Jake Hsu

The Oscar Witch Who Actually Acts

Jake Hsu is the actor your film-buff friend would be if they also had a lifeguard licence. By his own account he watches between ten and fifteen films a week, he credits a Hirokazu Kore-eda film seen as a student with planting the seed for his career, and he earned the nickname Oscar Witch by correctly predicting every winner at the 89th Academy Awards on social media. Add scuba certifications, guitar and piano, a stint as president of his school magic club and a Rubik’s Cube solved in about thirty seconds, and you get a résumé that reads like a side quest list. He has said what kind of part he looks for: fragile, imperfect people who give off a small light of their own inside the story. He also picked up Best Actor at the 2015 New Generation Youth Film Festival Creative Awards for the short film Lonely Age of Seventeen before any of his television leads.

Qseries First, Then Trapped

Newcomers, begin with the Qseries anthology years, 2016 and 2017, where Love of Sandstorm, Life Plan A and B, Close Your Eyes Before It’s Dark and 1000 Walls in Dream made him recognisable. Then jump to HIStory3: Trapped (2019) for a prominent boys love role, and loop back to My Goddess (2018), his first television lead, if you want the soundtrack bonus too.

Meng Shao Fei and Chris Wu

His headline screen pairing is with Chris Wu, opposite whom he played police officer Meng Shao Fei in HIStory3: Trapped. And the coincidences do not stop at the script: the two share a birthday, 30 December. He sang on songs tied to that series as well, so the pairing comes with a soundtrack attached. Off screen, the Golden Horse Awards are his other regular partner, with red carpet hosting duties more than once and an ambassador role in 2019.