Meritorious Artist Nguyen Minh Trang: "If I could choose again, I would still follow the path I have taken."

From the role of Ha My in the play “My Ha My”, the first role that helped her win the Gold Medal at the National Professional Theater Festival in 1980, to the role of Mrs. Nam in the movie “The Old Woman Who Wanders” released in 2024, Minh Trang has always shown herself to be a profound, powerful artist, refusing to be noisy and ostentatious.

1. Meritorious Artist Nguyen Minh Trang was born and raised in Hanoi in a family where no one worked in the arts. She said that she became an actress because she was “chosen by the profession” because her parents were both engineers. When she was young, she was very shy and quiet, shaking her head when asked anything, to the point that people who had just met her thought she… couldn’t speak. However, when she grew up a little, Minh Trang began to feel excited when participating in art performances in the apartment complex where her family lived. “I loved to dance and sing and often performed with older uncles and aunts. Gradually, the blood of art seeped in without me realizing it. Later, my mother said that perhaps I inherited the gene from my maternal grandfather, a Hue native who used to have a theater troupe and teach opera to the members of the troupe,” she shared. Perhaps her love for art grew and became strong enough to keep her in Hanoi alone, studying and graduating from the Drama Department - Hanoi High School of Culture and Arts (now the Department of Drama and Cinema Actors - Hanoi College of Culture and Arts), while her whole family moved to the South to live.

In 1979, just arriving at the Hanoi Drama Troupe (now the Hanoi Drama Theater), actress Minh Trang was unexpectedly trusted by director Doan Hoang Giang to play the main role of Ha My in the play “My Ha My” which he himself wrote the script for. Originally a shy girl, when she played the role of a strong, individualistic girl who dared to overcome social prejudices to live true to herself, she created a major turning point in her acting career and “nailed” her name with the role of Ha My until today. The Gold Medal at the National Professional Theater Festival in 1980 was a worthy reward for the impressive “debut” of the young actress. From that milestone, she continuously transformed into many different fates on the stage of Hanoi Drama Theater, with typical plays such as "The girl in the gray beret", "That dawn my heart", "The last night in Spain", "The woman behind the green door", "The valley of love", "Hanoi the day of return"...

In 1985, artist Minh Trang was once again honored with a Gold Medal at the National Professional Theatre Festival for her role as Nga in the play “I and us”. Not only was she a bright “star” of the Hanoi Drama Theater, when she moved to the South, she quickly asserted her position on the Ho Chi Minh City drama stage. She was known as “the number one actress”, making her mark through a series of popular plays such as “The most sacred”, “A stolen life”, “Thunderstorm” ...

2. In the field of cinema, with her expressive eyes and expressive face, Meritorious Artist Nguyen Minh Trang quickly caught the attention of directors during the Renovation period - a period when Vietnamese cinema had a remarkable development in both quantity and quality. From her first role in the film "Harmonious Rhythm of Life" (1981) to now, she has appeared in nearly 30 feature films, ranging from political to entertainment, from psychological to action. Some typical works include: “There Will Come a Love”, “Peaceful Place Where Birds Sing”, “Water Hyacinth”, “On Horseback”, “Insiders”, “F101 Plateau”, “Hoai Thu Villa”, “Money Hunting Night”, “A Stolen Life”, “Apartment”, “Me Thao - The Golden Age”... The list of films spans from the 1980s to 2024, with the latest leading role in “The Old Woman Who Wanders”, a living testament to Minh Trang’s perseverance, versatility and adaptability on the silver screen. She not only plays her role well, but also knows how to “light a fire” for the character, leaving a unique mark in the hearts of the audience through each frame.

“Where the Birds Sing Peacefully” is the first film that artist Minh Trang participated in after moving to live in Ho Chi Minh City. This is also the work that started the good relationship between her and female director Viet Linh. At that time, director Viet Linh was looking for the main actress for his first film and thanks to an introduction from a colleague, after just a short conversation, she was trusted to choose. From that opportunity, she had the opportunity to “experience different roles, with the fates of different women, and I loved them all very much”, as she once confided.

“Each character that passes through leaves behind many precious emotions, although they are not the same, but after completing the role, I still miss them very much”. This affirmation of artist Minh Trang can be completely trusted if you watch her act in “Me Thao - the glorious time” - the third film she collaborated with director Viet Linh after “Noi binh yen chim chich” and “Chung cu”. In the film, she plays the role of Cam - a mute maid, a character who is not the main character but is indispensable. Because she is mute, all of Cam's psychological states must be expressed through her eyes, gestures, and actions. She has excellently fulfilled this requirement with a rustic acting style mixed with a bit of sadness and sorrow, highlighting Cam's pitiful fate, leaving a deep impression on the audience.

3. In 2024, Minh Trang returned with the movie "Ba gia di bui". In the role of a troubled mother, she once again made her colleagues and friends admire her, giving her "winged" words. "I was not called for casting. But close to the day the film started filming, for some reason the crew still couldn't find an actor. So they remembered me. The two sides talked via video call, then they sent the script very quickly and I also accepted very quickly", she recounted the fate of "Ba gia di bui" with a gentle speaking style, always simplifying everything and only paying the greatest attention to the character, to the role she would portray.

Despite her life's many changes and her constant travel from Hanoi to Saigon to Germany and then to her current destination in Singapore, Meritorious Artist Nguyen Minh Trang still connects her artistic career like a thread that has never been broken, thanks to her love for the profession that has seeped into her blood. In Singapore, she continues to act in a number of films, while also maintaining trips back to Vietnam to participate in film projects in both the South and the North. Few people know that behind her excellent roles and the praise from colleagues and audiences, is a journey full of her efforts. It is a journey of overcoming death, fighting illness and pain to continue living and continuing to contribute. The motivation for life, both in everyday life and on screen, is her deep love for her family, loved ones and acting career.

After four decades in the profession, she still retains the emotions of the early days. She cherishes each role in her memory and every time she recalls and watches her image on screen, so many memories come flooding back, sparkling like the morning sunlight of an autumn morning in Hanoi. She will never forget the most brilliant period of her career, the beautiful years of her twenties full of vitality and passion for art. That was also a difficult time, when she had to do many jobs to both make a living and keep the passion for her career. She always remembers the days when she had just recovered from surgery, director Trinh Le Phong said that he would definitely wait for her to recover to invite her to play the role of Phuong in the TV series "Chieu Ngang Qua Pho Cu". This role brought her the Best Actress award in the TV Drama category - the Kite Award presented by the Vietnam Cinema Association in 2016... Because of such kindness, she said: "If I could choose again, I would still follow the path I have taken."

Source: https://hanoimoi.vn/nsut-nguyen-minh-trang-neu-duoc-chon-lai-toi-van-se-di-con-duong-ma-minh-da-tung-di-704981.html