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Exclusive | ‘It’s like a restart for me’: Chinese actress Fan Bingbing on relaunching her career in Green Night after tax scandal, and why staying grounded is ‘important’
- Fan was at the Berlin film festival promoting new film Green Night, and revealed ‘the biggest challenge’ was returning to acting after her enforced absence
- The X-Men star also talked about why staying humble helps her perform, how shooting in Hollywood and China is different and her plans for more films in English
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In a first-floor corridor of the Grand Hyatt Berlin hotel, Fan Bingbing is applying her own make-up, holding up a small compact mirror and tilting her head backwards as she touches up her mascara.
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Only one room has been assigned for publicity purposes for her new movie Green Night, which has just been unveiled in the Panorama strand of this year’s Berlin International Film Festival. And for the moment, the director of the film, Han Shuai, is doing a TV interview in there.
Fan, however, doesn’t seem to care about the makeshift nature of her makeover or the fact that, in a minute or so, we’ll be chatting on two stools in the corner of said corridor, as festivalgoers walk past, blithely unaware of who is sitting there.
A superstar in China following her appearance in films like Cell Phone and I Am Not Madame Bovary, the 41-year-old has already made headway in Hollywood, appearing in films such as X-Men: Days of Future Past and recent all-female action movie The 355.
It’s surprising, then, how low-key she is in person.
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Today she’s wearing a light-pink crochet jumper with tassels, white sneakers and dark jeans bedecked with glitter. It’s a cute outfit, but down to earth. There’s no sign of any expensive designer wear, and she isn’t surrounded by a huge entourage.
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