Jiang Wu, brother of Chinese actor and film director Jiang Wen, on his sibling's influence
'I'd never dreamt of being an actor,' Jiang Wu says, until he watched older brother and actor-director Jiang Wen performing at the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing. 'I was hooked,' says one of the stars of Zhang Yimou's film Shower.
Having a famous and successful sibling can be more of a curse than a blessing - and Jiang Wu understands this more than most.
'I used to compare myself with my brother and put a lot of pressure on myself,' says Jiang, younger brother of Jiang Wen, the actor-director whose films have won a string of Golden Rooster awards in China and a Jury Prize at Cannes. 'But I heard from a friend about a conversation he had with a driver who said to him, 'Jiang Wu is like a lamp and Jiang Wen the lampshade; take the shade off and the lamp will shine to its full strength. I found it very meaningful.
'If you subconsciously think there's a shade around you, you can never make the most of your ability.'
But he admits his older brother played a pivotal role in his career. 'I might have wanted to be a singer, a police officer or a train driver but I'd never dreamt of being an actor,' says the 38-year-old. 'My brother was my biggest influence. I used to watch his performance at the Central Academy of Drama when I was only a secondary school student and I was hooked.'
While Jiang Wen passed his entry examinations to the academy on his first attempt, the younger Jiang was rejected three times by various tertiary institutions before he was eventually admitted to the Beijing Film Academy - the alma mater of filmmakers such as Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige - in 1990.
Jiang has acted in seven films since his graduation from the academy in 1994. He picks his role in Zhang Yang's Shower (1999) as his most memorable: playing a mentally challenged man won him a best supporting actor award at the Changchun Film Festival in 2000.
