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Your new movie To Die
Alone - in a few words, what's it about, and what can you tell us
about your character in it?
It's a psychological survival thriller set in the beautiful woods of the
Pacific Crest Trail, and I play Ford, a fellow solo hiker that the
protagonist runs into who comes off as very helpful at first impression.
What did you draw upon to
bring your character to life, and how much James Tang can we
find in Ford? There's a LOT of me that I share with Ford, because we're very much
people that want to help and keep people safe, but there's also other
parts of Ford I definitely had to work on to get to ;) How did you get involved with the
project in the first place, what drew you to it?
To be blunt, as an actor (especially nowadays), just the prospect of
getting hired is usually a big draw :D but this project
specifically was great because director Austin Smagalski first reached out (we'd briefly
worked together on a project years prior and also have a bunch of mutual
friends) and asked if I wanted to be in the table read, which I was
totally down for. Then finding out that it was a lead role AND a hiker
character, which are both historically quite rare for Asian-American
actors, made it all the more interesting. After the reading I was asked
to join when they had a callback session, and then a few days after
that, I was informed I got the role! Since To
Die Alone is shot almost entirely on exterior locations and
involves a fair share of hiking, would you at all describe yourself at all
as an outdoorsy type of person? I am pretty much the exact OPPOSITE of an outdoorsy person :D
I grew up in suburbs and cities, so it was definitely a fish-out-of-water experience to be thrown deep into the literal woods for this
movie, but luckily having a professional crew to keep this cityboy safe
and teaching me how outdoorsy people do things, as well as the movie
magic of filming within walking distance of modern day conveniences,
made it a very smooth experience. What can you tell us
about To Die Alone's
director Austin Smagalski, and what was your collaboration like?
Austin's brain is always clicking away, especially as an editor himself,
so watching him pause and problem-solve in his mind when we came up on
some potential problems (especially with weather) was really cool to
see. He has a vision but he's also open to collaboration and input from
other people while knowing his own limitations, so it was a really good
working experience. Do
talk about the shoot as such, and the on-set atmosphere!
We were a big ol' family! A lot of Austin's literal family came to help,
and most of us were all staying together in one rental, so it was like a
2 week slumber party. Everyone was friendly and also extremely
professional, so even though we only had 11 filming days up in the Mt.
Shasta locations, they NEVER felt rushed or disorganized. Working with
my costar Lisa Jacqueline Starrett was great because she gives it her all on every take and
I just had to be there and respond. Any
future projects you'd like to share?
I'm still in the development phase for a few different projects, one of
which is an Asian-American stoner action comedy feature film, and the
other is to create a low-budget, cyberpunk detective show on my own YouTube channel. What got you into
acting in the first place, and did you receive any formal training on the subject?
I actually studied filmmaking in college, and it was afterwards that I
took an acting class to improve my directing, which then led me to
realize that I'd always wanted to act but that I never gave myself that
permission to do it. Eventually I moved to LA, where you can throw a
rock and hit an acting school, and studied from a bunch of different
teachers, but I'd definitely say my foundation is the Meisner technique,
that I learned from Joshua Bitton, Heidi Dippold, and Anil Kumar
Bhardwaj. What can you tell us about your filmwork prior
to To Die Alone?
I'd been doing the usual actor journey/grind of auditioning and trying
to book bigger and bigger roles. I'd gotten a few parts on TV (Brooklyn
Nine-Nine, NCIS: LA, Bosch) and some films as well
(You and Me, I Almost Married A Serial Killer, Killer Caregiver) as well as some short films,
but as I mentioned before, this was my first lead role in a feature film!
Besides acting, you've also done your fair share of voice-acting over the years -
so what can you tell us about that aspect of your career, and how does
voice acting compare to on-screen performing?
Voice-acting can be a tough industry to get into in LA and I honestly
lucked into it. An audition happened to come my way, I happened to book
it, and my live-acting dubbing career basically got started. I still
haven't really broken into animation or video games yet, which I'd love
to do, but what I can say about voice acting is that it's just another
form of acting, but since it's entirely focused on getting things across
through just one's voice, there's some differences and nuances from
on-camera work that an actor needs to be aware of. How
would you describe yourself as an actor, and some of your techniques to
bring your character to life? I really like to focus on being as natural and present as possible,
while also leaving room for surprises. This mainly comes from my Meisner
training (while also observing, learning from, and sometimes straight up
imitating human behavior), but also from remembering that I'm an artist
and not just a meat puppet and I have a voice, while still being
flexible enough to adjust my choices if they differ too much from say
the writer or director's.
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Actors (and indeed actresses) who inspire you?
Pedro Pascal. Your favourite movies?
The Empire Strikes Back, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Matrix,
Terminator 2, The Emperor's New Groove, Pirates of the Caribbean. ...
and of course, films you really deplore?
I mean it's tough to disparage ANY film that exists knowing how
difficult it is to even get one made, but I will say that I find it
disheartening to see actors out there (without naming names of course)
that clearly don't want to be on set but are collecting paychecks while
so many in the industry are out of work. Your website, social media, whatever else?
Website: www.jamesthetang.com
YouTube: www.youtube.com/@jamesthetang
TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@jamesthetang
Anything else you're dying to mention and I have merely forgotten to ask?
May we all achieve the self-actualization we deserve. Thanks for the interview!
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