Aimée Kwan, the only British-Thai actress in John Wick Chapter 4

“It’s really easy to say as an actor or as somebody in the industry that it’s always been a dream to do something like this and it genuinely has been. To be able to be part of a blockbuster film, where you can see the reactions from everywhere. That to me is the most exciting thing.”

Aimée Kwan, a British-Thai actress, talks about her excitement to be part of a Hollywood blockbuster, John Wick Chapter 4, the latest in the John Wick franchise. Her role as ‘Mia’ is also her very first role in a Hollywood movie.

“So my character of Mia is connected to Donnie Yen’s character of Caine. I hope I’m not spoiling anything now by saying that she’s his daughter. So, you see that relationship, how that works and how that drives him throughout the movie.”

As the only Southeast Asian actress in a worldwide blockbuster movie, Aimée says she’s proud to represent her ethnicity, while she hopes to see more Southeast Asian actors on screen.

“I’m very proud of being Southeast Asian. I didn’t know that I was the only Southeast Asian actress in the film. I wondered if I might be, but to hear that from you that’s… wow! That’s very cool. So, I talked with friends of Asian heritage as well, that it’s always good to see more Southeast Asian representation on screen. So I’m, yeah, I’m proud to be a part of that.”

Image Courtesy: Getty Images via Aimée Kwan

Passion for acting

Born in London to a Thai mother and a Malaysian father, Aimée revealed that she has wanted to work in the film industry since she was young. One of her inspirations was when her parents rented the first Lord of the Rings movie, and one particular scene had an emotional impact, which eventually got her into working in various aspects of film-making

“There’s a scene in the movie where the fellowship encounters a cave troll and it was quite scary, and I remember jumping off the sofa and running behind it because I was so scared. At the same time I was so impressed that I was just emotionally impacted by that scene. I was just like, this is amazing. That was the moment that I was like, ‘I really want to do it.’”

Since then, Aimée has pursued her dream by taking on acting roles, screenwriting and directing feature films, while she was studying at the Royal College of Music and Oxford University. Among her work highlights are The Arbor (2016), Rhapsody (2017), Invasion Planet Earth (2019) and 12 (2020).

“For me, it’s just a love of film that has really driven me since I was very, very young.”

Image Courtesy: Aimée Kwan

It wasn’t easy for Aimée to break through as an actress though. At the same time, she also noticed that there weren’t many roles being offered to Asian minorities.

One of the biggest obstacles Aimée had to overcome, especially when she started her acting career, was having to accept roles which emphasised negative stereotypes of Asians. On top of that, Aimée found it more difficult to decline them, as acting opportunities do not come to her often, considering that such opportunities are even more limited for Asian minorities in the UK.

“Sometimes, as an actor, you might be given scripts or pieces of work that still show those stereotypes,” she explains. “Especially when I was younger, I liked to make people happy anyway, so I find it really hard to say no to things, but sometimes you have to take it on the chin a little bit and say, okay, this stereotype might make me uncomfortable, but I also want to work.”

Because of this, Aimée hopes to see more positive representations of Southeast Asian ethnicities on screen. As she also screen-writes, she will use this opportunity to break the existing stereotypes and create a better understanding of their culture and their ways of life to the Western audience.

 

“When I’m not acting, I write and make stuff which hopefully does not show those stereotypes, not combats them, but at least it balances out the existence of the stereotypes in that space. There are so many great media outlets and writers who are East and Southeast Asian or at least have a really good understanding of their culture. The stuff they make is more nuanced and better-rounded. For me to support that is a way of trying to redress that balance.”

You have the power, the drive and the ability to do whatever you want to do

In the world of acting, there are still many other roles and genres for actors to challenge and for them to experiment with. For Aimée, she would love to try more roles in either drama or action films, partly because she grew up reading comic books.

“I read a lot of comic books and my two favorite characters were Sealock and Black Cat. So I would love to play those characters, just because I grew up loving those characters so, so much. I would also love to work with someone like Steven Spielberg or something like that for all the amazing stuff he creates. It would be amazing to do it.”

Another thing that Aimée also wants to try is voice acting and her biggest fulfillment would be to guest on her all-time favourite show, Bob’s Burgers.

“You know, I love voice acting and I’ve always wanted to do more of that. I would honestly, even a guest role on Bob’s Burgers would make my entire life.”

As to one final encouragement to women, Aimée says “You have the power, the drive and the ability to do whatever you want to do”. Most importantly, the British-Thai actress strongly believes that empowering Thai women is to allow them to freely express their true identities and tell their own stories, without the “filtered lenses” of other people.

“I think a lot of the perceptions of what it means to be Thai and to be a Thai woman in the public sphere is filtered by people who are not actually Thai women. So, for more Thai women to exist in that space and to feel proud of being exactly who they are and who they want to be, as opposed to through any other lens, that’s what empowering Thai women means to me.”

By Nad Bunnag, Thai PBS World

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