Cover Audrey Lin is making waves for her acting skills from an early age (Photo: Tatler Hong Kong / Zed Leets)
Audrey Lin is making waves for her acting skills from an early age (Photo: Tatler Hong Kong / Zed Leets)
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The Australian-born, Taiwanese actor, who was nominated in the Best Actress category at this year’s Asian Film Awards, has managed to impress the ‘Life of Pi’ director, as well as film lovers, with her acting prowess
It’s not every day that Ang Lee calls an actor “a genius”. But that’s exactly what the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon director called 12-year-old actress Audrey Lin, while speaking to the press at the Golden Horse Awards last November. Lee was on the jury panel of the prestigious awards, in which Lin won the Best Actress award. She received this accolade for her role as a schoolgirl in the film Trouble Girl (2023), becoming the youngest person in the Golden Horse’s history to win in this category. Before this, Lin had debuted in American Girl (2021), for which she was nominated as Best New Talent at Taipei Film Awards in 2022.
Lin was in Hong Kong in early March to attend the Asian Film Awards, where she was contending in the Best Actress category (for Trouble Girl). Tatler sat down with Lin and her mother Kelly Wang for a chat at The Langham ahead of the event. “I like the feeling of being in front of a camera and acting out the emotions of a character [who’s] very different from me,” she says. “[Through it,] I find out a way of expressing myself.”
Above A film still from “Trouble Girl” (Image: courtesy of Golden Scene)
A film still from “Trouble Girl” (Image: courtesy of Golden Scene)
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In Trouble Girl, she plays Xiao-xiao, a schoolgirl with mild ADHD, who faces bullying in school and struggles to understand her mother’s complex relationship with her teacher. Lin impressed the audience—and Lee—with her pitch-perfect expressions that conveyed her character’s feeling of helplessness.
While critics and film lovers have interpreted the film’s message as a commentary on children’s mental health and the culture of bullying in schools, Lin breaks down the message in a simple, heartwarming way. “Always be kind to others because you never know what they [might] be going through in their life right now.”
Before Lin joined films, she also acted in Taiwan’s theatre productions such as Tropical Angels (2023) and My Mother Is Eny? (2021).
But Lin doesn’t come from a family of actors. Her mother Wang says, “I didn’t know about her talent. I wasn’t particularly looking to nurture her acting skills.” Wang recalls that when her daughter was seven, she opted for a musical class as part of her summer camp and loved the experience so much that, just a year later, she began training at Taiwanese theatre group AM Creative.
Above A film still from “Trouble Girl” (Image: courtesy of Golden Scene)
Above A film still from “Trouble Girl” (Image: courtesy of Golden Scene)
A film still from “Trouble Girl” (Image: courtesy of Golden Scene)
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It was also this theatre group that opened Lin’s door to the silver screen a few years later. “The American Girl production team was looking for a child actor who could speak English but for a long time couldn’t find anyone,” Wang says. “Her teacher at the theatre got wind of this and proposed that my daughter go for an audition.”
Lin says what she loves the most about filmmaking is learning things and hanging out with the cast and crew. She always looks forward to her weekends, when she gets to have her acting classes, and misses the short but hectic period of shooting films.
But most of the time, it’s still school and homework that takes up Lin’s time. “Like what Ang Lee once advised her, she’s still young and should focus on getting a good education first,” says Wang.
Lin is back at school after the Asian Film Awards. There’s no film in her pipeline just yet, but the actor is certain about continuing to pursue acting. “It’s my big passion. If I come across a script that I like, I would want to try it out.”
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Zabrina is the Senior Editor, Arts and Culture of Tatler Hong Kong. She specialises in performing arts, visual art and film. Her wanderlust was first fuelled by the Mighty Rovers Antarctica Expedition 2010. Over the years, she has interviewed A-list artists and filmmakers, including Oscar winners Chlóe Zhao and Tim Yip, Golden Horse winner Sylvia Chang, In the Mood for Love cinematographer Christopher Doyle, Pachinko author Min Jin Lee, and Coachella’s first Chinese solo singer Jackson Wang. She won gold at the WAN-IFRA Asian Media Awards for her 2021 feature on the waves of hate crimes targeting Asian Americans.
