as a souvenir. He defines this book as “a landing in flight” – leaving a temporary stop in the constantly superimposed life experiences, review the past transit points, pack your luggage and storage before setting sail again. In the concluding chapter of the book, he describes the process of landing and taking off countless times in his life as “ground-based flight”. “Flying is to keep moving forward on the chosen path; and constantly touching the ground is to accumulate stronger take-off boost.”
This sentence he wrote when he was twenty years old became the yardstick in his heart. So, the cycle started over and over again. Even though the flight was bumpy most of the time, he always crossed the sea of clouds and flying slowly on that flight path.
01. Learning is Learning
Recently, in order to promote the Beijing Winter Olympics, Wu Lei went to the original “Water Cube” venue to experience curling – during the conversation, he seriously corrected me, “Now it has been renamed the ‘Ice Cube’ – in In the arena where fierce competitions will soon be presented one after another, for the first time in his life, he tried this sport that he could only see on TV in the past. “I used to think that only national athletes could enter it (the Water Cube). This rare experience made me feel so sacred. After actually experiencing curling, I was much more tired than I imagined.”
At the end of last year, Wu Lei came to Ulan Butong, a six-hour drive from Beijing, and welcomed the first ray of dawn when he was 22 years old in the ice and snow. In the next three days, he walked through the grasslands, woods, rivers, and canyons there. Crossed glaciers, looked for the Milky Way, and battled wits and courage with thirty horses. It was a journey that “doesn’t exist in daily life.”
Wu Lei took it as a challenge at first. Especially on the first day of camping in the snowfield, “No one supports it.” It was his first time to go to Ulan Butong, and it was also his first time camping in his life. It was also during the winter fire prevention period, so no fires were allowed. The temperature at night was as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius. If you are not careful, you will suffer from hypothermia. The vehicle was always on standby, and everyone felt that he would return to the hotel soon. In the end, Wu Lei wrapped himself in a freezing sleeping bag, covered his body with warm patches, and slept in a tent in the wilderness.
Wu Lei: Growing like the wind, heading towards the future
As the first cover character of the first issue of “Esquire FineUP” e-magazine, we invited Wu Lei, a big boy who is passionate and thoughtful. Youth embodies endless creativity in him, “one section after another, one thousand branches and ten thousand leaves*.” In his most prosperous age, he went to snowy mountains and swam mountains and rivers, polished himself in his works, and explored the most consistent way of acting in life.
Note:*this saying come from a poem. The poem describes the integrity of the bamboo, which does not compete with the flowers for beauty and fragrance. It also refers to the author's own clean, self-contained, detached and close-to-nature way of life.
As we hope this magazine can convey to readers – the most interesting thing in life must be every moment now.
Actor Wu Lei
Become a “partner” with the character
When asked if he was worried about his acting career being restricted, Wu Lei replied without hesitation: “I’m worried”.
For many good-looking young actors, transition is always one of the biggest problems. But under the still youthful face, 22-year-old Wu Lei has a rationality and calmness that is rare among his peers.
Compared with pure anxiety, he feels that it is more important to find a solution, that is, to not presuppose the future and to perform every drama well in the present.
“Although I want to try all different types of roles, being an actor is a career that is choosen. I can’t act whatever I want. It often depends on fate.”
How much do you know about Wu Lei’s “little secret”?
Wu Lei is like a carrier wave with instantaneous frequency changes. When you first come into contact with it, it seems that you need to turn the knob carefully to accurately correspond to his frequency. However, once exposed, all the information unfolds in a straightforward way in front of the ears and eyes, making people pause for a moment, like waking up from a dream and realizing that there is no need to beat around the bush, the world can be so simple and magnanimous.
During this time, Wu Lei was filming “Nothing But You” in Shenzhen. In the evening, the afterglow of the setting sun has not completely sunk into the sea. In the dusk, the modern buildings as dense as a jungle have just been lit up. This is Wu Lei’s favorite time of the day.
“If you happen to be at a high place, it’s best for overlooking the entire city, such as watching the traffic jam downstairs.”
With just one sentence, the soft atmosphere just now cracked crisply, making people feel convinced: it was Wu Lei who was speaking.
This was of course a naughty joke from Wu Lei. He said it in his trademark scrolling voice and a pretending-to-be-serious tone. The staff on the side couldn’t help being amused. The atmosphere, which had not yet fully relaxed due to getting up early to start work, immediately began to flow.
In fact, Wu Lei, who started filming at the age of 5 and now has 18 years of “artistic experience” and more than 70 works and counting, is already a mature and comprehensive young actor. Facing the outside world, he responds and controls it with an astonishing ease. He always sincerely shares his feelings about roles, works and sports hobbies, without hiding his ambition to become a better actor. What’s more important is that while many people weigh the ideas in their minds and assemble them back and forth in their mouths, he never hesitates and speaks out directly what comes to mind.
Around him, the camera seems to have erased its presence. In Gutongjing in “Tomb of the Sea”, he “breathed out a ounce of sand, smelled of wine, and lay down on the ground”, killed everyone behind the screen on “Cross Fire” , and galloped on the grassland of “The Long Ballad” , behind the deck in “Upcoming Summer” , he hung up his headphones thoughtfully, then covered his ears with his hands, pretending to just support his head… Or in the summer of 2022, he looked back, laughed, and several times he climbed up the tree, and then held the water pipe up to the sky and Xiaobei (Guangxi native hound) by the swimming pool, which provoke the “female star” Xiaobei’s dislike. Every moment in the image is a part of himself.
He is also willing to further extend himself for the role. During the filming of “Love Like The Galaxy” , Ling Buyi’s sinister, machiavellian and self-willed behavior was beyond ordinary life experience. During the few months that Wu Lei was in the group, he insisted on exercising for 1.5 hours a day no matter how late he finished work. “That was when I had the strongest willpower.” He wanted to maintain a tight state and directly experience the life of “pushing yourself very hard every day and never allowing yourself to live a serious life” from the body.
He gets infinitely closer to the character by reshaping himself, and the character also leaves some unconscious traces on him. But in the end, he is still himself.
In “Nothing But You” Wu Lei, who portrayed Song Sanchuan once said that, tennis is a very romantic thing, a sport associated with all seasons, wind, sunshine, rain and snow. Each ball is a unique encounter. As an actor, he experienced the changing seasons, filming in winter as beautiful as flowers and in summer as cold as snow. While the seasons may be fictional, the works are real, and every character and the moments unique to that character are irreplaceable.
Starting from the age of 5, Wu Lei has always wanted to be an intelligent actor. He has mentioned in interviews multiple times how great it is to describe a newcomer actor. As a newcomer, he had the enthusiasm and longing for this profession, and his initial passion remained strong. After many years in the industry, he was most afraid of becoming a mere performer in his job. He was even more afraid that certain neglects during performances would turn into bad habits because habits become second nature. When something becomes second nature, it becomes difficult to even recognize it as a bad habit, let alone change it.
Therefore, Wu Lei approaches every performance by forgetting the past and starting anew. When a wise person who reflects on their actions takes on the same task with dedication for 18 years, his passion for acting and sincerity as an actor shine even brighter.
1. “Youth must be a swift horse.”
Wu Lei enjoys cycling and horseback riding. During his cycling trip to Xinjiang, he had many interesting encounters with fans. In his “Fly Close to The Ground” project, he shared breathtaking views of glaciers, starry skies, and sunrise while riding in the -30°C cold of Ulan Butong. With vast landscapes, the young man rode alone across the snowy plains, embodying both unexpected romanticism and youthful vitality.
In “Amidst A Snowstorm Of Love” and “Nothing But You” Wu Lei portrayed male leads who were athletes. The harsh and brilliant world of competitive sports, along with the years of training, has left a significant impact on athletes. This is something Wu Lei has been continuously studying and incorporating into his roles.
“Sports bring the most immediate benefits of health and freedom to me. The process of sports certainly comes with its challenges, and solving these problems is also quite interesting. However, professional athletes are a different story; they experience peaks and valleys, are plagued by injuries, so they delve more into researching their competitive state, techniques, and expressions. All of these are crucial when shaping a character, as you need to quickly reach a level where the audience isn’t taken out of the story, which can be quite a challenge.”
When Wu Lei received the script for “Nothing But You” he felt that the phrase “We are all hot blooded fools” described Song Sanchuan perfectly. “Song Sanchuan is someone who maintains sincerity, balance, and boundaries in both his career and his relationships. At that time, I hoped that when people first saw Song Sanchuan, they would think, ‘Hey, this person seems like an athlete,’ and to me, that would mean I had succeeded halfway.”
When officially playing Song Sanchuan, Wu Lei believed finding the right playing style was crucial. He privately studied Rafael Nadal’s matches and playing style because he considered Nadal a very resilient athlete. Song Sanchuan, choosing to switch from badminton to tennis in his late athlete years, repeatedly falling and getting back up, must also possess this resilience. While portraying snooker player Lin Yiyang in “Amidst A Snowstorm of Love” Wu Lei studied active players like Trump and Selby, two prominent snooker players of their time. Finding these anchors and then developing the character around them makes it more realistic and vivid.
Samuel Johnson once said in “The Rambler” to be passionately committed to any endeavor, one must first love life. Wu Lei always vividly remembers the local details and stories beyond filming locations. “When I went to Finland, it wasn’t particularly cold, and I saw many locals going to those outdoor seaside pools and tried to join them. But a few seconds later, I quickly got out; it was too cold. However, the most memorable thing was seeing the aurora there; it was truly breathtaking.”
Despite spending years on set and growing under the spotlight, it hasn’t caused him to lose his keen sense of real-life experiences. Acting ultimately boils down to the study of human nature: interacting with others, engaging in self-reflection, listening to other people’s stories, and portraying one’s own script effectively.
When playing the role of Lu Xiaobei, Wu Lei had a chance encounter with someone in the elevator who had a cast on his leg and was using crutches. He immediately observed how, when one leg is injured, people instinctively shift their weight to the other side. So, he naturally incorporated this detail into his character’s movement habits.
In the highly acclaimed “Love Like The Galaxy” there’s a scene where Ling Buyi swiftly grabs a spear, mounts a horse, and rides off seamlessly. Netizens praised this moment, likening the young general, described in the novel as “silver saddle on a white horse, swift as a shooting star,” to coming to life in that instant. The fluidity in front of the camera was the result of solid training behind the scenes. Whether on set or in his daily training, Wu Lei had his fair share of falls from horses. During the filming of “My Country, My Parents” he once fell from a horse due to the need to shoot while holding a rifle. He calmly got up, stepped away from the horse’s hooves, and immediately told the director, “I’m okay, Brother Jing, I can get back on the horse.” Being willing to remount after a fall is a testament to his admirable courage.
2. “Plants in Spring”
Not long ago, Wu Lei’s film “All Ears” was scheduled to be released on September 9th. The movie focuses on an unique profession, eulogists-Wen Shan (played by Hu Ge), a man who hovers between the deceased and the living, offering solace to others and being comforted in return. This marks the third collaboration between Wu Lei and Hu Ge. In the film, Wu Lei portrays Xiao Yin, a character who exists and yet doesn’t exist, he is himself, but also a reflection and duplicate of Wen Shan.
Wu Lei had a deeper thinking of his role. He said, “Xiao Yin is very special. I have to portray my unique self while also convey Wen Shan’s qualitiess. Xiao Yin and Wen Shan have a contradictory yet unified relationship, and this style of performance is both refreshing and challenging.” Understanding these characters and interpreting their stories provides Wu Lei with new life experiences each time. The journey he shares with the characters also brings him many new reflections about himself and life.
“Dwelling By The West Lake” which wrapped in 2022, is the second film in Director Gu Xiaogang’s “Shanshui Painting” series. Before this, Gu directed his first feature film, “Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains,” which became the closing film for the Critics’ Week at the 2019 Cannes International Film Festival and earned him the Best Director award at the 13th FIRST Youth Film Festival.
As a native of Hangzhou, Gu Xiaogang’s work is deeply influenced by his hometown. The English title of the new film is “Dwelling by the West Lake,” and the narrative clearly revolves around West Lake. In the new film, Wu Lei’s character is named Mu Lian, and when combined with the classic folklore of “Mu Lian Rescues His Mother,” one can faintly infer the theme of maternal redemption in the movie.
In Wu Lei’s mind, Hangzhou is a poetic, beautiful city surrounded by greenery and filled with a sense of storytelling. Working with director Gu Xiaogang and other directors he collaborated with before is quite different. “Working with Director Gu, there’s a wilder feeling to it. Many times, you have to rely on more instinctive physiological reactions to perform because he’s very good at creating a ‘natural’ environment for actors. That’s one of the things that sets him apart from the directors I’ve worked with before. For example, Director Fei (Fei Zhenxiang) is very joyful and he knows how to relieve the pressure for actors on set.”
“When I was filming ‘Love Like The Galaxy’ there was actually a lot of pressure, and it was emotionally intense every day. He knew how to make me relax. Director Gu would spend a lot of time in the ‘unseen’ aspects, working hard to create a better emotional journey for us actors and our characters. But much of his efforts are off-camera and for me, these were significant sources of help, unique experiences and valuable learning experiences.”
Nietzsche once said, “What is important is not the eternal life but the eternal vitality.” Seeing Wu Lei is like seeing a vibrant tree. Although he hasn’t grown into a towering giant, he is already lush and thriving. Bathed in sunlight, the marks of growth are concealed beneath the dense foliage, and the tree continues to firmly root itself in the soil and fearlessly grow upward.
Wu Lei Galaxy 