ABSTRACT
I have a great number of actor friends around the world who are extremely passionate about acting. While most of them refuse to quit their day jobs, some are religiously maintaining acting as a full-time job. (It would be considered rather successful if an actor could support himself and his family by acting.) This would mean that their social lives are centred on how to get a part either directly or indirectly, even though they may seem to have established a successful acting career in the public gaze. When they get a part, they will be so invested in it that they can do anything to gain or lose weight just for a character. Some would even spend money out of their own pockets just to get a part that they like very much. Acting is not just a career for them, but their life. The passion is not just a passion, but an integral part of one’s body and soul, something flowing in one’s blood and sustaining one’s life. The enthusiasm for cross-gender performance has added one more dimension to that passion. Most of my informants would deny the social and cultural constructedness behind that passion and express a long nursed desire to transgress gender norms, which has been “triggered” by some catalyst oftentimes impossible to locate in one’s life span.
