Jia Zhangke will piv­ot to movie star­dom with a role in front of the camera

Over a span of decades, Jia Zhangke has built up a rep­u­ta­tion as per­haps the great­est work­ing film­mak­er in all of Chi­na, which is to say one of the best in the world. And with the master’s lat­est endeav­or, he’ll add ​“movie star” to that already-impres­sive résumé.

An item from The Hol­ly­wood Reporter notes that Jia will soon ven­ture before the oth­er side of the cam­era for his prop­er debut per­for­mance as actor. He’ll lead the upcom­ing dra­ma Pseu­do Ide­al­ist for direc­tor Cheng Er, por­tray­ing a ​“mid­dle-aged artist who makes new dis­cov­er­ies about him­self, life and art by prob­ing his feel­ings dur­ing the process of cre­ation,” to quote the offi­cial plot sum­ma­ry. (And that, ladies and gen­tle­men, is what’s known in the busi­ness as ​‘type casting.’)

Jia has act­ed before, albeit in more minor capac­i­ties, hav­ing made cameos in such films as The Con­ti­nent and his own A Touch of Sin. His lat­est gig rep­re­sents a greater chal­lenge for Jia, how­ev­er, as the first role requir­ing a ful­ly-formed arc (not to men­tion loca­tion shoot­ing in Tokyo).

It’s not uncom­mon for direc­tors to try their hand as thes­pi­ans; from Mar­tin Scors­ese​’s appear­ance as the bile-spew­ing would-be mur­der­er in Taxi Driver’s back seat to David Cro­nen­berg​’s exten­sive char­ac­ter work in low-rent genre projects, the divides between the cineaste and their sub­jects have always been per­me­able. Jia’s newest adven­ture smacks more of the French New Wave belief that a film­mak­er would ide­al­ly be all things, both direc­tor and actor and writer and critic.

A fes­ti­val run or West­ern release for Pseu­do Ide­al­ist has yet to be announced, but this will sure­ly be a con­tin­ued top­ic of inter­est for the many Jia com­pletists out there. Just look at that pho­to – he’s already got the know­ing, wise eyes of a Cate Blanchett.