曹操 我在中国影视剧中扮演外国人(上)

THE MANY FACES OF CAO CAO

曹操：我在中国影视剧中扮演外国人

Every foreigner living in China has his share of China Stories. Jonathan Kos-Read has more than his share. Here’s one: Not long ago, the 43-year-old American actor received a call with an offer to appear in “Ip Man 3,” the third in a series of biopics about Bruce Lee’s martial-arts master. The role was small, but his agent negotiated what Kos-Read considered an “outrageous” amount of money for it, and the producers agreed. Kos-Read was thrilled until he read the script and noticed another part for a foreign actor — a bigger and better role as a mobster named Frank.

每一个在中国生活的外国人，都有自己的“中国故事”。乔纳森·科斯-瑞德(Jonathan Kos-Read)的这种故事比常人更多。其中一个是：不久前，这位现年43岁的美国演员接到一个电话，希望他参演《叶问3》。这个系列是关于李小龙的师父叶问的传记片。角色很小，但他的经纪人给他谈了一个在他看来高得“令人发指”的报酬，制片方同意了。科斯非常激动，直到读了剧本后，发现剧中还有一个需要外国演员出演的角色——一个更大更好的角色，是一个名叫弗兰克的黑帮人物。

This was troubling. Kos-Read, who is known in China only as Cao Cao, is by far the leading foreign actor working in the country today, having appeared in about 100 movies and television programs since his career began in 1999. He is famous throughout the mainland, and his career has been on a steady upward trajectory. Last December he appeared in the action film “Mojin — The Lost Legend,” currently the fifth-highest-grossing movie in Chinese history. Who, Kos-Read wondered, would the producers have cast instead of him?

这有点让人烦。科斯-瑞德在中国的名字叫“曹操”，自1999年开始当演员以来，他已经出演了大约100部影视作品，如今他是中国数一数二的外国演员。他在中国大陆是名人，演艺生涯稳步上升。去年12月，他出现在动作片《寻龙诀》中，那是中国迄今为止历史票房第五高的电影。科斯-瑞德想知道，导演不找他演这个弗兰克，那会找谁呢？

Kos-Read sent panicked texts to the movie’s casting director, but they went unanswered. “I felt threatened,” he told me recently, only half kidding. A few days later, he boarded a plane from Beijing to Shanghai to begin filming. When he showed up to the set, the mystery was solved almost immediately: There, slouching on a stool surrounded by a scrum of people, was the former heavyweight champion of the world Mike Tyson. The retired fighter had been cast, perhaps misguidedly, as Frank. (The Village Voice later described Tyson’s performance in the film as “sadly unimpressive.”) Kos-Read introduced himself and over the next three days developed a bond with Tyson. “He was not at all what I expected,” Kos-Read says. The pair discussed their young daughters, Montessori schools and, inevitably, boxing. They also spoke about self-reinvention, something each man knows quite a bit about.

科斯-瑞德在焦虑不安中给这部影片的选角导演发了一些短信，但没有收到回复。“我当时感觉受到了威胁，”不久前，他半真半假地对我说道。几天后，他登上从北京飞往上海的班机，前去拍摄。到达片场之后，这个谜底几乎立刻就解开了：前重量级拳王迈克·泰森(Mike Tyson)无精打采地坐在凳子上，旁边乱哄哄地围着一圈人。这名退役拳击选手被选中——或许是受误导——接演弗兰克这个角色。（《村声》[The Village Voice]杂志后来说泰森在这部影片中的表演“令人遗憾地平庸”。）科斯-瑞德做了自我介绍，在接下来的三天里，他和泰森走得很近。“他跟我之前想的完全不一样，”科斯-瑞德说。两人谈论自己年幼的女儿、蒙特梭利学校，以及必然少不了的拳击。他们也说到重塑自我，这东西好像每个男人都很懂。

“Ip Man 3” went on to gross $115 million at the box office in China, with more than half of that coming on the opening weekend. China’s booming movie market grew by nearly 50 percent last year and is expected to surpass North America’s as the largest in the world by next year. These days, Hollywood studios hardly greenlight a blockbuster without first asking, “How will this play in China?” The rewards are too vast. “Furious 7,” for example, earned $390 million in China — more than it made in the United States — and was for a time the highest-grossing film ever in the country.

《叶问3》在中国的票房总收入达到1.15亿美元，多半来自上映的那个周末。中国繁荣的电影市场去年增长了近50%，明年有望超过北美成为世界上最大的电影市场。如今，好莱坞的电影公司在大片开拍之前都要先问“它在中国会有怎样的表现”，不然不会绿灯放行。回报太丰厚了。比如，《速度与激情7》(Furious 7)在中国赚了3.9亿美元，高于它在美国的票房，一度成为中国史上票房最高的影片。

And just as Hollywood has begun to crack the market, Chinese cinema has come into its own. In recent years, Chinese studios have started shifting away from the agitprop that defined their cinematic output for generations and are instead focusing on genres that draw viewers to theaters in any country: action, adventure, comedy. In February, a sci-fi comedy called “The Mermaid” became the highest-grossing movie ever in China within 12 days of its release, earning more than $430 million. Increasingly, Chinese cinemagoers are opting to buy tickets for movies made specifically for them — like those in the “Ip Man” series — not those that pander to them or lecture them. It is in this sort of film that Kos-Read has finally had the chance to act, rather than portray a stand-in for Western imperiousness. If the Hollywood studios really want to understand how to succeed in China, Kos-Read’s journey makes for a kind of accidental guide.

就在好莱坞开始打开这个市场之时，中国电影也开始繁荣起来。近些年，中国的电影公司开始从宣传鼓动类影片（这类片子曾主导数代中国影坛）转向在任何一个国家都能吸引观众的类型：动作片、冒险片和喜剧片。今年2月，科幻喜剧片《美人鱼》(The Mermaid)在上映12天后成为中国历史票房最高的影片，超过4.3亿美元。越来越多的中国观众选择去电影院购票观看专门为他们制作的电影，比如《叶问》系列，而不是那些一味讨好或教育他们的影片。在这种影片中，科斯-瑞德终于有机会去表演，而不是作为西方专横霸道形象的替代品。如果好莱坞的电影公司真的想知道如何在中国取得成功，那么科斯-瑞德的经历意外地成了一种指南。

In January, I met Kos-Read at Beijing Capital International Airport to accompany him on a trip to Yiwu, a trading city in Zhejiang Province, 165 miles from Shanghai. From there we would take a van to Hengdian World Studios, the biggest back lot in the world, where he was filming a new TV series.

今年1月，我在北京首都国际机场与科斯-瑞德碰头，跟他一起去义乌。义乌是浙江省的一个贸易城市，距离上海165英里。我们从那里坐车去横店影视城，这是世界上最大的露天片场，他在那里拍摄一部新电视剧。

Kos-Read was tired. He had flown in a few days before from the Bay Area, where his wife and two young daughters live; the actor now splits time between the United States and China, which he has called home for almost two decades. Kos-Read has wavy brown hair, a thick beard streaked with gray and the kind of broad face that looks good on camera. He curses a lot and often wears a look of deep contemplation that borders on exasperation. As we boarded the plane for our 10:30 p.m. flight, he sported a huge calf-length black parka, which he wears on set — Chinese sets are notoriously frigid in the wintertime — and carried a heavy backpack filled mostly with equipment for photography, a personal hobby. The airplane was only half full. Kos-Read lumbered through the center aisle until he reached the last row, where he heaved his backpack onto a seat and plopped down into another as if he were claiming a spot on a long-distance bus.

科斯-瑞德显得很疲惫。几天前他刚从旧金山湾区飞到中国，他的妻子和两个年幼的女儿住在那里。这位演员现在在美中之间来回跑，他以中国为家已有近20年时间。科斯-瑞德有着卷曲的棕色头发，夹杂着灰须的浓密胡子，以及一张上镜的宽脸。他爱说脏话，经常露出一副陷入深思、近乎恼怒的神情。晚上10点半我们登机时，他穿着一件长及腿肚的黑色冲锋衣，在片场他就穿这个——中国的片场在冬天特别寒冷——背着一个沉重的双肩包，里面主要装着摄影器材，那是他的个人爱好。飞机上只坐了一半人。科斯-瑞德吃力地沿着中间的通道走到最后一排，把背包扔到一个座位上，然后重重地坐到另一个座位上，仿佛是在长途汽车上抢座。

During the two-hour flight, Kos-Read drank a few cans of Yanjing Beer and discussed his role in last year’s “Mojin.” In the film, he plays a lawyer to a cult leader. After the first act, he turns into a zombie. It was by far the biggest project of his career, with by far the biggest stars, and it increased his already-formidable exposure in China by degrees of magnitude. On our plane, a flight attendant recognized him from the film. (In California, by contrast, he is basically anonymous outside of Chinatowns.) Kos-Read was happy for the opportunity to appear in such a large movie but was disappointed with his performance, which he believes was adequate but not excellent. “In a lot of TV shows, you just have to spit out the lines, really. But in a big movie, you’ve really got to be good,” he told me. “In my first big movie, I stepped up into the big leagues and hit a single.”

在两小时的飞行中，科斯-瑞德喝了几罐燕京啤酒，谈起他在去年上映的影片《寻龙诀》中的角色。他在片中饰演一位邪教领袖的律师。在第一幕之后，他变成了僵尸。到目前为止，那部电影是他职业生涯中最大的项目，合作的明星也是最大牌的。从量级上说，那部影片提高了他在中国本就很高的知名度。飞机上的一位乘务员认出了他，知道他参演了那部影片（相比之下，在加利福尼亚州，几乎没人认识他——除了在唐人街）。科斯-瑞德很高兴有机会参演这样一部大片，不过他对自己的表演感到失望，他认为自己的表演差强人意，算不上精彩。“在很多电视剧中，你真的只用说台词就好了。但是在一部大片中，你真的得很棒才行，”他对我说道。“我第一次参演大片，就进入了大联盟，而且还打出了一垒打。”

Still, acting in one of the biggest Chinese blockbusters of all time is a long way from where Kos-Read began. Raised in Torrance, Calif., he attended an arts high school, where he got interested in acting. He went on to study film and molecular biology at New York University. There, he took a Mandarin course and became determined to master the language. He moved to Beijing in 1997 and drifted, living for a period in a student dorm and forcing himself to speak nothing but Mandarin for a three-month stretch. “Like everybody else, I arrived and bummed around for two years, not knowing what I was going to do, trying to do a bunch of things, failing,” he says. “Teaching English.”

不过，科斯-瑞德熬了很长时间，才得以参演中国最重要的一部大片。他在加州托兰斯长大，上的是艺术高中，他在那里迷上了表演。后来他在纽约大学(New York University)学习电影和分子生物学。他还选修了中文，并且下定决心掌握这门语言。1997年他搬到北京，开始漂泊，有一段时间住在学生宿舍里，有三个月时间强迫自己只说中文。“和其他人一样，我来了后闲混了两年，不知道自己要干什么，做过许多尝试，全都失败了，”他说道。“还教过英语。”