Shi Ke

Shi Ke grew up in Yichang, Hubei, the youngest of four sisters. In school she was a multi-talented student — singing, hosting, dancing — but her real dream was to become a singer. She applied to music conservatories for three consecutive years before fate intervened: in her third year she was accepted by both the Wuhan Conservatory of Music and the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing. She chose drama — partly because Beijing seemed full of possibility, partly out of stubborn pride after the long wait — and arrived at the Central Academy of Drama in 1985.

In her acting class she stood alongside Gong Li, Jin Lili, Wu Yujuan, and Chen Wei — together nicknamed by the Chinese press as the Central Academy's "Five Golden Flowers" (五朵金花). Her class advisor, the noted director Liang Bolong (梁伯龙), famously warned her, "you're here to study acting, not to sing." From her second year onward, she was already being cast in films, and her earnings made her one of the first in her class to find financial footing.

After her early breakthroughs, Shi Ke endured a low point in her career — only to be electrified by a performance from Wuhan's great stage actor Hu Qingshu (胡庆树) in the play Crossing the River in the Same Boat (同船过渡). She realised then what real acting could be. On a cold winter night soon after, she was followed home and attacked by a knife-wielding stranger; she was stabbed in the arm and rushed into surgery. When a visiting officer told her she could have been killed, she replied — bleeding — "then I wouldn't be able to act anymore." That night she telephoned her former president, Xu Xiaozhong (徐晓钟), who told her: "come home — come back to the school — and realise your ideals through your work."

Shi Ke has staged at least one play almost every year of her career. In Lin Zhaohua's Yinding Bridge she plays Wu Sao opposite Ni Dahong; the role won her Best Lead at the 7th International Theatre Academy Awards in 2017, and the production has toured more than 240 times. Her Abbie in Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms (榆树下的欲望), a role she first played at the Central Academy and revisited three decades later at the National Centre for the Performing Arts, won Best Actress at the 1st Chinese Drama Awards in 2017. Other stage credits include Camel Xiangzi, A Dream Like a Dream, Thunderstorm · Afterwards (opposite He Saifei), and The Forging of Swords directed by Poland's Grzegorz Jarzyna.

In the late 1980s, fresh out of the Central Academy, Shi Ke played Chen Bailu (陈白露) in China's first musical, Sunrise (日出). Her vocal coach was Cong Ailian (丛爱莲), a senior piano teacher at the China National Theatre for Children. Despite a generational age gap, the two became "soul friends," and remain so today. When Cong returned to her home in Zibo, Shandong, Shi Ke continued visiting; she sang at Cong's 80th birthday celebration and brought her to her own touring stage productions.

After her first marriage ended, Shi Ke took a Mediterranean cruise on the advice of a friend. There she met a Swiss financial analyst — whom she calls "Lao Ke" (老柯) — who fell in love with her at first sight. She made her terms clear: she would not give up her Chinese citizenship; her career, her audience, her teachers and her stage were all in China. Lao Ke moved to China to be with her, learned Mandarin, and immersed himself in family life. They have two sons; the elder is nicknamed Huzi (虎子).

Asked to summarise her career, Shi Ke quotes an ancient Sanskrit aphorism: "A great work succeeds not by the means of its action, but by the purity of the heart that drives it." Looking back, she says, she has simply done one thing — acted with a pure heart. That, and nothing more.