Some Like It Hot by Matt Springer
An interview with Angel guest star, Bai Ling, who played Jhiera in She.

The path to success in the entertainment world has been a rocky one for Bai Ling. At age 14, she entered the Chinese Army. She was involved in the pro-democracy protests at Tiananmen Square in 1989. Her appearance in the controversial film Red Corner jeopardised her ability to return to her homeland every year.
    Worst of all, to nab her role in 1999’s Anna and the King, she did the unthinkable. She cut her hair. And we’re not talking about just a trim – she lost over three feet of long, luxurious hair. It’s a trauma that she’s only now starting to overcome.
    “I have this hairdo; I kinda like it,” Ling says. “I have it all up right now and it’s growing every day. It’s challenging for me, because before when I had such long hair, it would help me to be beautiful in a way, or to feel confident. Since I don’t have hair, there’s nowhere to hide, so somehow it’s opened a different door to look at myself as much more confident, to accept who I am. Whatever I look like, that’s how I look.”
    It’s indicative of Ling’s approach to life that something as seemingly trivial as a haircut can inspire a philosophical revelation. She’s always trying to find the greater life meaning in everything she does, from grooming decisions to the parts she chooses to play. “Whatever the price I pay or the role I take, there’s always a purpose.” she muses. “You can learn tremendous things from it. I learned that when you start to lose things, you start to treasure them. From the shaving experience, I learned about that; you treasure it while you still have the thing you like or love.”
    It seems as though Ling’s appearance in Season One of Angel as Jheira, the freedom-fighting extradimensional princess, taught her one major lesson: how to kick ass. “I really enjoyed that role,” she says. “She’s so cool. She seduced Angel, and yet she’s very dangerous and independent. She’s got all those things that a modern woman wants, yet she’s a princess. She has her own duty to do good things for the people in her land. When I watch it, I feel like it’s not me. I feel like it’s a cartoon character, but in a very sexy way. She’s got all this complexity and beauty.”
    When Ling was initially offered the part by the Angel producers, she had never seen the show ,and since it would be a new character, she had no idea how Jheira was intended to look. She showed up for a meeting dressed to kill in her beat cyberpunk get-up, with leather pants and spikey hair. It turned out to be just what they were going for – they wouldn’t even have to worry about costume or makeup. Ling already had it covered.
    As most guest stars on Buffy and Angel usually do, Ling found herself massively impressed with both the warmth and the professionalism of the show’s cast and crew. “I feel sometimes it’s better to do television or even independent movies, because they make you feel like a family,” she says. “On a big studio movie, it’s huge and glamourous and luxurious, but it’s like being in the king world instead of a cosy family. That’s the feeling I got from Angel. David Greenwalt was a very good director. In the end, whatever I expected was all there, and it came out much better even than what we talked about, the way they edited it.”

    One of the most riveting aspects of Ling’s Angel episode, “She,” were her one-on-one scenes with David Boreanaz, in which the two characters could barely contain their intense attraction to one another. Between Angel’s struggle to maintain control over his desire and Jhiera’s mystical ribbed back glowing with lust, it’s no wonder that these scenes struck a huge chord with the fans.
    But those fiery interactions certainly weren’t created thanks to any method acting by the performers. On the set, the relationship between Ling and  Boreanaz was anything but intense. Perhaps it was Jhiera’s otherworldly powers that helped Ling see through Angel’s brooding exterior to discover the fun-loving Boreanaz within. “The funny thing is that I watch this show, and he’s damn serious all the time,” she recalls. “He’s tortured, and he’s troubled. But in real life, he’s like a kid; he had his funny side, and he’s always smiling. He’s such a lovely person.”
    With such heavy sparkage onscreen, you can imagine the producers of Angel are eager to bring Jhiera back to our dimension again. For her part, Ling is just as excited about returning to the role and continuing the Princess’ struggle for freedom from the oppressive status quo in Oden Tal.
    “After that episode was aired, David Greenwalt called me,” Ling says. “They were so pleased by it; they wanted me to come back. I’d very much like to go back to Angel because I had such a great time, and they loved the character. I don’t know what the schedule is; I guess they’re still working on it, so we’re gonna talk about it when it’s ready. I’m looking forward to contributing something. David basically told me that she could open her own show; she’s a wonderful character.”
    Ling hopes that her future roles may steer her closer to normality than some of her more recent turns – perhaps a silly romantic comedy or something else that gives her the chance to play a character that is literally and figuratively a little more down-to-earth. Until then, she’ll be content to bring such mystical beings as Jheira to life, knowing that she’s making the most of her opportunities.
    “It’s like being in the ocean; if you lose, you can sink to the bottom, which can be beautiful if you swim there,” she says, “Or you rise, and you enjoy the big, beautiful landscape.”

Sadly, despite the episode’s reception, Jheira never returned onscreen in Angel or Buffy, but did make one more appearance in the non-canon novels Cursed by Nancy Holder and Long Way Home by Holder and Jeff Mariotte.