28 Facts About Bai Ling

Bai Ling is a Chinese American actress and musician.

Bai Ling is best known for her work in the films The Crow, Nixon, Red Corner, Crank: High Voltage, Dumplings, Wild Wild West, Anna and the King, Southland Tales, and Maximum Impact, as well as TV shows Entourage and Lost.

Bai Ling won the Best Supporting Actress awards at the 2004 Hong Kong Film Awards and the 2004 Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan for her role in Dumplings.

Bai Ling's father, Bai Yuxiang, was a musician in the People's Liberation Army, and later a music teacher.

Bai Ling's mother, Chen Binbin, was a dancer, stage actress, and literature teacher at Sichuan University; Bai's maternal grandfather was a military officer of the Kuomintang army, thus was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution.

Bai Ling has one older sister, Bai Jie, who works for the Chinese tax bureau, and a younger brother, Bai Chen, who emigrated to Japan and works for an American company.

Bai Ling temporarily moved to New York in 1991 to attend New York University's film department as a visiting scholar, but later obtained a special visa that allowed her to remain in the United States until she became a US citizen in 1999.

Bai Ling began her acting career in China, appearing in several Chinese feature films.

Bai Ling became famous after playing a girl with a psychological disorder who has an affair with her doctor, in the film The Shining Arc, directed by Zhang Junzhao, her most highly acclaimed role in the Chinese film industry.

In 1991, Bai Ling moved to the United States, where she appeared in a number of American films and television shows including the legendary soap opera Guiding Light alongside actress Melina Kanakaredes.

The New York Times praised Bai Ling's performance, saying that she gave the film "not only grace, but substantial gravity".

Bai Ling was named one of Peoples 50 Most Beautiful People in the World in 1998.

Bai Ling shaved off her hair, which was longer than 36 in for her role in Anna and the King, and is widely known in Thailand as "Tuptim", her character's name from the film, though the film is officially banned because of its depiction of the King of Siam.

Bai Ling claimed that this was because she appeared in the June 2005 issue of Playboy magazine, whose appearance on newsstands coincided with the movie's May 2005 release, but director George Lucas denied this, stating that the cut had been made more than a year earlier.

Bai Ling's scenes were included in the deleted scenes feature of the DVD release.

In 2004, Bai made a comeback to Chinese cinema, co-starring with Hong Kong actress Miriam Yeung in independent filmmaker Fruit Chan's horror thriller Dumplings.

Later in 2005, Bai Ling was a member of the official jury at the 55th Berlin International Film Festival.

Also in 2005, Bai Ling guest-starred in season two of Entourage in which she played a love interest of Vincent Chase.

In late 2014, Bai Ling starred alongside David Arquette in The Key, Jefery Levy's adaptation of the novel by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki.

In October 2014, Bai Ling was a member of the jury in the "India Gold 2014" section of the Mumbai Film Festival.

In 2017, Bai Ling took part in the short film To Pimp a Butterfly by Rui Cui, which won her second Best Actress win at the Asians On Film Festival.

Subsequently in 2019, after 15 years since their collaboration in Dumplings, director Fruit Chan and Bai worked together again in The Abortionist.

Bai Ling enjoyed a new success in independent horror movies such as Exorcism at 60,000 Feet and Unspeakable: Beyond the Wall of Sleep.

Bai Ling was awarded in Italy the Milan Gold Awards Best Actress prize for Jack Be Nimble, another horror film.

On February 14,2008, Bai Ling was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport for shoplifting.

Bai Ling stated it was an "emotionally crazy" day due to the breakup of a relationship, and was ordered to pay a fine and penalties after pleading guilty in March 2008 to disturbing the peace.

Bai Ling believes that when she looks up at the Moon, she can often spot her grandmother there, still living in her childhood home.

When Bai Ling first came to the United States, before she became fluent in English, she was initially confused by people asking if she was bi, as the word is homophonous with "Bai Ling".