Looking back at your artistic journey, how do you see your role types changing over time?
- If calculated accurately, I have had 36 years of acting in various roles on screen, mostly villainous roles. In my youth, I often played rogue, reckless, hooligan, and smuggling roles. Gradually, as I got older over the years, I was often invited to roles with "status" in society. Recently, it has been the roles of bosses.
Most recently, the role of Lao Cong in the movie "White Fire" is really a role that I find very difficult because the character's life is too complicated. The developments of the story have details that I really feel scared and embarrassed when reading the script.
I once said to the scriptwriter: "Why did you write this role? Why is the role so terrible?". The role has a life with too many events and upheavals. It seems that all the big storms in a person's life are suppressed in this role.
What is the biggest barrier for an actor when transforming into "terrible" characters like you said, with a sharp personality, and being a drug criminal on screen, according to you?
- The biggest difficulty is that we do not have real experience in specific situations. For example, I, in reality, have never been stabbed or shot with a knife, how can I have that real feeling? Not to mention the emotional conflicts between fathers and sons, between bosses and hired workers.
Without real-world experience, it is really difficult to fully express my inner self according to the requirements of the script and director. With this "being a daughter-in-law to a hundred families", I am not confident that the role will leave a big impression, I only know to make the most meticulous efforts in every stage and wait for feedback from the audience.
In prime time TV dramas, actors with positive faces like Bao Anh are often cast as police officers. As for you, although in real life you are a police officer, you are always chosen by the director to play the role of a villain boss. Do you feel disadvantaged when you constantly have to play bad roles?
- I affirm that no. I feel honored and proud to be invited to participate in film projects. Through roles and works, we send a specific message to the audience to contribute a part to the cause of building an increasingly better society. In society, if there are good people, there must also be bad sides, dark corners... to see the full opposite.
When we were having fun together, Bao Anh said to me: "Brother, have you ever thought about giving up the role to let me act?", I said this is the right of the director and producer. For me, being a police officer is not only an honor but also a duty and responsibility because in real life I am already a police officer.
I also hope to have the opportunity to appear as a police officer on television and in movies.
Can you try to make a comparison between you in real life and you in the roles in movies?
- My personality in real life and in movies are completely opposite. To serve in the People's Police force, I personally must have qualities, character, personality, and qualities. In movies, it is purely professional work.
I often joke that if the role had an external influence, I would have been rich a long time ago, because the characters in the movie all hold power, with trillions of dong in hand. If I were "bad" or violated the law as in the movie, I would definitely have gotten into trouble with the law.
Over the past time, public opinion and audiences have experienced many shocks with a series of scandals in the art world. Among them, many people have been entangled in legal trouble for illegal drug use. How do you view the dark side in the art world?
- Actually, I think it should be accurately called "showbiz". The word "artist" is very broad, including performers, composers, sculptors, painters... If we just generalize it with the word "artist", it is not completely accurate and unfair to those who work seriously.
The fact that famous and influential people get involved in banned substances is definitely very bad. A part of young people look at them to follow, so those bad and illegal behaviors have a very large impact on society and deserve condemnation.
Currently, functional forces are drastically pushing back against drug evils. In fact, the age of illegal drug use is increasingly younger. This is a major threat because young people are the future of the country. If you do not have a healthy body, do not have will, bravery, just immerse yourself in evils, your thinking will become increasingly frail. Families with children involved in drugs, life is very terrible: Economic decline, children entangled in legal trouble, all futures are destroyed.
What practical actions should artists take to propagate and join hands to push back this evil, in your opinion?
- We are still doing it every day through roles, film works, television or stage to strongly condemn this scourge. My role as Lao Cong in the movie "White Fire" also carries the message: Those who profit from drugs will suffer severe punishment from the law, and their family happiness will also be broken.
With our healthy behavior and lifestyle, and with our roles, we speak out to warn a large audience, and at the same time remind and instruct our own relatives, children, and ourselves to stay away from social evils.
Without real-world experience, it is really difficult to fully express my inner self according to the requirements of the script and director. With this "being a daughter-in-law to a hundred families", I am not confident that the role will leave a big impression, I only know to make the most meticulous efforts in every stage and wait for feedback from the audience.
