2015–2016: Debut While still in college, in October 2015, Xu starred in a short film called
Gaming Madness. He also participated in various photo shoots, leading to him being scouted as one of the main leads for a web series called
Addicted, broadcast in January 2016. He was also chosen to compose and sing the opening and closing theme songs of
Addicted. The full episodes were later uploaded on YouTube, which made the lead actors popular locally and internationally. Afterwards, Xu began to focus on his music career. On May 1, 2016, he released his first album entitled
Light and then undertook an Asian concert tour between June and August 2016. Xu also participated in various fashion magazine photo shoots. Later, he raised his profile and earned numerous awards as "Best New Artist". He was named as one of the Top 20 Most Popular Celebrities on Weibo by
Sina Weibo Data Center, and earned the title of "New Trend Idol of the year" from
Star Magazine. Moreover, his growing popularity resulted in him being placed first in several polls. He was invited as a guest to a number of radio shows, such as:
Billboard Radio China; TofuPOP Radio – BEC Tero Radio in Thailand;
Yang Lan 8 p.m. Show; Hongdou Live Interview; FM 101.7 Music Kaleidoscope; and NetEase Cloud Music (Xu Weizhou Cold Jokes); as well as web shows and live streaming events. On December 8, he released his single "
Fun" which rose to the top of several music charts. The official music video was released on December 15. His growing popularity also led to him being ranked 37th on Data Win's Top 50 Most Internet & Business Celebrity Influencers in China 2016.
2017: Variety show and miscellaneous activities In late January 2017, Xu made his first official variety appearance on
Intangible Her, broadcast on
Tencent Video. His successful variety show debut led to him placing fifth in the Top 10 Most Popular Variety Stars in the first half of the year. That March, Xu sang the Chinese version of "The Heroes" by
Simple Plan (the theme song of Canadian film
Snowtime!). With this song, he topped the
Billboard China V chart and Mandarin chart in the same week for the second time. He also performed the song live with the rock band on March 4 in Beijing. In addition, the Canadian Embassy and Children's Film Association granted him an ambassadorial role for "China-Canada Cultural Exchange" and "Children's Film Promotion" during the film's press conference. On April 1, 2017, Xu appeared as a guest on the music show
Global Chinese Music Chart (currently airing on
CCTV15), performing his song "Fun". He was then selected to sing "Screaming Night", the theme song for the 2017
iQiyi Screaming Night Concert, at which the song's video was first screened. In May, he was officially appointed as the "Starlight" ambassador and was the first artist from mainland China to be invited to the
Billboard Music Awards in
Las Vegas. Afterwards, he played the main character for a
Vogue film project called
Seize the Moment, a short film which debuted during the
Cannes Film Festival. After the success of
Light in 2016, Xu released the first quarter of his second solo album, entitled
The Time, on August 10, 2017. This sold more than 450,000 copies and was certified double platinum. The second quarter of the album was released online for free on October 20, his 23rd birthday, while the third quarter was released on December 12. He was also chosen to sing the theme song for a British-Chinese action thriller film,
S.M.A.R.T. Chase, entitled "Ruins of Time", which was released on August 23. The song was written by
Jay Chou, a famous singer. Xu's songs "
So What", "
Leave Me Alone", and "Ruins of Time" were placed first to third place respectively on the
YinYueTai China V Chart of most viewed music videos, in weeks 38 and 39 of 2017. On September 1,
Jingdong published Xu's first photo book, entitled "This is Timmy". Later,
CCTV announced that he would be one of the hundred singers selected to sing the "China" song in the celebration the 40th anniversary of China's reforms. He attended the annual
Anhui TV Drama Awards on December 16. At the end of 2017, Xu was placed 10th in
Sina Weibo's "2017 Popular Star" list, having the highest number reposts (with 65.99 million). His post in Sanya was ranked 10th most popular post with 6.69 million fan interactions. Moreover,
15 Minutes for Craziness ranked fourth on the Top 10 music topics, with 380 million views. His music video "The Heroes", which was posted on Sina Music, was also placed fourth on the Top 10 popular music chart with 0.6 million likes/reposts/comments.
2018: TV drama In January 2018,
20th Century Fox announced that Xu had been selected to sing the Chinese promotional song "Maze", produced by
Harvey Mason Jr., for the American film
Maze Runner: The Death Cure. In the same month, he was invited to participate in the Chinese Spring Festival Galas of three China TV stations:
Dragon Television,
Anhui Television, and
Beijing Television. On January 31, he released the final quarter of
The Time, "15 Minutes for Fantasy". After
The Time was released online in its entirety, he held a press conference in
Taiwan for the release of the physical album on February 3. In April, Xu joined the SuperdrySounds project, performing at the global launch party in London and at the Strawberry Music Festival in Shanghai later that month. He started filming for a new drama series,
My Girlfriend, on April 16. In May, he made his TV variety show debut when he guest-starred in two episodes of
Give Me Five on Zhejiang TV. The digital version of
The Time was officially released in Thailand on May 16, and instantly went to the top of the iTunes chart. On May 26, he performed in Bangkok as part of his second Asia Tour. On May 28, Tencent announced Xu as the new spokesperson for their short video app, Weishi. In June, Xu placed third on Starmometer's chart of 100 Asian Heartthrobs of 2018. In July, he joined
Shake It Up, a dance variety show on Shanghai TV, winning second place in the final round of the competition. On July 5, presales of the physical version of
The Time started on JD.com; more than 13,000 copies were sold within one hour. On July 10, presales of
The Time started in Taiwan, where it immediately reached first place on the sales chart. Later in the month, Entertainment Star Business revealed the 2018 Star Commercial Value List, in which Xu was the first-placed Top Potential Artist. He also appeared in the 2018
Forbes 30 under 30 China artist list. In October, Xu attended the 5th Silk Road International Film Festival closing ceremony and performed his song "Glory". On October 20 (his 24th birthday), he held a free concert at the
Olympic Sports Center Gymnasium in Beijing and also released a new song, "Everything About You", for his fans. He was ranked 70th on the list of Top 100 Most Commercial Value Chinese Stars in 2018. On November 19, it was announced that Xu had been cast in the sports drama
Ping Pong. Later, he was selected to sing the theme song for China's Communist Youth League, and China's 40 years of Reform Celebration. In December, he attended
Beijing Television's 2019 New Year Global Gala.
2019–2021 In April 2019, Xu started filming for new TV series
Dear Mayang Street. He was selected in the same month to sing the theme song for China's Youth Integrity Education. In May, Xu attended the Hunan TV Gala for the 100th anniversary of the
May Fourth Movement as a representative of outstanding young actors. In addition, he attended the Beijing Winter Olympics Countdown 1,000 days ceremony as their ambassador. He also acted as
MC for the event, performing his song "Glory" on stage. In June, he was appointed as the Youth Film Project Ambassador of Shanghai International Film Festival. In September 2020, Xu became Shanghai Karamay Cultural Exchange Ambassador. He also filmed his first costume drama,
Weaving a Tale of Love. In 2021, Xu starred in his first Republic of China drama
City of Streamer. He also filmed season two of
Weaving a Tale of Love.
2022 Xu started 2022 with the release of the music video of the Beijing Winter Olympics theme song
Wave, which he sang with
Victoria Song.
City of Streamer was released in early January; to mark this, one of the drama's theme songs entitled "Unconfused Love" (sung by Xu) was launched online on January 22. He spent the first half of 2022 working on two films: filming of
Almost Lover completed in early March; then
Ping Pong:The Triumph began production. Xu announced his marriage in early March 2022. He participated in CCTV3 short program "Beginning from Yan'an" in which he portrayed woodcut artist Gu Yuan. The program showed how Gu's journey in the countryside transformed his woodcutting techniques. On April 7, 2022, "I Wanna be Your Lover" was released as a single. This was a track from the album
Crossfever performed by Xu with Japanese band FIVE NEW OLD. It was the promotional song for the Ninagawa Real Flower Exhibition–Between Fiction and Reality, which took place in Beijing. Another song from the album
Sunrise was released on as a single on June 23 and as a music video in October. Xu released two other non album songs released:
Sing to You, produced by
China Youth Daily, and
Sing to Dream, the theme song of a program broadcast on Youku's. Late in the second half of 2022, Xu attended Weibo Night and won the Breakout Actor award. He also attended the Beijing International Film Festival where he sang the opening welcome song with two other Chinese actors.
2023: Film and play (theater) The movie
Ping Pong: The Triumph premiered on February 14, 2023, with a wider release on February 17. Xu played the character Bai Minhe in the film, who was based on
Ma Wenge. He won Annual Attention Actor and Most Breakout Actor awards for the role. Xu's next movie,
Blasting Squad, was announced at a press conference in October; filming started in November 2023. In December, he unveiled his next film
Melting City at the 18th China
Changchun Film Festival alongside the director and new co-star. During 2023, Xu broadened his acting range by joining a three-month theatrical tour. He performed Zhou Ping in the play
Thunderstorm and
After Thunderstorm in thirty-three shows in nine cities between May and July. Following this experience, he reflected on how playing Zhou Ping had been a precious learning opportunity, and thanked his co-stars, creative directors and producers. On a Beijing TV program, Xu talked more in depth about his experience on stage. For example, during the first show he got stage fright: he could not move and thought his stage career was over, as acting on stage could not allow mistakes. Thankfully, he said, he recovered quickly. His co-stars did not even notice. He was very happy to play Zhou Ping particularly in a renowned national theater such as the
National Centre for Performing Arts in the heart of Beijing.
Wan Fang supervised and guided the troupe from start to finish. She commended Xu for performing the best Zhou Ping. She said he subverted current and previous versions of Zhou Ping and gave a new understanding to the character. Four more singles and a music video were released from the third album
Crossfever. As the name suggests,
Crossfever is a cross-border concept album between music and art. "Spreading" was the first single, and was shown at the album's debut on March 3, 2023. It was also the promotional song for "Giger and Hajime Sorayama: Tomorrow is Near" exhibition at
UCCA Lab in Beijing. Five or six singles from
Crossfever were exhibited in art centers in Chongqing (January 14 to February 5, 2023), Beijing (October 29 to November 17, 2023), and Shanghai (December 2, 2023, to February 4, 2024). In February 2023, Xu was invited by his alma mater for the high school's alum Q&A special session. During the summer Xu spent his spare time practicing drifting. This led to him officially joining the Shanghai OPS drift team on September 27, 2023. Xu was a torch bearer in the 31st Summer
Universiade torch relay in Chengdu on July 26, 2023. ==Fashion==