Jia Hongsheng departs to chase his dream

The eventful life of Jia Hongsheng, an actor who shot to fame in the early 1990s but struggled to overcome drug addiction, has ended in a dramatic way.

At 6 pm, on July 5, the 43-year-old actor jumped out of the window of a 14th-floor apartment in northern Beijing, where he lived with his parents.

Jia left no final words, but his monologue in the 2001 movie, Quitting (Zuotian) chronicles his life and struggle against drug and alcohol addiction.

In one scene, Jia gets out of bed in a rehabilitation center and murmurs to the ceiling: "I am Jia Hongsheng, an actor who loves rock, loves John Lennon. I wanted to be a great actor. I wanted to have a great band. But I am just a person."

The movie won Jia the best actor award at the Singapore International Film Festival in 2002.

His parents, who also starred in Quitting, didn't take any interviews after their son's death.

In an announcement, the retired theater actors said: "Our son is looking for his dream. Let's give him good wishes and respect his decision."

Zhang Yang, the director of Quitting who collaborated with Jia for the 1992 theater drama Kiss of the Spider Woman, expressed his sadness: "I cried when I heard the new. It's a great loss for the many people who cared about Jia."

Zhang had dinner with Jia and his family not long ago and were discussing his next movie. "Both of us felt happy for him since he had recovered from his long depression," he said.

Jia starred in the 1988 movie The Case of the Silver Snake and director Li Shaohong was shocked at the news.

"I couldn't believe it when I heard the news. The Case of the Silver Snake was his first role as well as my first movie and I can clearly remember his acting and our collaboration," she recalls. "He was my first leading role and will forever be. He represents an era and became idol of that generation. I feel proud of him."

Born in Jilin province and a graduate of the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing, in 1989 as classmate of Gong Li, Jia gained fame in the late 1980s and early 1990s with movies like Good Morning, Beijing (1991), A Woman from North Shaanxi (1993) and Weekend Lover (1995). His sentimental eyes and rebellious image won him lots of fans.

Jia played in 2000's movie Suzhou River, another urban tale about alienation and obsession more preoccupied with its postmodern flourishes than the people in it. He fell in love with the co-lead star, Zhou Xun, with whom he had a short romance.

The actor withdrew from the spotlight after becoming drug addicted in 1995 and was sent to a mental institution where he responded positively to treatment.

Lei Ting, a theater producer and also a good friend of Jia, described him as an "idealistic pure person".

"He has never blamed others and was quiet off the stage. Whenever he stood on the stage, he would be fully devoted," she recalls.

"He is a talented actor, sentimental and passionate. I knew that he had been battling with drug abuse and depression for a long time."

When Lei met Jia last month, he seemed to be "fully recovered and opened up".

In the 1995 movie, Frozen, Jia played a performance artist who decides to make his own death his final work.

"And I planned to cooperate with him again. I feel very sad about his death. It's painful that such a great actor has left us," says Wang Xiaoshuai, director of Frozen.

In an interview Jia did in 2007, when he was in rehearsals for Blinded City, directed by Wang Xiaoying, at Peking University, he said: "Being on the stage makes me happy, it is like rock music, it inspires and burns me ... I am very sensitive and a little bit neurotic. That's why I want to be alone off the stage, I guess.

"Wang Shuo (famous writer) once described me as a kid but I am quite mature due to the sense of sadness I have, you know. I don't like being numb to life, which is a great pity as I am living."

China Daily

(China Daily 07/10/2010 page11)