It's fine, it really doesn't feel like that.

What’s it like always playing the villain in Chinese movies?

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Nope. It's not much of an achievement.

Did you expect a bigger reaction to your achievement from western people?

Why would I be?

Ummmm. Are you afraid of China seeing this?

No an American guy in Beijing who I met later dubbed my character, you will hear me saying "fire" in the second Lake Changjing though they didn't dub that.

Oh sorry, I thought I had read everything. But my memory isn’t what it was…

So when you write everything was dubbed later, you mean I won’t hear your original voice in any of the films, right?

Yeah in Wandering Earth 2 I was a featured extra and 5 of us and the main star shot our scenes in a small little spaceship for a few days. We spoke but nothing personal just pleasantaries. I spoke to Dante Lam too, I mentioned in the OP he asked where I was from.

But did you actually have any contact with the real stars of the films? Did they talk to you at all?

Yeah I've lived here for 5 years now. Local in China? Chinese people were extremely envious, especially seeing how close I was working to one of their heroes. There are so many people here that doing something so special is even more special.

So you still live in China? How did your local friends react to you working with movies? Were they envious in any way?

Thanks

For some reason, I was thinking of Finland, lol. So I thought maybe it was a Finnish company you worked for.

Then get a TEFL course and go teach English anywhere else then. There are lots of countries who are willing to pay native speakers to teach them.

That was indeed the most difficult parts, moving around was painful too as you could get caught in a COVID outbreak and have to quarantine for weeks at your own expense.

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I'm not sure why you ask about alcohol, alcohol is freely available here and the Chinese people that do drink love to drink very strong rice wine and a lot of it at once. There was only a little bit of weed and the people getting high were getting high on pharmacy drugs and synthetic weed but that has since been made illegal. I think it might have been illegal for the second movie but it was still widely available. Surveillance while endemic isn't instrusive if you're not breaking the law I guess. It's everywhere and if you just understand that you're a guest here and follow the rules you'll be fine.

The important part is that the bit I'm on sucks.

The islands of Great Britain and Ireland I would say.

Fair point. Can I say "The Isles" instead?

Yes the uncertainty of not always having a job and always moving around in the whole country is probably the hardest part of these sort of jobs. Over time it can be though with the social live.

How was it possible that there was so much alcohol and even weed involved in the very strict communist china? Have you felt the surveillance that the government is doing there?

Other bit of the UK? Ireland isn't in the UK. If you have a degree in anything and no criminal convictions you can get a work visa here to teach English. You can apply from home and they will pay for an apartment and a very good salary. I'm not sure about flights as I made my own way here. It's a good life and as a foreigner here you're treated very well in general, in some of the smaller cities you'd be a local celebrity just for being foreign. I live in a city of 11m people though so no such luck for me.

I'm in the other bit of the Isles but what advice would you give to escaping it and moving to China?

It was worse than the military being honest, not finding out you're working until a few hours before a shift. Being sent on your "day off" at very short notice because some other guy didn't turn up, being just a number etc.

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The experience was worth it though, and I made some life long close friends. The money is more than enough to live on here if one were to take that path.

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I will not be answering any more calls, the agents take 75% of the money that the talent should get and I returned to my previous career in software engineering. I have heard accounts of people who have acted in major roles in movies here being told in the UK it's not worth anything and they need to start at the ground floor again if they were to move home.

I never had any interest in China whatsoever until I met my wife in Ireland and after a couple of years of long distance, I decided to move here to be with her. I have a career in software engineering that I only took a break from for a year and did this as something to get by.