Lives through a lens: Two actresses share pandemic experiences from other sides of the world
Updated 23:20, 05-Oct-2020
Giulia Carbonaro and Zhang Nini

Northern Irish actress Antonia Campbell-Hughes is in Donegal, Ireland, when she picks up a Zoom call with Tian Yuan, the Chinese actress, director and songwriter, who is sitting in her home studio on the other side of the world in Beijing, China.

 

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Together, the two chat about working in an industry that's been unquestionably changed by the pandemic. Campbell-Hughes was carried away by the same enthusiasm many in the film industry shared to work at this almost unique time in our history, and participated in one of the first TV shows filmed on Zoom – Dolly Wells's Little Room.

Tian, on the other side, was feeling deflated at first. "To be honest, before April I was mostly playing video games," she says. "Because no one knew if the situation would get better or even worse, we were trying to get away from reality," she adds. "I spent most of the time cooking – I improved my cooking a lot – and playing video games. I wrote some songs, I wrote some stories."

 

Tian Yuan at the 2019 Huawei Imaging Show in December 2019, in Shanghai. /VCG

Tian Yuan at the 2019 Huawei Imaging Show in December 2019, in Shanghai. /VCG

 

Tian also rediscovered her love for music, and wrote some songs under lockdown. She shows Campbell-Hughes a cassette player, as the object she cherishes the most as representative of her career.

"When I started listening to music, I started with cassette players. So every time I see a cassette player it brings me back to being 13, I always brought this with me, even in class I had my headphones hidden in my sleeve, the teacher would be lecturing and I was listening to my own music. I think music changed me, changed my life."

The two actresses have never met in real life, but they have one thing in common: being women in an industry often blighted by misogyny and sexism.

Campbell-Hughes defines herself as lucky on that front. "Oddly as an actress, I've worked with more female directors than men. I think just the way I am as a female actress was attractive to female directors, so I worked with many, many very strong, powerful female directors, so it has never seemed like a challenge to me so much."

 

Antonia Campbell-Hughes attending the Irish Film And Television Awards in 2014 in Dublin, Ireland. /Phillip Massey/WireImage

Antonia Campbell-Hughes attending the Irish Film And Television Awards in 2014 in Dublin, Ireland. /Phillip Massey/WireImage

 

"I think it's important to be very aware that even if I feel myself that I haven't felt discrimination or any form of misogyny or sexism, doesn't mean that it's not there, a lot," she adds.

Tian explains her experiences: "In China, especially when I was working in commercials, there weren't so many female directors. I felt like I was always trying to prove myself all the time, as a woman I had to work harder to prove myself, then I kind of got tired of it.

"I want to work in an environment where I find it comfortable being myself. I'm still looking forward to that today."