Netflix is going to come out with a new drama!
These two days, Netflix officially announced the new comedy starring lineup: Wu Shanzhuo and Okafina are going to play sisters!
The story focuses on a lonely, worldly woman who vows to help her sister achieve her lifelong dream of becoming a contestant on her favorite game show as a way to repair their relationship. Although it is a comedy, I heard how these two ladies work together to have the illusion that Max is like an "armed force".
Pretty is never a passport to life
No matter how the times develop, the world's pickiness about beauty and ugliness has never stopped, especially the "beauty" of female stars. In this era of "appearance is justice", for actresses, it has to be denied that appearance is indeed a particularly important competitiveness.
But when we are still immersed in the pursuit of star beauty and neglect acting, how many powerful factions like Wu Sandra and Okafina are drowned in the tide of the times.
Okafina, Liu Yuling
The same is true of Hollywood, which has never been a paradise, but a melting pot.
In this melting pot, some people became famous in one fell swoop, and some people became unknown for a lifetime. The only difference is that Hollywood doesn't shut out any one of the vulnerable, and even so, Hollywood still has a casual attitude towards the vulnerable. The environment for Asian actors is indeed changing, but very slowly.
Those good actors who are limited by their looks, background, and race, the public is never concerned about their excellent works and excellent acting skills, but the appearance of the play that ridicules them for deviating from the mainstream aesthetic.
The Internet is full of various evaluations of the appearance of Wu Shanzhuo and Okafina, as if all the hard work, hard work, and breakthroughs are not as powerful as these external labels.
But even so, they don't care at all, and even want to break out of their own piece of the sky.
“It’s an honor just to be Asian.” (Being Asian is an honor in itself.) ）
A Storm of Asians in Hollywood
Ms. Wu's parents are Koreans, and she was born in Ottawa, Canada, where her original life path should have been to go to a prestigious school and find a decent job with a good salary.
But because of her love of acting, Wu Shanzhuo learned ballet from an early age and began to perform on stage at a young age. Later, he turned down a full scholarship to the journalism department of a university and chose a drama school to study acting.
In the face of strong opposition from her parents and family, Wu Shanzhuo still embarked on the road of pursuing her dreams without hesitation. Later, in an interview, she said, "At the age of seventeen or eighteen, the two most important people in the world for me didn't support me, saying I couldn't do it, and I didn't listen." But after surviving, the others said that nothing could beat me down. ”
So she began to act from a supporting role, even if there were only a few seconds of appearance time at the beginning, Wu Shanzhuo still cherished the opportunity.
Struggling with endless small roles, Sandra Wu finally won the Best Actress Award at the Milan International Tourism Exhibition in 2000 for "Pole Dancer".
In 2004, Wu Sandra filmed one of the most important works in her life, "Wine Glass Life". In the film, she played a colorful barmaid, breaking the image of asian women in the previous Western cognition, which also made her emerge in the American film and television industry.
"Life in a Glass"
The olive branch continued to throw at her. Wu Zhuoshan got the supporting actress Dr. Yang in the super longevity American drama "Grey's Intern", and the image of a shrewd female doctor who loves medicine and is smart and decisive is portrayed in the hearts of the people.
Grey's Anatomy
The superb acting skills in "Grey's Anatomy" have made the name "Wu Shanzhuo" gradually known to people and gradually began to enter the public eye.
In 2018, with the drama "Killing Eve", Wu Shanzhuo won the best actress in the drama category, becoming the first Asian actress to win the award in nearly 40 years.
Not only that, but also Sandra Wu is also the first Asian host in the history of the Golden Globes.
In "Kill Eve", Sandra Wu played a slightly neurotic genius agent detective, one of the few characters in Hollywood who has a rich emotion and personality.
Conspiracy, politics, thriller, brutal scenes of violence and bloodshed, entangled lust between women and women, "Kill Eve" is one of the few "sexy" route suspense dramas.
Such an Asian character in the play is absolutely unique in Hollywood for nearly a decade, and in Wu Sandra's own words, this is a character who waited for 30 years to wait.
At that time, she was 48 years old, which was an absolute senior among Hollywood actors. For this moment, she waited too long and too long, and Wu Shanzhuo even had a set of "must-have expressions" to win the award.
Behind Wu Zhuoshan's success is the blood, sweat and tears of Asian actresses, and her existence itself can serve as an example and reminder: women's beauty can be diverse.
This is something that all Asians do
After Sandro Wu won the 76th Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress in the Drama Category for "Kill Eve", Okafina won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Musical/Comedy Film for her wonderful performance in the movie "Don't Tell Her", becoming the first Asian Golden Globe Award in history, it can be said that the gap in the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in Film and Television that Asian women have been going on for nearly half a century has been broken and filled.
The film tells the story of a Chinese American family whose grandmother is suffering from cancer, but the family chooses to hide her illness from her grandmother, so she asks everyone to go home to see her grandmother for the last time under the pretext of a wedding.
"Don't Tell Her"
Among them, Okafina plays a young granddaughter who grew up in the United States, and due to the differences between Chinese and Western cultures, she believes that her grandmother has the right to know about her illness and the fact that she is about to die. In the film, it also presents the tortuous mental journey of the little granddaughter, and presents the process of different values, outlook on life and family from colliding to mutual understanding through the differences in the concepts of young people and the older generation and the differences between Eastern and Western cultures.
Okafina's profound interpretation in the film is somehow related to her real life. Born in Queens, New York, his father was Chinese and his mother was Korean. Since her mother died when she was 4 years old, Okafina has been raised by her grandmother.
In her life, Grandma's role is not only that of guardian, but also of her staunch supporter and mentor of life on the road to growth. From an early age, Grandma told Okafina that gender does not affect her value, and Asian women are strong and courageous, and they are by no means docile characters.
Due to her hoarse voice as a child, Okafina fell in love with music, especially Broadway musicals. She began studying trumpet at the age of 11 and later entered LaGuardia High School to study classical and jazz.
At the age of 16, Okafina began performing on stage and named herself "Awkwafina", derived from "Awkward", meaning clumsy. She thinks that she is not only sensitive but also a little neurotic, and does not think too much about things.
《My Vag》
At the age of 19, she began experimenting with songwriting and put the MV of the rap song My that she wrote on Youtube. Explicit videos and sharp words attack the stereotypical concept of Chinese girls in the West, completely subverting the stereotype that Asian girls are docile.
What she didn't expect was that the video not only broke through a million views, but also changed Okafina's life. After being known, she lost her original job, but instead of collapsing, she released a song that broke stereotypes, "Green Tea".
Awkwafina feat margaret cho《Green tea》
Okafina was discovered by Hollywood producer Seth Logan and began starring in films.
Soon Okafina was given the opportunity to star in the movie Ocean's 8: Beauty. Although she is only a humble thief character in the film, she gets the opportunity to play on the same stage with Kate Blanchett and Anne Hathaway.
"Hiding the Sky and Crossing the Sea: Beauty Scheme"
Later, she participated in the "Picking Gold" that swept Hollywood, even if it is still a supporting role, but it does not affect her glow at all, and Okafina won the 28th MTV Movie Awards for Best Comedy Performance and Breakthrough Performance with "Picking Gold".
"Picking Gold"
2018 is like the "Year of Okafina", and she is making the impossible possible.
It is also a "Don't Tell Her" to continue the "Year of Okafina", and some people even boldly predict that the next nomination will be the Oscar. In the face of such affirmations, Okafina bluntly said, "Hollywood's film industry is finally opening up to Asians, and both Asian directors and Asian actors have more uses." ”
It is gold that will always shine, and good actors will eventually stand on the stage of the times and the flickering spotlight, and use their acting skills to conquer everyone.
Image source
Ins / Douban / Sina Weibo
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