As camera flashes sweep across the lens and Peng Xiaoran’s eyelashes tremble softly in the gentle light, her ambition remains piercingly sharp. It is evident in every performance before the camera, exploration, observation, introspection, and internalization. These processes concern not only an actor’s performance but also the placement of the self. She is no longer the damsel who requires protection in the conventional sense. She is a soaring bird, capable of standing independently and wielding her own sword.
Total look: Givenchy. Boots: Martin R13.
She has no intention of pandering, for she possesses her own principles for engaging with the world.
“We are all birds flapping our wings in the universe; shattering an old world when we break our shells, and rushing towards new mountains and seas as we grow.”
In the many days and nights unseen by us, she has run forward without asking for rewards, asking not of the future, but following only her heart. These seemingly spontaneous paths all point to the same answer – an answer that is both unsolvable and solved.
Total look: Givenchy. Boots: Martin R13.
Peng Xiaoran is a born-and-bred “Beijing Girl”, with an innate sense of fairness and righteousness engraved in her very bones. She carries a grounded, spirited warmth, a “hustle and bustle” vitality, that has allowed her to live like a deeply rooted tree in this challenging entertainment industry, neither chasing fleeting clouds nor fearing the wind and rain. This quality has quietly permeated her acting, adding a vibrant intensity to every character she portrays.
Total look: Givenchy.
Turning the hands of time back to 2019, the drama Goodbye My Princess (Dong Gong) brought Peng Xiaoran into the view of millions. The Ninth Princess of Xizhou, Xiao Feng, clad in red and riding on horseback, was the fieriest sun over the Gobi Desert. The shifting of her gaze held the sincerity and romanticism of the grasslands’ children. With this role, Peng Xiaoran swept up honors such as “Breakthrough Actor of the Year,” and “Xiao Feng” became an unreplicable “White Moonlight”, a cherished, unattainable ideal, in the hearts of the audience.
Total look: Givenchy. Boots: Martin R13.
Since then, Peng Xiaoran’s acting career has been like a series of journeys across mountains and seas, completing the tempering and growth of her selfhood through different roles. In Jun Jiu Ling, she was the reborn physician Jiu Ling, writing a narrative of female responsibility with benevolent hands, her every gesture weaving together gentleness and resilience. In Shining Just For You, she was the prairie girl Ye Lingshuang who rose from the ashes, interpreting female growth with wisdom and courage, blending agility with composure in every smile.
Mu Yumo in Blood River was a cold, glamorous rose blooming in the dark night, clad in black and wrapped in the chaotic storms of the jianghu world, her ruthless gaze contrasting sharply with the softness in her heart. Ling Cangcang in Love and Crown navigated the chessboard of power; the turn of her hand revealed the tug-of-war between national duty and personal love, incisively portraying the helplessness of high status and the persistence of staying true to one’s heart.
Overall look: MiuMiu.
Through work after work, role after role, Peng Xiaoran has never stopped at the foam of Internet traffic. Instead, using “long-termism” as her ruler, she cultivates deeply within the soil of her characters, ensuring that every appearance becomes a stunning metamorphosis.
If roles are the medium through which Peng Xiaoran converses with the world, then stripped of her costumes, she offers the most authentic baring of her soul. Her words always conceal a sobriety that pierces through appearances. For the just-passed year of 2025, she summarizes it with “review and organization” and “deep cultivation of performance”. This is not a meaningless slogan, but a determination to grow inward.
Overall look: MiuMiu.
In the treacherous waves of the film and television industry, she stands like a “The Sea-Stabilizing Needle”, observing the industry’s myriad phenomena with a “calm heart” externally, and screening scripts with an “objective eye.” Internally, she sharpens the blade of her acting skills, treating every creation as a form of spiritual practice. What she pursues is not merely “works she can act in”, but “excellent works”. This is her reverence for the profession of acting and her most solemn promise to the audience.
Overall look: MiuMiu.
The successful broadcasting of Blood River and Love and Crown made Mu Yumo and Ling Cangcang the focus of heated discussion. Speaking of the praise garnered by these two roles, for Peng Xiaoran, the bond between actor and character is a “two-way journey”. Beneath Mu Yumo’s cold, hard shell, she glimpsed the helplessness of women in the jianghu world. Within Ling Cangcang’s power plays, she understood the loneliness and steadfastness of those in high positions.
In the bullet comments and reviews from the audience, and in the character names blurted out during chance encounters on the street, she finds the warmest echoes given by this journey. The late nights spent pondering characters alone on set, the persistence in polishing a single shot repeatedly, and the loneliness of being immersed in a role… All find their weighty significance within these echoes.
Overall look: MiuMiu.
In 2025, Peng Xiaoran participated in the female cultural exchange and performance competition show Ride the Wind 2025. Winning was not the goal; every “sister” wanted to use action to convey her own female power. Peng Xiaoran was no exception. In her view, female power is never defined as “dominance” or “fragility.” It is a flowing energy: The sharpness to prove oneself outwardly when in high spirits, and the composure to accept oneself inwardly upon maturity. It has nothing to do with age or status. It is about turning every experience in the long river of time into nutrients for life, and even under the urging of the “social clock”, still following one’s inner rhythm to live out a shape that is uniquely one’s own.
Dress: JoliPoli. Overcoat: Gabriele Colangelo. Sunglasses: Bottega Veneta. Boots: Another Projects.
Looking back at Peng Xiaoran’s career path, her transition from host to actor resembles an inevitability found within chance. Her encounter with Bingbing was a key handed to her by fate, opening the door to a brand-new world. However, the scenery behind that door was measured out, inch by inch, through her day-after-day effort and persistence.
She often says, “There is no wasted journey in life”, a phrase that holds her transparency and reverence for life. The ability to improvise honed during her hosting career gave her an extra measure of composure in front of the camera; the conversations with different guests on programs gave her a more nuanced insight into people. As experiences accumulated, those seemingly serendipitous “chance” imperceptibly became the foundation of confidence for her character portrayals.
Dress: JoliPoli. Overcoat: Gabriele Colangelo. Sunglasses: Bottega Veneta. Boots: Another Projects.
Peng Xiaoran enjoys her present state at present. Within the folds of time, she can find a frequency to resonate gently with life. Admittedly, she also faces a challenge of “tearing”. As a team leader, she needs to extend outward, sheltering her team from wind and rain with responsibility; as an actor, she needs to curl inward, diving into the world of her characters with sensitivity and empathy.
These two identities are like the ocean’s surface and the seabed: One vast and inclusive, nourishing all things; the other deep and silent, accumulating power. They seem like contradictory states, but Peng Xiaoran has her own wisdom. She never attempts to find a static balance between the two, but rather seeks a symbiotic rhythm within the dynamic tension. This tension has not worn down her sharpness. Instead, it has given her, as a performer, a weight rooted in reality. And as a leader, it allows her to bring a warmth to her team that transcends KPIs.
Dress: JoliPoli. Overcoat: Gabriele Colangelo. Sunglasses: Bottega Veneta. Boots: Another Projects.
When not working, Peng Xiaoran is very relaxed, living in harmony with time. She has many hobbies: The scenery sweeping past car windows during travel; the dripping sweat after exercise; the old days recalled in a vintage song; the joys and sorrows in a movie… All are her ways of interacting with life. This wisdom of staying on the same frequency as her emotions allows her to maintain clarity of heart and to navigate the switch between roles and reality with ease.
Knitted and wide-leg pants: Stella McCartney. Vest: Mark Gong. Shoes: Marni. Accessories: Tokokiino.
Standing at the threshold of 2026, Peng Xiaoran’s expectations are like a beam of soft light, warmly and powerfully illuminating the road ahead. In future works, she hopes to tear off the “labeled” outer garments of female characters and let them return to the essence of “human beings,” exploring complex and authentic female narratives. They can have moments of fragility as well as times of resilience; they can take root in storms and also stretch out under the sunlight.
Knitted and wide-leg pants: Stella McCartney. Vest: Mark Gong. Shoes: Marni. Accessories: Tokokiino.
In her personal life, she hopes to more clearly distinguish between “giving” and “consuming”, guarding her spiritual core while caring for others, and finding a deeper balance between softness and tenacity. Life is inherently a cyclical journey: breaking the shell, growing, flying, perching, and waiting. Each stage has its unique meaning. Peng Xiaoran is writing her own unending narrative poem in this journey, in her own way.
Knitted and wide-leg pants: Stella McCartney. Vest: Mark Gong. Accessories: Tokokiino.
Throughout these years as an actor, she has shuttled through the worlds of characters and grown in the soil of reality. She is the actor Peng Xiaoran, enthusiastic and sincere, sober and determined. She is also one among millions of women, blooming with her own unique light in the long river of time. The future Peng Xiaoran will continue to carry this daring and resilience, rushing forward on the long road of life to embrace the next even grander growth.
Vest: Mark Gong. Accessories: Tokokiino.
Talent: Peng Xiaoran
Producer: Zhang Nan.
Creative Director & Stylist: StormWhisper.
Photographer: Ted.
Makeup: Liu Yunpu.
Hair: Dong Dong.
Modeling: Sian.
Text Coordination: Zhang Yunqi @estheryunki.
Fashion Assistant: Grace | Hudie.
Harper’s Bazaar Vietnam
