Before Huang Zitao became a solo artist, he was part of the K-pop boy band EXO. Even before that, he was once an extra! Now an actor who has starred in movies and headlines his own dramas, Huang Zitao recalled in a recent episode of The Detectives’ Adventures 萌探探探案 how he wanted to be a star when he was about fifteen or sixteen years old but he didn’t have the opportunity to sing and dance at the time. There was a filming crew in his native city of Qingdao. His friend told him to go and that it would earn him 30 yuan (approx 5 USD) a day.
Huang Zitao still remembers that it was a modern drama starring Joe Cheng and Li Fei’er. There were different scenes but the most memorable for him was the evening scene shot outside a villa where they had to pretend to drink and chat. He said, “It was evening, I was very tired already, but I remember the place was very beautiful.” In usual Huang Zitao fashion, he added, “Didn’t have any lines then, but I already felt I was a genius. What can I do, the director saw me and said, you have a chance to be an actor.”
Co-star Na Ying said his impatient personality doesn’t seem like the type who can stay put from morning till evening. He responded that he was quite hardworking then, he would spend 6 hours handing out flyers, rain or shine and he’d wait tables. He also said there are many who have it more difficult than actors that people don’t see and he’s thankful towards them. Netizens also dug up Huang Zitao’s social media post from the day of the shoot captioned, “So tired, this job is good, learned a lot of things.” As for his very brief “appearance”, it can be found in the 2010 drama That Love Comes 欢迎爱光临 (Ep 13).
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