曹操：我在中国影视剧中扮演外国人

Every foreigner living in China has his share of China Stories. Jonathan Kos-Read has more than his share. Here’s one: Not long ago, the 43-year-old American actor received a call with an offer to appear in “Ip Man 3,” the third in a series of biopics about Bruce Lee’s martial-arts master. The role was small, but his agent negotiated what Kos-Read considered an “outrageous” amount of money for it, and the producers agreed. Kos-Read was thrilled until he read the script and noticed another part for a foreign actor — a bigger and better role as a mobster named Frank.

每一个在中国生活的外国人，都有自己的“中国故事”。乔纳森·科斯-瑞德(Jonathan Kos-Read)的这种故事比常人更多。其中一个是：不久前，这位现年43岁的美国演员接到一个电话，希望他参演《叶问3》。这个系列是关于李小龙的师父叶问的传记片。角色很小，但他的经纪人给他谈了一个在他看来高得“令人发指”的报酬，制片方同意了。科斯非常激动，直到读了剧本后，发现剧中还有一个需要外国演员出演的角色——一个更大更好的角色，是一个名叫弗兰克的黑帮人物。

This was troubling. Kos-Read, who is known in China only as Cao Cao, is by far the leading foreign actor working in the country today, having appeared in about 100 movies and television programs since his career began in 1999. He is famous throughout the mainland, and his career has been on a steady upward trajectory. Last December he appeared in the action film “Mojin — The Lost Legend,” currently the fifth-highest-grossing movie in Chinese history. Who, Kos-Read wondered, would the producers have cast instead of him?

这有点让人烦。科斯-瑞德在中国的名字叫“曹操”，自1999年开始当演员以来，他已经出演了大约100部影视作品，如今他是中国数一数二的外国演员。他在中国大陆是名人，演艺生涯稳步上升。去年12月，他出现在动作片《寻龙诀》中，那是中国迄今为止历史票房第五高的电影。科斯-瑞德想知道，导演不找他演这个弗兰克，那会找谁呢?

Kos-Read sent panicked texts to the movie’s casting director, but they went unanswered. “I felt threatened,” he told me recently, only half kidding. A few days later, he boarded a plane from Beijing to Shanghai to begin filming. When he showed up to the set, the mystery was solved almost immediately: There, slouching on a stool surrounded by a scrum of people, was the former heavyweight champion of the world Mike Tyson. The retired fighter had been cast, perhaps misguidedly, as Frank. (The Village Voice later described Tyson’s performance in the film as “sadly unimpressive.”) Kos-Read introduced himself and over the next three days developed a bond with Tyson. “He was not at all what I expected,” Kos-Read says. The pair discussed their young daughters, Montessori schools and, inevitably, boxing. They also spoke about self-reinvention, something each man knows quite a bit about.

科斯-瑞德在焦虑不安中给这部影片的选角导演发了一些短信，但没有收到回复。“我当时感觉受到了威胁，”不久前，他半真半假地对我说道。几天后，他登上从北京飞往上海的班机，前去拍摄。到达片场之后，这个谜底几乎立刻就解开了：前重量级拳王迈克·泰森(Mike Tyson)无精打采地坐在凳子上，旁边乱哄哄地围着一圈人。这名退役拳击选手被选中——或许是受误导——接演弗兰克这个角色。(《村声》[The Village Voice]杂志后来说泰森在这部影片中的表演“令人遗憾地平庸”。)科斯-瑞德做了自我介绍，在接下来的三天里，他和泰森走得很近。“他跟我之前想的完全不一样，”科斯-瑞德说。两人谈论自己年幼的女儿、蒙特梭利学校，以及必然少不了的拳击。他们也说到重塑自我，这东西好像每个男人都很懂。

“Ip Man 3” went on to gross $115 million at the box office in China, with more than half of that coming on the opening weekend. China’s booming movie market grew by nearly 50 percent last year and is expected to surpass North America’s as the largest in the world by next year. These days, Hollywood studios hardly greenlight a blockbuster without first asking, “How will this play in China?” The rewards are too vast. “Furious 7,” for example, earned $390 million in China — more than it made in the United States — and was for a time the highest-grossing film ever in the country.

《叶问3》在中国的票房总收入达到1.15亿美元，多半来自上映的那个周末。中国繁荣的电影市场去年增长了近50%，明年有望超过北美成为世界上最大的电影市场。如今，好莱坞的电影公司在大片开拍之前都要先问“它在中国会有怎样的表现”，不然不会绿灯放行。回报太丰厚了。比如，《速度与激情7》(Furious 7)在中国赚了3.9亿美元，高于它在美国的票房，一度成为中国史上票房最高的影片。

And just as Hollywood has begun to crack the market, Chinese cinema has come into its own. In recent years, Chinese studios have started shifting away from the agitprop that defined their cinematic output for generations and are instead focusing on genres that draw viewers to theaters in any country: action, adventure, comedy. In February, a sci-fi comedy called “The Mermaid” became the highest-grossing movie ever in China within 12 days of its release, earning more than $430 million. Increasingly, Chinese cinemagoers are opting to buy tickets for movies made specifically for them — like those in the “Ip Man” series — not those that pander to them or lecture them. It is in this sort of film that Kos-Read has finally had the chance to act, rather than portray a stand-in for Western imperiousness. If the Hollywood studios really want to understand how to succeed in China, Kos-Read’s journey makes for a kind of accidental guide.

就在好莱坞开始打开这个市场之时，中国电影也开始繁荣起来。近些年，中国的电影公司开始从宣传鼓动类影片(这类片子曾主导数代中国影坛)转向在任何一个国家都能吸引观众的类型：动作片、冒险片和喜剧片。今年2月，科幻喜剧片《美人鱼》(The Mermaid)在上映12天后成为中国历史票房最高的影片，超过4.3亿美元。越来越多的中国观众选择去电影院购票观看专门为他们制作的电影，比如《叶问》系列，而不是那些一味讨好或教育他们的影片。在这种影片中，科斯-瑞德终于有机会去表演，而不是作为西方专横霸道形象的替代品。如果好莱坞的电影公司真的想知道如何在中国取得成功，那么科斯-瑞德的经历意外地成了一种指南。

In January, I met Kos-Read at Beijing Capital International Airport to accompany him on a trip to Yiwu, a trading city in Zhejiang Province, 165 miles from Shanghai. From there we would take a van to Hengdian World Studios, the biggest back lot in the world, where he was filming a new TV series.

今年1月，我在北京首都国际机场与科斯-瑞德碰头，跟他一起去义乌。义乌是浙江省的一个贸易城市，距离上海165英里。我们从那里坐车去横店影视城，这是世界上最大的露天片场，他在那里拍摄一部新电视剧。

Kos-Read was tired. He had flown in a few days before from the Bay Area, where his wife and two young daughters live; the actor now splits time between the United States and China, which he has called home for almost two decades. Kos-Read has wavy brown hair, a thick beard streaked with gray and the kind of broad face that looks good on camera. He curses a lot and often wears a look of deep contemplation that borders on exasperation. As we boarded the plane for our 10:30 p.m. flight, he sported a huge calf-length black parka, which he wears on set — Chinese sets are notoriously frigid in the wintertime — and carried a heavy backpack filled mostly with equipment for photography, a personal hobby. The airplane was only half full. Kos-Read lumbered through the center aisle until he reached the last row, where he heaved his backpack onto a seat and plopped down into another as if he were claiming a spot on a long-distance bus.

科斯-瑞德显得很疲惫。几天前他刚从旧金山湾区飞到中国，他的妻子和两个年幼的女儿住在那里。这位演员现在在美中之间来回跑，他以中国为家已有近20年时间。科斯-瑞德有着卷曲的棕色头发，夹杂着灰须的浓密胡子，以及一张上镜的宽脸。他爱说脏话，经常露出一副陷入深思、近乎恼怒的神情。晚上10点半我们登机时，他穿着一件长及腿肚的黑色冲锋衣，在片场他就穿这个——中国的片场在冬天特别寒冷——背着一个沉重的双肩包，里面主要装着摄影器材，那是他的个人爱好。飞机上只坐了一半人。科斯-瑞德吃力地沿着中间的通道走到最后一排，把背包扔到一个座位上，然后重重地坐到另一个座位上，仿佛是在长途汽车上抢座。

During the two-hour flight, Kos-Read drank a few cans of Yanjing Beer and discussed his role in last year’s “Mojin.” In the film, he plays a lawyer to a cult leader. After the first act, he turns into a zombie. It was by far the biggest project of his career, with by far the biggest stars, and it increased his already-formidable exposure in China by degrees of magnitude. On our plane, a flight attendant recognized him from the film. (In California, by contrast, he is basically anonymous outside of Chinatowns.) Kos-Read was happy for the opportunity to appear in such a large movie but was disappointed with his performance, which he believes was adequate but not excellent. “In a lot of TV shows, you just have to spit out the lines, really. But in a big movie, you’ve really got to be good,” he told me. “In my first big movie, I stepped up into the big leagues and hit a single.”

在两小时的飞行中，科斯-瑞德喝了几罐燕京啤酒，谈起他在去年上映的影片《寻龙诀》中的角色。他在片中饰演一位邪教领袖的律师。在第一幕之后，他变成了僵尸。到目前为止，那部电影是他职业生涯中最大的项目，合作的明星也是最大牌的。从量级上说，那部影片提高了他在中国本就很高的知名度。飞机上的一位乘务员认出了他，知道他参演了那部影片(相比之下，在加利福尼亚州，几乎没人认识他——除了在唐人街)。科斯-瑞德很高兴有机会参演这样一部大片，不过他对自己的表演感到失望，他认为自己的表演差强人意，算不上精彩。“在很多电视剧中，你真的只用说台词就好了。但是在一部大片中，你真的得很棒才行，”他对我说道。“我第一次参演大片，就进入了大联盟，而且还打出了一垒打。”

Still, acting in one of the biggest Chinese blockbusters of all time is a long way from where Kos-Read began. Raised in Torrance, Calif., he attended an arts high school, where he got interested in acting. He went on to study film and molecular biology at New York University. There, he took a Mandarin course and became determined to master the language. He moved to Beijing in 1997 and drifted, living for a period in a student dorm and forcing himself to speak nothing but Mandarin for a three-month stretch. “Like everybody else, I arrived and bummed around for two years, not knowing what I was going to do, trying to do a bunch of things, failing,” he says. “Teaching English.”

不过，科斯-瑞德熬了很长时间，才得以参演中国最重要的一部大片。他在加州托兰斯长大，上的是艺术高中，他在那里迷上了表演。后来他在纽约大学(New York University)学习电影和分子生物学。他还选修了中文，并且下定决心掌握这门语言。1997年他搬到北京，开始漂泊，有一段时间住在学生宿舍里，有三个月时间强迫自己只说中文。“和其他人一样，我来了后闲混了两年，不知道自己要干什么，做过许多尝试，全都失败了，”他说道。“还教过英语。”

Not long after he arrived, he began dating a Chinese woman named Li Zhiyin, a finance major in college who later became his wife. On one of their early dates, he picked up an English-language listings magazine and saw an ad seeking a foreign actor for a Chinese movie. Kos-Read had never lost his love for performing, and he thought it could be fun to act in China. He auditioned and got the part, which was supposed to pay the equivalent of about $400 for three months of work. In the movie, called “Mei Shi Zhao Shi” (“Looking for Trouble”), Kos-Read plays an American documentary filmmaker following around a group of disillusioned bohemians. He says it took the producers two years to pay him. But two weeks after the movie wrapped, he landed three months of work on a Chinese soap opera.

到中国之后不久，他开始跟一个叫李之茵的中国女人约会，当时她在大学里学金融，后来成了他的妻子。在他们刚开始约会时，有一次他随手拿起一本以英文出版的活动信息类杂志，看到一则某中国电影寻找外国演员的广告。科斯-瑞德从未失去对表演的热爱，他觉得在中国表演应该挺有趣的。他去面试，得到了那个角色，三个月的报酬大约是400美元。那部电影名叫《没事找事》，科斯-瑞德在片中饰演一名美国纪录片导演，跟拍一群幻想破灭的放荡不羁的文化人。他说，制片方两年后才给他报酬。不过，那部电影杀青两周后，他在一部中国的连续剧中得到一份三个月的工作。

There were only a handful of foreign actors working in China at the time, and Kos-Read quickly realized he offered filmmakers there a rare combination of traits. He spoke good Mandarin, was a decent actor and had a look that many Chinese consider typically “American”: six feet tall, square jaw, blue eyes. He was able to make a living in the industry, but his early roles weren’t great. At that stage of his career, most filmmakers still had limited exposure to foreigners and foreign cultures, and his early parts tended to reflect Chinese stereotypes of Westerners. He rarely played bad guys, because there are very few American villains in Chinese movies (those roles tend to go to the woeful cohort of Japanese actors working in China). Instead, Kos-Read was often typecast as a “dumb guy,” he says. Most frequently, he was an arrogant foreign businessman who falls for a local beauty, only to be spurned as she inevitably makes the virtuous choice to stay with her Chinese suitor. Sometimes he played the foreign friend whose presence onscreen is intended to make the main character seem more worldly; Kos-Read dubbed another stock character “the fool,” an arrogant Westerner whose disdain for China is, by the end of the movie, transformed into admiration.

当时，中国只有少量外国演员，科斯-瑞德很快意识到，对片方来说，难得的是他身上结合了好几种品质。他普通话说得很好，演得也不错，长相符合很多中国人心目中典型美国人的样子：六英尺高，方下巴，蓝眼睛。他能以这个行业为生，但早期的角色都不太好。在他事业的那个阶段，大部分中国电影制作人对外国人和外国文化的了解依然很有限，他早期的角色往往反映出中国人对西方人的刻板印象。他很少演坏人，因为在中国电影中美国人很少是坏人(坏人大多是由一群在中国工作的悲催的日本演员来演)。相反，科斯-瑞德经常饰演“傻乎乎的家伙”(他的原话)。他最常演的是爱上中国美女的傲慢的外国商人，但最后都是被甩，因为女方必然会做出正义的选择，与中国的求婚者在一起。有时他饰演主角的外国朋友，他的出现只是为了让主角显得更高大上;科斯-瑞德还饰演另一个老套的角色，他称之为“傻子”，也就是傲慢的西方人，到影片末尾，这个角色对中国的鄙视会转化为敬佩。

When he was studying Mandarin at N.Y.U., Kos-Read adopted a Chinese moniker, as many language students do. He took his, Cao Cao, from a historical general who is also a central character in one of the country’s most revered classical novels, “Romance of the Three Kingdoms.” Like a Chinese King Arthur or Davy Crockett, the original Cao Cao exists in fact and fiction and in between. Kos-Read chose the name because it was easy to remember and because he liked that Cao Cao was a wise, self-reliant man. Years later, the decision would prove wise indeed. To his Chinese audience, it showed that the American, despite his loutish onscreen personae, took an interest in their history and culture.

科斯-瑞德在纽约大学学中文时给自己起了个中文名字，很多学外语的学生都这样做。曹操这个名字来自中国历史上的一位军事家，他也是中国很受推崇的古典小说《三国演义》里的一个中心人物。和亚瑟王(King Arthur)或戴维·克罗克特(Davy Crockett)一样，曹操既存在于现实中，也存在于小说中，以至于关于他的现实和虚构交织在了一起，难以分清。科斯-瑞德选择这个名字是因为它很好记，而且他喜欢曹操的聪明和自立。这个决定在多年后会被证明相当明智。在中国观众看来，它表明，这个美国人虽然在电影电视中饰演愚钝的角色，但他对中国的历史和文化感兴趣。

Kos-Read acted in film and television for almost a decade before he truly found fame. Before the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, he landed his own segment on a Chinese news program called “Sunday.” Dubbed “Cao Cao Lai Le” (“Here Comes Cao Cao”), the weekly reality bit was designed to help increase the show’s ratings and give it a more international flavor by allowing Chinese viewers to experience their country anew through a foreigner’s eyes. The segment eventually devolved into Kos-Read more or less being goofy in front of the camera and enlisting Chinese people to cut loose with him. In one episode, for example, he trains to be a Hooters girl. (In China, the chain is known as “American Owl Restaurant.”) The show was enormously popular, and soon Kos-Read was being recognized on the street. “One of the reasons I liked ‘Cao Cao Lai Le’ — it was me,” he says. “Instead of playing stupid stereotypes on TV and in movies, I could go out and be me. It’s my personal prejudice that I’m more interesting than the characters I play.”

科斯-瑞德演了近10年的电影和电视剧后才真正成名。在2008年北京奥运会前，他在一档名为《第七日》的中文新闻节目中有了自己的节目环节，叫《曹操来了》。这是一个真人秀节目，每周一期，设计的目的是帮助提升栏目的收视率，并用让中国观众通过一个外国人的眼睛重新感受自己的国家这种方式，来让节目更国际化。这个节目最后退化成了科斯-瑞德或多或少地在镜头前举止滑稽愚蠢，请中国人和他一起放开束缚。比如，在其中一集中，他接受了在Hooters当女服务员的培训。(在中国，该连锁被叫做“美国猫头鹰餐厅”。)该节目大受欢迎。很快，便有路人会认出科斯-瑞德。“我喜欢《曹操来了》的原因之一是，那就是我，”他说。“不是在电视和电影里扮演那些愚蠢的模式化角色，我能做我自己。我个人认为，我比我演的那些角色更有趣。”

In 2009, Kos-Read began writing a column called “Token White Guy” for an expat publication, Talk Magazine, in which he chronicled his on- and off-screen adventures. He wrote about the time an acquaintance enlisted him to act in an ad campaign, Kos-Read’s first. His friend told him the product was “some sort of medicine.” Then, Kos-Read showed up on set and read his line, which was written in English: “Do you want to be thicker, longer and harder? Then be like Cao Cao and use Strong Balls Hormone.” (He dropped the ad.) He wrote about the time he was cast to play an English Jew who falls in love with a prostitute and, riddled with guilt, drops to his knees and prays for forgiveness — from Jesus. And the time a Chinese magazine wrote a multi­page, entirely fictitious profile of him, and then emailed him a copy.

2009年，科斯-瑞德开始为一本面向外籍人士的刊物Talk Magazine撰写一个名为“Token White Guy”的专栏。在专栏里，他记述了自己在屏幕内外的生活。他写到了一个熟人请他拍广告的经历。那是他的第一支广告。他那个朋友告诉他，产品是“某种药物”。然后，科斯-瑞德便出现在拍摄现场，阅读自己的台词。台词是用英文写的：“想更粗、更长、更硬吗?那就像曹操一样，使用壮阳激素吧。”(他放弃了那个广告。)他还记述了自己被选中扮演英国的一个犹太人的故事。那个犹太人爱上了一个妓女，充满罪恶感的他跪着祈求饶恕，而对象居然是耶稣。还有一次，一本中文杂志写了一篇介绍他的文章，还通过电子邮件给他发送了样刊。文章洋洋洒洒好几页，但全部都是杜撰的。

“Cao Cao Lai Le” ran for about three years before the struggling “Sunday” dropped it (“Sunday” soon went off the air as well), but it led to better roles in film and TV and a long line of travel-show hosting gigs, which took him to virtually every region of China — from the deserts of the west to the grasslands of the north to the hilly metropolis of Chongqing.

《曹操来了》播出了大约三年，后被处境艰难的《第七日》砍掉(很快，《第七日》也停播了)，但它让科斯-瑞德获得了更好的电影和电视角色，和一长串的旅游节目主持工作。因为这些工作，他几乎去到了中国每一个地区——从西部的沙漠到北部的草原，再到山城重庆。

Hengdian World Studios is sprawling and surreal, covering 8,000 acres and featuring a one-to-one scale model of Beijing’s Forbidden City. “You walk around, and you can’t tell the difference,” Kos-Read told me as we drove past the complex on the way to the set the next morning. Around the lot, different shows were being filmed. Tourists are allowed on set for 199 yuan ($30) per person, and groups of them were huddled around as filming took place. It offered a considerably different experience from the one you might encounter at a Universal Studios theme park. “Instead of ‘Jaws,’ it’s, like, killing Japanese or hanging out with the emperor’s concubines,” Kos-Read said.

横店影视城是个庞大而离奇的地方，占地8000英亩，其中一比一原样复制的北京故宫是主要建筑。第二天早上开车去拍摄现场的路上，我们正好经过那里。科斯-瑞德对我说，“你可以四处走走，根本看不出区别。”在那附近有几部戏正在拍摄。游客每人花199元便可进入片场。拍摄过程中，现场围聚了一群又一群的游客。这里给人的体验，和在环球影城(Universal Studios)主题公园是有很大不同的。“不是像《大白鲨》(Jaws)那样的惊悚电影，而是杀日本人，或是和皇帝的妃嫔消磨时间，”科斯-瑞德说。

China’s film industry has long been focused on propaganda-laden historical epics, hence the need for a full-size Forbidden City replica. Even as China became a global superpower in the late 20th century, big-budget Chinese movies were, by and large, treacly, patriotic fare. And though tastes were shifting, the studios used their connections with the government to ensure their own films succeeded. In 2010, for example, the behemoth state-owned studio and distributor China Film Group pulled “Avatar” from 1,628 screens and replaced it with its own film, a Confucius biopic starring Chow Yun Fat.

中国电影业长期以充满宣传意味的历史剧为主，也因此才需要原样复制故宫。即便20世纪末中国已成为全球性的超级大国，大制作的中国影片总体上依然是令人腻烦的爱国主义作品。并且尽管观众的口味在不断变化，影视公司仍能利用与政府的关系，确保自己的影片成功。比如2010年，国有的影视制作和发行巨头中国电影集团将《阿凡达》(Avatar)从1628块银幕上撤下，换上了自己的电影——一部讲述孔子生平的传记片，由周润发主演。

These days, movies and television shows are still often historical in nature, but they’re less overtly nationalistic and more focused on pure entertainment. Kos-Read was in Hengdian to film a period show with the English title “Knight’s Glove.” In it, he plays the British ambassador to China, a close friend of the Chinese lead. The story surrounds a search for a lost treasure, and on this day the crew was filming the pair’s reunion after years spent apart. The scene was filmed at the entrance to a building made to look like the British Embassy. Cheap-looking plastic Union Jacks fluttered outside in the breeze. Inside, the building was numbingly cold, as Kos-Read had warned; there was no insulation or heating. Russian extras in wool military outfits carried fake rifles and shuffled from side to side trying to keep warm. In between shots, Kos-Read donned his parka and applied heating pads called Nuan Baobao (“Warm Little Buddies”) to his stomach, lower back and feet. There was no coffee or tea; at one point some cast and crew members were handed plastic cups of warm water.

如今，影视作品相当一部分仍然是历史剧的性质，但它们不再那么公开地宣扬民族主义，更注重纯粹的娱乐。接受采访时，科斯-瑞德正在横店拍摄一部英文名为《Knight’s Glove》的古装剧。在剧中，他扮演英国驻华大使，是中国主角的挚友。故事围绕寻找丢失的宝物展开。这一天，工作人员拍摄的是两人分别多年后的重逢。拍摄是在一栋做成英国大使馆模样的建筑门前进行的。屋外，看上去很廉价的塑料英国国旗在微风中飘扬。屋子里面，正如科斯-瑞德警告过的那样，冷得刺骨。房子没有做隔热层，也没有取暖设施。穿着羊毛军大衣的俄罗斯临时演员挎着假枪，正来回踱步取暖。拍摄间隙，科斯-瑞德穿上自己的冲锋衣，在腰、腹和脚上贴上一种叫“暖宝宝”的加热贴。现场没有咖啡或茶，有人一度给一些演员和工作人员递上了用塑料杯子装的热水。

Because the Chinese government allows only 34 foreign movies to enter the market per year, and the officials’ criteria for selection are mysterious, many American studios have sought to lessen the uncertainty by co-producing films with Chinese firms, thereby sidestepping the import rules (which apply only when a movie’s producers want a share of the box-office receipts, which is to say they apply, effectively, to all major Hollywood films). And yet few co-productions have achieved anything resembling commercial or critical success. Not only have studios struggled to find ways to appeal to both audiences, they’ve also struggled to work well together on set. This is at least in part because of the collision of two vastly different moviemaking cultures. Whereas Hollywood film sets have rather rigid, union-determined rules, Chinese sets are decidedly unsystematic, ad hoc, fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants operations. (I once reported on a film whose special-effects guy was also in charge of payroll.) On this set, there were dozens of people, mostly young men, standing around in the cold who didn’t seem to have any job at all. It’s exactly these sorts of differences that have made Chinese-American co-productions so difficult, and those problems follow them to the box office.

由于中国政府一年只允许34部外国电影进入中国市场，并且官方的挑选标准又很神秘，很多美国电影制作公司都试图通过与中国公司合作拍片的方式，来降低不确定性。这么做可以避开进口规定(只适用于电影的制作方想要参与票房收入分成的情况，也就是它们实际上适用于所有好莱坞大片)。但鲜有合拍片称得上在商业或口碑上取得了成功。合作的电影制作公司不仅难以找到能同时取悦中外观众的途径，也难以在片场很好地合作。这在一定程度上是因为两种截然不同的电影制作文化之间的冲突。好莱坞电影的片场有着相当严格的、由工会决定的规则，中国的片场采取的显然是杂乱无章、即兴发挥、跟着感觉走的运作。(我曾经报道过一部电影，它的特效工作人员同时负责工资发放。)在这部影片的拍摄现场有几十人，大部分都是年轻男性。在寒冷的天气里，他们就站在四周，似乎根本无事可做。正是这些差异导致中美合作拍片难度很大，这些问题还一直延伸到了票房上。

Hollywood can also stack the deck somewhat by pandering to Chinese audiences, but that comes at a cost: It grants enormous leverage to the Communist Party over how China is portrayed. Chinese censors have forced studios to cut scenes that they believed made China look weak. A 2015 report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission offered an enlightening selection of anecdotes: In “Skyfall,” Chinese audiences never saw James Bond kill a Chinese security guard, as he does in the original edit; in “Mission: Impossible III,” censors cut a scene shot in Shanghai that showed garments drying on a clothesline; “Men in Black 3” had a scene removed that showed secret agents using a memory-erasing tool, leading some to speculate that the censors didn’t want to invite the allusion to censorship.

好莱坞也会因为想要迎合中国观众，去耍一些伎俩，但这是要付出代价的：在如何描绘中国上允许共产党拥有很大的发言权。中国的审查者会逼迫电影制作公司删减一些场景。他们认为那些场景有损中国的形象。美中经济安全审查委员会(U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission)2015年的一份报告挑选了一些有启发性的轶事：在《007：大破天幕杀机》(Skyfall)中，中国观众从未看到原版中詹姆斯·邦德(James Bond)杀死一名中国保安的场景;在《碟中谍3》(Mission: Impossible III)中，审查人员删除了在上海拍摄的一个晾衣绳上挂满衣服的镜头;《黑衣人3》(Men in Black 3)中特工使用记忆消除工具的镜头也被剪掉了，此举促使一些人猜测，审查者是不希望让人联想到审查制。

Often censors don’t even have to get involved, as studios have begun self-censoring their films to avoid the hassle. “Red Dawn” is perhaps the most infamous case. The 1984 original is about a guerrilla uprising against a Soviet invasion of America; in the 2012 remake, screenwriters updated the movie by casting China as the aggressor. MGM executives realized their error too late, and unwilling to risk offending the censors, they reportedly spent around $1 million in postproduction recasting North Korea as the invader.

通常审查机构甚至不用参与，因为电影制作公司已经开始对影片进行自我审查，以避免麻烦。《赤色黎明》(Red Dawn)或许是最有名的例子。1984年上映的老版讲述的是一场反抗苏联入侵美国的游击起义。2012年翻拍时，编剧更新了剧情，把侵略者的角色改成了中国。米高梅电影公司(MGM)的高管意识到错误时已经太晚了，不愿冒险触怒中国审查者的他们据说在后期制作中花了大约100万美元，把入侵者改成了朝鲜。

Despite the breadth of roles he has played in China, Kos-Read is passed over for most co-productions. Hollywood producers want to bring in their own talent, he says. And once, Chinese producers told him that because of the ubiquity with which he appears in Chinese cinema and television, he would make their production seem too local. He has acted in only two East-West movies: a deep-sea epic funded by a Chinese billionaire with a predominantly foreign cast, and a bigfoot movie shot in Shennongjia, a mountainous region in Hubei Province, where there have been hundreds of purported bigfoot sightings. Each film was plagued with on-set dysfunction, and neither has been released.

尽管在中国扮演过各种各样的角色，但大部分合拍片都不考虑科斯-瑞德。他说，好莱坞的制片方想用自己的人。有一次，中国制片方对他说，因为他的身影在中国的影视作品中随处可见，使他们的作品看上去太本土化。他只参演过两部东西合拍影片：一部是深海题材的史诗片，由中国的一名亿万富翁投资，演员大部分是外国人，另一部是在湖北山区神农架拍摄的一部野人题材的电影，那里有过成百上千次据称看到野人的报告。每部影片都在拍摄现场频频出问题。迄今为止，两部影片均未发行。

Kos-Read says that the reason most co-productions fail is as much about the chaos on the Chinese side as it is the arrogance on the Hollywood side. “They come here and say, ‘We’re from Hollywood, we know better and whatever it is that you think is the right way to do it, it’s by definition not,’ ” he says. “You come in with an attitude like that, you will have a lot of problems. You will misunderstand the kind of stories they want to see.”

科斯-瑞德说，大部分合拍片都以失败告终的原因，中方的混乱和好莱坞的傲慢各占一半。“他们来到中国说，‘我们是从好莱坞来的，我们更在行，你们认为是对的东西，必定就是错的，’”他说。“如果带着那种态度过来，就会遇到很多问题。你对他们想看到哪种故事就会有误会。”

And as Chinese filmmakers have figured out what sorts of stories Chinese audiences really want to see, the nature of Kos-Read’s work has changed for the better. Although his part in “Knight’s Glove” wasn’t groundbreaking, he is now often cast in increasingly complex parts.

随着中国电影人弄明白了中国观众真正想看的故事，科斯-瑞德的工作性质发生了好转。尽管他在《Knight’s Glove》的角色并不具有开创性，但现在，他经常会扮演越来越复杂的角色。

After the morning’s shoot, we drove across the lot to film another scene. In the back of the van, Kos-Read scrolled through photos on his phone of some of the roles he has played over the last two years, each with a distinct facial-hair style. They included: an American engineer who worked on the first locomotive in China; Gen. Douglas MacArthur; an “[expletive] lawyer”; a World War II radio announcer; a hip-hop dancer; a wisdom-dispensing alcoholic barfly; a Mafia boss; an antiquities expert; a sleazy Russian lounge lizard; a cowboy; a bisexual fashion designer; and a French detective.

上午的拍摄结束后，我们开车穿过影视城，去拍摄另一个场景。在面包车的后座上，科斯-瑞德在手机上翻看他过去两年里扮演过的一些角色的照片，全都留着特征鲜明的胡须，其中包括：在中国首个火车头上工作的美国机师、道格拉斯·麦克阿瑟(Douglas MacArthur)将军、一名“[脏话]律师”、二战期间的电台播音员、嘻哈舞者、妙语连珠的酒吧醉汉、黑帮老大、古董专家、不务正业的俄罗斯花花公子、牛仔、双性恋时装设计师和法国侦探。

Kos-Read believes the growing variety of roles for foreign actors like him is a result of more Chinese exposure to outsiders. “There are more foreign actors now,” he says. “Chinese know some foreigners. So they write more interesting characters. I’m lucky because I usually get to do the better stuff.”

科斯-瑞德认为，现在有越来越多样化的角色可以供他这样的外国演员出演，这是中国向外界进一步开放的结果。“如今有了更多的外国演员，”他说。“中国人了解一些外国人。所以他们写出了更有趣的角色。我很幸运，因为我通常有更好的角色可以扮演。”

This trend is likely to continue. The money coming from Chinese producers, and the spending power of Chinese audiences, is simply too great to ignore, and anyone venturing to China from Hollywood — whether producer, actor or cameraman — has to learn how to play by Chinese rules. That means adapting stories to the changing desires of film fans, and learning how to cooperate on China’s less regimented movie sets. Hollywood pros may be arrogant, says Jonathan Landreth, editor of the website China Film Insider, who has been covering the Chinese entertainment industry for more than a decade, but “in the melding of minds between China and Hollywood, there’s been a tipping in the balance of power. So much money is driving these productions that the folks in Hollywood have to listen.”

这种趋势很可能会延续下去。中国的制作方撒的钱太多，中国观众的消费能力太大，实在不容忽视，任何从好莱坞到中国拓展的人——无论是制片人、演员还是摄影师——都必须学会如何遵守中国的游戏规则。这意味着适应影迷不断变化的口味，学习如何在中国不那么成系统的电影体系中展开合作。“中国底片”网站(China Film Insider)编辑林嘉瑞(Jonathan Landreth)报道中国娱乐产业已经十多年，他说好莱坞的专业人士可能是很傲慢，但“中国人和好莱坞合作的时候，在权力平衡中存在一种倾斜。这些制作背后有这么多钱，好莱坞的人不得不听。”

In the afternoon, the director of “Knight’s Glove,” a young man with bleached blond hair, recruited me to play an extra in a scene with Kos-Read. I would be a driver. I wondered aloud who was supposed to have played the driver, but no one answered, and instead I was shepherded outside to a wardrobe truck and outfitted in a World War I-era military uniform with a Brodie helmet.

《Knight’s Glove》的导演是一个头发漂成金色的年轻男子。下午的时候，他招募我跑龙套，在一个场景中和科斯-瑞德配戏。我演一名司机。我询问，本来由谁扮演司机，但没有人回答，结果我被领到外面的一辆服装车里，换上了一战时的军事制服，戴上一顶布罗迪式钢盔。

As I dressed in the truck, Kos-Read approached with a Chinese crew member and said, “They asked me to make sure you knew that they weren’t actually going to pay you or anything.” I laughed. As absurd as it may seem to be yanked from the sidelines in an instant and thrown in front of the camera, this kind of thing happens with surprising regularity for foreigners in China, and moments like these become the kind of China Stories that keep people like Kos-Read around for so long.

我在卡车上换衣服时，科斯-瑞德与剧组里的一个中国人走过来说，“他们让我告诉你，他们不会付钱给你。”我笑起来。突然从场边被抓去扮演一个影视角色，这似乎非常荒诞，但对于在中国的外国人来说，这样的事情惊人地常见。这些时刻成了一种“中国故事”，让那些像科斯-瑞德一样的人在这里待了这么久。

We filmed four or five takes of a short scene in the car. I pretended to drive, yanking the steering wheel back and forth with the kind of comical exaggeration you might see in “The Andy Griffith Show.” Two cameras glided on a track and crane outside the car while Kos-Read, sitting in the back, and a young Russian actor, who sat beside me, exchanged a few lines of dialogue. The Russian had until recently been a student in Jinhua, a nearby city, but was now trying his hand at an acting career. Maybe it would have worked out for him had he started a decade and a half ago, like Kos-Read, but his performance didn’t bode well. He struggled with the lines; his English was wooden, the delivery stilted.

我们在车里拍了一场短短的戏，反复拍了四五条。我假装开车，来回转动方向盘，带点滑稽的夸张，就好像在《安迪·格里菲斯秀》(The Andy Griffith Show)里表演那样。车外的轨道和吊臂上有两台摄像机，科斯-瑞德坐在后座上，一名年轻的俄罗斯演员坐在我旁边，戏里有几句对话。这个俄罗斯人不久前在附近的金华市读书，现在则在试水演艺事业。如果他在15年前尝试这一行，就像科斯-瑞德那样，可能还有希望，但是他演得不怎么样。他说台词很费力，他的英语很蹩脚，他的表演很呆板。

Kos-Read, on the other hand, naturally eased into character as soon as they started rolling. He said his lines in a British accent, smoothly and barely above a whisper, looking out the window as the camera swept by.

而科斯-瑞德则一开拍就轻松进入了角色。他用英国口音流畅地讲着台词，在摄像机划过之时，一边喃喃低语，一边望向窗外。