Turns out, she had to knock on his door not once, not twice, but three bloody times before getting him to sign on. The first attempt crashed and burned thanks to scheduling dramas, the second nearly worked but they couldn’t even get through to him properly, and by the third try, it was basically do or die.
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| Tian Xuning and 'girlfriend' Zi Yu (Revenged Love) |
She was so desperate by then she skipped the usual auditions altogether — no fancy screen tests or elaborate readings, just a single video call. Tian Xuning gave her the nod, and Chai was like, “Right, you’re in.” That’s how determined she was to lock him down.
Chai Jidan didn’t hold back about how tricky the casting was. She reckoned no one else came even close to filling Chi Cheng’s shoes during a long slog of three or four months searching. In her words, bungling the casting would’ve completely knackered the series.
She did say, though, that casting Zi Yu was much easier. In her mind, Zi Yu basically was Wu Suowei (the other leading character), so she was never worried there. But Chi Cheng? If they’d got that one wrong, the whole show might’ve ended up binned before it even began.
What’s even more hilarious is Chai Jidan half–begged fans not to watch the series too seriously, calling it something she dashed off when she was young and “not worthy” in her own eyes. But of course, people ignored her, and Revenged Love has snowballed into a proper cult favourite in China, censorship or no censorship.
Internationally, with streaming making it widely available, the show’s smashed expectations and rocketed both Tian Xuning and Zi Yu from nearly–unknown faces to full–blown stars. Bit of a mad ride for a story its creator was embarrassed about, eh?