Exclusive, Xing Zhaolin Makes "My Girl" Drama An Exit From Cold Guy Character
JAKARTA - Actor from China, In an exclusive interview with VOI, Xing Zhaolin, tried to tell more about this series.
Xing Zhaolin said that in general the My Girl series is a series that tells the story of the relationship between a man and a woman whose relationship is like boss and employee as well as brother and sister, where at first they hate each other but over time they end up liking each other.
"The story of My Girl is about the relationship between a girl and a boy whose relationship is like superior and subordinate and at the same time like brother and sister, so the story starts with them hating each other, then slowly continuing to love each other," said Xing Zhaolin in the Kuningan area, South Jakarta, not long ago.
Regarding his own character, this 26 year old man said that he plays the role of Xue Hanyu, who has a different character from the characters in the previous series. Here he has a character that is given a little comedy flavor so that it is hoped that it will be more easily accepted by Indonesian audiences who generally like comedy and light stories.
"So my character in My Girl is Xue Huanyu, he is different from previous characters like Gentle Me on You, Cute Programmer or You're My Destiny, in that series his character is more like a bit serious, a bit like a CEO, stuffs like that. Well, in this series, I'm a little more comedic and have a lighter story, so I can be closer to the Indonesian audience too," he said.
Apart from that, Xing Zhaolin also revealed an interesting fact about his character in this series. He said that later in this series he would do a dancing scene that he had never done before in any series.
"So in the My Girl series there is one thing that is interesting. I'm tall, so when I dance it's like I'm a bit unbalanced, a little bit like that, but in the My Girl series I dance, so maybe you can look forward to that later," concluded Xing Zhaolin .
Even so, Xing Zhaolin admitted that he experienced difficulties when playing the role of Xue Hanyu, who is a CEO. He expressed this because in previous series, he often played the role of CEO, so he had difficulty giving a different impression to the audience for his role in the My Girl series.
"The difficulty may be because Xing Fei and I both often play in romantic series, well we happen to have similar characters in the series and others too, like my character is a CEO, we both wear suits, sometimes the suits are similar. Yes, the colors are in every other series, so sometimes I wonder how to differentiate between the current character and the previous one," he said.
Xing Zhaolin finally used expressions to differentiate one character from the other characters he played. He didn't want too many similarities to appear.
"Well, sometimes the way I look at the camera, the way I express myself, I have to think like, 'So this is similar to the previous character, isn't it?' If it feels similar, I have to repeat the take again," he said.
Not playing alone, in this series Xing Zhaolin will compete with an actress from China also named Xing Fei. Both being successful in playing in romantic genre series apparently did not make it difficult for Xing Zhaolin to build chemistry with Xing Fei. Plus, they both have extroverted personalities.
"So, with Xing Fei, co-star in My Girl, in real life, we are actually like extroverts, we are both extroverts, so when we meet, we immediately greet each other, so it's not like, 'hello', then it's like we're immediately silent, but we greeted each other, chatted with each other, and coincidentally we both have the surname Xing, so we were like maybe a few years ago, or maybe hundreds of years ago maybe we were family," joked Xing Zhaolin.
Receiving more offers to play in romantic genre series, Xing Zhaolin expressed his desire to play in a different genre. One genre he really wants to try is a sci-fi genre series, where he can time travel to the future or even become a robot.
"I want to try playing other characters, different from the current ones, now I'm more romantic, well I want to try other themes like sci-fi or time travel, well I want to try that, who knows? "Later I will play in a series that involves time travel, or time travel that goes to the future or even become a robot because who knows, what kind of role I will play in the future," he explained.
Fans Are Motivation
Xing Zhaolin admitted that his presence in Indonesia was his first. Even so, he said he had heard about Indonesia, and he even knew about one of the volcanoes in Indonesia which he thought was very beautiful. He expressed his desire to stay longer in Indonesia so he could see Indonesia in more depth.
“I've heard of Indonesia, I also like scrolling through Instagram. Indonesia has a really beautiful volcano. Because I feel like being in a volcano is like being in outer space, which is really nice, and there's a really nice lake. People say that at night, if you look at it, it feels like a miracle happens in your life, so I really want to go there, but until now because Indonesia is far from China, I haven't had the chance to go here," said Xing Zhaolin.
Even though Xing Zhaolin had not been in Indonesia for 24 hours at that time, he had time to try several typical Indonesian foods. Such as goat tongseng and emping which are provided by the restaurant where he is staying. He said that the food was very delicious.
"So actually I arrived in Indonesia less than 24 hours ago but I already tried a few, I just arrived last night, so I ate it, I described it as goat meat cooked with certain Indonesian spices (tongseng goat). Well, then there are those too, which are similar to potato crackers, but not potatoes (emping), then while I was eating it, I dipped it into the goat's tongseng seasoning, it was really delicious and very crunchy," he concluded.
"Then it's like there's soy sauce next to the rice. I thought it was the same as Chinese soy sauce but it turns out it's different, and the taste is delicious and I also just ate noodles this afternoon but it tastes similar to Thai tomyam, well I like it too, that's delicious, he continued.
Before coming to Indonesia, Xing Zhaolin had visited Korea. He accidentally met one of his fans from Indonesia who gave him a detailed list of foods and places he should visit when he came to Indonesia.
"Well, when I went to Korea, I also met an Indonesian fan, the Indonesian fan and his family went on a trip to Korea and they introduced me, then I was immediately greeted very friendly and polite, you know, and introduced me like I was at this place, introduce me to eating this and that, if you go to Indonesia you have to eat this and that, so it's like I still remember where I'm going to this day, because I'm the type of person who likes to eat," joked Xing Zhaolin.
Seeing this, the man born in Zhengzhou, China felt that Indonesian fans were very kind to him. Even when he arrived at Soekarno-Hatta Airport at that time, he did not expect that many fans would greet him so enthusiastically. It's not surprising that he admits that he really likes Indonesia.
"I also like to feel that the people in Indonesia are nice to me, just like yesterday when they sent me food, who I met at the airport, like everyone is friendly and nice, so I feel like I want to try other foods too. I really like Indonesia," he explained.
For Xing Zhaolin, fans are not only a group of people who admire him, but according to him fans are also the best motivation for him to create. Because of his love, Xing Zhaolin uploaded Instagram to be able to interact more closely with fans, especially those in Indonesia.
"I met a lot of fans, I didn't expect that my fans were so enthusiastic about welcoming me, and I usually use Weibo in China, I don't use Instagram, I'm also trying to explore Instagram, like how to use it, post, and I'm also thinking about the caption, I wanted to write in Indonesian like, 'how can I express my gratitude to the fans yesterday?', so yesterday I was like checking the translation so I finally used the caption thank you, and I posted yesterday we took a photo together, and it's like I want to express my gratitude," he added.
"And I think fans are also my motivation in my career and I also want me to be able to maintain my posture, eat less, so I can still look good in front of the fans," said Xing Zhaolin.
At the end of the interview, Xing Zhaolin expressed his gratitude to Indonesian fans who had given him lots of gifts, provided recommendations for places to travel, and food menus that he must try. He also hopes that in the future he can stay in Indonesia longer.
"So I am very grateful to the Indonesian fans since yesterday, many of whom have given me gifts like food and told me tips on where to travel, what to eat, very detailed and the food is one kind, so I think I am very touched by the Indonesian fans because there is only a limited duration. I'm working, I can only be in Indonesia for 3 days, so in the future I hope to go to Indonesia more often to meet fans in Indonesia," concluded Xing Zhaolin.