As of May 18, the movie "Love Letter to Grandma" has achieved a revenue of 563 million CNY after only 19 days of screening in the Chinese box office. Based on this trend, many platforms such as Maoyan, Lighthouse have raised their predicted total final revenue of the work to 1.6 billion CNY.
With the explosion of the film, the female lead Ly Tu Dong - playing Ta Nam Chi - was also noticed. Many viewers were surprised to learn that she was a non-professional actress, participating in acting for the first time. Ly Tu Dong is currently a 4th year student majoring in Financial Engineering at Guangdong University of Finance and Economics.
Chinese media described that with this role, Ly Tu Dong and the film crew made a miracle. If the film really achieves total revenue as predicted, she will become the first 2000 generation actress to have a film starring exceeding 1 billion CNY in revenue.
Previously, the holder of this record was actress Truong Tu Phong with the work "My Sister" achieving a revenue of 860 million CNY.
Ly Tu Dong's chance to participate in the movie began two years ago, when she accidentally posted a video of her daily life on a short video platform.
Director Lam Hong Xuan, after reviewing thousands of student applications, was immediately attracted by Ly Tu Dong's "immature appearance that has not been dried by city lights" and sent her audition invitations.
The girl born in 2004 remembers the moment she was chosen: "It was just an extremely ordinary afternoon, but looking back now, maybe that day I made an important decision of my life.
Ly Tu Dong said that initially she only received a few thousand words summarizing the film's content without a complete script. But when the story of "Ta Nam Chi" appeared on paper, she felt "like something choked up in her chest, emotions immediately surged".
To portray the role of Ta Nam Chi well, Ly Tu Dong - who did not come from a professional acting school - prepared a lot. She researched history about the form of correspondence and money transfer of overseas Chinese in the past, and learned about the hardships of Chinese people going to Southeast Asia at that time.
Ly Tu Dong also read the script over and over again to fully integrate into Ta Nam Chi's life, and also did not forget to ask seniors to learn the customs and life experiences of the Trieu San people (Guangdong, China).
Speaking about finance students switching to acting, Ly Tu Dong shared: "What major you study does not necessarily mean you have to do that job. The rational thinking that finance brings, on the contrary, helps me see the complexity of reality more clearly, and at the same time feel the preciousness in Nam Chi's kindness.
Right in the year of graduation, the experience of filming "Love Letter to Grandma" also changed Ly Tu Dong's career orientation.
She confessed: "Before interacting with this project, I never thought that one day I would step into acting. But after this project, I realized I really like acting.
