Yang Yang (actor)

Yang Yang was born in Shanghai and studied dance since he was a child. In 2003, Yang Yang applied for the People's Liberation Army Academy of Art and Shanghai Dance Academy at the same time. At the young age of 12, he decided to enrollee in the Department of Dance in People's Liberation Army Academy of Art in Beijing China.^[4] He also studied at the Central Academy of Drama for a period of time.^[5] Yang was a soldier with excellent character and study during his school years. In the second year of admission, he won the first place in his major and participated in international and domestic dance competitions on behalf of the school many times. At that time, his dream was to be a professional dancer. In 2007, Yang performed the solo dance "Dandelion" at the graduation ceremony of Nanjing Military Region.^[6][7]

Before the Spring Festival in 2007, the crew of Li Shaohong's version of Dream of Red Mansions selected 15 candidate actors from the People's Liberation Army Academy of Art, and initially confirmed that 6 actors, including Yang Yang, participated in the collective training. At this time, he was preparing for the graduation report ceremony of the Nanjing Military Region and participating in the international dance competition, so he could not participate in the group training. Subsequently, under the coordination of many parties, he received separate training from the crew. After two months of professional training, at 16, he was selected by director Li Shaohong to become the actor of the adult Jia Baoyu in Dream of Red Mansions, thus entering the film and television industry.^[8] This series was one of the most expensive Chinese TV series produced at RMB118 million (US$17.55 million), the 50-episode drama premiered on July 6, 2010.^[9]

In 2011, Yang featured in The Founding of a Party, a patriotic tribute detailing the process of establishing the Chinese Communist Party.^[10] He continued to build up his filmography, featuring in war dramas The War Doesn't Believe in Tears (2012) and Ultimate Conquest (2013), and romance series Flowers Pinellia (2013).^{[11][12][13][14]} On April 29, 2014, Yang ended his contract of 7 years with his company Rosat Entertainment.^[15]

In 2015, Yang started to gain recognition for his performance in The Left Ear, a coming-of-age film which is also the directorial debut of Alec Su.^[16] The film was a box-office hit, and Yang received positive for his performance as Xu Yi. The box office crossed over 484.42 million yuan.^[17][18] He then participated in travel-reality show Divas Hit the Road Season 2^[19] which was a huge topic online when it aired and helped Yang top the "2015 Chinese Reality Show Star Ranking".^[20] He next starred in action-adventure web-drama The Lost Tomb based on the novel of the same name. The Lost Tomb was the most watched web drama of the year with 2.8 billion views, and Yang gained acclaim from novel fans and audience for his portrayal of Zhang Qiling.^[21][22][23] Yang then played the male lead in youth sports drama The Whirlwind Girl, which gained one of the highest viewership ratings of the year, with over 5 billion views.^[24][25] He also released his first single, "Tender Love".^[26] At the end of the year, Yang won several awards including the Most Popular Actor of the Year at iQiyi All-Star Carnival;^[27] and the Most Talked About Actor and Most Influential Actor awards at the China TV Drama Awards.^[28]

In 2016, Yang appeared in CCTV New Year's Gala for the first time, where his song item "Father and Son" alongside Tong Tiexin was voted the most popular program.^[29] He starred in youth romance drama Love O2O, based on Gu Man's novel of the same name.^[30] The drama was an international hit, and is the most viewed modern drama in China, the series gained over 28.64 billion views. Following the airing of Love O2O, Yang experienced a huge surge in popularity and successfully broke into the mainstream.^[31] To thank his fans, Yang released the song "Love is Crazy", a jazz/rock single.^[32] He next starred in romance film I Belonged to You,^[33] which was a huge success and broke the box-office sales record of 813 million yuan for mainland-produced romance films.^[34][35] He was named as one of the Top 10 Chinese celebrities with most commercial value by CBN Weekly.^[36]

In 2017, Yang starred alongside Liu Yifei in fantasy romance film Once Upon a Time.^[37] Box office crossed 535 million yuan.^[38] Forbes China listed Yang under their 30 Under 30 Asia 2017 list which consisted of 30 influential people under 30 years old who have had a substantial effect in their fields.^[39] In 2018, Yang starred in the fantasy action drama Martial Universe and achieved over 8 billion views.^[40][41] In 2019, Yang played the leading role Ye Xiu in the eSports drama The King's Avatar. The series The King’s Avatar was reported as the most profitable series by Tencent in 2019 and surpassed 4.32 billion views.^[42] In 2020, Yang starred in action film Vanguard alongside Jackie Chan, box office crossed 294.26 million yuan.^[43][44] In 2021, Yang was cast in You Are My Glory as Yu Tu, an aerospace engineer. As a much-anticipated drama due to popularity of its original work (novel of the same name), this show has successfully gathered a total of 5.14 billion views. This show also won the Tencent Business Breakthrough award in 2021.^[45]

In 2022, a drama based on military genre, Glory of the Special Forces (directed by Xu Jizhou) cast him as the lead role Yan Poyue. The series Glory of the Special Forces contributed to a market share of 34.11% and with the highest overall rating of 1.006% in recent years for any military series, the series exceeded 2.6 billion views.^[46] In the same year, Yang starred in the wuxia fantasy romance drama titled Who Rules the World as Feng Lanxi, based on the novel by Qing Lengyue.^[47] The only foreign show to rank 4th in Netflix Korea's Top 10 Most viewed series on July 24, 2022, achieved 4.44 billion views on Tencent.

Yang starred in the action romance drama Fireworks of My Heart adapted from the web novel Waiting for You in a City by Jiu Yue Xi. He played the lead role as Song Yan, Chief of the Shilitai Fire Station. The series was broadcast on July 5, 2023 on Mango TV and Hunan TV, the series surpassed 3.16 billion views.^[48] On September 15, 2024, he starred in the series Zhan Zhao Adventures.^[49] On July 27, 2025, the ancient costume drama The Immortal Ascension was broadcast on Youku. The series exceeded 10254 index and achieved 1.92 billion views.^[50][51]

On February 19, 2017, Yang had his wax figure displayed at Madam Tussauds Shanghai.^[52] His second wax figure was displayed at Madame Tussauds Beijing on July 19, 2017.^[53]