“The Bad Kids,” a 12-episode Chinese mystery drama that in the past two weeks has captured the pulse of audience members, is also making its two teen actors and an actress known to the public, and Rong Zishan is one of them.

Recalling his audition for “The Bad Kids,” Rong, 14, said that he was initially going for Yan Liang, a brave but reckless character, but ended up with Zhu Chaoyang, a discreet and suspicious character totally different from himself.

In the drama, Zhu is a straight-A middle school student but is unsociable and an outcast to his classmates. The boy seems docile and obedient, but secretly he is devious and cunning. Such complexity demands a lot from the actor and Rong said that the key to portray a convincing character like this is to be attentive to details, such as by using eye contact and small gestures.

He said that during the shooting, he spent much time observing the performance of other established actors, such as Qin Hao who plays the leading role — a ruthless murderer who disguises as an innocent and nice math teacher.

One of the most impressive performances of Rong comes from a conflict between Zhu and his mother. After knowing his divorced mother’s secret relationship with her colleague, Zhu behaves sulkily when she brings him a glass of milk. He refuses to drink in the beginning, which instantly irritates the controlling mother. While she behaves hysterically, the boy stays calm, and Rong successfully renders the boy’s silent resistance.

In another scene between Zhu and his father, played by actor Zhang Songwen, Rong again successfully portrays a precocious child who is furious when he finds himself betrayed by his father yet manages to pull himself together.

When Zhu discovers that his father is secretly recording their conversation, he realizes that his father is suspicious that he had something to do with his step-sister’s death. Rather than storming into a rage, the devious boy chooses to reminisce about the happy time the father and son spent together in the past to make his father regretful about his suspicion.

“When we were shooting the movie ‘End of Summer’ in 2016, Mr. Zhang told me to perform according to the moves and speech by the actor opposite to me because that’s how people react in real life,” said Rong.

Rong made his debut in “Mountains May Depart” (2015), a film directed by the internationally renowned director Jia Zhangke. Currently, Rong is studying at Suzhou North America High School in Jiangsu Province.

As an actor, he looks forward to playing more layered roles like Arthur Fleck in “Joker.” As a student, he values school education because he believes that studying will help him go further in pursuing his dreams.(Lin Lin)