Even celebrities are nervous when it comes to taking exams, especially if the public is aware they are aspiring to enter elite star training schools such as the Beijing Film Academy.
The academy held its first round of exams on Tuesday. Among those spotted taking the exam was Guan Xiaotong, remembered by movie fans for her role in “The Promise,” a 2005 movie, reported China Daily.
Guan told media that she wants to be accepted in the academy because she wants to get systematic training to help the scion of actors give a more vivid portrayal of future movie roles she would play. She previously relied on intuition for her past roles, but Guan believes her acting would further improve if she gets professional training from the academy.
She has applied for a slot in performing arts which would only take in 45 students. Guan has 7,630 other competitors for the 45 slots.
Besides Beijing Film Academy, similar exams had been held at Central Academy of Drama and Shanghai Theatre Academy where there were thousands of applicants for very few slots.
Other stars spotted taking the exams include Zhang Xueying who played Guo Xiang in the 2013 drama “The Return of the Condor Heroes in 2013,” Zhao Jiamin, a young Chinese singer from the Shanghai group SHN48 who took the exam in all three academies and Lv Shaocong, a guest in the reality show “Fresh Man.”
But it is not just their acting skills that would be honed in these schools of acting. The Star hints that the English language is a tongue they need to also master as Chinese films go for the global market, based on changes in the exams in the top art schools. For one, the Beijing Film Academy takes into account the foreign language scores of examinees in making the final pick to the limited slots.
This, despite the gaokao, or the national college entrance exam of China not including English in the near future even as English becomes the international language of trade globally.