Zhao Lusi's new drama has started production, but she will not take on the role herself. With the advent of AI, why are actors all switching to other careers?
In August, Zhao Lusi, who had not joined any film crew for more than 550 days, stocked up 9 film and television IPs for her team in one go.
A month ago, Zhao Lusi's studio was still soliciting scripts across the whole network. By August, the first batch of projects had been implemented, among which the short drama series *I'm Definitely Not an NPC* started filming in Hengdian. Instead of arranging a role for herself, Zhao Lusi took the position of executive producer.
They "make the pie" themselves, but do not take a bite of it themselves.
Such incidents are becoming more frequent. Bai Lu has started to purchase IPs and reserve stories that she wants to create. Qi Wei has gone a step further, authorizing her own image to AI to create a "digital doppelganger". Zhou Yiyu, an actor of the middle-aged male group favored by audiences, has gradually faded out of the screen and picked up the director's megaphone to helm a costume mid-length drama for China Central Television. Actors are beginning to shift their energy from competing for the next role to finding stories, assembling projects, and even developing another version of themselves.
Not long ago, Yang Zhengtian talked about the "film and television winter" with Song Jia on a show, mentioning that the start-up rate of drama series this year is reportedly only 30% of that of last year. Statistics from Yule Zibenlun on the crews filming in Hengdian also found that in the first half of 2026, there were an average of 22.75 crews filming per week, a year-on-year decrease of 24.84%, and the drop even reached 43% around the Spring Festival. Short dramas once absorbed a large number of actors, but the start-up of live-action short dramas has also shrunk rapidly this year, and AI content has begun to enter the production chain of live-action film and television.
Roles are getting harder and harder to come by, and actors are starting to shift from waiting for projects to finding projects on their own.
While Zhao Lusi and Bai Lu are busy "making pies", more actors have gone directly to the other side of the filming set. *Yule Zibenlun* (ID: yuelezibenlun) talked to Jia Jinghui, Hu Dandan, and Ding Nan, three actors who are transitioning to directors and producers. Interestingly, none of them waited until they had no roles to act in before switching careers. Instead, after they truly took the initiative of the projects, they found that they had no time to act in the dramas they produced themselves.
# Three relevant people have been interviewed for this article, and they are also the 269th to 271st interviewees of *Yule Zibenlun* in 2026
"When you see their live streaming time getting longer and longer, you know they have no roles to act in"
"The film and television winter has little impact on me, because I didn't get any dividends when the industry was in good shape, so I don't have a sense of gap."
This is the straightforward and convincing answer Jia Jinghui gave when Yule Zibenlun asked about the impact of the current film and television industry on actors.
"But indeed many actors are doing side jobs, such as live streaming, even live chatting, and they spend more and more time on live streaming. If they are busy filming, where can they find the time? They must be idle."
Most people are unfamiliar with the name Jia Jinghui. For the audience, the most familiar impressions of him are the roles in many hit dramas, such as Guo Baokun, who is a little silly and always picks on Fan Xian in the hit series *Joy of Life*. It is even harder to connect him with another identity: he is also the director of the hit mid-length drama *Lighthouse on the Other Side* whose revenue sharing exceeded 20 million yuan last year.
Jia Jinghui (center) at the work site of directing *Lighthouse on the Other Side*
With the identity of a national first-class actor of Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre, he is currently starring in the drama *The She We Become* with Gigi Leung. The mid-length drama *Blind Box* he directed is currently airing on Tencent Video. He is also the presenter and chief producer of the upcoming iQiyi "Dust Theater" drama *Can't Have Everything at the Same Time* starring Dilraba... It sounds that he is indeed hardly affected by the industry downturn.
Of course, most of these jobs are already "behind the scenes".
Jia Jinghui is a veritable high-energy person, and his friends and peers all have their own situations.
Some people say they haven't joined a crew for 8 months, and some even haven't joined a crew for more than a year. "Of course there are also people in my WeChat Moments who are busy traveling, doing yoga, and meditating." Jia Jinghui has seen a lot of such cases, "Some actors start to get anxious after staying at home for 10 days. They are used to checking the notice, setting alarms, and living at the pace of the crew. Once there is no reference for what time the alarm will ring the next day, they will feel very insecure."
Jia Jinghui has also experienced that kind of days. But not now, but a few years ago when the industry was not so difficult, he and his wife, who is also an actor, only took one drama each a year. Near the Spring Festival, even the red envelopes for their parents and children became a big problem. The couple still relive the taste of "the New Year's pass is hard to get through" every year to warn themselves.
On the road to becoming a mid-length drama director, on the one hand, the scale of mid-length dramas is suitable for Jia Jinghui's transition, on the other hand, more and more good actors are able to embrace mid-length dramas calmly. The old arrogance of "I would rather shoot web dramas than take online movies" in the early years has been slowly put down in this era when live-action dramas are almost replaced by AI-generated dramas.
Hu Dandan plays the leading role Si Xiaonian in *Ni Lian Wu Ming*
Hu Dandan is one of the first actors to get dividends in short dramas. The hit short drama *Ni Lian Wu Ming* directed by Zeng Qingjie in 2022 made her "well-known" in the industry. She likes to hear people say "find Hu Dandan if you need an actor with excellent acting skills". This also turned her from a familiar face in costume dramas to an actor who can independently carry the leading role of mid-length dramas. When the market was good, she could shoot two or three mid-length dramas plus two or three long dramas a year, and her workload was already saturated.
But up to now in 2026, Hu Dandan has not joined any crew.
It is difficult for her to simply attribute this to having no roles to act in. Last year, the mid-length drama *You Yao* she produced as a producer was broadcast, which was also the second collaboration work between her and Yang Ze, the leading actor of *Ni Lian Wu Ming*. At that time, she had a lot of acting work, and she even actively turned down some drama offers to promote her own project. Slowly, fewer and fewer acting opportunities came to her, and many people may take it for granted that she hardly acts anymore. This year, she has several of her own projects under preparation, and she has no energy to join other people's crews.
So even Hu Dandan herself can hardly tell how much of the reduction in her acting work is due to market changes and how much is her own choice.
Some of her actor friends who were in similar situations back then, "some are still waiting and suffering, some have switched to self-media and done quite successfully; others simply gave up long dramas and mid-length dramas and switched to shooting vertical-screen short dramas." Hu Dandan even feels that for some people who have already built up their self-media business, this job is much better than being an actor, "You can decide when to publish and what content to shoot, and the commercial income may be more considerable. If you don't have a strong obsession with acting, you really don't necessarily want to come back and wait for roles."
When Yule Zibenlun found Ding Nan, he was still busy with the wrap-up of the mid-length drama *Prosecutor and Defender*. Before this year, he was an artist of Enlight Media, sharing the same company as Ding Yuxi and Zhang Ruonan. Now he is a decent producer, and he also participated in a large costume drama *Phoenix Dancing in Nine Heavens* starring Gong Jun in the first half of the year.
Ding Nan (far left in the first row) at the wrap-up of the mid-length drama *Prosecutor and Defender* as a producer
Judging only from his resume, he doesn't look like someone who needs to rush to find a fallback. When he was only an actor in the past, he could shoot three or four dramas a year, and spent about half a year in the crew; during the three years at Enlight Media, his income was enough to maintain a normal life. His trouble is that even if he has roles to act in, it is always difficult for him to go further. Finally, he simply left the company and went out to look for new opportunities on his own.
Ding Nan himself did not suddenly lose his job, but the situation of his friends around him always reminds him of the changes in the industry.
Last year, a friend around him switched from long dramas to vertical-screen short dramas. The data on Hongguo was not bad, and he could get about 20,000 yuan per day for pay. This year, his salary was directly cut by two-thirds, leaving only a few thousand yuan, and there were fewer drama offers coming to him. "After the Spring Festival this year, many actors have been unemployed at home." He witnessed in Hengdian that there were fewer long dramas and S+ projects. The crowded places in the past became deserted, and the popular internet-famous shops on the lively streets in the past also closed down one after another.
In the past, the passivity of actors was that it was difficult for them to decide when the next drama would come and what role would be assigned to them. Now the output of long dramas is reduced, the short drama market is cooling down, and AI has begun to enter film and television production, this uncertainty is still increasing.
AI-generated image by *Yule Zibenlun*
Rather than continuing to wait to be selected, Jia Jinghui became a director, Hu Dandan and Ding Nan turned to producers, and they chose to actively change their positions. But when they really sat on the other side of the filming set, they found that they had more right to choose, but they had no time to act in their own dramas first.
Make the pie yourself but not eat it?
When Zhao Lusi and Bai Lu stocked up IPs to "make pies", everyone thought that although they were the "top-tier" actors of their age, they were restricted by their management companies in the past and could not achieve "freedom to choose roles". After regaining their free status, they immediately "make pies for themselves" to achieve the freedom to film.
As a result, Zhao Lusi did not star in the first drama produced by her team.
"I will never act in my own drama."
Jia Jinghui clearly told Yule Zibenlun that when *Can't Have Everything at the Same Time* starring Dilraba was under preparation, there was originally a role in the script almost written for him, even the name Mark was the same as his English name, but Jia Jinghui still decided to "replace himself".
"I really can't take care of both sides." *Lighthouse on the Other Side* and *Blind Box* can better illustrate this problem. Actors only need to be responsible for their own roles, but the behind-the-scenes staff have to keep an eye on the whole scene. Jia Jinghui can hardly accept the situation that "I sit in front of the monitor to direct all actors, but when it's my turn to act, no one can judge whether my performance is accurate". He guest-starred as a director playing his real self in *Blind Box*, which was completely out of the producer's thinking of "saving money and effort".
Hu Dandan suffered from this loss earlier than Jia Jinghui.
In *You Yao* broadcast last year, she served as a producer for the first time. In order to attract investors, she decided to take the leading actress role. After the filming started, she found that these two identities were almost naturally conflicting. Actors sitting on the scene can quietly study the next scene; producers are like "the housekeeper of more than 100 people". When actors get sick, staff get emotional, or something goes wrong on the scene, they will eventually come to her for solutions.
At her busiest time, Hu Dandan filmed 16 to 18 hours a day, and had to continue dealing with production problems after finishing work. Once when her makeup and hair were only half done, something went wrong on the scene suddenly, and she ran out to solve the problem with half-finished styling; even when filming the romantic scene between the hero and heroine, she would suddenly jump out of the character when noticing that the props were wrong out of the corner of her eye.
"The energy a producer consumes is a hundred times that of an actor. After filming *You Yao*, I feel like I am ten years older."
After this drama, the experience Hu Dandan left for herself is very simple: she can only choose one of the producer and leading actress roles in the future.
