曹操 我在中國影視劇中扮演外國人(下)
Not long after he arrived, he began dating a Chinese woman named Li Zhiyin, a finance major in college who later became his wife. On one of their early dates, he picked up an English-language listings magazine and saw an ad seeking a foreign actor for a Chinese movie. Kos-Read had never lost his love for performing, and he thought it could be fun to act in China. He auditioned and got the part, which was supposed to pay the equivalent of about $400 for three months of work. In the movie, called “Mei Shi Zhao Shi” (“Looking for Trouble”), Kos-Read plays an American documentary filmmaker following around a group of disillusioned bohemians. He says it took the producers two years to pay him. But two weeks after the movie wrapped, he landed three months of work on a Chinese soap opera.
到中國之後不久，他開始跟一個叫李之茵的中國女人約會，當時她在大學裏學金融，後來成了他的妻子。在他們剛開始約會時，有一次他隨手拿起一本以英文出版的活動信息類雜誌，看到一則某中國電影尋找外國演員的廣告。科斯-瑞德從未失去對錶演的熱愛，他覺得在中國表演應該挺有趣的。他去面試，得到了那個角色，三個月的報酬大約是400美元。那部電影名叫《沒事找事》，科斯-瑞德在片中飾演一名美國紀錄片導演，跟拍一羣幻想破滅的放蕩不羈的文化人。他說，製片方兩年後纔給他報酬。不過，那部電影殺青兩週後，他在一部中國的連續劇中得到一份三個月的工作。
There were only a handful of foreign actors working in China at the time, and Kos-Read quickly realized he offered filmmakers there a rare combination of traits. He spoke good Mandarin, was a decent actor and had a look that many Chinese consider typically “American”: six feet tall, square jaw, blue eyes. He was able to make a living in the industry, but his early roles weren’t great. At that stage of his career, most filmmakers still had limited exposure to foreigners and foreign cultures, and his early parts tended to reflect Chinese stereotypes of Westerners. He rarely played bad guys, because there are very few American villains in Chinese movies (those roles tend to go to the woeful cohort of Japanese actors working in China). Instead, Kos-Read was often typecast as a “dumb guy,” he says. Most frequently, he was an arrogant foreign businessman who falls for a local beauty, only to be spurned as she inevitably makes the virtuous choice to stay with her Chinese suitor. Sometimes he played the foreign friend whose presence onscreen is intended to make the main character seem more worldly; Kos-Read dubbed another stock character “the fool,” an arrogant Westerner whose disdain for China is, by the end of the movie, transformed into admiration.
當時，中國只有少量外國演員，科斯-瑞德很快意識到，對片方來說，難得的是他身上結合了好幾種品質。他普通話說得很好，演得也不錯，長相符合很多中國人心目中典型美國人的樣子：六英尺高，方下巴，藍眼睛。他能以這個行業爲生，但早期的角色都不太好。在他事業的那個階段，大部分中國電影製作人對外國人和外國文化的瞭解依然很有限，他早期的角色往往反映出中國人對西方人的刻板印象。他很少演壞人，因爲在中國電影中美國人很少是壞人（壞人大多是由一羣在中國工作的悲催的日本演員來演）。相反，科斯-瑞德經常飾演“傻乎乎的傢伙”（他的原話）。他最常演的是愛上中國美女的傲慢的外國商人，但最後都是被甩，因爲女方必然會做出正義的選擇，與中國的求婚者在一起。有時他飾演主角的外國朋友，他的出現只是爲了讓主角顯得更高大上；科斯-瑞德還飾演另一個老套的角色，他稱之爲“傻子”，也就是傲慢的西方人，到影片末尾，這個角色對中國的鄙視會轉化爲敬佩。
When he was studying Mandarin at N.Y.U., Kos-Read adopted a Chinese moniker, as many language students do. He took his, Cao Cao, from a historical general who is also a central character in one of the country’s most revered classical novels, “Romance of the Three Kingdoms.” Like a Chinese King Arthur or Davy Crockett, the original Cao Cao exists in fact and fiction and in between. Kos-Read chose the name because it was easy to remember and because he liked that Cao Cao was a wise, self-reliant man. Years later, the decision would prove wise indeed. To his Chinese audience, it showed that the American, despite his loutish onscreen personae, took an interest in their history and culture.
科斯-瑞德在紐約大學學中文時給自己起了箇中文名字，很多學外語的學生都這樣做。曹操這個名字來自中國歷史上的一位軍事家，他也是中國很受推崇的古典小說《三國演義》裏的一箇中心人物。和亞瑟王(King Arthur)或戴維·克羅克特(Davy Crockett)一樣，曹操既存在於現實中，也存在於小說中，以至於關於他的現實和虛構交織在了一起，難以分清。科斯-瑞德選擇這個名字是因爲它很好記，而且他喜歡曹操的聰明和自立。這個決定在多年後會被證明相當明智。在中國觀衆看來，它表明，這個美國人雖然在電影電視中飾演愚鈍的角色，但他對中國的歷史和文化感興趣。
Kos-Read acted in film and television for almost a decade before he truly found fame. Before the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, he landed his own segment on a Chinese news program called “Sunday.” Dubbed “Cao Cao Lai Le” (“Here Comes Cao Cao”), the weekly reality bit was designed to help increase the show’s ratings and give it a more international flavor by allowing Chinese viewers to experience their country anew through a foreigner’s eyes. The segment eventually devolved into Kos-Read more or less being goofy in front of the camera and enlisting Chinese people to cut loose with him. In one episode, for example, he trains to be a Hooters girl. (In China, the chain is known as “American Owl Restaurant.”) The show was enormously popular, and soon Kos-Read was being recognized on the street. “One of the reasons I liked ‘Cao Cao Lai Le’ — it was me,” he says. “Instead of playing stupid stereotypes on TV and in movies, I could go out and be me. It’s my personal prejudice that I’m more interesting than the characters I play.”
科斯-瑞德演了近10年的電影和電視劇後才真正成名。在2008年北京奧運會前，他在一檔名爲《第七日》的中文新聞節目中有了自己的節目環節，叫《曹操來了》。這是一個真人秀節目，每週一期，設計的目的是幫助提升欄目的收視率，並用讓中國觀衆通過一個外國人的眼睛重新感受自己的國家這種方式，來讓節目更國際化。這個節目最後退化成了科斯-瑞德或多或少地在鏡頭前舉止滑稽愚蠢，請中國人和他一起放開束縛。比如，在其中一集中，他接受了在Hooters當女服務員的培訓。（在中國，該連鎖被叫做“美國貓頭鷹餐廳”。）該節目大受歡迎。很快，便有路人會認出科斯-瑞德。“我喜歡《曹操來了》的原因之一是，那就是我，”他說。“不是在電視和電影裏扮演那些愚蠢的模式化角色，我能做我自己。我個人認爲，我比我演的那些角色更有趣。”
In 2009, Kos-Read began writing a column called “Token White Guy” for an expat publication, Talk Magazine, in which he chronicled his on- and off-screen adventures. He wrote about the time an acquaintance enlisted him to act in an ad campaign, Kos-Read’s first. His friend told him the product was “some sort of medicine.” Then, Kos-Read showed up on set and read his line, which was written in English: “Do you want to be thicker, longer and harder? Then be like Cao Cao and use Strong Balls Hormone.” (He dropped the ad.) He wrote about the time he was cast to play an English Jew who falls in love with a prostitute and, riddled with guilt, drops to his knees and prays for forgiveness — from Jesus. And the time a Chinese magazine wrote a multi-page, entirely fictitious profile of him, and then emailed him a copy.
2009年，科斯-瑞德開始爲一本面向外籍人士的刊物Talk Magazine撰寫一個名爲“Token White Guy”的專欄。在專欄裏，他記述了自己在屏幕內外的生活。他寫到了一個熟人請他拍廣告的經歷。那是他的第一支廣告。他那個朋友告訴他，產品是“某種藥物”。然後，科斯-瑞德便出現在拍攝現場，閱讀自己的臺詞。臺詞是用英文寫的：“想更粗、更長、更硬嗎？那就像曹操一樣，使用壯陽激素吧。”（他放棄了那個廣告。）他還記述了自己被選中扮演英國的一個猶太人的故事。那個猶太人愛上了一個妓女，充滿罪惡感的他跪着祈求饒恕，而對象居然是耶穌。還有一次，一本中文雜誌寫了一篇介紹他的文章，還通過電子郵件給他發送了樣刊。文章洋洋灑灑好幾頁，但全部都是杜撰的。
“Cao Cao Lai Le” ran for about three years before the struggling “Sunday” dropped it (“Sunday” soon went off the air as well), but it led to better roles in film and TV and a long line of travel-show hosting gigs, which took him to virtually every region of China — from the deserts of the west to the grasslands of the north to the hilly metropolis of Chongqing.
《曹操來了》播出了大約三年，後被處境艱難的《第七日》砍掉（很快，《第七日》也停播了），但它讓科斯-瑞德獲得了更好的電影和電視角色，和一長串的旅遊節目主持工作。因爲這些工作，他幾乎去到了中國每一個地區——從西部的沙漠到北部的草原，再到山城重慶。
Hengdian World Studios is sprawling and surreal, covering 8,000 acres and featuring a one-to-one scale model of Beijing’s Forbidden City. “You walk around, and you can’t tell the difference,” Kos-Read told me as we drove past the complex on the way to the set the next morning. Around the lot, different shows were being filmed. Tourists are allowed on set for 199 yuan ($30) per person, and groups of them were huddled around as filming took place. It offered a considerably different experience from the one you might encounter at a Universal Studios theme park. “Instead of ‘Jaws,’ it’s, like, killing Japanese or hanging out with the emperor’s concubines,” Kos-Read said.
橫店影視城是個龐大而離奇的地方，佔地8000英畝，其中一比一原樣複製的北京故宮是主要建築。第二天早上開車去拍攝現場的路上，我們正好經過那裏。科斯-瑞德對我說，“你可以四處走走，根本看不出區別。”在那附近有幾部戲正在拍攝。遊客每人花199元便可進入片場。拍攝過程中，現場圍聚了一羣又一羣的遊客。這裏給人的體驗，和在環球影城(Universal Studios)主題公園是有很大不同的。“不是像《大白鯊》(Jaws)那樣的驚悚電影，而是殺日本人，或是和皇帝的妃嬪消磨時間，”科斯-瑞德說。
Despite the breadth of roles he has played in China, Kos-Read is passed over for most co-productions. Hollywood producers want to bring in their own talent, he says. And once, Chinese producers told him that because of the ubiquity with which he appears in Chinese cinema and television, he would make their production seem too local. He has acted in only two East-West movies: a deep-sea epic funded by a Chinese billionaire with a predominantly foreign cast, and a bigfoot movie shot in Shennongjia, a mountainous region in Hubei Province, where there have been hundreds of purported bigfoot sightings. Each film was plagued with on-set dysfunction, and neither has been released.
儘管在中國扮演過各種各樣的角色，但大部分合拍片都不考慮科斯-瑞德。他說，好萊塢的製片方想用自己的人。有一次，中國製片方對他說，因爲他的身影在中國的影視作品中隨處可見，使他們的作品看上去太本土化。他只參演過兩部東西合拍影片：一部是深海題材的史詩片，由中國的一名億萬富翁投資，演員大部分是外國人，另一部是在湖北山區神農架拍攝的一部野人題材的電影，那裏有過成百上千次據稱看到野人的報告。每部影片都在拍攝現場頻頻出問題。迄今爲止，兩部影片均未發行。
Kos-Read says that the reason most co-productions fail is as much about the chaos on the Chinese side as it is the arrogance on the Hollywood side. “They come here and say, ‘We’re from Hollywood, we know better and whatever it is that you think is the right way to do it, it’s by definition not,’ ” he says. “You come in with an attitude like that, you will have a lot of problems. You will misunderstand the kind of stories they want to see.”
科斯-瑞德說，大部分合拍片都以失敗告終的原因，中方的混亂和好萊塢的傲慢各佔一半。“他們來到中國說，‘我們是從好萊塢來的，我們更在行，你們認爲是對的東西，必定就是錯的，’”他說。“如果帶着那種態度過來，就會遇到很多問題。你對他們想看到哪種故事就會有誤會。”
And as Chinese filmmakers have figured out what sorts of stories Chinese audiences really want to see, the nature of Kos-Read’s work has changed for the better. Although his part in “Knight’s Glove” wasn’t groundbreaking, he is now often cast in increasingly complex parts.
隨着中國電影人弄明白了中國觀衆真正想看的故事，科斯-瑞德的工作性質發生了好轉。儘管他在《Knight’s Glove》的角色並不具有開創性，但現在，他經常會扮演越來越複雜的角色。
After the morning’s shoot, we drove across the lot to film another scene. In the back of the van, Kos-Read scrolled through photos on his phone of some of the roles he has played over the last two years, each with a distinct facial-hair style. They included: an American engineer who worked on the first locomotive in China; Gen. Douglas MacArthur; an “[expletive] lawyer”; a World War II radio announcer; a hip-hop dancer; a wisdom-dispensing alcoholic barfly; a Mafia boss; an antiquities expert; a sleazy Russian lounge lizard; a cowboy; a bisexual fashion designer; and a French detective.
上午的拍攝結束後，我們開車穿過影視城，去拍攝另一個場景。在麪包車的後座上，科斯-瑞德在手機上翻看他過去兩年裏扮演過的一些角色的照片，全都留着特徵鮮明的鬍鬚，其中包括：在中國首個火車頭上工作的美國機師、道格拉斯·麥克阿瑟(Douglas MacArthur)將軍、一名“[髒話]律師”、二戰期間的電臺播音員、嘻哈舞者、妙語連珠的酒吧醉漢、黑幫老大、古董專家、不務正業的俄羅斯花花公子、牛仔、雙性戀時裝設計師和法國偵探。
Kos-Read believes the growing variety of roles for foreign actors like him is a result of more Chinese exposure to outsiders. “There are more foreign actors now,” he says. “Chinese know some foreigners. So they write more interesting characters. I’m lucky because I usually get to do the better stuff.”
科斯-瑞德認爲，現在有越來越多樣化的角色可以供他這樣的外國演員出演，這是中國向外界進一步開放的結果。“如今有了更多的外國演員，”他說。“中國人瞭解一些外國人。所以他們寫出了更有趣的角色。我很幸運，因爲我通常有更好的角色可以扮演。”
This trend is likely to continue. The money coming from Chinese producers, and the spending power of Chinese audiences, is simply too great to ignore, and anyone venturing to China from Hollywood — whether producer, actor or cameraman — has to learn how to play by Chinese rules. That means adapting stories to the changing desires of film fans, and learning how to cooperate on China’s less regimented movie sets. Hollywood pros may be arrogant, says Jonathan Landreth, editor of the website China Film Insider, who has been covering the Chinese entertainment industry for more than a decade, but “in the melding of minds between China and Hollywood, there’s been a tipping in the balance of power. So much money is driving these productions that the folks in Hollywood have to listen.”
這種趨勢很可能會延續下去。中國的製作方撒的錢太多，中國觀衆的消費能力太大，實在不容忽視，任何從好萊塢到中國拓展的人——無論是製片人、演員還是攝影師——都必須學會如何遵守中國的遊戲規則。這意味着適應影迷不斷變化的口味，學習如何在中國不那麼成系統的電影體系中展開合作。“中國底片”網站(China Film Insider)編輯林嘉瑞(Jonathan Landreth)報道中國娛樂產業已經十多年，他說好萊塢的專業人士可能是很傲慢，但“中國人和好萊塢合作的時候，在權力平衡中存在一種傾斜。這些製作背後有這麼多錢，好萊塢的人不得不聽。”
In the afternoon, the director of “Knight’s Glove,” a young man with bleached blond hair, recruited me to play an extra in a scene with Kos-Read. I would be a driver. I wondered aloud who was supposed to have played the driver, but no one answered, and instead I was shepherded outside to a wardrobe truck and outfitted in a World War I-era military uniform with a Brodie helmet.
《Knight’s Glove》的導演是一個頭髮漂成金色的年輕男子。下午的時候，他招募我跑龍套，在一個場景中和科斯-瑞德配戲。我演一名司機。我詢問，本來由誰扮演司機，但沒有人回答，結果我被領到外面的一輛服裝車裏，換上了一戰時的軍事制服，戴上一頂布羅迪式鋼盔。
As I dressed in the truck, Kos-Read approached with a Chinese crew member and said, “They asked me to make sure you knew that they weren’t actually going to pay you or anything.” I laughed. As absurd as it may seem to be yanked from the sidelines in an instant and thrown in front of the camera, this kind of thing happens with surprising regularity for foreigners in China, and moments like these become the kind of China Stories that keep people like Kos-Read around for so long.
我在卡車上換衣服時，科斯-瑞德與劇組裏的一箇中國人走過來說，“他們讓我告訴你，他們不會付錢給你。”我笑起來。突然從場邊被抓去扮演一個影視角色，這似乎非常荒誕，但對於在中國的外國人來說，這樣的事情驚人地常見。這些時刻成了一種“中國故事”，讓那些像科斯-瑞德一樣的人在這裏待了這麼久。
We filmed four or five takes of a short scene in the car. I pretended to drive, yanking the steering wheel back and forth with the kind of comical exaggeration you might see in “The Andy Griffith Show.” Two cameras glided on a track and crane outside the car while Kos-Read, sitting in the back, and a young Russian actor, who sat beside me, exchanged a few lines of dialogue. The Russian had until recently been a student in Jinhua, a nearby city, but was now trying his hand at an acting career. Maybe it would have worked out for him had he started a decade and a half ago, like Kos-Read, but his performance didn’t bode well. He struggled with the lines; his English was wooden, the delivery stilted.
我們在車裏拍了一場短短的戲，反覆拍了四五條。我假裝開車，來回轉動方向盤，帶點滑稽的誇張，就好像在《安迪·格里菲斯秀》(The Andy Griffith Show)裏表演那樣。車外的軌道和吊臂上有兩臺攝像機，科斯-瑞德坐在後座上，一名年輕的俄羅斯演員坐在我旁邊，戲裏有幾句對話。這個俄羅斯人不久前在附近的金華市讀書，現在則在試水演藝事業。如果他在15年前嘗試這一行，就像科斯-瑞德那樣，可能還有希望，但是他演得不怎麼樣。他說臺詞很費力，他的英語很蹩腳，他的表演很呆板。
Kos-Read, on the other hand, naturally eased into character as soon as they started rolling. He said his lines in a British accent, smoothly and barely above a whisper, looking out the window as the camera swept by.
而科斯-瑞德則一開拍就輕鬆進入了角色。他用英國口音流暢地講着臺詞，在攝像機劃過之時，一邊喃喃低語，一邊望向窗外。
