23-year-old actress Xu Jiao, who made her movie debut in 2008 with Stephen Chow’s film CJ7, shared in a recent interview that making the movie was traumatic for her.

She was 10 at the time and played CJ7’s lead character, a boy named Dicky. In the show, Dicky was bullied by his classmates and had to deal with the death of his alien friend. The emotional challenge of portraying such a character proved daunting for Xu Jiao, who had no acting experience.