Quang Teo speaks out about receiving billion-dollar salary

Tet comedy 2021 is said to be quite gloomy compared to previous years. This certainly affects actor Quang Teo's work flow a lot.end of year

I am now starting to get into the swing of making comedy films for Tet, but this year has actually slowed down a lot. In fact, comedy films for Tet are now mainly produced by private studios and rely on advertising. But last year, businesses were heavily affected by the pandemic, so it was difficult to get sponsorship.

The project I am most looking forward to this year is still "Barefoot Tycoon" - a journey of 10 years. Recently, we planned to stop but in the end, we still encouraged each other to continue pursuing it because this is a film that is awaited by the people and overseas Vietnamese.

There are fewer Tet comedies than every year, but it's still enough to call you the "king" of Tet comedies, right?

I don't know if anyone else has acted in more Tet comedies than me (laughs). However, don't call me that. The title "king" feels very grand and it might be counterproductive for me. I'm just a simple artist. I understand the situation of film studios now so I never ask for high salaries. Maybe that's why film studios invite me to act so often.

You say you don't ask for a high salary, but there are many rumors that you earn billions thanks to Tet comedies?

(Laughs loudly) Where did that come from? The rumors are so ridiculous! Only singers have high salaries, not actors. People just spread rumors, saying one thing and saying ten things. I act in a TV series, filming for nearly 4 months is very hard, but the salary is not as high as billions as many people think. For the whole show "Happy Farmer", I did 450 episodes over the past few years but the salary is just reasonable."

I am a hard-working and career-loving person, working hard to earn money to support my family. I always teach my students that whatever they do, they must love their job, care about it and concentrate, then they will get results.

I believe that when creating and reflecting bad characters in society, bad and depraved elements, etc., there must be a realistic image. The audience needs to look at the whole film to evaluate, not just look at a few scenes and then make assumptions. Actually, I think beauty pageants wearing bikinis, standing on stage for hours is not a problem, even called beauty. While in movies, a few seconds of exposure are criticized as inappropriate and offensive.

Talking about this issue, you seem quite upset?

I am sad and angry! I cannot deny that sometimes the fault lies partly with the filmmakers or the post-production. Because, before accepting to participate in any film, I always read the script carefully. There are scenes on location, the characters living a debauched life, we only acted symbolically by pushing the female character down and the director called cut. However, in post-production, they cut and edited that scene to put in the trailer to attract viewers. That is the problem.

Many times I disagreed with this way of doing things and immediately called the director, asking for a change because many people just looked at it and then judged. That greatly affected the reputation and image of us artists. After that, I also learned my lesson and did not work with that filmmaker anymore.

I don’t think so. Tet comedy is still an indispensable spiritual food, especially during the Tet holiday. I met many businessmen, they said that they work hard all year round, so they hope that artists will have more entertainment products so that they can relax.

Moreover, the reality is that audiences now have too many entertainment options: social networks, movies, vlogs... that distract people. Simply put, "Dai gia chan dat 1" was produced very simply, inexpensively, and released in 2011 - a time when there were not many entertainment options, so the number of views and interactions was at a peak compared to later episodes.

In addition, I find that the taste of many people today is also very strange. Many nonsense videos have a lot of views, while those that are invested in and take a lot of effort are not well received. That makes it quite difficult for artists. I myself am a trained artist, through professional theater, so I cannot do nonsense to attract customers because it is not suitable for me.