Director Anthony Chen shares thoughts on Singapore celebs breaking into Hollywood

The ongoing strikes might have brought Hollywood to a standstill, but it doesn’t mean that the industry has lost its shine as the gold benchmark for actors looking to make their mark internationally.

While some Singapore actors have already appeared in Hollywood productions, a partnership announced in 2021 between The Celebrity Agency and global talent management companies marks a more concerted effort to put local talent in the international spotlight.

So, as someone who has worked tangentially with Hollywood, what does director Anthony Chen think about this?

After all, one of the 39-year-old’s frequent collaborators - Malaysian actress Yeo Yann Yann - starred in Disney+’s American Born Chinese (with Oscar winners Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan) and is slated to appear in a Netflix movie alongside Tom Hardy.

In an exclusive interview with Yahoo Southeast Asia on Wednesday (6 Sept) for his new film The Breaking Ice, Chen said that he feels “it’s always a very, very organic process”.

He added, “If you told me 10 years ago, when I just had Ilo Ilo with Yeo Yann Yann, that she’s going to be in this Netflix action film with Tom Hardy and doing American Born Chinese for Disney in the US, like would I have guessed that? No, I wouldn’t.”

Chen revealed that Yeo’s current manager saw Wet Season at Vancouver International Film Festival and thought that she was “one of the best actresses coming out of Asia”. The manager then started sending reels of her works from Chen’s films, and that’s how Yeo managed to break into Hollywood.

“They were not in the English language’; they were basically all my films. So I really feel like in the end, I think it’s the real work that brings you places, and I always believe in that. When you do good work, people do feel it and they see it, and things will come out from there.”

Chen has also met Destin Daniel Cretton, who directed American Born Chinese (and Shang-Chi), and the latter sang praises of Yeo.

“I think, in the end, when you really have the chops, people see it and you’re validated. I think that’s the only way to go,” he said.

Chen shared that he is a “strong supporter and proponent of Singaporeans going out of their comfort zone and basically working out of Singapore”, and as someone who has done that for years, he reckoned it’s how people can “grow and up their craft” because they’ll work with “international players on a different level and different skill”.

“But I really think, like, it needs to be very organic,” he reiterated. “Like if you can’t even be doing good work on your home turf, then you’re going to go out there and it might be a very awkward or embarrassing moment.”

Do more short films

Chen’s new film The Breaking Ice is set in Yanji, a border city in the north of China, and follows the blossoming relationship among three young adults who are exploring their feelings for each other while confronting their individual traumas. The film stars Chinese actors Zhou Dongyu, Liu Haoran, and Qu Chuxiao.

And, Chen said that The Breaking Ice brought out a more womanly and mature side to Zhou that viewers haven’t seen before.

So, he encourages local actors to do more short films, “outside of your normal TV stuff”, if they want a better shot at breaking into Hollywood.

He explained, “When you do short films with talented young filmmakers, some of that work in those short films might actually be a very good calling card to getting good roles. Because, I’m not sure if just your average TV content has got that sharpness of script or complexity of character [to be] a strong show reel.”

That said, Chen pointed out that there is a lot of potential even amongst the current crop of local actors. He has worked with Christopher Lee on Wet Season (2019) and Chen Tianwen on Ilo Ilo (2013). Also, veteran actress Hong Huifang was cast as the lead in 2022’s Ajoomma, a film which he produced.

“[Christopher Lee] was such a joy to work with. He's really, really deep as an actor. He really has his craft, he’s smart, and he’s a very strong actor,” said Chen.

Chen was also the one who brought up Hong for the lead role in Ajoomma as he felt that there was “much more” to her as an actress and “we need to push her there”.

The director also shared that even till now, people still tell him that Chen Tianwen’s performance in Ilo Ilo is “the most vulnerable and most mature performance they've ever seen from him ever”.

He added, “I think there’s a lot of potential in a lot of the actors that we have here, but I think it's also because they're not exposed to very, very layered and complex characters; and they’re not exposed to scripts that are developed in a more precise or rigorous way…

“I think that a lot of possibilities is about how do you put them in the right space and push them to their limits and let them shine.”

The Breaking Ice is now showing in cinemas in Singapore.

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