Golden Bell 61 Lead Actress Nominees: Reading Five Different Character Situations
Shao Yu-wei, Alice Ko, Yang Kuei-mei, Hsieh Hsin-ying and Chung Hsin-ling compete in the drama category. A viewing route through work, family and personal choices.
The five nominees for the Golden Bell 61 drama lead actress award are Shao Yu-wei for Zoo, Alice Ko for If I Hadn’t Seen the Sun, Yang Kuei-mei and Hsieh Hsin-ying for The World Between Us II, and Chung Hsin-ling for Bai Liu Li Bai. The drama ceremony takes place on October 24, 2026, at the Taipei Music Center. The shortlist is not only a meeting of different generations of actors; it also offers stories about women reconsidering their positions between work, family and private desires.
Begin with Zoo: learning to work again
In Zoo, Shao Yu-wei plays a woman who enters work at Kaohsiung’s Shoushan Zoo after setbacks in life. A change of workplace is more than a change of setting: it requires the character to relearn care, cooperation and everyday labour. Viewers can follow shifts in her distance from animals, colleagues and work routines to see how familiarity and unfamiliarity become different performed states.
This is also a practical approach to workplace drama. Look beyond a job title to repeated actions and small incidents that change an attitude. Those details help reveal whether work is merely decorative or truly changes a character.
Alice Ko, Yang Kuei-mei and Hsieh Hsin-ying: identity, family and power
Alice Ko is nominated as Hsia Tien-ching in If I Hadn’t Seen the Sun. The story contains questions of memory and identity, inviting attention to how what a character knows and what the audience knows change over time. Without learning later plot details, viewers can begin by asking what the character chooses to say and to conceal.
Alice Ko as Hsia Tien-ching in If I Hadn’t Seen the Sun.
Yang Kuei-mei and Hsieh Hsin-ying are nominated for the same series, The World Between Us II, but have different dramatic tasks. Yang plays Kao Chang Yu-min within a political family, while Hsieh’s Chen Yu-ming/Kao Cheng-ming faces family upheaval and care responsibilities. Comparing them shows how family identity can be both a resource and a constraint, with the same family and social network imposing different costs on different people.
Yang Kuei-mei as Kao Chang Yu-min in The World Between Us II.Hsieh Hsin-ying as Chen Yu-ming/Kao Cheng-ming in The World Between Us II.
Chung Hsin-ling in Bai Liu Li Bai: a middle-aged character’s own choices
Chung plays radio presenter Chou Jui-chiu, whose emotional and life decisions extend beyond caring for others. A useful question is whether the story allows her to retain needs of her own and how relationships respond when she makes a choice. That reveals a fuller situation than reducing a middle-aged woman to a warm mother or a moral label.
Chung Hsin-ling as radio presenter Chou Jui-chiu in Bai Liu Li Bai.
The published list contains nominees, not winners. Drama lead actress and miniseries/television film lead actress have different competition scopes, and their lists should not be combined. The official Golden Bell information provides ceremony dates, livestream access and later results. Before October 24, these five works can offer five routes through distinct stories and the demands placed on their characters.
