Do Hai Yen (L) poses with Chinese star Zhou Xun at a film festival.

A ballet dancer steps gracefully into the shoes of an actress.

But fate had other plans for Do Hai Yen, who was born in 1982 in northern Bac Ninh Province.

Yen, who believes ballet and films actually complement each other, landed her first role as a domestic help in Mua he chieu thang dung (The Vertical Ray of the Sun), directed by overseas director Tran Anh Hung.

A French-German-Vietnamese co-production, the film was screened at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival. It was during the shooting of the film that she met Ngo Quang Hai, who later became her husband.

Yen won acclaim for her acting in Vu khuc con co (Song of the Stork), an epic docudrama set during the Vietnam War which is directed by Jonathan Foo and Nguyen Phan Quang Binh.

But her aim to become a ballet teacher was still strong until she accompanied her husband one day as he went to audition for a role in “The Quiet American”, a film adapted from Graham Greene’s famous novel.

Although she had not meant to do it, Yen auditioned for the role of Phuong, the lead actress in the film, and against all odds, got it. Hai played the rebel leader Trinh Minh The in the film.

“I’d always desired to become a ballet teacher until I got the role in ‘The Quiet American,’” Yen says.

However, she does not regret choosing acting as her profession. “I find acting a hard but alluring job,” she says.

“In the two art forms, the dancers or actors put all their heart and soul into their roles and bring out the best.”

The big stage

With her role as Phuong in Phillip Noyce’s “The Quiet American” (2002), Yen was catapulted into the top realms of international cinema as she rubbed shoulders with co-actors and Hollywood legends and stars like Michael Caine and Brendan Fraser.

The film, which cost more than US$30 million, was listed in the top 10 best films of 2002 by the American Film Institute.

The film earned Michael Caine Best Actor nominations for both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe.

Yen was chosen for the role as she struck the director as a girl with a natural, pure beauty and as being sincere and gentle yet tough inside.

“The Quiet American” proved to be an enormous challenge for her. She had to learn English intensively within a short time and learn by heart several pages of English lines every day.

She also had to study loads of material on the lifestyle of the 1950s and learn the dances of that period.

She earned a nomination for Best Supporting Actress – Drama at the 2002 International Press Academy Golden Satellite Award.

“I read Greene’s novel, which is a masterpiece, carefully. But I like the Phuong in the film version,” Yen says. “In the novel, Phuong is depicted through Fowler’s reminiscences, but Phuong in the film is real and close.”

The story of Pao

Yen then played the lead role in Hai’s Chuyen cua Pao (Pao’s Story) and won the Golden Kite, Vietnam’s most prestigious film award, for best actress in 2006.

Hai Yen in a scene from the Chuyen cua Pao (Pao’s Story).

Chuyen cua Pao also won the Vietnam Cinematography Association’s Golden Kite Award for Best Feature Film in 2006.

The film is adapted from Tieng dan moi sau bo rao da (The Panpipe’s Sound Behind the Stone Fence) by Do Bich Thuy, a short story about a young girl, Pao, set in a remote ethnic Mong village.

Through Pao’s search for the real value of happiness, the story explores the inner emotions of ethnic women who live under the pressure of traditional customs.

“I like Pao very much. Her personality is somewhat like mine and I can easily relate to her problems,” Yen says.

She spent almost one year with the ethnic people in Dong Van and Meo Vac plateaus in northern Ha Giang Province, doing the chores they usually do, such as carrying a baby on her back, fetching wood, going to the field and selling wares at the market.

“Ethnic people are carefree and enjoy life to the full. I keep reminding myself I must live like them. I’m also fascinated by their sparkling traditional values.”

After “The Quiet American”, Yen got several film offers from Hollywood directors. She was chosen by director Spike Jonze to play the lead in the “Memoirs of a Geisha”, but he dropped the film due to a dispute with its producer, and the new director, Rob Marshall, chose a new cast.

She has several interesting projects ahead.

She is set to play Duyen, a lesbian, in the film Choi voi (Without an Anchor), directed by Bui Thac Chuyen.

She is a leading candidate for Noi buon chien tranh (The Sorrow of War), to be directed by Nicholas Simon based on the eponymous novel by Bao Ninh.

But amidst all this, Yen has achieved her childhood dream. She is a ballet teacher at the Ho Chi Minh City Dancing School.

Apart from modeling for fashion shoots, the 26-year-old artiste is studying to become a film producer.

REAL LIFE DRAMA

Yen and her husband are completing divorce formalities after being married for eight years for “private reasons” including rumors of Hai’s infidelity.

Their separation has caused a lot of gossip and has become a public scandal.

Several months after she moved out of their apartment, Yen returned on August 25 this year to get her belongings.

Yen had been assaulted by Hai several times, so this time she came with her mother, some of her friends and three porters.

The house was locked from inside and they waited in front of the house for more than four hours, but no one opened the door.

Yen phoned Hai but he had turned off his cell phone. Hai later phoned the concierge to say that he was not in at the moment and asked him to tell Yen to come another time.

Yen asked Doan Tuan, a mutual friend and the lead actor in Chuyen cua Pao, to break open the door.

The police arrived on the scene then.

Hai was inside the house with model Huynh Minh Thuy, also known as Thuy Top. Thuy has subsequently claimed she was threatened by Yen.

Yen has maintained a calm attitude thus far, and not spoken much about the incident.

Reported by Cat Khue