Today we’d like to introduce you to Mason Ma.
Mason, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I was always fascinated by movies, even as a kid. Early 90s Hong Kong cinema had a huge impact on me. Movies like Young and Dangerous, Jackie Chan’s Police Story franchise, A Better Tomorrow, City on Fire, etc. I loved watching them on the local TV channel during dinner, and I would try to write little kid fiction novels about outlaw cops stopping crime, and stories like that. Sometimes, when my grandparents weren’t paying attention, I’d steal some of my dad’s movie collections and play them in the new DVD player we bought. Most of them were Hollywood B monster movies, such as Species, Tremors, and Alien… I was maybe six when I first saw Species… I found monster flicks very appealing, as most boys do at that age, but R-rated stuff buried the seeds very early on.
When I was old enough to use the Internet, it was easier to watch some movies online, and that continued until I was in high school in Wales, UK. I joined an after-school activity named Film Club. At that time, I had seen probably 500 films, mostly at midnight. I would watch Paranormal Activity alone and be aware of the dorm teachers, in a seemingly haunted school – that was another level of scary. I thought we were going to watch movies in Film Club, which I loved, but it turned out to be about making a movie. A five-year-old boy wrote a story about a monster, and I somehow liked it. That was the first time I was on screen, and I played four different roles. I forgot if the lines were improvised, but I remember I died in that movie twice. Maybe I was too into it, my Vietnamese scene partner gave me a compliment and said I was a good actor. Naturally, I had some struggles with academics back then, a terrible student and rebellious, and nobody ever said anything nice to me, so I took the compliment and decided to do some acting in college.
I first joined the New York Academy – Los Angeles campus in September 2013. It was a wild journey, and looking back, I truly learned a lot, played a lot, and spent a lot. Acting was fun, and for the first time, I didn’t suck in school. There were some good jobs and some student projects for me to do after graduation. Some of them were unpaid, but I got to be on set and work in Hollywood, which was kinda great. I was in an episode of Bosch, playing a waiter in maybe three seconds, it was my peak. I had a school performance while the marvelous Bai Ling came to watch. I did background work in China after school, and it was an inhumane experience. I slept in cow piss, worked almost 20 hours a day for half a month, and got through a whole fever process on set for 200 bucks in total. Chinese extras deserve to be treated better.
At some point, I thought I could try acting in China and see what happens. I went back, and it was another universe. I realized that I didn’t know anything about the showbiz in China and had zero connections. I quickly gave up. On my 24th birthday, I briefly got a job working as a director for interviews and local events. It was a great experience. My entire crew were three interns who had never done any filming before, so I had to teach myself how to work with the camera and editing, and maybe a leader too. The work was fun, but it’s not what I wanted, I suppose. Also, you usually don’t appreciate your first job, you think you’re too good for it until it’s gone.
I ended up in Beijing and became an assistant acting coach at a bilingual drama school called Dreamaker. I taught children how to act on a big stage, alongside English-speaking teachers. Though it was the most tiring job, it was also my favorite period of my lifetime. I met some of the most talented and adorable child actors, taught them the basics, and made a lot of friends. I even directed stage shows, made a children’s film, and did a documentary. Teaching online was also an awesome experience, allowing me to act more than translate and pass on my knowledge.
During Covid, I developed a new interest in screenwriting. I was watching a terrible film and thought to myself, “I could do a better job.” So I wrote my first screenplay, “Chinese OG,” about a Chinese guy selling drugs and getting into trouble with local gangs. It was about 150 pages long, and to this day, I still don’t have the courage to open that file and see how bad it was. I couldn’t do a better job. However, I wrote two more feature-length scripts and realized how much I enjoyed it.
So, six years later, I’m back to the same school, same area, I’m now taking the MFA Screenwriting program at the New York Film Academy in Los Angeles. Things are going okay; I’m still unsure about my future. The schedule is tight, and it takes some of the fun out of writing. But I have plenty of material to work with, and my goal is to sell at least two of my scripts so that I can be more proud in front of my students in China.
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?
I’m not from an impoverished family, so people tend to think I don’t have problems. In a way, that’s correct, but over the years, I’ve faced language difficulties, struggled with grades, and been in different locations, making it hard to maintain close friends, hard to fit in. It was a crazy way to learn how to grow up and be independent. I’ve worked on a comedy promo shoot with a celebrity who was a total racist, and I’ve been yelled at by casting directors. I’ve worked 20-hour days for 20 dollars, wearing four layers of costume in 36℃ heat at noon and barefoot in -1 ℃ at night. My family members are getting older and I’m never around. My cats died. And as a non-English speaker, I’m trying to get a Master’s degree in writing in English. I have plenty of privileges with money, but if I can accomplish this, it would be a unique journey that only I will truly understand how amazing it is.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Currently, I’m a screenwriter and actor. I’m taking screenwriting courses and have written a few feature-length movie scripts. While I still need professional help with them, especially on the dialogue part, I’m glad I wrote them. I used to pursue an acting career, but I understand that writing and acting are two sides of the same coin. I like storytelling, doesn’t matter what’s the way to tell it. I tend to write more crime, thriller, and horror genres mixed with some comedy elements. I’m a huge fan of 90s Hong Kong cinema, so I try to imagine what would happen if some of those stories took place in modern Los Angeles. That inspires me with my writing tone. I like to keep my stories low-budget because money doesn’t always define art.
I’d say my experience is quite different from most similarly-aged Chinese people. There are tons of folks out there who know more about Hong Kong cinema than I do, but not all of them are in Hollywood. Being able to write my own script, act in films in Hollywood, and having a background working in China with years of movie and theater experience could make me somewhat unique compared to others. But honestly, I don’t know; this question should be answered by people who have read my scripts.
I’m most proud of my time as an acting teacher in Beijing, China. I got to teach some amazing kids, who were all my angels, and introducing acting to them was the best thing I could have ever done. But sometimes, I do get cranky because kids can be a handful. I guess so far, I’m best known for being a solid acting teacher in that school called Dreamaker. I wouldn’t trade anything for that period of my life, although working on the show Bosch was cool too.
We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
One way, being rich could surely be described as success in some way, and I don’t mind that. But to me, success is when my scripts are made into movies. I don’t need to have a career, one goal at a time; I would love to leave my name in the movie history as much as possible. That’s what success is for a film lover.
As a teacher back then, I wanted to befriend with my students and teach them something useful, making them interested in the class material. I was quite successful in that, even though the paycheck wasn’t big.
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