june-2012

PEOPLE
“I’M NOT
MUCH IN THE
WAY OF A
PLANNER. I
DON’T TRY
TO ENVISAGE
TOO MUCH”
Asked whether his return was
a conscious decision, he protests,
“No! I’m not much in the way of a
planner. I don’t try to envisage
too much.”
His big break came in 2006 when
he teamed up with his brother,
director Charlie Nguyen, to make
Dong Mau Anh Hung (The Rebel),
an epic martial arts movie set in
1920s French-occupied Vietnam.
It topped the box offi ce charts and
catapulted him to movie stardom.
“Just thinking about the fact
that we were able to pull off the
movie with such a limited budget
and then to see it play in a movie
theatre in China, with thousands
of DVDs getting snapped up in
America, it was mind blowing,”
says Nguyen.
030
This is not to say that the shift from
the well-oiled machine of Hollywood to
a nascent commercial fi lm industry in
Vietnam was always smooth. “Back in 2005
when I got back here and made my fi rst fi lm,
I realised there were lots of things that were
needed here. We didn’t have a real movie
make-up artist. So we had to bring back our
fellow Vietnamese-Americans in the States
to fi ll in the positions that we couldn’t fi ll in
Vietnam,” he concedes.
As if to prove that Nguyen does not
typecast himself in ‘iron man’ kind of
roles, he landed starring roles in a number
of romantic comedy movies such as Hon
Truong Ba, Da Hang Thit (Truong Ba’s Soul
in a Butcher’s Body), Nu Hon Than Chet
(Kiss of Death) and most recently, Cuoi
Ngay Keo Lo (Love Puzzle).
“As a singer, you create an image for
yourself. If you’re a rock ’n’ roll singer, you
CLOCKWISE FROM MAIN: Nguyen
goes behind the camera in The
Rebel; with Vietnamese actress
Ngo Thanh Van; on a shoot for Mai
Lam label
won’t do hip hop. But acting is the
complete opposite. As an actor, you
don’t have an image,” says Nguyen.
His creativity knows no bounds.
He tried his hand at writing scripts
for The Rebel with brother Charlie
and Clash with director Le Thanh
Son. But scriptwriting, Johnny
says, is a love-hate relationship.
But what about directing? “I
don’t consider myself as a director.
It’s the kind of job where you have
to pull your hair out until it grows
grey,” he laughs.
Nguyen is currently training
(himself and other actors) for an
action movie with a working title
China Town, directed by his brother
and due to start shooting in July.
As our conversation draws to
a close, Nguyen muses: “Years of
practising martial arts have taught
me that everything is diffi cult. You
have to push yourself harder. I
apply that mentality to everything
in life — for career, for how I work
and how I live.”
FAR LEFT PHOTO: QUOC HUY REMAINING PHOTOS: COURTESY OF JOHNNY TRI NGUYEN