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How do you react if you’re an award-winning actress but feel like you don’t have much control over the direction of your career? In the case of Taiwan’s Yen Yi-wen, you start writing and directing your own series.
Based on her own experiences, Yen has written and directed 12-part series, Born For The Spotlight, produced by Netflix and Third Man Entertainment, which is streaming globally from November 7. The Taipei-set drama revolves around a group of actresses, spanning different generations, from a newcomer trying to get her first break in the industry to an older soap opera star, who feels she can’t retire because she needs to support her family.
The core group of characters includes three women supposedly at the top of their game – an actress turned manager (played by Hsieh Ying-xuan); her former friend and current adversary (played by Cheryl Yang), who is struggling with the pressures of a fading career, drinking heavily and living in hotel rooms; and an actress who rose to fame through adult movies (Annie Chen), who can be naïve despite her sexy, confident persona.
Yen says she started writing around the same time that she won Best Actress for TV movie Angel’s Voice (2015) at Taiwan’s prestigious Golden Bell Awards. “I worked really hard to get recognised, but after winning the award, it became a burden or a test – everyone had high expectations of me, but I realised there were many things outside of my control,” Yen tells Deadline.
She made her debut as a writer and director with 10-episode series The Making Of An Ordinary Woman, also starring Hsieh and produced by Taiwanese broadcaster CTS and Catchplay, which was praised for its portrayal of a middle-aged woman. The second season, produced by CTS and Screenworks Asia, won Best Writing for a Television Series at Taiwan’s prestigious Golden Bell Awards.
Following her success with that series, Yen wanted to make something more directly connected to her personal experience: “I wanted to write a story to show the audience what life is really like for these actresses and the compromises they have to make. You’re always judged for your performance but usually you can’t control the script and other elements of a production. There are many realities you have to encounter behind the scenes.”
Born For Spotlight producer Olive Ting says she came across Yen’s script, originally a feature film, at a pitching event and encouraged her to develop it into a series. “I was fascinated by this story because we rarely see the real side of our industry. The day after winning a major award, life just goes on.”
This series and The Making Of An Ordinary Woman are part of a new wave of realistic dramas emerging from Taiwan – some such as The World Between Us touching on social and mental health related issues, and other such as Wave Makers dealing with politics and workplace sexual harassment.
Hsieh, who has won best actress awards in real life for The Making Of An Ordinary Woman and feature film Dear Ex, says she’s encouraged by the range of roles she’s being offered these days, although there’s still more work to be done. “We’re seeing more scripts that focus on female autonomy, and also portray women of different social backgrounds, but I hope to see even more diversity in female characters in the future.”
Although it doesn’t focus on the issue, Born For The Spotlight does touch on the straying hands, male egos and other issues that women in the entertainment industry have to face. Ting makes the point that this is not specific to the Taiwanese film business, but a global problem. “The positive thing is that more women are speaking out so the situation is improving. We’re witnessing a shift in society so that people in power, whether male or female, are at least more conscious that they need to be respectful.”
Yen says that when she started working behind the camera, she saw also noticed positive changes in the Taiwanese film industry: “There are more and more female crew – not just writers and filmmakers, but also cinematographers and lighting crew. These are roles that used to be dominated by men.”
Taiwanese series are starting to get more global recognition, in part thanks to streaming platforms such as Netflix, Catchplay+ and HBO, which have been streaming them outside of Taiwan. Yen says that she’s not thinking about viewers outside Taiwan when she starts writing, but believes there are many elements in Born For the Spotlight that will resonate with international audiences.
At its core, the series deals with the life-affirming but sometimes competitive relationships between female friends, mother-daughter relationships and the pressures that all women face at different stages of their lives. “It’s a character-driven story and even though the language and culture might be different, there are lots of universal elements,” says Yen.
Yang, who plays the fading actress and previously starred in Netflix Taiwanese series Light The Night, about a group of women working in a nightclub, makes the point that female-centric drama is a trend that is happening globally: “We see more female characters breaking stereotypes and having different aspirations, not just in Taiwan, but around the world. And fortunately Taiwan does have the creative freedoms to explore these topics.”
