HONG KONG — Acclaimed Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi accepted an honorary professorship at Hong Kong Baptist University on Thursday during the opening of the Future Film Fest 2026. In a wide-ranging conversation with film students, she offered an unusually frank look behind the glamour of her three-decade career, detailing the physical toll, emotional discipline, and relentless sacrifice required to sustain a life in cinema.
Discipline Forged Before Dawn
Zhang traced her work ethic to age 11, when she began training in Chinese folk dance at the Beijing Dance Academy. To earn a spot on stage, she recalled, meant enduring repetitive drills day after day, often waking before 6 a.m. in the bitter cold of a Beijing winter. That regimen instilled a principle she still carries: a minute on stage demands years of invisible labor off it.
She later studied performance at the Central Academy of Drama, where she learned that acting is not a solitary pursuit. Zhang admitted to experiencing a familiar wave of tension and insecurity during those years — a feeling that resurfaced every time she stepped onto a film set.
“People see the flowers, the applause, and the honors that surround me,” she told the students. “But for me, the real stage has always been the tears and sweat that no one sees behind the camera.”
Lessons From Iconic Roles
During a Q&A session, Zhang fielded questions about two formative projects. For her 1999 debut in Zhang Yimou’s The Road Home, she knew little about acting beyond “unleashing one’s nature.” To play a village girl, the director sent her to live with farmers — digging potatoes, planting crops, and absorbing rural life. She described her approach as total immersion in the character’s reality.
Working with Wong Kar-wai on The Grandmaster posed an opposite challenge. The director provided no full script; actors received only handwritten pages each day. “I couldn’t prepare for the story,” Zhang explained. “I could only prepare my body.” She spent weeks practicing posture in a dance studio, wearing a cheongsam and high heels to Master the physical grammar of a 1930s martial artist. “Whether you are prepared or not, you have to move your own heart,” she said. “The audience has to feel the character’s impact. It sounds simple, but it is not easy.”
The Physical Toll of Performance
When a student asked how she protects her mental health while playing emotionally punishing roles, Zhang acknowledged the difficulty. Many of her characters carry deep suffering — a reflection, she noted, of her own upbringing in hardship.
“My body reacts instinctively when I act,” she said. “When I was younger, I could withstand it.”
She described a recent, unnamed film in which she played a mother grieving the loss of her son. After finishing a scene, she found her limbs numb and her face exhausted. “I knew the discomfort would be intense,” she said. Her strategy for recovery: live quietly off set. “When I was young, I couldn’t find that calm. Now that I am older, I am more at peace. But an actor cannot feel too sorry for themselves.”
Stark Advice for the Next Generation
Zhang closed with a sobering message for aspiring filmmakers. “If you realize that you are not willing to give everything — to pour yourself fully into the work — then consider choosing another profession.”
Her words carried the weight of someone who has climbed to the peak of a punishing industry. As she accepted her new academic role, Zhang spoke of a “special connection” with HKBU and the importance of sharing not the glamour of her career, but the relentless effort behind it.
The appointment positions her as a mentor to Hong Kong’s emerging film talent, bridging the gap between the industry’s legendary past and its uncertain future. For the students in the room, her honesty offered a rare, unvarnished blueprint of what it truly means to commit a life to the screen.
