Meritorious Artist Van Bau at a recent event. Photo: Quynh An
Meet Actor Van Bau – The actor who specializes in playing police roles in the Criminal Police series on VTV at an audition for a TV series about the police force, many people still recognized him even though the hair of police officer Chu Van Hoa on screen was white.
Meritorious Artist Van Bau is 72 years old this year but is still very agile despite his much older face. In the past few years, he has rarely acted in VTV films because he thinks he is no longer suitable to play a police officer because he is old and “there is no police officer as skinny as me”.
Nearly 30 years ago, Meritorious Artist Van Bau is remembered by the audience with 40 episodes, divided into 8 parts, about 8 different cases in the Criminal Police series broadcast in 1996. The film was made for more than 2 years and received enthusiastic response from the audience. In this film, Van Bao played the role of police officer Chu Van Hoa, shaping the stereotype of police officers in movies.
Van Bau plays a police chief in the movie ‘Running from the Case’. Photo: Document
Later, he continued to play police roles in films: Late Repentance, Sand Village, Game of Life and Death, Secrets of Lives, Running from the Case 1, Running from the Case 2, Secrets of the Golden Triangle… In Vietnamese films, Van Bau is probably the actor who plays the most police roles. He left an impression with the image of a police officer, especially the role of the head of the investigation agency in most of the famous films over the past decades, causing many people to even mistake Van Bau for a real police officer.
Meritorious Artist Van Bau shared with VietNamNet: “Now, few audiences mistake me for a police officer because they know I’m just an actor. In fact, I’m an actor from the military, who participated in the battlefield serving the front line. Wherever the soldiers fought, the artists performed there. Later, I was pressured by the bombs so I left the army and joined the arts. It was my time in the army that gave me the material to appear in the Criminal Police series. I didn’t receive any serious training, I was just an amateur actor.”
In recent years, the actor born in 1952 has rarely acted in films, partly because of his old age, partly because he only accepts roles that he really likes or have a short filming time, mainly “putting out the fire” for the film crew when they urgently need experienced actors.
As one of the most impressive actors who played police officers on screen, Meritorious Artist Van Bau said that there were times when he had to refuse because he was afraid of repeating himself. He joked that because he was too skinny, most police officers today are tall and big, unlike his generation a few decades ago. Therefore, for the past 6-7 years, Meritorious Artist Van Bau has said goodbye to police roles and returned to being a civilian on screen.
Meritorious Artist Van Bau has been attached to the role of a police officer for nearly 30 years. Photo: Document
The artist laughed and said: “Now the standards are different. The students are well-trained and have the support of science and technology, why not bring the young generation to play the role of police while the audience sees me as if remembering the subsidy period. I told everyone that the role of a police officer is very special, it is not easy to play the role and it is not easy to get out of the role.
Many people have a misconception about choosing actors, thinking that whoever has already played the role of a police officer, they can just invite him for convenience. Although I have played police officers in different positions, sometimes as the head of the interrogation department, sometimes as the head of the criminal investigation department, and then as the police director, I have always done my best within my ability. However, if I keep playing the same characters, I will repeat the same old ways.”
Famous on screen, Meritorious Artist Van Bau is secretive about his private life. He does not use social media and rarely responds to the press. He said that he used Facebook for a while but could not respond to all comments from the audience, while artists live off the public. Furthermore, after being texted by an uncultured person with insulting words, Meritorious Artist Van Bau chose not to respond and gave up social media.
Meritorious Artist Van Bau at the age of 72. Photo: Quynh An
At the age of 72, Meritorious Artist Van Bau is enjoying a leisurely old age with his second wife, a poet. After breaking up with his first wife due to many incompatibility points, he met his current wife, 6 years younger than him, who Meritorious Artist Van Bau commented as “very determined”. She lived alone after her husband passed away until she met the actor. Meritorious Artist Van Bau said she is a prestigious poet in the literary world, currently having works published abroad, but did not share anything more.
Before they got together, they both had two daughters, who are now grown up. He boasts that they have a total of nine grandchildren, both boys and girls, who come to visit their grandparents every weekend. In addition to the house in An Duong, the artist couple often lives in a garden house in Ba Vi, “planting trees and raising chickens” every day, as he said. For the past 12 years, the artist couple has enjoyed this life because their children all live separately.