Lumina's lead actor talks... and his advice to single ladies

Sun, 09/13/2009 - 15:22.

Lumina's leading actor, Michael Chan speaks to Orientelle about his experiences on the set of Lumina, his preferences in women and his advice to beautiful, career-oriented women still looking for Mr. Right out there. Check it out-

1. Tell us about your background. What projects did you do in the past and how did you get here (both in Hong Kong and on Lumina)?

I was born and raised in the province of Quebec, in Canada. Spoke French in everyday life and Cantonese at home with my family and grand parents. Since my childhood, I’ve always been the only Chinese/Asian kid in school and everyone asked me if I knew kung fu! I guess I kind of felt ashamed to answer no, so I secretly started to practice all kind of martial arts in my back yard.

One day, I discovered that my parents had a hi8 camcorder at home and no one was using it. I started to film myself practicing kicks, flips and stunts and would play them back to see myself looking to improve. From there, I started to make my own short and silly action films with some friends and got addicted to filmmaking. I studied filmmaking and graphic design after high school because I felt that I would need to better understand what goes on “behind the camera” in order to work in front of one. For some reason, I’ve always wanted to be an actor, specifically in Hong Kong! Perhaps, it’s from the influence of the Hong Kong idols back in the 90’s, when they still produced near 300 movies per year?

Being a freelance actor, model, dancer and stuntman for the past 4 years in Hong Kong, I only started to work professionally behind the camera as an assistant director in "功夫廚神" (Kung Fu Chefs) in 2008, and I have always been really supportive to all kinds of independent projects. I met Jennifer while helping out on some friend’s project, had lunch all together after the shoot and exchanged contacts with her. Not too long after that, Jennifer called me back to audition for a role in her new project. I accepted, showed up, acted few scenes out and apparently, I was quite convincing as Ryder! Hopefully the audience will like my performance!

2. Tell us about the characters that you play (ex. Is Ryder really a good guy or a villain??)

Although Ryder is described as a thief, he had his reasons to steal. Ryder is a man with a good heart and without bad intentions, just that he’s been led and used by his mentor in bad ways. Overall, I would say that Ryder is a good guy. His encounter with Lumina during a mission was unpredictable and at the point of no return. Ryder is unfortunately always caught in bad situations, at the wrong time, wrong place! But also very lucky to have found true love with Lumina, and he knows its all worth it! At the end of the day, all he really did was following his heart and fell in love, and even if there will always be a glass separating Lumina from him, he dared to love and without regrets.

3. Seeing as how Jennifer use to be an investment banker and lawyer, I'd imagine that she gets straight to business when it comes to work- how was it working with your director?

I think Jen did amazing work! She’s very sweet, talented, caring, supportive, understanding and flexible. She made sure the cast and crew was all right and that we had everything we needed on set, all the time!

She was very understanding to the fact that it wasn’t easy to play someone from a different world, being physically restricted to act and fall in love with someone through a glass or reflection at the same time. She would always give me enough time to prepare myself, to understand what she wanted and was always open to hear my suggestions and brief me from there. I love working with her because she would feed me with the right feelings or images and slowly add notes to the scene and always made sure I was on the right track. She’s simply awesome! By far the best director I’ve worked with!

4. From a male perspective, Lumina is beautiful and intelligent- why do you think she has so much difficulty finding her true love in this world?

She’s overworked and stuck in a boring routine! Always being told what to do and doing the same things over and over again! She probably has high standards and that’s only normal to hope or wait for the best! But, what she really needed was something different, something fresh to distract her from all that busy schedule and workload! I think Ryder’s existence in her life is a great change!

5. What advice would you give to Asian women around the world who are both beautiful, intelligent and career oriented... but just can't seem to find Mr. Right? After all... catching Prince Charming in a reflection doesn't work for all of us...

I think it all depends how you value “Love” vs. “Career”. Both are really important and time consuming, but if it balances correctly, you can have both! To all the hard working ladies out there: It’s ok to take a step back from work every now and again to enjoy life! Many are waiting for the perfect guy to show up and but they are, themselves, constantly preoccupied by work. So go out there and meet new people! Dare to try, and if you think you found someone good, dare to love! And I can assure you that no one is perfect, but I do believe in perfect matches though! It’s always important to communicate and be considerate in a relationship. Think about what you need rather than what you want! It’s not always the same!

6. As a good-looking Asian Canadian man, what are the key qualities that you look for in the personality and appearance of a potential girlfriend?

A potential girlfriend to me has to be funny, easygoing, understanding, caring, someone that shares similar values and activities as me. Some one I could do the silliest things in front of and still find it cute and laugh with me. She has to be supportive, considerate, caring and be a good ear when rough times come. Most importantly, she has to love me, trust me and never lie to me. She also has to be smart and could look silly, but hopefully, not the other way around! LOL

I personally like girls with long silky hair, and if she knows how to make her hair look great in different styles, that’s a big plus to me!

7. From a male perspective, what do you think the guys in the audience will appreciate about Lumina?

Lumina is beautiful, innocent and very hard working! When a hot girl’s really concentrated on doing something… That’s really attractive! I guess the way Lumina falls in love with Ryder and spends all that time with him doing silly/romantic stuff, is something all the guys in the world would want to experience! Lumina is the perfect girl to fall in love with!

8. For Michael- JuJu was a blast to interview, did you guys have any memorable bloopers?

The first few days of shoot, Juju and I had a lot of fun on the set and we were always laughing, joking around and taking pictures. They often shoot us separately, so before every shot, we could just switch back to “serious” mode and do our parts. You will see that, as the series goes on, Lumina and Ryder’s love will grow and will be seen closer and closer.

There was this one scene where Ryder had to convince Lumina that he’s real. Juju and I were face to face, separated by a glass, our hands could overlap, but again this was the closest I could ever get to her. The scene eventually gets pretty intense and intimate. We did great during the rehearsals but when we were asked to take position on set, because of the camera angle, we were place in such a physically unnatural way and our heads were ackwardly close to each other, we ended up bursting out laughing and fogging the glass several times!

That was also a very challenging scene to play as Ryder; it was very frustrating to be so limited while expressing my feelings to Lumina. I felt so restricted and trapped inside the glass - which was actually a very small room that they made it “my world”, or to be exact, the dark realm. There was almost as much fun as there was challenge to play that scene, since Ryder and Lumina have never felt so close to each other before. It was very interesting for Juju and I to know that the crew really enjoyed our chemistry and performance!

9. What's next for you?

There are 2 feature movie projects in preproduction at the moment that have contacted me already, but since both scripts aren’t ready yet, I still can’t make any decisions at this moment. I also have some modeling and dancing stuff planed this year, but it’s too early to talk about these projects. I also work as AD (assistant director) for a production house and I know that we’ve got several movie projects lined up. I want to keep working on both sides of the camera for now. I’m probably going to pick small but fun roles in the next movies I will work on as AD, only if I can handle both jobs though!

In the meanwhile, I’m still waiting for Jennifer to write Lumina: season 2 and call me for fitting… if the audience likes my character enough, I might just make it to season 2!