Chinese actress Xin Zhilei holds the Volpi Cup for best actress for her performance in The Sun Rises on Us All at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival, on September 6, 2025. She discusses her acting journey, her historic win, and more. -- Photo: EPA via SOUTH CHINA MORNING
BEIJING/VENICE (SCMP): When Xin Zhilei stood up to accept her best actress award at this year’s Venice Film Festival, winning for Cai Shangjun’s The Sun Rises on Us All, she was in a daze.
“I feel like I am dreaming,” she said.
The first Chinese actress to win the prestigious prize since Deanie Ip Tak-han took it for Ann Hui On-wah’s A Simple Life in 2011, and only the third ever to do so – the other being Gong Li for 1992’s The Story of Qiu Ju – it marks a significant step in an already notable career.
Two days before her historic win, 39-year-old Xin sat down with the Post for an interview at a hotel on Venice’s Lido island in a cottage space that was as delicate as a dollhouse.
It felt a slightly bizarre setting for an actress whose performance here was so grounded, so real, even though Xin is also known for her work with the legendary director Wong Kar-wai on his 2023 television series Blossoms Shanghai.
Xin (left) and Zhang Songwen in a still from The Sun Rises on Us All. - SCMP
In The Sun Rises on Us All, she plays Meiyun, a small-time business owner already sinking under the pressures of life when she gets a real shock running into her ex-partner Baoshu (Zhang Songwen) – a man who went to jail instead of her when they were involved in a hit and run.
“After working on Wong Kar-wai’s television series, this was very different,” she explained. “It’s about little, tiny things: normal people, love, hate, morality.”
Gradually, in this elusive drama, we learn that Meiyun split from her man one year into his prison sentence.
“I sympathised with her because even if I don’t have the same kind of experience in my life, I understand her choices. Because this life … you can be a good person, you can be evil. Or – like most people – you’re in the grey, between good and bad.”
In The Sun Rises on Us All, she plays Meiyun, a small-time business owner already sinking under the pressures of life when she gets a real shock running into her ex-partner Baoshu (Zhang Songwen) – a man who went to jail instead of her when they were involved in a hit and run.
Xin poses on the red carpet during arrivals for the screening of the movie The Sun Rises on Us All at the 82nd Venice Film Festival, on September 5, 2025. -- Photo: Reuters
“After working on Wong Kar-wai’s television series, this was very different,” she explained. “It’s about little, tiny things: normal people, love, hate, morality.”
Gradually, in this elusive drama, we learn that Meiyun split from her man one year into his prison sentence.
“I sympathised with her because even if I don’t have the same kind of experience in my life, I understand her choices. Because this life … you can be a good person, you can be evil. Or – like most people – you’re in the grey, between good and bad.”
She was able to find the humanity in her character’s decision to leave her ex after he went to jail for her.
“She was so scared, she was unable to go to the prison. It’s about cowardliness. That was my comprehension.”
Director Cai holds back on details for the first third of the film, allowing viewers to fill in the blanks. During rehearsals, there were intense discussions between him and the cast.
“We had to create a space for the audience, for the imagination,” Xin said.
In the backdrop to the film, Meiyun runs a fashion retail business, even doing live blogs to sell her wares to customers.
“It’s not so far from my actual life, because when I was very young, I was studying fashion,” she said.
Born in Heilongjiang province, Xin took a fashion design course in Harbin, the province’s capital.
“I wanted to be a designer,” she explained. But then came her switch. “It was an accident! I didn’t expect it … an agent asked me to sign a contract as an actress. Then, slowly, I fell in love with acting.”
She made her debut in the 2011 television series Painted Skin, but it was difficult transitioning from fashion student to actress.
“In the beginning, it was very hard. Because you have to learn … and in China it’s a very hard process. But through my own hard work, I’m here.”
Along the way, roles in action spectacles like Brotherhood of Blades II: The Infernal Battlefield (2017) and The Rescue (2021) have given way to more intimate arthouse dramas.
Xin poses for fans on the red carpet for the film The Sun Rises on Us All during the Venice Film Festival, on September 5, 2025. -- Photo: AP
Outside her work in The Sun Rises on Us All, her career high was working with Wong on his 1990s-set Blossoms Shanghai. It was the In the Mood for Love director’s first foray into television.
“It was a very long shooting experience, three years,” Xin said. “Each behaviour, each line, everything, it had to be [Wong’s] way.”
While Xin did take classes at China’s Central Academy of Drama, working for Wong was a world away from the more academic approach of the academy. “He asks you to be truthful.”
When Xin is asked to name her favourite actresses, she offers Chinese mega-stars Zhang Ziyi and Gong Li – but her tastes also skew to the West. Among them was Meryl Streep, whom she met at the 2016 Berlin International Film Festival, when the latter was head of the jury and Xin starred in her breakthrough film Crosscurrent.
She also loves English actress Jodie Comer, which may come as no surprise. Both Xin and Comer have performed on stage in the demanding one-woman play Prima Facie; in 2024, Xin won best leading performance at the Shanghai Magnolia Performance Awards for her work in the show.
Undoubtedly, like the ladies she loves, this ambitious actress is not the sort to take anything for the sake of a payday.
“I’m looking for what I really love,” she said. “I don’t want to waste any time.”
Would she consider a move in English-language cinema, following the path of Gong Li? “My English is not good!” she stammered, in English, laughing a little.
Nor is she planning to make the transition to directing – at least not now.
“I am trained to act. Maybe in the future … but I don’t want to fixate. Maybe one day I really will have that interest, but I don’t want to change for change’s sake.”
Xin revealed that she does not even get recognised a great deal.
“Without make-up, it’s normal. People don’t bother me. If they do, they just say hello.”
After her win in Venice, however, that is likely going to change. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
