We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Zihan Zhao a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Zihan thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

I had a full time job as a singer/musical theater when I was in China and I didn’t know any English. It was a big challenge and risk for me to move to the US. But I really wanted to take the risk as I just simply enjoy it. I know I’m adventurous in the way that I would challenge myself without knowing the outcome, or I wanna say that I always think things will work out at the end. Although it’s not all true. With the tremendous language barriers, all the skills that I had in China couldn’t work here in the US. I had to go to a community college to learn English which means I had to take years of break from my professional career. But somehow I knew this would be a very an exciting journey! And indeed, it has been very exciting to me. I met good friends and mentors during this journey. Even though I had moments that I doubted if I should keep my creative path, I eventually decided to keep pursuing this goal.
I have asked myself many times if I would change my mind to study something more pragmatic and not risky. But the answer is no, I think life is not just about being safe and comfortable. Life is about enjoy the exciting moments, the process of improving and the difficulties along the way.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I was a singer/musical theater actress when I was back in China. And when I came to LA, I suddenly lost all my tools to have a career. So I had to go to LA Valley College to study English and luckily I took many acting classes. And I found my passion in acting so I decided to apply to UCLA graduate school for acting. In 2021, I graduated from UCLA with an MFA degree in Acting and I also got a manager and agent through my showcase. I have done several short films like “Fish”, “About Us” and appeared in commercials for “Bear Paw” and “Picot”. I am also a Mandarin Tutor, I have taught students from all ages, includes executives who work in corporations and kids at their young age. I love teaching and love to see my students growing. It’s also a bless for me apply all my skills in teaching and I’m really proud of myself for making the learning process so much fun and enjoyable.
Lately, I started live stream on Tiktok and you can definitely find me go on live every evening and have fun with my fans. I sing and dance on my live as well as share feelings and being a good listeners to my fans. Some of my fans shared their traumatic experience, their opinions of current world and their love life. If you wanna talk to someone, please hop on my live. Also, I teach Mandarin on my live as well, so come to my live if you wanna learn some Mandarin.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I remember after my short film ” About Us” screening at the theater, I was in line for the ladies room. And the lady in front of me turned her head said, ” Were you in the film I just saw? Oh you did so good, that’s a really heart warming story and you made me cry.” I think that ‘s the moment makes me feel so proud and keep motivating me to pursue my passion. Being able to inspire and connect with others is the most rewarding aspect of being an artist for me. And acting is one thing that allow me to connect with people from different places and cultural backgrounds. It’s very rewarding for me to know that someone feels what I feel at the moment even they are afar from me.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I think there’s a lot net working event in Los Angeles that I didn’t know of until last year. I had always felt isolated as I’m not from here and I don’t have family or a lot of friends in LA. So last year, I started looking for networking opportunities and I suddenly realized that there’s a lot of net working event in LA where I can meet other fellow creatives. “Info-list” is one the events I highly recommend as there’s a lot of cool people and very talented the creatives. My life had drastically changed since I started knowing more creatives as we always talk about creating new projects and we also share feelings as artists.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.zihanzhaoactress.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laylazihanz/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zihan-zhao-28999543/
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@laylazihan

Image Credits
Jeremy Campbell Kaz Seila Matthew Fischer