Ankie Beilke on swapping TVB dramas for China’s vertical drama boom

Vertical dramas run 60 to 100 episodes, but each episode only lasts between one and three minutes, built around constant cliffhangers. As a Lee Strasberg-trained actor, used to building a character over a full script, how do you adapt your process to that compressed, hook-driven structure?
The biggest adaptation is this: you can’t wait for the full picture to make the character real. You have to front-load intentions. Lee Strasberg trained me to chase what’s truthful inside the moment. In vertical dramas, you still do that, but you work in smaller units. Instead of thinking about your character across 60 hours, you think about your character in this hook, in this turn.

Practically, I build a clear internal through-line (who she is, what she wants, what she fears) and it gives me continuity discipline, because I’m shooting so much material so quickly, that I become obsessive about emotional continuity and physical continuity—so the character doesn’t reset every day.

Does your multicultural background give you an edge now that Chinese verticals are being localised and exported to Western audiences?
Yes—because it taught me early that storytelling isn’t only language, it’s behaviour. Different cultures read facial nuance, timing, restraint and emphasis differently. Hong Kong taught me the intensity and efficiency of performance; Germany [and the cultural training around it] taught me precision and structure.

I’m fluent in Cantonese, German and English, so I’m not performing “foreignness” as a stereotype. That matters for localisation, because western audiences often latch onto emotional honesty more than accents—they just need the character’s humanity to be specific and consistent. So when vertical dramas get localised for western audiences, I’m not just acting the words, I’m acting the way a character decides, hesitates, protects herself—and those things travel.

There’s a lot of buzz right now about AI actors and AI-generated short dramas in China—some platforms are even creating AI doubles of real performers. As a working actor in this exact space, what are your views?
I understand the appeal—cost, speed, scale. Vertical dramas already teach everyone that audiences want more and faster. AI is basically trying to meet that demand with production efficiency.

But I also think there’s a fundamental difference between content and craft. Performance is not just output—it’s intent, experience, vulnerability, risk and the human specificity that audiences sense even when they can’t name it. If platforms use AI to assist [editing, pre-visualisation, translation, dubbing workflows], that’s one conversation. If they use AI to replace living performers, that’s a different conversation—one that touches on consent, labour, identity and artistry. Personally, I’m protective of the human truth of acting. I’m not interested in shrinking the role of performers; I’m interested in how new formats can still honour real performance.

You’ve built a brand around yoga and a steady, disciplined lifestyle for almost two decades now—does that grounding help you survive the breakneck production schedule of vertical drama?
Absolutely. Yoga gave me a way to regulate my nervous system, not just my body. In vertical dramas, the adrenaline is constant—short cycles of build, shoot, move, repeat. That can make you emotionally float instead of staying centred. My practice helps me come back to a stable baseline so I can work with intensity without losing myself.

It also helps recovery: when you shoot quickly, your body becomes your schedule’s first casualty—so discipline isn’t aesthetic for me, it’s survival. The grounding is part of my professionalism. It’s how I keep performance sharp and keep my life intact while the production machine runs.

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