I speak with Lim Shi-an the day after the opening night of the musical Secondary: The Musical. The intensive rehearsals are behind her and she can finally catch her breath for a moment, though the whirl of the official run has only just begun. What she cannot hide is her excitement that her whole family turned out to cheer her on the previous evening. “Besides my parents,” she laughs over the video call, “my 90-year-old grandmother came too.”我在音乐剧《Secondary: The Musical》首演隔天访问林诗安，密集的排演告一段落，她终于得以短暂喘息，但正式演出后的忙碌才刚开始。让她难掩兴奋的是，前一晚的演出，家人全都到场为她打气。她在视讯中笑说：“除了爸妈之外，我90岁的祖母也来了。”
Her father, Lim Yu-Beng, and her mother, Tan Kheng Hua, are both veteran actors, and having them in the audience made her especially nervous — she wanted to be at her very best in front of those closest to her. “I care a great deal about what my parents think of my performance. As soon as it ended, we couldn’t wait to do the post-show debrief in the car, and we carried on discussing it over supper.”她的父亲林友明(Lim Yu-Beng)与母亲陈琼华(Tan Kheng Hua)皆为资深演员，他们的到场令她格外紧张，希望在至亲面前呈现最好的状态。“我很在意父母对我演出的评价，演出结束后，我们在车上就迫不及待的做演后复盘，吃宵夜时又继续讨论。”
This original musical was first staged two years ago, and for this restaging she was cast as one of the ensemble. Tan Kheng Hua carefully broke down her daughter’s strengths and weaknesses on stage, reminding her to sustain her energy and presence from start to finish — she has more than 20 performances to get through, back to back. Lim Yu-Beng, for his part, offered mostly emotional support and loving encouragement. She relishes this candid, direct way of exchanging notes and feedback, and finds it enormously valuable.这部原创音乐剧于前年首次上演，此次重演，她入选为群戏演员之一。陈琼华细心分析女儿在台上的亮点与不足，提醒她要把能量与状态贯彻始终——她得连续演20多场，林友明则主要是给予她情绪上的支持和“爱的鼓励”。她喜欢这种坦诚而直接的交流和反馈方式，让她获益良多。
Pragmatic, But Never Compromising务实但不妥协
Lim Shi-an inherited her parents’ gift for acting, taking part in theatre and screen productions from a young age. After graduating five years ago from the National University of Singapore’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, she threw herself into acting while also working as a graphic designer — a decision, she admits, born of practical necessity.林诗安遗传了双亲的演戏天赋，年少时就参与剧场和影视演出。五年前从新加坡国立大学人文与社会科学学院毕业后，她投身演艺行列，同时从事平面设计工作，她坦言这是现实的考量。
“If I relied on acting alone, it still wouldn’t be enough to live on right now, so I do graphic design on the side. It’s a good second string — it gives me room to breathe and switch gears away from my creative work.” There is not a trace of resignation in the way she says it; for her, running these two tracks in parallel is not a compromise but a mature and pragmatic choice. “The ideal, of course, would be to make a living from acting alone. Juggling design as well, I feel I’ve struck a good balance. I don’t want to be an actor who’s struggling to get by — I want a stable financial footing.”“如果单靠演戏，目前仍然无法支持生活，所以我兼做平面设计。这是一份不错的副业，让我在创作之外拥有喘息与转换的空间。”言语间没有一丝无奈，这种“双轨并行”的安排对她而言并不是妥协，而是一种成熟和务实的选择。“最理想的情况当然是只靠演戏就足以生活，我现在兼顾设计，自觉平衡得很好。我不想成为一个生活中面对挣扎的演员，希望有稳定的经济基础。”
She trusts her instincts and faces change with equanimity. “If I’m convinced a path is right for me, I’m willing to try it, even if it means upending the status quo.” As a freelancer, she is forever exploring amid uncertainty — which, far from unsettling her, draws out more of her potential. As she puts it, people always grow through change.她相信直觉，也坦然面对变化。“如果我认定这条路适合自己，即使需要改变现状，我也愿意去尝试。”作为自由职业者，她在不确定中不断探索，反而激发出更多潜能，正如她说，人总是在变化中成长。
Discovering Another Side of Herself发掘自己的另一面
Over the past year, Lim Shi-an’s acting career has visibly gathered pace, with lead roles in two films and one musical in quick succession. Amoeba, which premiered last year at the Toronto International Film Festival, tells the story of four rebellious girls’-school students who form a gang and defy the rules — a strikingly realistic portrait of wayward teenagers searching for their lost selves within an elite system. The film has travelled to festivals around the world, and its director, Siyou Tan, earned a nomination for Best New Director at Taiwan’s Golden Horse Awards on the strength of it.过去一年，林诗安在表演上的步伐明显加快，先后主演两部电影和一部音乐剧。去年在多伦多国际电影节首映的《核》（Amoeba)，讲述四名性格叛逆的女校学生组建帮派、对抗校规对抗的故事，反映了迷途青少年在精英体制下寻找迷失自我的成长历程，极具写实意义。影片曾到各地参展，导演陈思攸也凭此片入围台湾金马奖最佳新导演。
In the film, Lim Shi-an plays the gang’s ringleader — a considerable challenge, since she had not only to inhabit an adolescent state of mind but also to embody a forceful, outward-facing character utterly unlike her own. “I’m 28 this year, the film was shot two years ago, and my secondary-school days are long behind me — so it really tested my craft. An actor has to try to uncover another side of themselves to make the character believable.”林诗安在片中饰演少女党“老大”，不仅要揣摩青春期的心理状态，还得塑造一个与自己性格截然不同、强势外放的角色，挑战不小。“我今年28岁，这部戏是前年拍摄的，而中学阶段已经离我很远了，这是对演技的考验。演员必须尝试发掘自己的另一面，让角色更加可信。”
From casting to the end of filming, the production spanned nearly a year. She describes it as a very singular experience: beyond the topical subject matter, the director engaged in deep conversation with the actors throughout the shoot, allowing each role to sit as close as possible to the actor’s true personality.影片从选角到完成拍摄，几乎横跨一年。她形容这是一次很特别的尝试，除了题材具有话题性之外，导演在拍摄过程中也与演员进行深度沟通，让角色尽可能贴近演员的真实个性。
At first she never imagined the film would draw attention at international festivals, nor that its Singapore release would sell out enough to warrant extra screenings — something she found deeply heartening. “I’m so glad to have been part of a work that resonates with Singaporeans. When audiences see themselves in the story and are truly moved, that’s exactly why I became an actor in the first place.”起初，她没料到影片会在国际影展受到关注，也没想到在新加坡上映后会加开场次，让她深受鼓舞。“我很高兴能参与一部让新加坡人产生共鸣的作品。观众在故事中看见自己，并被深深触动，这正是我当演员的初衷。”
Rediscovering the Rhythm of the Stage找回舞台的节奏
For an actor, the stage and the camera are two entirely different worlds, and moving between them felt to Lim Shi-an at once familiar and challenging — after all, she had not appeared in the theatre for more than a decade. Early this year, taking on Secondary: The Musical, she had to readjust and rediscover the rhythm particular to stage performance, rebuilding the connection between body, emotion and stage.对演员来说，舞台与镜头是两个截然不同的世界，这种切换，让林诗安感到既熟悉又具挑战性，毕竟她已有十多年没参与剧场演出。今年初，她接演音乐剧《Secondary: The Musical》，必须再次适应并找回属于舞台表演的节奏，重新建立身体、情绪与舞台之间的连结。
Written and composed by local musician Weish, Secondary: The Musical follows secondary-school teachers caught between institutional targets and personal conviction, and the stumbling, faltering arc of their students’ growth. In the ensemble she plays both a teacher and a student, and having to keep shifting perspective between the two identities gave her a more rounded feel for the education system itself.由本地音乐人Weish编剧和作曲的音乐剧《Secondary：The Musical》，讲述中学教师在体制目标与个人信念之间的挣扎，以及学生在跌跌撞撞前行的成长轨迹。她在群戏中同时饰演老师与学生两个角色，在身份转化之间必须不断调整视角，对教育体制也有了更立体的感受。
“The stage is ‘alive’ — every performance, every fresh audience brings different energy and feedback, and so my performance shifts with it,” she says. That immediate, unmediated exchange is something screen acting can never replace. When she stands before an audience once more and sees them weep or laugh at the story, every bit of the effort feels worth it.“舞台是‘活’的，每一场演出、每一批观众，都会带来不同的能量与反馈，我的表演也因此会有变化。”她说。这种即时而真实的交流，是影视表演无法替代的。当她再次站在观众面前，看见他们因剧情流泪或发笑，一切努力都是值得的。
Flexing Her Martial Chops — and Her Mandarin — in a New Film新戏中显身手说华语
Just before the musical went into rehearsals, Lim Shi-an had wrapped a film directed by local filmmaker Yeo Kok Swee, another wholly new kind of role. In this work, which blends wuxia with science fiction, she plays Chang’e — not the moon goddess of legend, but a battle-ready alien warrior-woman. To handle the fight sequences, she had to cram in martial-arts training with fight choreographer and actor Fung Tui Sau, stripping away her usual delicacy entirely, from physical movement to expression and bearing.音乐剧进入彩排阶段之前，林诗安刚拍完本地导演杨国瑞执导的电影《明月共此时》，那又是一次全新的演出经验。她这部结合武侠与科幻元素的作品中饰演嫦娥，但不是神话中的月宫女神，而是具有战斗力的外星女侠。为应付戏里的武打场面，她必须和武术指导兼演员冯推守恶补武术，从肢体动作和表情神态都彻底抽离平日的娇柔。
It is a Mandarin-language film co-produced by Singapore and Taiwan. For Lim Shi-an, who grew up in an English-speaking environment, acting in fluent, standard Mandarin was frankly harder than flying to the moon. “Luckily I have a good friend who’s pretty strong bilingually and gave me a lot of pointers on the language,” she laughs. Learning on the fly, she saw the shoot through alongside Taiwanese actors Lee Kang-sheng, Chang Huai-chiu and Huang Guan-zhi, Canadian-Chinese actor Dominick Rustam, and Singaporean actress Toh Kwee Chee.这是一部新加坡与台湾合制的华语片。对从小在英语环境中长大的林诗安而言，用流利标准的华语演戏，简直比奔月还难。她笑：“幸好我有个双语能力颇强的好朋友，在语言方面给我很多指点。”她在“现学现卖”的情况下，与台湾演员李康生、张怀秋、黄冠智、加拿大籍华裔演员Dominick Rustam，以及新加坡演员卓桂枝顺利把戏拍完。
Filming across both Singapore and Taiwan, she found working with the Taiwanese team a pleasure. “They were all so warm — I love Taiwan,” she says. She also came to appreciate the maturity and openness of Taiwan’s film industry, which broadened the way she pictures her own future.在新台两地的拍摄过程中，她与台湾的团队合作愉快。“他们都很友善，我喜欢台湾。”她说。她也观察到台湾电影工业的成熟与开放，这让她对未来有了更宽广的想象。
A Partner as Close as Family爱侣如至亲
Off screen, Lim Shi-an’s real life has seen a major change too. Last November, her boyfriend of seven years proposed while the two were travelling in New Zealand, and she shared photos of the successful proposal on social media, announcing that they were now engaged.林诗安戏外的现实人生也迎来了很大的变化。去年11月，交往七年的男友趁两人到新西兰旅行时向她求婚，她在社交平台上分享男友在新西兰向他求婚成功的照片，宣布两人成为未婚夫妻。
Unlike many performers who keep their private lives quiet, she chose instead to hide nothing and share it openly. “A partner is a hugely important part of life, just like family. I don’t think going public with my relationship affects my professional image as an actor, and I’m more than happy to share my own happiness.”不像许多艺人低调处理个人感情生活，相反的，她选择毫不隐瞒，大方公开。“伴侣是生活中很重要的一部分，就跟家人一样，我不认为公开感情会影响我作为演员的专业形象，我很乐意分享自己的幸福。”
Since the engagement, life has carried on much as before, only busier than ever, as the two are planning a wedding for the end of the year — which she hopes will be a joyous party bringing family and friends together to celebrate. As for a honeymoon, she is rather less fussed. “Work matters more,” she says.订婚之后，日子还是一样，只是比以前更忙碌，因为他俩正筹备年底举办的婚礼，她希望那将是一个与亲友欢聚共庆的派对。至于蜜月，她反而不大重视。“工作更重要。”她说。
Setting Her Sights on the World Stage期待进军国际
Before walking down the aisle, she will shoot another film and lend her voice to a children’s programme for the BBC. On the subject of her dreams for the future, she hopes to move beyond Singapore onto the international stage, with the ultimate goal of pursuing an acting career in the United States.踏上红毯之前，她还会拍一部电影，以及为英国广播公司(BBC)的一个儿童节目配音。谈及未来的梦想，她希望能走出新加坡，进军国际，最终目标是到美国发展演艺事业。
“As long as you put in the work, nothing is impossible — whether it takes time or money, I’m willing to invest it.” On the video call her expression remains gentle throughout, with no showy ambition on display — only a composed sense of expectation and imagining of what lies ahead.“只要付出努力，没有什么是不可能的，无论是时间还是金钱，我都愿意投入。”视频中的她依旧神情温和，不见张扬的野心，更多的是对未来的从容期待与想象。
For all she has come through, she now stands on the “eve” that lies between yesterday and tomorrow — a charged threshold where she waits, quietly, for the next act of her career and her life. Unafraid of what may change, asking only for wonder.一路走来，此刻的她站在介于昨日与明日之间的“前夜”，一个充满张力的临界点，静待事业与人生的下一幕。无惧变数，但求精彩。
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