realistic portrayal of an MMA fighter earned
him nominations as Best Supporting Actor at
the 33rd Hong Kong Film Award and 50th
Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards.
During the lowest point of his career, his
mother said to him, “When one has no de-
sire, one has no fear.” He did not get it at that
time, but years later he came to firmly believe
this.
“I am not a very ambitious person with a
lot of goals to pursue. I just want to be in
the moment, and enjoy and appreciate what
I have now. When you have a great desire for
something, it also comes with the great fear
of losing it. Forget the future and give your
best in accomplishing things in the present, it
will naturally lead you to the places that you
want to be,” Peng said.
Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish
“Jump! Jump! Stay hungry, stay foolish,”
Peng put the motto on the homepage of his
own website to motivate himself.
The two actors Peng admires most are
Robert De Niro and Christian Bale, espe-
cially how much they are prepared to change
for their roles. Despite his lack of professional
training in theatre schools, he has amazed his
collaborators and audiences by how far he is
willing to transform himself for each role.
“If I hadn’t turned myself into a real gym-
nast [in Jump Ashin!], nobody would have
found me convincing,” Peng said.
Apart from training as a gymnast, over 15
years, Peng has trained as a professional dol-
phin instructor for When Dolphin Met Cat,
a competent sign language user for Hear Me
(2009), a boxer specialising in MMA, Muay
Thai and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for Unbeatable
(2013), a kungfu practitioner for Rise of the
Legend (2014), a qualified cyclist for To the
Fore (2015), and a Thai and Burmese speak-
er and firearms expert for Operation Me-
kong (2016). Many of these skills took him
months or even a year to acquire, practicing
every day.
“I don’t have many talents. But at least I
can challenge myself to the extreme. If some-
one can do 100 percent, then I can do 120
percent,” Peng said humbly to Beijing Times.
Peng sticks to one principle when evaluat-
ing his performance in previous productions:
“Did I enjoy the filming? Have I learned
something new?” His greatest fear as an actor
is boredom. He says he’s afraid that one day
he’ll lose his interest in acting – and thus in
life – and so he’s always pushing himself to
find something new.
“When performing, I cannot stand myselfjust playing someone without giving myself
to it. If I don’t put myself into the character,
see as he sees and feel as he feels, my acting
might appear as hollow as a puppet,” Peng
told our reporter.
“If I enter a story, a sense of fear seizes me
and completely drowns me in the story and
cannot let go. I put all my energy into the
role. When the filming is over and I come
back to normal life, a faint feeling of fear still
remains until I enter into the next role,” Peng
told ChinaReport.
In recent years, Peng has been given more
and more opportunities to try different roles.
He is always drawn to socially marginal char-
acters and stories that push him beyond his
own boundaries. For him, the most exciting
thing about acting is to allow him to cease-
lessly explore things unknown.
“There’s a lot of things I don’t understand.
I always look forward to discovering more
about this world,” Peng added.A still from Wukong (2017)Photo by vcg