Nie Yuan: "My life is full of 'sunshine'"
2004 could be said to have been Nie Yuan‘s most glorious year. In that year he starred in a succession of costume dramas and was referred to by the media as the “number one male in costume dramas.” Because of this, when Zhang Jizhong was looking for someone to play the part of Yang Guo in Return of the Condor Heroes (Shen Diao Xia Lü), everyone thought Nie Yuan would be the ideal choice. But in the end, Nie Yuan lost out to an actor who, at the time, was much less famous: Huang Xiaoming.
The casting dispute became a watershed event in their work: one saw his fame shoot to the top; the other did not. Many of the media even exaggerated Nie Yuan and Huang Xiaoming’s relationship to that of irreconcilable enemies.
Upon raising the same topic now, Nie Yuan honestly admits that he was very depressed about missing out on Yang Guo, “because I was a Jin Yong fan from childhood, and out of Jin Yong’s works, my favorite was Shen Diao Xia Lü. The love story between Yang Guo and Xiao Longnü fascinated me. Of all of Jin Yong’s characters, the one I liked most was Yang Guo, so of course being able to act out Yang Guo was the desire of my dreams.”
