Today we’d like to introduce you to Qi.
Hi Qi, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
My story started with a Chinese kid who dreamt of finding who he is and wanting to be himself. Acting is a way for me to getting to know myself and expend myself through the characters I play. I was inducted into performing arts through physical theatre in college. I have never heard of physical theatre at the time. It was a shock to me how much freedom I felt when I was rehearsing for my first show “Things We Should Talk About”. I did so much reflective journaling and physicalizing my texts during the process, it was very profound and healing for me. 4 years later I graduated from college and decided to move to New York City to study acting. I was very fortunate and lucky to have met my dear mentor, Geoffrey Horne. He gave me the space to make mistakes and explore my own feelings on stage. Thanks to him, I had faith in myself to keep developing my craft. In this process, I appeared in two off Broadway shows The Bacchae, Five Times In One Night and numerous short films which went into festivals and got some awards. This year I will be performing as one of the leads in New York production of the play “President’s Invitation”.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Being an actor means that you need to put yourself on display for people to judge and you need to be ok with it. You need to work with your insecurities, ego and self-doubt every day. It’s quite a turbulent process but I’m learning to protect myself in this process.
I knew I wanted to be an actor since I was really young. However, for a really long time, I didn’t tell anyone that I wanted to be an actor because whenever I did, I would be laughed at. People would make comments about my appearance, how I don’t have connections in the industry and how I was too late to start acting. So, I stopped telling anyone about my dream, but I carried it with me all these years. After I moved to New York to study acting, my accent was one of my biggest struggles, I even got yelled at by a teacher because of my accent. Even though I’m battling with my insecurities and self-doubt about my acting ability, somehow, I still get to work in theatre and film, I must be doing something right!
This road is full of challenges and uncertainty, but I have been really quite fortunate to have great friends and family. I learnt to surround myself with good people and be more patient with myself!
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’m a Chinese actor, currently splitting my time between New York and LA. I performed internationally in Australia (Things We Should Talk About, The Lonely Crowd) and the US (The Bacchae, Five Times In One Night). I am known as Kangshan in the film Two Lost Brothers by Stanley Leung and Rob in Marked by Catherine Bonny.
Two Lost Brothers follows Shan’s journey to America to find his younger brother who was removed from home in China when he was a kid. In the film, KangShan doesn’t really speak English, so he relies on a Chinese-English dictionary to navigate his journey in the US. In the process of preparing this role, I bought a Chinese-English dictionary and marked out what words I would use if I didn’t speak English and how I would use it to most effectively. My dictionary was featured in the final film. I was very proud of it!
I guess what sets me apart from others is my passion for embodying sensitive characters who might not be deems as cool in the eyes of society. I think this kind of characters can help audience reconnect with their vulnerability. I also want to redefine image of Asian characters on screen.
Do you have any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
The first thing came to my head was this scene from when I was 6 years ago. I got good grades in school, and my mom took me to McDonald’s. I still remember how excited I was when I was at the bus stop waiting to be picked up to go to McDonald’s.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/just_qi_just_qi/
