From being stuck in the snow together in 2016 to filming Tibetan Sea Flower - Nan Pai San Shu's "Obsession" over Zhang Luyi.
Thank you for noticing my tag in the other post about the friendship between ZLY and CMH, and showing some interest. So here we go! I guess besides why Zhang Luyi (ZLY) was picked, there's also the story about how everything started. I find it rather fascinating. DMBJ's author Nan Pai San Shu, aka Xu Lei (XL) told the story a few years ago, but he mentioned it again during a livestream when Tibetan Sea flower (TSF) just started airing. The next three paragraphs are based on XL's livestream and ZLY's interviews.
Back in 2016, on a very snowy day, XL was on his way to The Mystic Nine's filming location, and was stuck on a mountain road. After waiting for a while, he thought he should go and help direct the traffic. When he got out to do it, he surprisingly found another Good Samaritan already doing what he intended to do, and yes, that Good Samaritan was ZLY.
ZLY was on his way to The Mystic Nine's filming location too. It was actually not XL who picked him for the role of Wu Laogou then. He went to guest star in that show because his university classmate Bai Yicong, the producer of the show, asked ZLY to do him a favor and just stop by to have a meeting with everyone.
So that's how XL and ZLY first met in person. Because they got stuck in the snow for a LONG time, they talked a lot about DMBJ, from Wu Laogou to Wu Xie, and even TSF (ZLY already read some of the DMBJ novels at the time, and he finished all of them before shooting TSF). At some point, XL told ZLY that ZLY's vibe reminded him of a very important character of his, which was Wu Xie. ZLY was very moved and thankful. Since they had such a good long talk, they kind of made a promise to each other that they'd work together on a DMBJ project at some point. They also each made a weibo post about meeting each other as the traffic director in the snow.
In 2017, there was actually quite some rumors about ZLY being approached to play Wu Xie in Sha Hai/Tomb of the Sea (this is not to discredit other Wu Xie actors, because it's normal for a production team to approach multiple actors for a role in the casting stage), but since ZLY had several health issues due to being injured during the filming of another show, he really couldn't be a candidate for the role.
But XL never forgot about ZLY. In 2021, rumors came around again about ZLY being approached to play Wu Xie in TSF, and this time, he agreed.
During the airing of TSF, XL did a lot of livestreams and Q&A sections on weibo. There's one post where he said: "From the state in the beginning, the state of being lost, to the Sha Hai!Xie state in the end, the entire progress is shown in TSF. I needed an actor with extremely good acting skills. From TSF!Xie to Sha Hai!Xie, there're many occasions where Wu Xie's soul is in a dark place and he might fall for his obsession. Besides Pangzi being there to pull him back, it also needs Wu Xie's strong faith and goodness, and I think it needed acting skills to show it."
In another comment to a fan's question about the choice of Wu Xie's actor, XL answered: "Maybe it represents a kind of inner demons", which I think the inner demons part can be translated to obsession.
So you can tell, it does seem that XL had this obsession to have ZLY play Wu Xie no matter what. And he never gave up the idea ever since they first met, even though by the time they could finally work together in 2022, ZLY was no longer in the best age range to play TSF!Xie (hence, sometimes you'd notice those annoying filters used to mask wrinkles on his face).
I really haven't watched all of XL's livestreams and interviews, and from the very few ones I've watched, he mentioned where ZLY impressed him. Before the shooting started, ZLY double checked with XL to see if XL wanted him to play Wu Xie as a more straightforward northerner or gentler southerner (this is not to stereotype, but to reflect the cultural and language difference), and XL reassured him to be a southerner since Wu Xie is a from the south of China. ZLY was no stranger to playing a southerner even though he's a northerner himself, as some of his best characters were from south China. This was why he dropped all his natural Beijing accent, and showed a gentler demeanor (eg. Pangzi is a typical northerner, and CMH kept his Beijing accent).
Another thing is when they were shooting the real and fake Wu Xie scene, it was filmed without any special effects or even an extra actor. ZLY played both characters each time with thin air. It impressed XL a lot because it required so much more finesse and precision on the memory, timing, and movement.
Lastly I want to show you ZLY's goodbye message to TSF that was posted on Sep 24th. He's a very dedicated, sincere, and cultured actor that often uses handwritten stuff to say goodbye to shows nowadays. And he wrote what Wu Xie and Pangzi always say to each other, the good luck and good fortune thing: "Da Ji Da Li, Gong Xi Fa Cai"
Another fun fact is that ZLY is very good at calligraphy. He used to assign different fonts to the characters he played based on their characteristics. Because Wu Xie writes in 瘦金体/Shoujin font, ZLY wrote the message also in Shoujin font. I guess you can say that's another similarity between him and Wu Xie, that they can both write in this font (I'm no expert in calligraphy, so I found an article teaching people how to write in Shoujin font. It was definitely not an easy thing to do because it advised people to learn and practice certain fonts in traditional calligraphy for a few years before even going for the Shoujin font).
Thanks for reading! If you like ZLY's Wu Xie, that's awesome. If not, that's OK. It's totally understandable. Please also know that I have zero intention to compare his version of Wu Xie to other Wu Xies. I'm sure each Wu Xie is awesome, unique, and lovable in his own way.
