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Chinese actress Yao Chen won an outstanding achievement award at the 21st Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy. She told festival-goers she was offered lesser roles when she returned to filmmaking after having a baby.

Chinese actress Yao Chen on motherhood and her career: ‘I couldn’t get the same roles any more’

  • Times 100 list actress won an outstanding achievement award at the 21st Far East Film Festival, where her latest film, Lost, Found, had its European premiere
  • She told festival-goers she was offered lesser roles after returning from maternity leave, and says social media is a double-edged sword
Daniel Eagan

A packed house gave Yao Chen a standing ovation when she accepted a Golden Mulberry award for outstanding achievement at the 21st Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy, this month. The Chinese actress stars in the tense drama Lost, Found, which received its European premiere at the festival.

“Chinese cinema today lacks this type of character,” Yao told the audience of her role as a lawyer, Li Jie, who goes on a desperate search when her young daughter is abducted. “She’s a very modern character, a woman who is capable of independent thinking.”

After the screening and a panel discussion, she spoke to the Post about enduring similar problems to her character. “As an actress, I’ve faced challenges similar to the ones Li Jie faced in her career as a lawyer,” says Yao, 39.

“I went through the experience of becoming a mother, and maternity was very important for me. But when I returned to the industry where I had worked for a long time, it wasn’t that easy to get back into the inner circle.

“After becoming a mother, I couldn’t get the same roles any more. Maybe what they offered to me were ‘other’ roles, ‘lesser’ roles. It also was challenging for me in terms of balancing my family and career.”

Yao’s performances, coupled with her enormous following on social media, have made her one of China’s most influential celebrities.

She gained a following thanks to her role in the 2005 Chinese television series My Own Swordsman. She became a sensation for her role in 2009 Chinese film Lurk, in which she played a communist spy who infiltrates the Kuomintang in post-second world war China.

Leading roles in popular comedies such as 2010’s Color Me Love – a Chinese version of The Devil Wears Prada – and 2015 blockbuster Monster Hunt followed. Yao also branched into drama and action, notably as a journalist embroiled in a social media controversy in Chen Kaige’s Caught in the Web .

Yao (left) and Ma Yili in a still from kidnapping drama Lost, Found.

Her success at the box office, and her almost 80 million Weibo followers, helped propel Yao onto Time magazine’s 2014 “Time 100” list. That same year she was included on a list of the world’s most powerful women compiled by Forbes magazine. But celebrity comes with a price.

“I have been on social media for about 10 years now,” she says. “To some extent you lose your freedom; you are influenced by public opinion. I also was under attack at times. However, I try to use my popularity to share good values. Looking at social media, I can see how I’ve grown up over the past 10 years. It’s become a part of myself.”

To develop new opportunities for herself and other filmmakers, Yao recently formed Bad Rabbit Pictures. Asked about working behind the camera, she says: “It’s easier to be an actress than a producer.” She admits, though, that she hasn’t had enough experience yet as a producer.

Yao in a scene from 2012 film Caught in the Web.

“It’s very different from the experience as an actress. You have directors that you have to discuss problems with and make decisions,” Yao says.

“Young directors have a lot of talent, they are very emotional, and they have a lot of new ideas. But they lack experience and they don’t trust producers very much. To build ... mutual trust, you have to work it out with them.”

During the panel discussion before our interview, Yao confessed to the audience she was unsure about her future career.

Yao Chen (left), the director of Lost, Found, Lue Yue (centre) and Jessica Chen, one of the film’s producers at the Fast East Film Festival 2019, where it received its European premiere.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen. I want to continue growing, continue developing as an actor. The best role is always the next one,” she says. “That said, I think that actors, directors and producers need to express their true feelings, and make films that are brave. If you are brave, you feel a kind of responsibility to the world. That gives us the motivation to do good work.”

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