Tuesday, September 26, 2023
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Unless you're a complete chameleon like, say, Sean Penn, most actors wind up being typecast. Take Denzel Washington; he's the Quiet Hero. Sandra Bullock: The Girl Next Door. And that's okay - they're good at it.
But what if you were typecast simply because of your background? That's what it was like for Grace Lynn Kung. A few years back, she was a working actress, earning a few good roles on TV shows such as 'Slings & Arrows', and on the stage, in plays such as 'a nanking winter', about the massacre and rape of Chinese citizens by the Japanese Imperial Army, which helped her grow both as an artist and as someone with an expanding social conscience.
But in the bigger picture, Grace was tired of being typecast. After all, would you want to be stuck mainly playing immigrants if you'd been born and raised in Ottawa? So Grace packed it in, moved to London, England for three years. She even spent a year studying her other passion: alternative health and nutrition.
Still, she never gave up. And then came the role that turned it around for Grace: JoJo Kwan, the deadpan forensics expert on CBC's spy spoof 'InSecurity'. In JoJo, Grace found a character defined by her brains, not the colour of her skin -- or her accent. She'd score a Gemini nomination for the role, proving that while change can take time, perseverance can pay off.
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