Shirley Dai Jiao-Qian 戴娇倩, 戴皎倩
Shirley Dai had a reputation on Chinese television as the model heroine. Her role as a schoolgirl earned her a Golden Eagle Award nomination while she was still young, and a little later she picked up an award for playing a navy nurse. Then came historical dramas, including Huang Tai Zi Mi Shi, for which Dai also sang the title song. She found far more freedom in the role of a Qing princess in Palace 3：The Lost Daughter. There her character could get angry, shout and fight for her marriage, and when the series was still being prepared for broadcast, the actress herself ended up at the center of a dispute that eventually went to court.
Shirley Dai was born on June 4 in Shanghai. Most biographical references give 1980, though other birth dates also circulate — June 4, 1982, and June 4, 1983. Her mother played violin in an orchestra and wanted her daughter to pursue music as well. At first no one in the family seriously imagined that Shirley would become an actress. In 1993, while Shirley was still in school, she saw a TV announcement about a young talent contest and sent in a photograph without telling her parents or teachers. She became one of the winners, and after that she was allowed to combine her studies at a girls' middle school with classes at a drama studio. When the studio was approached to find a girl for the lead role in the series Flower Season, Rainy Season, her teacher recommended more than ten students. The auditions dragged on for two months, and in the end the role of the schoolgirl Liu Xia went to Dai.
They went to Shenzhen to shoot the series. Dai had never been away from home before, and although her parents called her morning and evening, she wrote them a letter every day. On set, Shirley would pull her chair up next to the director even when she wasn't in the shot. It was the first time she saw a single scene filmed in close-up and in a wide shot, and she tried to understand what changes for an actor when the camera is placed closer. The director nicknamed her Hedgehog, and she in turn called him Old Hedgehog. For the role of Liu Xia, Dai was nominated for a Golden Eagle Award as Best Actress. Dai kept studying. Later, in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature, she chose classes that she felt could give her what she was missing in her work on set.
Her next important role came from You Xiao-Gang. He was casting the series Fei Chang Jie Chu (2001) and picked Shirley from a photograph for the role of Ding Ning, a navy nurse. Dai recalled that the director waited until shooting was finished and only then offered her a contract with his Beijing television company, Zhongbei. Her parents came to Beijing specifically to talk with him. For the role of Ding Ning, Shirley received the Spring Swallow television award as Best Supporting Actress, and You Xiao-Gang began regularly casting her in his series. In Phoenix Swing (2001) she played Feng Huang, and in Huang Tai Zi Mi Shi (2004), about the struggle over the inheritance of the emperor Kangxi, she played Ru Yu. Shirley recorded the title song for Huang Tai Zi Mi Shi as a duet with Dave Wong Kit. When her first contract ended, You Xiao-Gang introduced her to the management of the joint company Zhongbei Emperor, and she became the first artist from mainland China to sign with Emperor.
By the mid-2000s, Dai was used to being invited into historical series. In Wu Tong Xiang Xi Yu (2004), directed by Alan Lau Tak-Hoi, she played Jin Yuxuan, and in Feng Liu Xi Wang (2006) she played Princess Long. But Shirley was increasingly offered contemporary roles too, and sometimes in costume dramas she had to move away from her usual image. In Di Ying Shi Ba Nian (2008) her character Teng Yulian worked in intelligence. In Chun Qu Chun You Hui (2008) she played Shen Zijun, who knew how to fight. And in The Diamond Family (2009), Dai played both a mother and a daughter separated by thirty years. Both characters appeared on screen together. Shirley recalled how in one take she played the mother with wrinkles, and by the next she was already braiding two pigtails to play her daughter.
In 3S Lady (2011), Dai played the designer Gu Feifei. She is already past thirty, and after meeting her married friends she begins to seriously think it's time she got married herself. On the way back she nearly crashes into another car and meets the son of the company's owner. Shirley said she found it more interesting to play a woman who gradually comes to understand her own desires than yet another character for whom all problems are solved by marriage.
Before the premiere, journalists asked Dai why viewers saw a resemblance between Palace and Mei Hua Lao by the Taiwanese writer Chong Yao. After an interview in which Shirley spoke about that resemblance, the series' screenwriter and producer Yu Zheng publicly criticized the actress. Dai said she had been asked not to come to the press conference and refused to take any further part in promoting the series. After the final episode aired, she explained that she had merely answered a question about a resemblance viewers had noticed, and that at the height of the dispute she had chosen to stay silent so the scandal would not overshadow the role itself. Meanwhile, Chong Yao sued Yu Zheng and four companies. In 2015, the Beijing High Court upheld the ruling that Chong Yao's rights to adapt and rework her work had been infringed.
In 2015, in the series If Love Can Start Over, Dai played An Xin, a woman who has to rebuild her life after a breakup. In 2016, the actress had a daughter, who was given the similar-sounding name Anxin. Shirley spoke rarely about her husband. According to her, he does not work in film, and even before the wedding they agreed to keep their family life away from public attention. On one television show, however, Dai did tell how her father fell ill with stomach cancer and needed another operation after the first. Shirley was on set at the time, and her future husband came to the hospital and took charge of caring for her father.
After her daughter's birth, Shirley kept acting and appeared increasingly often in stories about life in the modern city. In Nice To Meet You (2019) she played the head of a jewelry company, in Nothing But Thirty (2020) — Mrs. Lu, and in Never Too Late (2023) — the designer Hu Dexiang. Hu is the colleague the heroine, transferred from Beijing to a provincial branch of the firm, will have to work with. The heroine is full of plans and wants to discuss a competition project with her colleague right away, while Hu already knows how much other work is piled on her desk.
