Walking on the streets of Sichuan, when hearing this sentence, people may have their heads filled with questions. How come the person playing Chairman Mao is actually a woman? What is even more unexpected is that it is a very honorable thing to play Chairman Mao. But in her later

"Hey, you little girl is playing Chairman Mao, wearing a skirt on your paws and walking on the street."

Walking on the streets of Sichuan, hearing this sentence may make people have questions in their heads. Why is the person playing Chairman Mao actually a woman? ?

As the main founder of our party, our army and New China, Chairman Mao will always be the focus of red classics.

The actors who are more familiar with Chairman Mao include Gu Yue , Tang Guoqiang , and Zhang Keyao . In addition to the three people mentioned above, the more famous ones include Wang Lixian, who succeeded Mr. Gu Yue after his death, sociology writer Ma Yufei, Li Kejian, who played Premier Zhou and Commander-in-Chief Zhu, and more than ten others. actor.

But what few people know is that there is an actress among them. Her name is Chen Yan.

What is even more unexpected is that it was a very honorable thing to play Chairman Mao, but she said in her later years:

Playing Chairman Mao made me very distressed.

What's going on?

Chairman Mao (played by Tang Guoqiang)

"You are a very interesting little girl"

Chen Yan was born in 1956 in an ordinary family in Mianyang, Sichuan.

As a child, Chen Yan’s appearance was nothing special, but as she grew older, she looked more and more like Chairman Mao. People often said to her, “You little girl looks very interesting.” Because she was still young, she couldn't understand it, and sometimes she would cry and make trouble because of the comments about her appearance by people around her.

On her way home that day, Chen Yan suddenly saw several neighbors talking to her again, as if they were talking about her appearance, but she didn't know what they were talking about.

The little girl was so proud that she thought he was laughing at her, so she ran home crying.

When her parents saw her crying, they quickly asked what was wrong, and Chen Yan told her parents about her neighbor's behavior. Unexpectedly, her parents laughed after hearing this, pointed to the portrait of Chairman Mao on the wall and said: Look in the mirror and see if you look like Chairman Mao...

That was the first time Chen Yan knew that she looked similar. President.

This surprised her. Chen Yan has been listening to Chairman Mao's stories since she was a child, and has become a "little fan" of Chairman Mao.

At this time, Chen Yan felt happy when she heard that she looked like Chairman Mao. But Chen Yan's mother was worried.

After all, I and my parents have all experienced the war years, and I know that most of the old people in the village are full of admiration and love for Chairman Mao. To say that a girl looks like Chairman Mao will probably be regarded as a form of disrespect. .

But then I thought, "It has been so many years since the founding of the People's Republic of China. It is our glory to look like Chairman Mao, so why do we need these unfounded worries?"

never thought that decades later, his parents’ worries would really become a reality. Although it was not because of Chairman Mao, it still made Chen Yan really distressed.

Idle Fu was at home and was brushed off, but it still became unexpectedly popular

0. Information dissemination was not developed in the 1970s. Therefore, Chen Yan did not become famous because she looked like Chairman Mao when she was young. Even Mianyang people from other counties I didn’t even know that there was a local woman who looked like Chairman Mao.

It was only because people from Chen Yan's hometown talked about her appearance as a topic of conversation after dinner when they went out that it attracted a few outsiders who came to take a "rare" look.

was surprised at first sight, but after a closer look, I can still see the differences, and Chen Yan's words have a strong Sichuan flavor, which is very different from the expected image of Chairman Mao, so I lost interest again.

In this way, Chen Yan spent more than ten years peacefully and got married at the age of eighteen or nineteen. She and her husband lived a farming life, working from day to day and living from day to day.

Later, her husband followed the wave of reform and opening up and went into business. The couple started a building materials business and lived a comfortable life. During

, when a partner occasionally came to Chen Yan's house to discuss business, he was surprised that she looked a bit like Chairman Mao, but Chen Yan was already used to it and didn't take it to heart.

Fate may be destined, or it may be an unexpected encounter.Chen Yan's peaceful life was broken when she was 50 years old.

In 2006, Chen Yan retired from the business world. Perhaps because she was too "free", she followed the old saying, "When people are free, they will have random thoughts."

In September of that year, Chen Yan was watching TV at home. When she changed the channel to Southeast TV 's popular talent show "Happy Star Face", she looked at the various imitation shows in the program and recalled so many years. Come on, many people say she looks like Chairman Mao.

At this time, she suddenly realized that she was idle anyway. Chairman Mao and I looked so similar, why didn't she go and give it a try? It didn't matter whether she was chosen or not, it was better than staying at home.

So, Chen Yan carefully "dressed up" and signed up to participate in "Happy Star Face". The program team was a little surprised when they saw her for the first time, so they arranged for her to imitate Chairman Mao. But the result surprised the program team.

Chen Yan has neither acting experience nor professional training, nor has she experienced the discovery of "talent scouts". She only imitated "appearance but no form", so she was quickly eliminated by the program team.

Although Chen Yan didn't take this imitation show seriously at all, she still felt a lot of frustration when she unfortunately lost the competition. But she didn't expect that she would become famous after losing the election.

When Chen Yan returned to her hometown, she realized that people around her had watched her show and were deeply impressed by her.

People in the village believed that having a "celebrity" would benefit their hometown, so they thought of recommending her to some local media companies, hoping to make their hometown popular through the celebrity effect.

was eliminated on the TV station, but unexpectedly became popular in his hometown of Mianyang, which Chen Yan did not expect. But the development of things later was somewhat counterproductive.

Chen Yan plays Chairman Mao. Firstly, it is very difficult to perform a reverse role. Secondly, not to mention teacher Tang Guoqiang, she can't even catch up with the special actor Wang Kuo who plays Chairman Mao who is one year younger than her. Many crews are not Chen Yan didn't buy it, which made Chen Yan hit a wall again.

At this time, someone suddenly suggested that she could go to commercial performances. Chen Yan was already over fifty years old at this time and didn't know much about commercial acting. She just thought it would satisfy her desire to play Chairman Mao, so she agreed.

But she didn't know at this time that this might not be a good thing for her.

She was not tall enough, so she used shoes to make up for it.

Chen Yan had a spirit of refusing to admit defeat when she was young. Although she was middle-aged, she faced many failures in interpretation, which made her more and more courageous.

Chen Yan encouraged herself that since she has chosen, she must continue on the path of being a special actor.

But it was unexpected. As soon as Chen Yan took the first step on the road to commercial performance, he encountered a big problem.

Chen Yan is a woman after all, and men and women are still different.

First of all, height is a major obstacle. Chen Yan herself is only 1.56 meters tall, while Chairman Mao is 1.83 meters tall. The gap of nearly 30 centimeters is like a natural chasm.

If a person who is only 1.56 meters tall plays Chairman Mao, he is much shorter than the staff next to him, and the audience will not accept it anyway.

In 2007, when she was invited to attend a local real estate business show, some people saw that Chen Yan was very different from Chairman Mao in height and her temperament was not as good as expected, so they yelled at her and scolded her not to use Chairman Mao to hype her up.

Chen Yan realized that it was urgent to solve the height problem.

Therefore, Chen Yan specially ordered a pair of shoes that were nearly 30 centimeters tall from a local clothing factory. She planned to wear these shoes to play Chairman Mao, but this also indicated that Chen Yan had to work harder than ordinary people.

She was already over 50 years old at the time and was no longer young. She wore these dozen kilograms of shoes on her feet every day and could not stand firmly, let alone walk.

But she still gritted her teeth and persisted. During the practice, she developed blisters, which later even fester and bleed. Chen Yan had no choice but to put a bandage on her feet.

Fortunately, Huangtian paid off. Not only did she make up for her lack of height, but through practice, she even developed a pace similar to that of a great man.

But at this time, she suddenly realized another problem.

As we all know, Chairman Mao is not very fat, but his height is there. Moreover, Chairman Mao exercises regularly and has a relatively strong body.

Chen Yan is small and thin, so when she put on the height-increasing shoes , she realized that she was too thin for the role of "Chairman Mao". Even if he looks like Chairman Mao, he still can't make up for the huge difference in body shape.

In order to look more like Chairman Mao in appearance, Chen Yan overate and gained fifty pounds. After wearing height-increasing shoes, she finally looked closer to Chairman Mao in appearance.

But at this time, the problem came again.

Although her body shape is similar to Chairman Mao, she looks fat, not as muscular as Chairman Mao.

At Chen Yan’s current age, it is simply unrealistic to impose any further training.

She had no choice but to hire a professional makeup artist to decorate her, just to make sure that everything was exactly the same in terms of appearance, hairstyle, eyebrows, and even Chairman Mao's signature "mole."

puts on Chinese tunic suit , holds a cigarette in his hand, combs his hair with a big back, and stands there. He really looks like Chairman Mao in his middle age, and it is difficult to tell that this is played by a woman, which also makes Chen Yan is more confident when performing.

In the following three years, Chen Yan really verified the saying of "living on one's face". She received numerous commercial performances and was recognized by audiences all over Sichuan. She performed in many places in the southwest, and the appearance fee was even as high as five yuan. number of digits.

Later, CCTV's "Very 6+1" and Hunan TV's " Happy Camp " also offered her "olive branches" and wanted Chen Yan's video materials.

But unfortunately, the program team's information was also obtained, and Chen Yan was interviewed by them, but still no director approached her. So far, she has not been able to play Chairman Mao in a TV series or movie (Chen Yan later relied on hard work and With outstanding acting skills, she participated in "Who Has Pity for the Mother in the World" and "The Family is Happy"...but she never played her most beloved Chairman Mao), and can only leave traces of a special actor among the people. It was already a big blow that

did not appear on the screen. His popularity and success among the people did not gain the understanding of his family, and even caused endless troubles to his family.

Chen Yan’s works

Her husband dare not sleep with her

Since Chen Yan became famous, she has also attracted the jealousy of many people. Some people have “attacked” her, thinking that the counter-partiality performance is hype, and some even say that she “wants money” It’s crazy to think that you are making money under the banner of Chairman Mao.”

These negative public opinions put Chen Yan and her family in pain, and also caused Chen Yan's family relationship to fall into a freezing point. It cannot but be said that being a "celebrity" is not that easy.

"My family is opposed to my cross-dressing performance. It may not only be due to concerns about my health, but also the negative publicity brought about by the cross-dressing performance has put pressure on the family..."

The artistic path of a special actor is already bumpy. Ups and downs, playing the same role for many years limits the character's future and development, and the bottleneck is obvious. For special actors, this kind of pain and psychological fatigue is often unimaginable by ordinary people.

And that's not the point.

Chen Yan knows that she started late, and she is still a woman. If she wants to act better than others, she has to work harder.

Therefore, for the sake of the role, she integrated every move and attitude of Chairman Mao into her daily life. She unconsciously showed the attitude of a great man in her life and conversations. Her family even thought that she was "obsessed" in her acting. , which makes people feel very unnatural.

"She often walks around the house in Chairman Mao's disguise, smoking cigarettes, and unconsciously showing the attitude of a great man in her behavior and speech."

In the opinion of Chen Yan’s husband, Chen Yan looked too much like Chairman Mao after being “dressed up” and could not communicate with her normally.

Sometimes the performance time is tight, and Chen Yan goes to bed without taking off her makeup. Chen Yan's husband also respected and admired Chairman Mao very much, which made it difficult for him to accept sleeping with the "great man".

Moreover, the controversy caused by women playing great men is difficult for her husband to face. Even Chen Yan's children feel that doing so is a burden on the family.

The last straw that broke the camel’s back didn’t come from family members.

As Chen Yan is well known, after performing for a plastic surgery agency, Chen Yan once put on a skirt and went home with her family. She was stopped by a passerby and accused, "Why are you wearing a skirt when you play Chairman Mao? You are not trying to discredit Chairman Mao. ”

This made her very embarrassed and she could only leave in a hurry. Chen Yan blamed herself for this. She even believed that she had a bad influence on Chairman Mao.

In the end, Chen Yan followed the advice of his family, gradually faded out of people's sight, and gave up his career as a special actor. This also greatly eased the relationship between Chen Yan and his family, and the couple slowly reconciled. .

However, Chen Yan's performance as Chairman Mao still increased the popularity of his hometown. It was also reported by newspapers from other provinces such as "Jianghuai Morning News" and Internet media. It also made everyone feel proud that their hometown had such an outstanding actor like Chen Yan.

Moreover, it is the first time for a woman to act as a special actor in the role of a great man. It is also a novelty that has never been done before or will be followed by others.

She doesn’t just look like Chairman Mao.

Chen Yan and Chairman Mao look alike. It’s not just a matter of a day or two. But in the early years, she never thought about making money based on her appearance. Instead, she made money in business based on her ability.

Moreover, Chen Yan has already realized that she has no worries about food and clothing. She often participates in voluntary performances without any payment.

Chen Yan comes from an ordinary family, and her parents and ancestors have all experienced oppression and exploitation in the old era. Therefore, Chen Yan understands that Chairman Mao led their family to turn over, and she has had a feeling of reverence since she was a child.

If it is true that she relies on "Chairman Mao's" hype to make money as some people say, then why did she choose to quit when it was just getting a bit popular?

As a reporter once asked Chen Yan: "If you were asked to choose again, would you still choose to play the role of Chairman Mao as a special actor?"

Chen Yan's answer was very simple but also very thought-provoking: "On the screen It is my wish to perform Chairman Mao once, otherwise what would be the point of all this trouble. But looking back, it is actually good to follow the advice of my family. After all, it is difficult to have the best of both worlds in many things."

At the age of 50, it is really admirable that a person can still work as hard as he did when he was young for a dream. And only she herself knows the hardships she has endured.

Some people say that Chen Yan looks very similar to Chairman Mao, but the author feels that Chen Yan is more similar to Chairman Mao, precisely because of his resilience.