前不久，《半路夫妻》因连创收视新高而荣获第二届电视剧风云榜“十大剧集”，陈小艺也因此当选为“最佳女主角”。这次得奖距离她上次荣获百花奖“最佳女配角”已有整整13年了，站在领奖台上，陈小艺满含热泪。
　　
　　西安之行得到爱
　　
　　陈小艺原来是四川乐山话剧团的演员，1987年，因在话剧《郭沫若》中反串郭沫若而被北京人艺导演李六乙相中。之后，李导鼓励她去考中央戏剧学院，并且给她寄来了招生简章。就这样，17岁的陈小艺来到了北京。
　　考上中戏后，陈小艺才知道自己并不被看好，她是作为替补生入学的，陈小艺对此很受刺激，因而她更加发奋努力，第一学期末，她就以第一名的总成绩赢得了老师的青睐。
　　还在读大四时，陈小艺就被导演相中出演电视剧《外来妹》。作为第一部反映农村女孩都市打工生活的电视剧，《外来妹》一经播出就在全国引起了强烈的反响，并因此获得了第l2届电视剧飞天奖和第10届中国电视剧金鹰奖。成功饰演赵小云这一艺术形象的陈小艺也因此一炮走红，她不仅成为《大众电影》等诸多杂志的封面女郎，还获得了飞天奖优秀女主角提名。
　　此后，刚刚20出头的陈小艺，又因在电影《离婚》中的出色表现而站在了百花奖的领奖台上，获得了第12届百花奖最佳女配角奖。可以说几乎是在一夜之间，还未走出大学校园的陈小艺就成为了影坛上炙手可热的一线明星。大学毕业后她以优异的成绩被分配到令人羡慕的北京人民艺术剧院，自此之后片约不断，名气也越来越大。
　　1997年春天，陈小艺接到邀请去西安拍摄电视剧《老房子》。下飞机后刚走出接机大厅，就看见一个戴着眼镜的青年男子走上前来对她说：“陈小姐，你好，我是刘惠宁，是来接你的。”
　　“刘惠宁？”听了那人自我介绍，陈小艺先是心里一惊：这不是该剧的导演吗？怎么亲自来接自己？她礼貌地朝着对方笑了笑，表示感谢。
　　那天天下着雨，刘惠宁撑着伞体贴地把她送到车前时，她注意到刘惠宁身上的衣服被雨淋得几乎湿透了，可她身上却滴雨不沾。这让她心里很受触动。
　　到了剧组开会，刘惠宁讲得头头是道，剧组的人都听得入迷。陈小艺想这个导演还真有几下子，心中对他又增添了几分敬佩。那部戏拍了两个多月，陈小艺演的是女一号，因此和刘惠宁的接触也比较多。在拍戏的过程中，她越来越发现言辞不多的刘惠宁很有思想，对拍片的要求也精益求精……这些也都是陈小艺作为一个演员最为看中的。
　　两个月以后，拍完了戏的两人就要各奔东西时，刘惠宁请陈小艺去川菜馆吃饭。上菜后，她吃得津津有味，而刘惠宁却辣得直吐气。看到刘惠宁“汗流满面”的样子，陈小艺很尴尬：“早知道你不能吃辣，何必到这来吃呢？”“你吃得高兴，我也就心满意足了！”刘惠宁慌忙说道。
　　两人相爱了。事后朋友们都拿陈小艺开玩笑说，别墅、宝马都没有俘虏她的心，刘惠宁凭着一桌川菜却抱得美人归。而陈小艺说，那一刻答应刘惠宁，是因为他的话语真切感人，如果真的如电影对白一般，她心中会觉得不踏实。
　　虽然陈小艺如此解释，可人们对已经是腕级明星的她爱上刘惠宁还是不解。但陈小艺说：“我确实比他名气大，但我坚定地认为，他一定会超过我，我特欣赏他的才华。”就这样，两年之后的1999年春天，爱情瓜熟蒂落的他们走进了婚姻的殿堂。
　　
　　“铁蛋”与演戏的矛盾
　　
　　
　　2000年3月，陈小艺剖腹生下了将近4.5公斤重的儿子。当护士把肉乎乎的“宝贝疙瘩”抱到她面前时，她幸福的眼泪一下子流了出来，而刘惠宁更是高兴地搂着妻子一个劲儿地说：“辛苦了，谢谢了。”看着可爱的儿子，刘惠宁兴奋地为之取了一个小名叫“铁蛋”。
　　铁蛋4个月大时，《离婚女子驿站》剧组力邀陈小艺参演，刘惠宁看了剧本后觉得不错，让她演。他鼓励妻子道：“你有一年半没有拍戏，等于两年没在荧幕上出现，多少对事业有所影响，你是个很有潜力的演员，你应该早点出去拍戏，家里由我来照顾。”
　　在丈夫的鼓励下，陈小艺给孩子断了奶，开始锻炼身体。为了让妻子早日恢复身材，刘惠宁给小艺聘请了专门的健身教练，甚至每天清晨早起陪着妻子跑步。终于，陈小艺在最快的时间里恢复了状态，重返摄制组参加电视剧的拍摄。
　　在家的时候想着工作，离开了家，又忍不住挂念孩子。特别是刚离开儿子那会儿，思念儿子的状态就跟灵魂出窍一般。有一次，她在安徽拍摄《乡村女教师》时，面对着一个个可爱的孩子，她的思子之情让她的灵魂出了窍，总是走神，刘惠宁得知后连忙带着孩子去剧组探班，以解妻子思子之苦。
　　2002年9月，两岁半的铁蛋上幼儿园后，陈小艺又开始出去拍戏。一晃几个月没有回家，当她拍完一部戏高兴地赶回北京顾不上休息就去幼儿园接铁蛋，谁知铁蛋看到她后却如见陌生人一般，这让她很震惊，也很失落。
　　一边是年幼的儿子，一边是辛劳的妻子，刘惠宁这个大男人不得不两头“讨好”，这样总算让儿子和妻子又“热乎”起来了。为避免铁蛋和妈妈再次产生陌生感，刘惠宁总会在适当的时候由自己或岳母带着孩子去剧组探班。
　　慢慢地，儿子对妈妈的感情加深了，也特别能理解妈妈了，只要外婆说：“铁蛋，妈妈要出去拍戏了。”孩子就会乖乖地和妈妈说“再见”。
　　
　　爱情打造的重磅戏
　　
　　孩子的理解与乖巧，让陈小艺原来焦躁的心渐渐踏实了，有了温暖的家庭做后盾，她的演艺事业更有起色，先后拍摄了《军歌嘹亮》《苦菜花》《母亲》等数部优秀作品，2003年前后，当人们再次提起陈小艺时，想到的便不仅仅是“外来妹”了。
　　此时刘惠宁的事业也步入了一个新台阶，他先后拍了《12·1枪杀大案》《县委书记》等电视连续剧，反响很好。特别是他以纪实手法拍摄的《12·1枪杀大案》，播出时引起了极大的轰动。就这样，刘惠宁从一个不知名的导演渐渐成了名导。
　　成名之后刘惠宁首先想到的是与妻子合作。他想到妻子先前扮演的角色都是苦情女性，如果长期扮演这种苦“角”，天长日久，也许会影响她在生活中的情绪，因而他在思考着能不能创作一部适合妻子本色的作品，让妻子沉寂多年的事业再创辉煌。
　　
　　带着这样的想法，刘惠宁一直找啊找，直到他遇到《半路夫妻》的剧本。虽说“举贤要避亲”，但他还是向投资方推荐了自己的妻子，因为他太了解生活中的陈小艺身上风风火火和刚中带柔的劲儿，十分符合剧中主人公“胡小玲”的影子。于是在《半路夫妻》中，陈小艺饰演了一个风风火火、干练大胆的女片警。
　　有意思的是，在这部由丈夫导演的电视连续剧中，还有陈小艺的荧屏初吻。拍摄之初，剧中跟她演夫妻的孙红雷在看了剧本之后为难地对她说：“在你老公执导的戏里拍吻戏，这怎么拍呀？”但刘惠宁却说：“如果剧中没必要安排这个情节，我肯定会将它删掉，但剧情需要不仅要拍，还要拍好，这样整部戏才能达到好的效果。”
　　事后，刘惠宁对员工们解释说：“虽然我也舍不得妻子当着我的面跟别人接吻，可这是工作呀，如此想我也就释然了，觉得没什么问题了。”
　　一分汗水一分收获，虽然他们在拍摄这部戏时付出了许多，但是这部戏拍竣之后一经播出，就在全国引起强烈反响，至今已在全国30多家电视台播出，特别是北京电视台的收视率更是一路飘红，开播第一周便在北京地区创播出电视收视率排行第一。
　　2006年6月6日，中国电视剧风云榜颁奖典礼在北京天桥剧院举行。大会根据收视率调查机构AGB尼尔森的数据，评出年度“最佳收视”十强剧集，《半路夫妻》以极高的收视率获此殊荣。大会同时还评选了各个单项奖，当主持人宣布最佳女主角的获得者为陈小艺时，她激动万分——这是陈小艺第一次站在“最佳女主角”的领奖台上，而上次她获得最佳女配角是在1993年，距今已有13年。13年过去了，她已由青年步入中年，而她的事业也几经沉浮，能在30多岁时再创造事业的辉煌，对于少年成名的她而言是一件多么不容易的事情啊。
　　
　　站在领奖台上，陈小艺哽咽道：“感谢本剧的导演、我的丈夫刘惠宁。没有他，就没有我今天的成功！”而此时，台下的刘惠宁也与妻子一样激动，他一边接受朋友们的祝福，一边扭转头悄悄拭泪。
　　
　　Love On and Off Screen
　　By A Zhen
　　
　　In 2006, Chen Xiaoyi won the best female lead award at the Second Top Ten Television Dramas for her impressive interpretation of a middle-aged divorcee policewoman in a television drama named Late-in-Life Couples, a top-ranking television series in 2006. Thirteen years had elapsed since she received her last best supporting role award at the national Hundred Flowers Awards. The TV star shed tears when standing on the stage and receiving the honor.
　　Her acting career took a positive turn in 1987 when she, an actress with the Sichuan Provincial Drama Troupe, was discovered by a director at the Beijing People’s Art Theater, the most prestigious drama troupe in the country. The director encouraged her to sign up for the Central Academy of Drama. The 17-year-old Chen Xiaoyi came to Beijing and got enrolled after fierce competition and tough examinations.
　　It was not until she began her studies at the academy that she learned that she had been enrolled not as one of the best candidates, but as a substitute at the last minute when someone else was disqualified. She felt provoked, thinking it was a humiliation that she had not been viewed as the best. Highly motivated, she worked hard. At the end of the first semester, she became the best student in her class.
　　In her fourth year at the college, she starred in a television series named A Country Girl Came to the City and became a sensational success overnight across the country. For her brilliant performance, she won a series of national showbiz honors. She was just over 20 years old.
　　In 1997, she went to Xi’an to join a production team for a television drama called The Old House. At the airport she was met by a young man wearing glasses. To her surprise, the man introduced himself as Liu Huining. She had known the name of the director but never met him. She smiled at him with gratefulness. It was pouring with rain. The young man shielded her from rain with a umbrella but he himself got drenched. She noticed other attractive things about the young director after the shooting began. The reticent young director became quite talkative when addressing his actors and actresses about the drama. She felt attracted to his charisma and talent. When the shooting ended after two months, the director invited her to a goodbye and thank-you dinner at a Sichuan restaurant. It was a dinner for just the two and a Sichuan cuisine for the girl from Sichuan. Chen was pleased but later embarrassed to find that the director was not especially fond of hot dishes. She was touched and the two fell in love at the dinner.
　　When their friends learned how the romance started, they teased Chen. Since she had turned down many a man who drove BMW and owned a villa, how come she allowed herself to be captured by the young director who offered nothing but a Sichuan-styled hot dinner? She replied that she was touched by his sincerity. She commented, “High-sounding things like lines from a movie would have given me misgivings.”In the spring of 1999 they got married. And in 2000, they had a son. When the baby was four months old, Chen restarted her career after a hiatus of about 1.5 years. She often felt guilty for she did not have all the time she wished to spend with her baby son. The separation from her son often made her distressed and absented-minded. Her husband now and then took their son to visit her. Gradually she came to terms with the reality that she could not be with her son all the time and gradually her career picked up again. By 2003, she had appeared in a few big television series and her name was frequently mentioned in the media not for her role ten years back but her current ones.
　　Meanwhile the career of Liu Huining as a director began to take off. After two successful television series, he made his name known. It was this time that the husband began to rethink about roles suitable for his wife. He realized that the women she had played were more or less involved in various kinds of bitter stories. Aware that such roles could possibly affect her everyday life, Liu desired to find a good play for his wife that would both make her career take off again and keep her away from acting a distressed woman. His search bore fruit. One day he was approached to direct Late-in-Life Couples. It looked as if the script was written for his wife. So he persuaded the producer to bring his wife in to be the female protagonist. It was a good decision.
　　Late-in-Life Couples was a huge success as soon as it was released in the country. It jumped to the number one rating in Beijing in the first week. And more than 30 television networks across the country screened the blockbuster.
　　(Translated by David)