Today we’d like to introduce you to Tui Asau.
So, before we jump into specific questions, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I was a terminally shy kid growing up. Moving around so much as we did, I was always able to find solace and joy in movies. Every weekend I would go down to the theater and buy a ticket and spend the whole day there — sneaking from one film to the next. There was this feeling of freedom and magic when the lights went down and the trailers began. In the seat of the theater I could, by osmosis, be whatever I saw up on screen — the hero, the villain, brave, scared — all of it.
Never in a million years, though, would I have thought that I would actually be in the industry later on down the road. Never. It wasn’t something I grew up around or knew anyone who was doing it. There were no programs or classes back home in the islands that I was aware of. And it wasn’t, like at the time, I had people that looked like me, that came from where I came from that were on screen that I could be like, “Yeah that guy, that is me. If he can do it, I can do it.”
It wasn’t until I went to college and got hurt playing football that I was introduced to the idea of it being a possibility.
I took an acting class and put up my first scene — “Fool for Love” by Sam Shepard, and it was like my whole world cracked wide open. Suddenly this feeling of freedom and magic that I experienced in the seat of the theatre was there but I was no longer just watching— I was part of it, helping to create it. Instantly there was nothing else —This was IT for me.
I found my purpose — to be a storyteller.
Along with acting, I now co-own a production company, Lineage Entertainment Group, with two amazing human beings and artists Richard Cabral and Allison Ott. We share a passion for not only telling/creating our stories but also helping our communities to heal through art.
Great, 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 don’t think that there is such a thing as a smooth road. There are just roads with less potholes in them.
I don’t look at struggles, though, as a bad thing. I think that hardships offer an opportunity to make yourself a stronger individual, a better artist and more rounded human being because your level of empathy deepens. It adds coloring to your work, and by happenstance, more connectivity. The trick I think is to be able to be opened, strengthened and even scarred but not calloused by all of it.
Lineage Entertainment Group – what should we know? What do you do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Lineage Entertainment Group is a multi-media production company founded by myself, Richard Cabral, and Allison Ott here in Los Angeles.
We carry the stories of our Lineage, our People, with us and have vowed to honor and represent them in the most honest and beautiful ways. We believe in the power of storytelling. We believe in its ability to not only heal its artists but to also open minds and bridge the gaps between races, genders, religions and socio-economic divides by invoking empathy in its audiences.
It is our mission to tell stories and create projects that are both meaningful and badass, as well as personally reach out into the communities around us to inspire hearts and minds through our work in a positive way. We are driven to provide avenues for people from all walks of life to share their art and have worked with the young men and women of Orange County Juvenile Hall, Underground Grit, Homeboy Industries, and Inner City Art’s The Rosenthal Theater.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
We were shooting our web series, “Jesus and Moi”, out in the desert, and it was a long hot day of filming. I turned around after we had finished a particular take and my two brothers, Darrell and Lopati (who were gripping and DP’ing on the shoot) were standing right behind me. All my life, my mom would say how the three of us would do something together, something amazing, something powerful, something beautiful. And as I turned my head, all of my Lineage family was there too. All of my family. There, on set. Together. Making this thing happen. For real.
It was one of those moments that the sky just seemed a little bluer and the sun a little warmer — it made my heart so full.
I think that solidified for me what we are all about– providing ourselves, the people that we love and the people we are connected to with opportunities to do things that they might not have done otherwise but were always destined to do.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.lineageentgroup.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @lineageentgroup
Image Credit:
Lineage Entertainment Group & James Mooney (@pointshootthink)
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