Blazing a Trail for Change: An Interview With Olivia Cheng - Part One

Ever since she was young, Olivia Cheng, actress/broadcast journalist, was blazing a career path that was extremely unconventional for any average Asian Canadian. She never had aspirations to be the doctor, the engineer, or the accountant that so many Asian youths are somehow convinced by their parents to believe they are destined for today. She started as a broadcast journalist at the tender age of 19 for Canada's Global Television and has recently worked as an entertainment correspondent for Entertainment Tonight Canada. She has never looked back since. Her successes in media have led to a quickly rising career in acting for film and TV. She appeared in AMC's Broken Trail as Ye Fung with Robert Duvall and Thomas Haden Church in January and recently wrapped the docudrama, Iris Chang: The Woman Who Couldn't Forget in Toronto. With the stage of her burgeoning acting career set, JXM sat down with Olivia in Vancouver to discuss her unique and unusual career path, her recent projects, and her thoughts about the changing Asian North American face on film and TV.

JXM: You started as a journalist very young for Global News Edmonton. How did you get into journalism and was it something you always wanted to do?

Olivia: Oh wow, taking me back. Starting at the beginning. I was actually going down a path that I thought my parents would approve of. I was in business at the U of A doing super well. Had really high marks. Scholarships. Early admittance into the business program. And one day I realized how badly I hated it. Because I was working so hard, studying for finals. And this loud distinct voice in my head just went "I hate this, so much!" I just started trying to figure out what I really wanted to do, because I already recognized that the thought of sitting behind a desk is just not for me. I know I can do it, but I thought I would die an early death. What actually got me into journalism is not the most endearing story. I just wanted to get into a fashion show for free. I didn't want to pay to get in, so I came up with this story on the spot that I was a writer for the University of Alberta school paper and [asked if] I can come back to conduct some interviews. Now that I know what I know I don't know why they believed me. I had no press ID. I didn't even have a notebook. I didn't have a tape recorder. But I walked in and pretended to be a writer. I played the part and asked questions. I realized I actually have this natural curiosity for people and what they do and was really good at engaging people. I went home that night and thought, "God, I want to do this. People get paid to find out what other people's stories are." I couldn't sleep all night, because I was so excited by the idea.

That's what turned my path. So the next day I phoned a friend who I knew was in a journalism program in Edmonton and started asking her about it and found out that the deadline for the program she was in was two days later. I had to meet the requirements in two days. I had to do a career investigation report. I got it done in two days, submitted it, and got the letter of acceptance a couple of months later, but I was still so unsure about the decision because it wasn't secure. Anything to do with television and entertainment was not frowned upon by my parents, but just something that I sensed was not something that they felt comfortable, my mom particularly, about me doing. So when I got into this program I actually was in university and journalism school at the same time for about a week because I was so scared to fully commit to journalism school that I kept my enrollment in university up until the final day to cut off and get your money back for the year. So I was actually in two schools for a week attending both. After a week at radio and television school I was like, "Fuck university, this is the way I want to go." When I told my parents, my mom reacted just how I feared. She was like, "Oh Mei Mei, you have to sleep with a producer to get a job in television." I was like, "How do you know!" But they come from Hong Kong where apparently like, freakin' Triads run everything or something, from what I understand (laughs)! That's how I got into it. Now looking back, in hindsight, I think I went into journalism because I was too scared to actually fully go into acting. In a way, I think [it was] being on television in a more secure fashion, because getting into news and being a journalist, while still scary, isn't as scary as trying to become an actor. So I think in hindsight that's actually what I was doing.

JXM: So you did want to be an actress growing up?

Olivia: Yeah. I was always drawn to arts. Always. But it just never occurred to me that what I loved do in a play could ever be a career, because I had so much fun with it. Art is always something you do to expand your mind so you become better at math and become a better public speaker. It was all that stuff that was just a fun way to really get down to work. It was never something that I would ever give myself permission to pursue fully. I had so many non-sequiturs about it. "Oh, creative people are irresponsible, artists are flaky, they're temperamental, they're not stable." I had all these things to talk down about being an artist. To talk myself out of pursuing it. To really feed my own fear about really pursuing it.

In a way [my dream] was a blend of both [journalism and acting]. Now I realize I'm just a storyteller. No matter what medium. There's still a lot of things about media that I love, because I'm just curious about people. And media gives you an opportunity to meet people from all different walks of life and tell their stories. I think I'm just naturally really curious about humanity. Acting lets you explore that in another aspect and then reflect it in yourself in your own work. It's all really interrelated. I just think I was more comfortable exploring one aspect of it before fully being able to be ready to face this part of what I also wanted to do. It's not like I was like, "I have no love for journalism, but I'm going to pretend I do." I learned a lot from journalism, and I really was passionate about a lot of stories I did. It created a lot of opportunities within media because I really did care about the work I was doing.

When I was growing up I used to have these plays. Read-along plays where you had tapes and there were child actors who'd act along. But the script was actually already there. It was some kind of Christian school play thing. There was always a moral. There'd be songs about co-operating and stuff. I would bring these plays to school and I would cast my friends, because we had a script right there, and we had the soundtrack for a song. I would create these plays. Anytime there was a school play I was like, "I want a part, I want a part, I want a part!" But it was my parents who would tell my teachers, "Don't give her a big part, because she's got gymnastics, she's got too much on her plate." But I always loved that stuff, so I would always present projects in plays. They would be like, "Hand in a report." Or they would expect an oral report, but I would present it as a theatrical play. I'd present the issue from the aspect of someone who is actually affected by it or create a story and cast my partner as the other person in the story. Or else I would create a talk show situation where I was the talk show host and they were the subject, like Heidi Fleiss. I don't know why we were examining Heidi Fleiss in Social Studies, but I would always create something as a play or some kind of media format. Or I would film things like a mockumentary, or I would film things like a movie and hand them in. So instead of handing in an essay, they would always be plays. I would always seek special permission to do that, and the teachers would always let me do that. So I was always drawn to that. Again, it just never occurred to me that it was something that I could really do fully. Until the one year in university that I was like, "Is this what I really want to do for the rest of my life? No, I got to try to find a way to do what I love as work." Out of acting or journalism, journalism just seemed more steady. And I did love aspects about it.

JXM: Obviously you had an unconventional career path for any Asian Canadian. Was it tough for your family when they realized this is what you really wanted to do?

Olivia: Oh, totally. But not now. Now they're completely supportive. They're awesome. When I started as a journalist my mom would always say, "When are you going to go back to school? You can be an interior designer, you can be this, you can be that." I almost felt like, she was treating my journalism career as a phase. I'd been looking for an agent since I was 15. And being in Edmonton there aren't very many. I got scammed by so many agencies. But I finally got a legitimate agent when I was 19 and I treated acting as this side hobby. Once a year I would audition for like the annual U.S. network television Christmas movie that came to film in Edmonton. I would film for a day player part and come on set and have one line and be like, "Wow, I'm a real actor!" I'd soak it up because it was my one day a year that I got to be on set. Finally what happened was in 2005, I reached a point in my career as a journalist where I felt like, "I've done everything I want to do as a journalist." I got back to Edmonton in nine months. I started in Lethbridge and Red Deer with the goal of getting back to Edmonton in five years. I got back in nine months. Four years later, I've done everything I possibly could in that market that I wanted to do. I was one of the senior reporters at a very young age. I'd expanded to writing hip-hop and youth culture, fashion and entertainment reports for the Edmonton Journal. I created a cross promotional project between the mediums so that I could promote my projects between television promoting for what I did for print and use what I did for print to promote what I did on television. I was producing hip-hop shows and dancing in hip-hop shows and hosting hip-hop shows. I was doing everything but act. I was trying to find ways to be creative in every possible aspect except acting. I had no inclination to become an anchor. I had no inclination to become a producer. I really hit a career plateau. I was like, "Is this it? Is this it for the rest of my life? I don't know what else to do."

And then this audition came along for a project called Broken Trail. All I knew about it at that time was my agent's office called and said Robert Duvall is coming to Alberta. It's this 15 million dollar mini-series. It's huge and they're specifically looking for Chinese girls. I was like, "Alright, I guess I'll go in." You have to understand that back then to audition for anything it was really tough. It's hard for any actor to hold a job, because auditions come up like that and you have to be there the next day. But I kept getting called back and finally got called back in front of the director and producers. The closer I got, the more I was like, "I got this job man, I got security, what am I doing?" But I kept going back. There were five girls in it. I auditioned for four out of the five girls, and the one I didn't audition for would be bumped because when I read the breakdown, I was like, "I don't want to go for her because she's got a very tough storyline, and I'm not comfortable playing her." I got called back for the fourth one to specifically meet with the director, Walter Hill, who did Warriors, 48 Hours, and Deadwood. He was like, "I really want you to play this part of Ye Fung." I was like, "Are you kidding me? That's the only one I didn't audition for. I don't know if I could do it." I don't want to give anything away, but it was a really tough role. But I finally realized that they were offering me the part.

I just went crazy for two days, because I realized that this meant having to quit my career. I couldn't get a leave of absence because I already had taken a leave of absence three weeks earlier to go write full time for The Edmonton Journal, and do this cross promotion thing. So it was either quit my career job or go fuck off for three months. And then what was I going to do? Am I going to come back? Are they going to have me back? I was going crazy. I was punching walls, honestly, because I was just scared to death. Finally it was just like, "I'm being given the opportunity of a lifetime. Even if I end up on the streets, which I will not, how can I live the rest of my life knowing that I turned down an opportunity to work on set alongside Thomas Haden Church and Robert Duvall for three months. How am I ever going to live with myself knowing that I never took that chance because I was just scared? I would much rather take a chance and know and deal with all the shit that happens afterwards. Once I made that decision I was so calm. I went in and told my employers the truth. I was like, "Look, I've been offered a part on this thing, can I take a leave an absence?" And they said, "You know what, we would give you a leave of absence, if we knew you were coming back, but I don't think this is for you anymore, and we're saying this as parents more than employers." They've known me since I was a kid. I started there when I was 19. They were like, "We're saying this as parents, you've got to go do this. We'll always be here, but you can't turn this opportunity down. We totally understand." We parted on the best of ways.

Then boom a week later, I'm on set with Duvall. I spent the most glorious three months getting an immersion into the life of an actor. Now that I understand what it means to be a full time actor, I can't believe I had such a blessed introduction into the world of acting. Up to that point I had been an outsider looking in. Appearing in and poking at the world of acting, but I'd never taken the plunge and said, "Okay, I'm just going to go for it." To answer your question, my mom flipped out. She was already worried when I quit business and left behind scholarships to go into journalism, which she then treated as a phase. Now I've built up a solid career. Regular paychecks, benefits, a solid reputation in the city, and I just quit that to go act. She was like, "What the hell?!" Especially when she found out the storyline. It deals with prostitution. She was like, "What the fuck? She's going to get exploited on set!" I don't know if I think she was angry, but she loves me. She wants the best for me. She was just really anxious about it. So at that point, no, she was not supportive. Then after the film, it was another choice. Do I go back to my job as a media personality? If I was really dedicated, I could've gone back, because I left The Journal on good terms and they wanted me there full time. My options in media were very much open in Edmonton. But by then I decided, "You know what, not every actor gets the opportunity to do something like this." I can either move backwards or I can move forwards. I chose to move forward. From that point, I came out to Vancouver and started looking at schools and pounding the pavement going up to agencies and being like, "Hi, I've never really acted before but I just did this project with Robert Duvall, would you represent me?" I did have an agent but she was only out of Edmonton. There's nothing happening in Edmonton. So I needed to go forward and come to a new market. A city where I had to create an entirely new life. Hollywood North, where there's schools and other actors. I needed to get into the life. There wasn't enough in Edmonton to sustain myself as a full time actor.

JXM: Before Broken Trail did you have any training in acting at all?

Olivia: No, I had no acting training. That's what made me realize if I really want to do this, I need to know what I'm doing, because when I was on Broken Trail I had no fucking clue. They'd call action and I'd panic. I'd be like, "I hope this is right!" Now I understand what they saw in me for that part, because the character is just emotionally devastated. When I talked to the director afterwards, what he saw in me was just this sadness, that I naturally had. And I know what that comes from and he saw it. In a way, sometimes there's roles that come along that you just intuitively understand. That was one of those roles. Even though I didn't really understand it at the time. Looking back, intuitively, I had. But if I knew what I do now, it would be an even deeper performance. I had no clue how to prepare. I didn't know how to do homework. I'd watch the other actors and they would be breaking down the scenes. I'm like, "Break down scenes?" I was like, "Wow, there's technique to what they do. They don't just stand in front of the camera and it comes. They've trained!" I realized that I want to train. I want to be a great actor like Duvall. But that didn't just happen out of nowhere. He dedicated his life to it and worked his ass off. He trained, did theater, struggled, took jobs as a janitor or the post office, and starved as an actor before he became Duvall. And that's where I have to go. So that's what happened.

My mom was really frightened for me at first. But when I started getting into the acting lifestyle and it was such a crash course because it was such a fairytale beginning, but it did nothing to buffer me for the reality, the harsh reality of what it takes to live the lifestyle of an actor. You have no regular paycheck. It's hard, you go into a room and you face rejection after rejection. You have to learn so much about yourself and I hate to sound clichˇ, but you really have to know what you bring to the table and believe in it so that even when you don't get the part you know it doesn't mean anything about you as a human being or an actor. Sometimes it's just business. It just sometimes comes down to the fact that you're just taller than the lead and you guys will look funny together. You have to brush it off and keep going. But the last year was the first year of being introduced to that life. And getting over the cockiness of having succeeded so quickly in media and coming into a completely new arena and having to start from square one. But also having an arrogance that was like, "If I got onto that project, maybe it will be really easy." And it wasn't.

When my mother started to realize how much I was getting broken down and crushed by the reality of what it meant to be an actor, I know that she started to realize, "Why would I be one of the people who beat my daughter down, when enough people are doing it to her, including herself. She needs support." I realized things changed when I came out of an audition one day. I was so down. It was one of the first auditions where I thought it was over, and they'd never call me back. I was in tears on the phone. My mother finally said, "You know what, if you're going to be an actor, you need skills. I think you should start taking martial arts again and Mandarin lessons." And it was never her saying, "I approve of your choice." But it was support. Since then, it's just been amazing. The kind of support that comes out of her, I'm just so amazed, because I never thought my mother would be so understanding. But she's fantastic. She says things to put things into perspective. She applauds the fact that I don't walk out of there thinking that it's personal judgment. They've come full circle. My dad has always been pretty liberal for a Chinese guy. He's like, "You follow your heart." Because thatÕs what he's always wanted for us. For us to succeed in what we love.

JXM: Where do you see your career heading, towards acting, journalism, or both?

Olivia: I consider myself an actor now. When I first came here, that's when I hooked up with Entertainment Tonight Canada. Because I came out here, and was like, "How am I going to make money?" And I just started freelancing. Being a media personality for both Global BC and Entertainment Tonight Canada. I had opportunities to become full time with both, but I knew what I came out here for, and it was really tempting. It's really tempting to work for ET Canada. You get to do some really cool stuff for ET Canada. You get to travel, you get to meet stars. But I started to realize with ET Canada I was flying half way around the world to talk to stars when I really wanted to be on that other side. I realized I was on the wrong side now. Doing that kind of work, took me out of auditions. I missed classes and I realized if I had come this far and quit that job, I really had to leave it, because I had one foot in both still.

JXM: So you're not doing work for ET Canada anymore?

Olivia: I'm on a freelance basis, so it's still open, but I've been out of the mix for four months because of this Iris Chang project. I'm actually looking for other ways to support myself so that I don't have to rely on media, because it's the same thing. If they book you for a job, but then you get a call for an audition an hour later, I would much rather go to the audition, because it's a shot at doing something I love, or that I came out here to do, it's not that I don't love the media stuff. I just don't want to do that to an employer. Whereas, I hate to say it, if it's a job like waitressing or something I would feel way more comfortable, in a way, quitting on them, on an hour's notice. With the lifestyle I've chosen now, that's really hard to do. The kind of job I need, I'm starting to think is maybe more getting into writing, or falling back on my writing skills because as long as I meet a deadline, it doesn't matter - if I'm working seven at night until one in the morning. As long as I get it in by a deadline. Whereas still for media you have to be at someone else's beck and call for a schedule. That's the problem for an actor. We're all over the place. And when we book a job we might have two days notice to be on set. And that screws the employer who booked you two weeks ago to fly to LA to interview the cast of the Pirates of the Caribbean. That's what I realized was happening again. It was the conflict between the two worlds. It was really which world do I ultimately want to pursue right now? And it was acting. It's hard, but it's almost like cutting the umbilical cord. Cutting that security blanket. Especially when it's something that's prestigious like that. It's national. What do I really want to do ultimately? And ultimately I want to be acting and producing, maybe directing and using my writing skills to create projects for myself and other Asian actors.

I feel like the media stuff is what prepared me to move into this, because now I have more skills then just being an actor. The more I'm in it, the more I realize there's other ways to find power in this industry, because you're powerless when you're an actor. You have no power. You walk into a room and it's their decision. And that's what's really hard about being an actor too. But if you're smart and you learn the industry and learn every aspect of it, then you can start being like, "Oh, that's how you get a film made! That's how you get the money! That's how they do it!" But you have to learn. If I'm away doing media stuff, I'm losing the opportunity. This is the funny thing. People saw me on Entertainment Tonight Canada and assume I was rolling in dough. But there were lots of months last year where I was hiding from the landlord because I didn't have the money for rent because all that money was already gone in acting classes, paying the bills from the month before. It's still a real hand to mouth existence, because the money you make you don't know how long you have to stretch until you get the next check. It's almost like the only job where you constantly need professional development too. I will be in classes for the rest of my life. I'm never going to be one of those actors who's like, "I just got it." Because those are probably the actors who are very good at delivering a line, but they're not going to be the Meryl Streeps, the Robert Duvalls, and the Hilary Swanks of the world.

JXM: You've already talked a bit about Broken Trail with Robert Duvall and Thomas Haden Church. What was that experience like in terms of acting and in a general sense?

Olivia: Amazing. God, I could talk about Broken Trail for hours. It was amazing. In a general sense, picture somebody paying you and giving you permission to be a child again. Because that's really what acting is. You get to be that inner child, that's been told for so long to sit down and shut up and be proper because that's what society tells you. When you're an actor man, you get permission to play. Play! It was so cool. I just loved everything about it. From the 4 AM call times and getting picked up and driven two hours to set to bonding with my cast mates. It was almost like going back to Kindergarten again, because you got to have naps, they fed you, there was snack time, and then when they're like, "Okay guys, let's go make a movie!" You're like, "Yay!!" It was playtime. It was amazing. And you're getting paid ridiculous amounts of money to do that for a full three months. You live in a bubble. Plus we were shooting in the middle of the Alberta prairies. Mountains. Sun. Wildlife. Beautiful green rivers rushing around you. Your period costumes. There's like 500 horses rushing around you. It was just beautiful. It was a beautiful movie. And to get to sit in all that and lie in the grass in between takes. There were four other girls in it, so we became sisters. Not only are you getting this amazing experience, but you're getting it with friends.

And getting to meet Duvall. He was like a surrogate father to us in the movie. So in real life, he made ample effort to get tot know us, so that the chemistry was real. He'd take us out to tea parties. He'd take us out to dinner. He was so proud of himself, because he went on 17th Ave, which is a swank avenue in Calgary, and bought us all individual gifts for the last day. I know his wife helped him, there's no other way. He says he did it himself, but I know his wife helped him. He picked out clothing and jewelry and trinkets for each of us, and they were different for all of us based on our personalities. He had jewelry inscribed for us. We saw the best and most generous sides of Robert Duvall. The more I'm into acting, the more I realize, "Holy shit." It's amazing. He's an icon. And to us, he's "Bobby D." Not many people can say that. Not many people can say, "I can phone up Bobby D and be like 'Yo, what's up? What's up, Bobby D!'"

As an actor, it was like taking a master class with great actors. Chris Mulkey was on set. Greta Scacchi was on set. Thomas Haden Church. To watch them work and be like, "Oh!" That was the biggest epiphany for me, because up until that point, I thought acting meant 'acting.' Showing and demonstrating that you're feeling angry! But then I realized, no. Acting, great acting, is about being, is about being so truthful that the audience, whether in live theatre or television, they feel what you are feeling, because as human beings we look at someone, say on the street, and they look so downtrodden because they have no money in that little hat they put out in front of us, and you're just like, "Ah fuck, I'd hate to be that person." We feel, in a way, what it's like to sit there, dejected. We feel it. And so with a great actor, we're truly feeling that. The audience picks up on it and we project onto that actor and feel what they're feeling and that's why we get pulled into their story and emotionally involved with what's happening to them. I never realized that, because up until that point I was always like, "Look at me, I'm acting! I'm acting!" Then you see Duvall and it looks like he's just sitting there being Duvall. Then it's like, "Holy shit, it's because he's done all this internal work. And now I have no clue how to do that." So for me as an actor it was a huge epiphany.

When I came out here I knew what I wanted from a teacher. I knew what kind of classes I wanted to take. I knew what I needed to do to become that actor that I want to become. So it was huge. It changed my life. Broken Trail changed my life, in the best sense.