With a title like that of course I’m going to take notice!!! Campus Confidential (愛情無全順) has been doing pretty well in the Taiwan box office grossing over $20 million (TWD) and the reviews have been pretty positive. (Although I’m warning everyone – DO NOT read the review by TaipeiTimes.com because it gives the ending away!!! WTH!! No spoilers warning and the ending is kinda important. GRRRR.) Anyway, I thought Ivy’s responses in this interview were quite funny so I thought I’ll do a rough translation of it. <- it’s not very good I’m having a mind blank at the moment and don’t want to delay this post any further! ><
Attracted to Bolin Chen, Ivy Chen: I can marry him! (TVBS Weekly No. 839 – 26 November 2013)
In the movie “Campus Confidential”, Ivy Chen collaborated with Bolin Chen again. Not only did Bolin recommended her to film this movie, on the set it was like they were in their own little world, speaking to each other in a language only they can understand. Co-stars Paul Chiang and Yao Yao couldn’t even break into their world. Ivy said, “That’s because we’re too familiar with each other! I can even marry him, but we’re missing that spark of love…”
Busy promoting “Campus Confidential” recently, Ivy’s real love life seems to be just like the name of the movie – “not going very smoothly” (the movie’s Chinese title is Ai Qing Wu Quan Shun, loosely translated to mean ‘Love is not going smoothly’). This is because she has been single for almost a year after she broke up with Xie Kun Da, even though they were already at the marriage discussions stage of a relationship. In the past, Ivy would rather have a boyfriend than being alone, so this has been a breakthrough. “HA! In the past without love I will die. Now I can live with it. I’m used to it. This matter (being single) can continue quite comfortably!”
Despite this, there’re many men with good qualities around her. She hasn’t had any thoughts about them? She honestly replied, “Sure! Actually I thought about this too. There’re so many outstanding men around me and they’re all single! Just find one or two to be together then, but there isn’t any love between us! Without that “moment of spark” a love relationship has, without that feeling where I want to spend a lot of time getting ready because I’m going out with him… they’re all the type where I can scratch my feet in front of them…”
Have treated him as an object of fantasy before
Recently she worked with Bolin again, someone she is often paired with. Even on ‘Singles Day’ (11/11), they jokingly said, “Maybe we should be a couple today, we can break up tomorrow!” Ivy frankly admits she was once attracted to Bolin, someone she is so familiar with. “Even though I’ve worked with him five or six times, it’s not as often as people think. Like our last collaboration the movie ‘Silent Code’, we didn’t really have many positive interactions. This time there isn’t much either.”
Also, we never get a happy ending in a film/TV series. (Then have you treated each other as objects of fantasies before just to try it?) “Sure! But… *sigh!* We’re really too alike. Because we’re on the same wavelength, there’re no romantic sparks between us. We’re very comfortable around each other. For example if one day I need to marry him, I think it’ll be okay. But… we never talk about our love life / relationships! He doesn’t have that kind of feelings towards me! He doesn’t treat me like a girl. From the beginning it seems like a romantic relationship will never happen between us…” Seems like she’s hinting Bolin hasn’t “received” any of her signals.
Accepting a film depends whether they’re on the same wavelength
Ivy, who has an outgoing and dynamic personality is actually not good at expressing her feelings in everyday life. It was until she became an actresses she discovered she can use acting to release her emotions. Even though the romantic elements in her previous collaborations with Bolin had just been skimmed over, on set she already has her ‘other half’. She cannot accept anyone else. No sparks flown between her and Paul Chiang, who shared a kiss scene with her in the movie. Paul was even so nervous they had to film the scene five, six times. This ‘older sister’ had to take the initiative and kissed him.
“You know the worst thing about acting is embarrassment. If you feel embarrassed then you can’t film well! So we just kept going… but it was very awkward. Actually you can’t blame him. I’m too familiar with Bolin so on set, maybe he (Paul) can’t join us, because we just keep chatting with each other. It’s possible in that environment others feel excluded, so you won’t know how to react in each other’s presence.”
Even though Ivy just mentioned this in passing, is she trying to hide the fact that even though they’re on the same wavelength, regrettably this hasn’t translated to romance? But Bolin does have a strong influence over her, she jokingly said, “Why did I accept this project? They gave me a lot of money! HAHAHA. No la! How much can you earn from a local (Taiwanese) film… I seem to have forgotten why I accepted this movie. But Bolin and Dai Mu (the producer Su Chao Pin) and also the director were all important reasons. I get along quite well with Dai Mu, he’s a very interesting person. And then there’s Bolin. Actually when we received the script we would both contact each other. Like previously for “Silent Code” he told me to read it. This one… I forgot whether he did or not… but I’m quite interested in the topic of ‘nerds/otaku’…” During the photoshoot, Ivy took out her ‘new gadget’ for a selfie, and this ‘new gadget’ is the one Bolin is endorsing in a new commercial. (Sony Cyber-shot QX10) Do you think that’s a coincidence?
Female version of Forest Gump, ran 300km
Compared to her 30th birthday last year where she celebrated by giving herself five presents (go swimming naked, get her hair braided, kiss a stranger etc…), this year she spent a very low-key birthday. However, she still celebrated with many of her friends so on this special day she wouldn’t feel lonely. This year, she also used ‘running’ as a way to learn how to be alone. For example when she was filming Doze Niu’s new film “Military Paradise” (軍中樂園), since many events happened which delayed the shoot, it allowed her to have more spare time. In the past, she had just been continuously filming.
Since she can never sit still, she actually became the female version of Forest Gump, extending her running from Taiwan to overseas. “I had to wait a long time before filming began and I didn’t want to take on other projects. Maybe it was when I was overseas and saw it in a magazine, I thought England is quite nice. So the next day I bought a ticket to England. Or when I get sick of running in Taiwan, I would buy a ticket to Japan and run for three days. Also, I don’t like sightseeing. So wherever I go, I just run.” With a forgetful nature, she uses ‘getting lost’ as a way to test her endurance. Originally she can run 10+ km per day, but when she’s overseas she can run at least 20+km per day, “Just last month, I ran 300km. About the distance from Taipei to Kaohsiung! Sometimes when I’m excited about running, it’s quite common for me to run four or five hours. Sometimes I would keep running until my phone ran out of battery and can’t look at the GPS. So I was lost and couldn’t get home. Just kept running and running, that’s how the kilometres are accumulated! Haha…”
Only the ‘campus flower’ (most beautiful girl on campus) in film
In the new movie “Campus Confidential”, Ivy plays Liang Xiao Qi, the most beautiful girl on campus who falls in love with a nerd / otaku. In real life, Ivy thinks she’s actually the nerd and was never considered the ‘campus flower’. As to why someone would be crowned ‘campus flower’, she feels puzzled about this too. So when she accepted this movie, she had detailed discussions with the director about what a ‘campus flower’ would look like, “The atmosphere is definitely more relaxing since we’re filming a movie about university life. But the more simple a character, the harder it is to portray. I worked very hard to give the ‘campus flower’ role a strong personality, but because the director… for the nerds they have a very defined view. They think she should be ladylike, gentle, when she walks a soft breeze follows, and when she goes out a lot of good looking guys will follow her… that type. So he thinks I’m portraying her too strongly. But I feel, why does the ‘campus flower’ have been be so gentle/weak…”
However, she gained something else because of this movie, “When I was at school I was more low-key and didn’t care much about what’s happening on campus. I started working when I was in high school. When I was living at school I worked at the cafeteria. Afterwards in university, besides going to classes everyday I was working crazy hours. So I didn’t really know any of my classmates. It was when I made this film I got to experience what campus life was like. So I got to make up for this regret.”
Photos and Original Chinese Content from Ivy Chen’s Baidu Tieba, translation by DramaPot.com – please credit if reposting.
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