Tamia Liu Tao 刘涛
Before television, Tamia Liu worked as a telephone operator, and she rose to fame with the roles of Azhu and Madame White Snake. After her wedding, the actress announced she was leaving the screen, and returned two years later. It was after her comeback that she played Mi Shu in Legend of Miyue and the financial specialist Andy in Ode to Joy. For Andy, she personally worked out what she wears, what she eats and how her daily life is arranged.
Tamia Liu was born in Nanchang. Before television, she worked as a telephone operator. By her own account, that job involved plenty of simple household duties, and she had to learn the acting craft on set. In Wai Lai Xi Fu Ben Di Lang, Liu landed one of her first notable roles, and then she made it into My Fair Princess 3. She had once watched the early episodes of that story herself. In the adaptation of Jin Yong's Demi Gods & Semi Devils, Liu played A'Zhu, a girl able to change her appearance and keep far more to herself than those around her know. In Madame White Snake, she was already given the title role. Audiences were used to seeing Liu in period costumes, and in her first years she herself did not yet know how long she would stay in the profession.
In 2007, Liu met the entrepreneur Wang Ke. Twenty days later they registered their marriage, and after the wedding in 2008 Liu announced that she was leaving the screen. They had a daughter and a son. As early as 2010, she returned to filming. Liu spoke about what had happened at home only later. According to her, her husband's business went badly, the family came to talk of divorce, but she decided to stay by his side and go back to work. She brought this story to the public only after her return had been followed by several new series. From the account of her family, viewers moved on to the question of how much her heroines resembled her. Liu had to explain that at home she acts for one set of reasons, while on screen she has to make sense of the circumstances of a completely different person.
She had contemporary roles again, including in Good Wife and To Elderly With Love. In Nirvana in Fire, Liu played Nihuang, who knows how to command an army but for a long time does not know under what name the man she has remembered since her youth has returned. In Legend of Miyue, she was Mi Shu. The two women there grew up close, and at court they gradually become rivals. Liu said it was important to her to remember their former affection even in scenes where they can no longer agree. For Mi Shu she was awarded a supporting actress prize at the Shanghai TV Festival. After that, audiences could see her in a completely different setting, in Ode to Joy.
Andy in Ode to Joy works in finance and is used to managing her time as strictly as other people's money. Liu thought through what she eats, what clothes she chooses and how her apartment looks. This was work on a person whose way of making decisions is visible even at home. If in a historical series much about a heroine is conveyed by her place at court, here Liu could show almost the same thing through the way Andy gets ready in the morning and what she does when she is alone. Later the actress appeared in the hotel reality show Hotel for Two (亲爱的·客栈) together with her husband. Liu said that in ordinary life they rarely spend that much time together. Later rumors of divorce resurfaced. In 2022, Liu's studio denied them, and she herself rejected the reports about her husband's finances that were attached to them.
Liu continued to take film work as well. She appeared in High Forces, an action film where she again had material far removed from family series. In February 2026, after working on New Year television, Liu said she was interested in trying short series. By that time she had played many times heroines who change over dozens of episodes. In the new format, she wanted to see how much can be said about a person in far less time.
