Latest / The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen / 470 - Are We All Born with the “IT” Factor? - Kathy Uyen

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470 - Are We All Born with the “IT” Factor? - Kathy Uyen · The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: Welcome to the Vietnamese podcast.
• 0:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: Today, I have very much anticipated friend and guest, Kathy Winwin.
• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: I actually have wanted to have you on the podcast since I started five years ago, because we've known each other for so many decades, a few decades now.
• 0:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I am so grateful that you're here today.
• 0:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you for coming on.
• 0:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, Ken, I'm very glad that we finally can connect after all these years.
• 0:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm very happy to see the success of the Vietnamese podcast.
• 0:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: I know that was such a big passion project of yours and to see you actually executed and now five years later.
• 0:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: You've really connected a lot of Vietnamese people together on one podcast, so very honored and proud to, uh,
• 0:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Be your team.
• 0:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
• 0:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you for the, thank you for the kind words.
• 0:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you so much.
• 0:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Give me up on me.
• 0:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: You know, I found out recently that another podcast or in Vietnam to be men from have a sip.
• 1:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: She just told me that she was like talking to somebody for like seven years before the guy came on a podcast.
• 1:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: It was always like, wait a minute, I thought two to five years, like I have friends that are like you who don't want to come on yet.
• 1:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, stop, wait.
• 1:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: 7 years she was talking to a potential guest until he finally came on I was like all right that that takes the cake right it's like that's amazing so we as podcasters have to be very patient with um people that we want on and people we don't want on quite yet you know it's a it's an interesting kind of balance
• 1:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 1:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, I want to really acknowledge the fact that you are in this space now, the acting space, and you are involved in many areas and whether it's directing or they're acting or coaching all of it.
• 1:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: There was a time, I think, when we were kids, when we were looking at movies that were coming from either, you know, Asia or Vietnam,
• 2:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: That just doesn't work for me, right?
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: The acting, you know, in none of it really worked because maybe it came from the stage.
• 2:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: And then I remember like watching like they might didn't with the high-quality or one of these actors, I'm like, wait a minute, now it's starting to shift, right?
• 2:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: And things are changing.
• 2:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: When did you recognize that happening in Vietnam or has it switched at all for you?
• 2:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: I remember people saying that because to be honest, I wasn't following Venomese movies prior.
• 2:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: I remember the first one I heard about that before there was three seasons, right?
• 2:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then Charlie came back to Vietnam, that's when Tony came back to Vietnam, and Timothy Lynn, Booy came back to Vietnam.
• 3:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then there was Charlie's film The Rebel, and that I remember those two movies were the first that made me think, oh, a Vietnamese film, because I'm coming from a point of view of being a Vietnamese
• 3:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then it's when I went back to Vietnam to shoot Jinkthan Sassu, Victor Vus movie, and then Charling Wings movie, Daymethan.
• 3:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Then I started hearing the audiences say that to me.
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because,
• 3:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was not really comparing myself, really.
• 3:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: I did it instinctively, I wasn't thinking I'm gonna go act and act naturally, or I didn't think anything of that.
• 3:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just didn't just do whatever I did and I was working with people I worked with and somehow the audience has told us, hey, we felt that my thing was it's very distinctively different than all the other movies.
• 3:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then that's when I,
• 3:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: that gave me a bit of hope, it gave me a bit of, okay, maybe being different is not so bad.
• 4:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think prior to that, I think that was always the main struggle of being an actress.
• 4:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Being in America, I was two Vietnamese or two Asian, and back then in 2000, 2000,
• 4:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: One, 2002, that's when I was really actively pursuing the game as the struggling actress, right, in LA, and I was going for auditions for a Korean girl, a Japanese girl, and I was competing with all the Asian.
• 4:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: females out there.
• 4:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I thought I was not, I was too Asian and not, um, mainstream enough.
• 4:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then when I went back to Vietnam, the shoot movies, I thought I was too American.
• 4:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was too Vicky, I'm not Vietnamese enough.
• 4:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, and so it was really refreshing, actually, that people, I felt like they accepted the style or they, they were open to Vietnamese American filmmakers and
• 5:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: and
• 5:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm proud to be a part of that.
• 5:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm proud that I've seen Vietnamese films evolve being more natural before, even when I came back to Vietnam.
• 5:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of the, got a long thing, you know, the W. Back then, it was so common that if you're an actress, you don't really have to have a great voice.
• 5:28
  [SPEAKER_05]: Right.
• 5:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, all the TV shows, the Vietnamese TV shows, 70% of them were dubbed with voiceover dubbing actors.
• 5:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: And, and I felt the audiences accepted it.
• 5:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: They didn't see anything that wrong with it.
• 5:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: But then now 10 years later, people notice that that's not natural.
• 5:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's a bit awkward.
• 5:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so now it's reduced dramatically, meaning
• 5:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: I have seen Vietnamese cinema evolve and people's tastes have been more wanting more natural, more authentic, more real.
• 6:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Whereas before, yes, it was more staged and wanting to be more perfect.
• 6:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: But again, any art form, any industry, I think is going to go through that evolution.
• 6:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, not just Vietnam, but I'm sure at all the countries as well.
• 6:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 6:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: You know, one of the big questions I have, especially for somebody who studies the craft, when a young person comes to you and says, you know, I want to become an actor and I want to be a good actor and then you're looking at the person, is there a such thing as an it factor and, you know, do you see it and do you notice it or can it be grown and developed into?
• 6:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: the it factor.
• 6:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think everyone has the it factor.
• 6:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Everyone is it.
• 7:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: We are, right?
• 7:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: We are who we are.
• 7:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: We are it.
• 7:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so it's whether in that moment with that person, in that situation, we want to, we feel in inhibited and we feel free to express ourselves.
• 7:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Therefore, I always feel, in my definition of what the it factor is, is the it factor is when a person is fully themselves is fully free to emotionally express and feel confident.
• 7:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: in their opinion.
• 7:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's when they shine.
• 7:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's when they're very magnetic and the charisma and the energy and everything is one, right?
• 7:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it comes out fully in a way that really grabs and magnetizes and hypnotizes people.
• 7:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: So.
• 7:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think everyone can have the it factor.
• 7:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's whether we believe in ourselves, it's whether we allow ourselves, it's whether we feel comfortable with that person in front of us or the people in front of us in a situation.
• 8:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think it's,
• 8:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a process that can be developed.
• 8:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a process that can, you can get better at allowing other people to feel your it factor.
• 8:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
• 8:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's my answer to that, right?
• 8:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think it's, and I, because I don't want people to limit themselves in thinking, oh, I'm not confident in this moment.
• 8:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm, I don't have the it factor, you know?
• 8:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not magnetic.
• 8:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: But you can be, if you want to be,
• 8:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: allow yourself, and you think it's possible, right?
• 8:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's a really good answer.
• 8:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: I was not expecting that.
• 8:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: I really wasn't.
• 8:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: No, no, no, no, I just was not.
• 8:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I've never thought about it that way.
• 8:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: that it could be worked on and developed.
• 8:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: And it's very simple, actually.
• 8:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: It might take a lot of time, because you could be somebody like me who's always guarded, who's always worrying about what people hear from my mouth and how they perceive me, right?
• 9:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: And that creates very low self confidence when people can detect the fact that I'm thinking about that.
• 9:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I'm very transactional about how I'm being portrayed.
• 9:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: and that shows very low self confidence.
• 9:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: And confidence has nothing to do with how smart you are or how brilliant or or how intelligent you are.
• 9:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's really what you're talking about.
• 9:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: How much are you willing to be courageous to show the world that you could just be you and be comfortable in that skin?
• 9:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: So I was expecting, I really was not expecting that answer.
• 9:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I feel your energy now is even, I feel like your, I feel more it factor from you right now, can see and I bet your mom is confident that you have it factor.
• 9:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: I bet your, your, your significant other knows that you have that it factor because that's what they love you, right?
• 10:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Those are the people that you feel most confident with and comfortable with to express yourself.
• 10:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: How did you arrive at this answer?
• 10:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: You know, very wise, but it sounds like perhaps you had to, well, it does sound like it because you said it in the beginning, in the beginning, earlier in your career, you were asked to kind of like, it was a struggle.
• 10:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: So do you think that it was a kind of like a growth trajectory for you to finally kind of arrive at this answer through spiritual practice?
• 10:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, what led you to this point?
• 10:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was, it's been this ongoing journey.
• 10:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think when you, not everyone, but for me, when I wanted to become an actress, it was not because I was grayed at it, or because I thought I could do it.
• 11:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think I wanted to become an actress because I felt
• 11:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: shy or not confident.
• 11:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I didn't feel like I had the it factor.
• 11:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: In high school, I was the girl that had the crush on the boy from afar that the boy never even noticed who I was.
• 11:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was that girl, right?
• 11:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I was the plain Jane.
• 11:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: And but inside me, I knew I inside me, I felt I had more, you know?
• 11:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: I probably felt I had the
• 11:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I didn't know how to express it.
• 11:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I thought I'm gonna secretly want to become an actress.
• 11:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't tell anyone because I was afraid I was gonna fail and they would laugh at me.
• 11:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: But in my heart, I just wanna be an actress and why it's maybe for some it's because they really love acting but for some maybe it's just because they wanna be able to express their emotions and be heard.
• 12:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: right because when you're an actress, people watch you.
• 12:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: They watch you on the screen, you get their attention.
• 12:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: And when you're an actress, you feel confident because everyone is is quite around you and watching you.
• 12:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so you have a moment to express and usually they think actresses are pretty and beautiful and magnetic, right?
• 12:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: So think about it.
• 12:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: What being an
• 12:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I wanted that, and that's why I became an actress because I hadn't, I had none of that.
• 12:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think along the journey, every time I booked a role, I felt, I felt the taste of it.
• 12:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.
• 12:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like every time I booked a role, I thought, yeah, okay now, for this moment, for these few weeks, for this scene on, for this day, when we were shooting this scene,
• 13:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: everything.
• 13:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I get to, like, just, just, whatever, be free and be everything and anything.
• 13:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: And whatever I wanted, there was a sky's limit.
• 13:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: And people were actually going to listen to it and watch it, you know?
• 13:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 13:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: And, and, and so I was, I was chasing that feeling.
• 13:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then I would go back to the drawing board on days when I,
• 13:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: more go to castings and I don't book the job or the days when I'm just every the everyday normal day what I'm not working as an actress.
• 13:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's the job of finding work, finding opportunities, going on castings, being rejected, being declined.
• 13:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: And a lot of being an actress is about being rejected.
• 13:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean 90% of your time being an actress is being rejected.
• 13:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right, that's the truth because that's a journey so that you can have those moments to feel amazing and so that's the high and when you go in this journey there's immense highs, but then there's also immense lows when you go down.
• 14:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so that is a big, that's a big, you know, roller coaster.
• 14:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think those roller coasters, the more I would feel confident in those pockets of time that I was an actress and got to work on screen.
• 14:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: There are also moments I had to battle feeling not good enough, feeling insecure, feeling unsure, feeling lost, feeling, am I good enough, feeling like maybe I don't have the effect or why am I not working right now?
• 14:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Why I'm not being casted?
• 14:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I battle with as much confidence as I achieve, I also battle with a lot of insecurity.
• 14:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it really made me question a lot about myself, right?
• 15:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: And go deeper to discover that and try to solve that for myself, tie to deal with it, try to create and develop strong thoughts in a mindset to overcome it.
• 15:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: And in a nutshell, that
• 15:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: everything I learned and then I was able to that that's what inspired me to then become a teacher right to then open up the school the academy because then
• 15:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a shame, I've already done this whole thesis on over trying to overcome insecurity, right?
• 15:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like this life long thesis project.
• 15:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: So now I want to be able to share it, and share the learnings or sharing the findings from it.
• 15:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: So that's my very long answer to your short question, but no, I mean, I appreciate the long answer because it helps illuminate your journey and it helps
• 16:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: You know, it helps with other career paths, too, that people in software engineering or people who are an animation or people who are writing textbooks.
• 16:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know.
• 16:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: It helps with people who are fearing the, you know, facing their insecurity.
• 16:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: You know, and I think that there's parallels to everybody's sort of like wisdom, gaining as it comes, you know, in different packages so we can digest it and go, yeah, make sense.
• 16:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's, there's parallels in my life when I'm hearing Kathy talk about, you know.
• 16:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: So it's good to hear the shifts in our sort of our thinking about insecurity or confidence because it makes perfect sense like you got to high highs and low lows as it comes with the territory.
• 16:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think it's, I think insecurities is what a lot of people face.
• 17:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Before people think being depressed, right?
• 17:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, it's just be happy, right?
• 17:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And people now starting to realize the importance of mental health, right?
• 17:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 17:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think insecurity is similar.
• 17:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think a lot of people suffer from it.
• 17:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's not just in this occupation, but it can be in many occupations, it just in life.
• 17:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I think,
• 17:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I do feel as an actress it's more heightened because there's higher lows and higher in and and and and molding kids yeah because there's pockets of idolness and idolness will you have the space to have more thoughts and then you more reactive to the thoughts and then therefore that creates more feelings and emotions.
• 17:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: But I'm sure that there's people that come in and you're just like, I mean, you don't have it.
• 17:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: You just don't have the memory for it.
• 18:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: You don't have the addiction.
• 18:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: You don't have the eloquence.
• 18:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: You don't have any of the tools that an actor who's going to actually be hired.
• 18:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, you have to run into people like that.
• 18:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: And do you tell them, do you let them know softly?
• 18:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: Do you let them know, do you, or do you just keep working with them and going, you know what?
• 18:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: Max out on whatever you got.
• 18:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: If they come to me and I see them, then chances are, there's a will in their eyes.
• 18:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe their voice and their body expression is stiff.
• 18:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe their emotions are hard to feel, but I can see the drive and the intention in their eyes, because that's where they're here.
• 18:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now, if they're not here, they don't come to me and they're just out there, some random person at a coffee shop, you know, reading a book or making a coffee, then there may not be a drive in their eyes because they don't have that intention.
• 19:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: And therefore, maybe they are confident in what they are doing at the current moment, or you're that they're too busy
• 19:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, feel that they deserve to be anywhere else, right?
• 19:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, so I do feel that if they at least come to me or see me or are in front of me, and then that already means that they want to do something, right?
• 19:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I can work with that.
• 19:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: I can work with will.
• 19:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you don't have the will and don't have the attention, then it's really hard.
• 19:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And everything else can be solvable because there's so many layers just like when you want to create a recipe right you want to create a recipe for confidence.
• 19:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let's say.
• 19:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: So let's break that out.
• 19:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: What are the ingredients of confidence?
• 20:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: I've never thought of that.
• 20:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: You never thought of that.
• 20:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, you know, when you make fall, you're making out.
• 20:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, now let's make confidence.
• 20:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right.
• 20:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: So so what is it?
• 20:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's, um,
• 20:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: big scoops of thoughts, you gotta have some confident thoughts and meaning you have to have encouraging thoughts about yourself, you have to have empowering thoughts about yourself, right?
• 20:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: You gotta correct the negative thoughts that come up every time you fail or every time something wrong happens, you gotta correct your reactions.
• 20:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that's like the power to really be conscious of what you're thinking and then change it.
• 20:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: right because a bunch of thoughts create emotion.
• 20:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: So let's say I'm pouring all these thoughts in a thought, a negative thought, then the positive thought will push the negative thought out, right?
• 20:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Then you have this soup of confidence or positivity, right?
• 21:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: But if your soup has too many negative thoughts, then you just have no willpower, you have no willpower to do anything to overcome.
• 21:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: So in acting, we always teach that you have to be careful of your thoughts and then the thoughts, the series of thoughts create the emotion.
• 21:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Whether it's angry, jealousy, happiness, fulfillment, you know, surprise, whatnot.
• 21:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: And all that emotion you have it, it's built into you like energy.
• 21:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then after that, you express it out.
• 21:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now you express out that that
• 21:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: That soup of thought and emotion through your voice, through your body.
• 21:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let's say my body is free, so my hands are not like blocks.
• 21:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not tense in my body.
• 21:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm free in my body.
• 21:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: You can feel my emotion through my physicality, through my gestures.
• 22:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: My voice, some people have block voices.
• 22:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: but then their voice is maybe stuck in their chest.
• 22:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Or some people have very tight and their voices are stuck in their throat like this.
• 22:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's quite a smaller and it's not really wanting to project.
• 22:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: So your voice can be tight in your chest.
• 22:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: It can be tight in your throat.
• 22:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: It can be tight in your jaw.
• 22:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: So if your voice is full, it will come from your diaphragm, right?
• 22:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of singers, they have good breathing because they speak from the diaphragm.
• 22:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: So now I try to be conscious that.
• 22:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: my thoughts need to be pure.
• 22:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: The more pure my thoughts are in being focused in that one emotion.
• 22:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let's say I want to be strong so I'm going to have strong thoughts and suddenly my emotions will change to be stronger and then it will come out and my voice will be strong.
• 23:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: My body will be strong and everything is doing one thing at the same time and it's free and that's when the emotion can
• 23:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now, if any of those steps, thoughts, emotion, emotions can be blocked too.
• 23:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let's say I'm a child and I got yelled at.
• 23:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe, and I would cry a lot when I was a kid, but then my parents told me, stop crying.
• 23:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Crying is weak, be strong.
• 23:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: So every time, let's say I have sad thoughts, which trigger vulnerability,
• 23:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: frailty and sad thoughts, my emotion, I'll have an opinion about my thought and my opinion is stop being sad.
• 23:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that blocks your emotions can be blocked based upon your trauma as a child.
• 24:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Your thoughts can be
• 24:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, it can be all over the place, right?
• 24:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you cannot have the mental, if you're not knowing how to to to to to help manage them.
• 24:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that could be a layer that makes that affects this recipe.
• 24:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right?
• 24:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: So you have to think about it.
• 24:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's basically it's very simple.
• 24:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's just thoughts, emotions, voice and body, but they all have to be free and they can't be blocked.
• 24:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: for that energy to come out fully.
• 24:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's sometimes, let's say you have the thought of, you know the answer, you're so confident, that's the answer.
• 24:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: And your motion is like, I got it, I got it, right?
• 24:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: But then,
• 24:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: your opinion about it is, I'll stop it, don't be, don't show off.
• 24:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Don't be, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, be humble or that person's not gonna like it or you might not be right.
• 25:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Cause you were wrong last time, for example.
• 25:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: So these things can also hinder and make you block yourself.
• 25:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: Right, right.
• 25:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right, so it is, it is very psychological and psychologically technical too, right?
• 25:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's super technical, but it's super.
• 25:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because they're both brains, right, right, right, right.
• 25:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right, right, right, right.
• 25:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: And there are things that you can't see, but it's systems infrastructure actually in place.
• 25:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Correct, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that.
• 25:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: that helps you express your it factor.
• 25:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 25:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm seeing it.
• 25:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm seeing it now.
• 25:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 25:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: But so many of us who grew up in cultures that are, you know, parents are overbearing.
• 25:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like the Asian culture, the Vietnamese culture, we are hindered from free expression a lot of times.
• 26:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, not just Vietnamese, but I think all ethnicities, all cultures, we have similar patterns of behavior in the cultural environment.
• 26:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, for example, yes.
• 26:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: So this is not about let's blame our parents, right?
• 26:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because in their parents, we'll blame their parents.
• 26:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then everyone's parents, everyone will eventually just blame their parents and grandparents.
• 26:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: But it's just the honest truth, even now is a mother.
• 26:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: I try now knowing this because every day, I'm always trying to help people find out where they're blocked and to free it.
• 26:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: And even when I'm talking to my son, I go,
• 26:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: I applaud him, I don't do that because then he's just going to think that this key result driven, you have to be good to be good, right?
• 27:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: And every day I'm trying to say things to not build trauma because every day in class I'm helping people to resolve their past childhood trauma.
• 27:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm struggling with the real life in daytime to get through life to not create trauma for other people.
• 27:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: Okay, let's talk about this because I, I, I hear you, yeah, but, but do we think that having these traumas and overcoming these traumas and having it as possibly a tool in our tool bag, because if you weren't traumatized, you wouldn't have that depth of of of feeling perhaps,
• 27:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: I want to answer both because earlier you asked me about the Vietnamese culture and I really want to answer about that and then I definitely want to answer you about embracing the traumas as well because it helps you.
• 28:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, have a wide range of emotions to connect to people.
• 28:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: But going back to the, let's, let's, let's talk a little bit more about the Vietnamese culture here, because that's something that is always fascinating to me.
• 28:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's the reason why I decided to move and live in Vietnam, right?
• 28:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've always been curious to know more about my Vietnamese culture and know about my upbringing.
• 28:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: And therefore understand and appreciate and love my parents for where they came from.
• 28:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a few things we can talk about our look at, right?
• 28:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: But for example, the Vietnamese social hierarchy of how you address people when you meet them.
• 28:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: In the Vietnamese, in America, I grew up.
• 28:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: We can call each other by name.
• 28:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hi, Ken, hi, Kathy.
• 28:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're older than me.
• 28:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm younger than you.
• 28:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: But we still call each other by name, right?
• 29:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: In Vietnam, if someone is older than you, then you address them by and it would be uncant, right?
• 29:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: It would be O.M.
• 29:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Kathy.
• 29:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: It would be O.B.
• 29:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Go to Gong, right?
• 29:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: When you meet people, you automatically know the levels of where everyone stands.
• 29:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: And therefore, you kind of build boundaries for
• 29:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: boundaries of how you should react and behave.
• 29:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: So let's say someone older than you will give you advice or or or share to their opinion on what you should do.
• 29:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Your thought is
• 29:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't believe that, I don't agree with that.
• 29:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Your emotion is a bit of uncomfortableness.
• 29:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Resistance, defense.
• 29:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Your opinion is, no, they're older than you.
• 29:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Be polite, you can't disagree with them.
• 30:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Your opinion suppresses your it factor, meaning your innate subconscious natural feeling
• 30:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: it's a press now.
• 30:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: You open your mouth and you say, yes, thank you.
• 30:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, come on back.
• 30:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, con se con se lang nie con con con con heu.
• 30:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, it's a press.
• 30:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
• 30:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: And therefore, or if let's say an older person yells at you as a child,
• 30:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: is a yell at you.
• 30:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: You have to think that they're right.
• 30:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I'm telling you, I'm your parent.
• 30:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, this is how it is.
• 30:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I don't understand.
• 30:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't matter.
• 30:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is how it is.
• 30:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: You have to follow.
• 30:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right.
• 30:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so this thought pattern of when you're younger, you, you kind of stop.
• 30:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: being able to feel confident, to flee, develop strong, energetic amounts of opinion because this pattern always being repressed and always being told that this is the way and that's not the way and therefore then people might get yelled at while they're younger.
• 31:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Or and and then you get afraid of you get afraid of confrontation, you get afraid of expressing expressing you get afraid of or you can't even accept criticism, this is what I noticed.
• 31:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: In life, you're going to grow up.
• 31:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're going to get criticized.
• 31:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that's a common thing that's going to happen.
• 31:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: It could be you working for your boss and you did that, yeah, you did that file wrong.
• 31:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you need to be changed, right?
• 31:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Or you are in a relationship with your boyfriend or girlfriend.
• 31:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: And they're saying like, well, I didn't appreciate it when you did this.
• 31:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, you're getting criticized, right?
• 31:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: like it's endless, you know, you can have drama with your friends, you can have drama with your brothers and sisters.
• 32:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's it's interesting of how you as a child dealt with criticism, right?
• 32:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Or how someone says, no, that's wrong.
• 32:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: You can never do that again.
• 32:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: I, you know, you, I never want you to do that again.
• 32:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Then you feel, you could feel ashamed as a child.
• 32:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: and that memory of feeling ashamed or humiliated will then affect how you grow up later, how you react to criticism, right?
• 32:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: In any situation, so even looking at just that one reaction
• 32:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if I want to get into the so deep in death, but but I want to show that as an example, see you understand that already as a child growing up, whether in America or growing up in Vietnam or growing up in China or growing up in Japan or anywhere, this is a friendship.
• 32:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's different cultural ways of how to react to your razor-child and therefore that also affects how the child grows up.
• 32:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Therefore, it affects the whole culture of then how you steer type Japanese people are like this.
• 33:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Vietnamese people are like this.
• 33:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Americans are like this, right?
• 33:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then it builds a behavior pattern for each type of ethnicity.
• 33:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I thought that's very interesting when it comes to coaching acting or teaching acting because I grew up in America, right?
• 33:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I grew up where, okay, you want to wear, you wanna chase, having dreams and having goals and being ambitious is like, yeah, you're amazing, right?
• 33:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: You gotta have ambition, you have a goal, you have a dream, gonna work your ass off, right?
• 33:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, in America,
• 33:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's so busy, you know, I work weekends.
• 33:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: I have no off days and people applaud you and then you think, wow, that's amazing.
• 33:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're hardworking.
• 33:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're a great person, right?
• 33:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: You got ambition.
• 33:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then in Vietnam, they've really value your time to spend with your family, right, and connect.
• 33:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: and and and respect your elders and spend time with your family.
• 34:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it could be in Vietnam if you if you're an American in Vietnam and you're talking to your relatives during that because during that everyone comes together and help.
• 34:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then if I were to tell my aunts in Vietnam, oh my god, it's so busy, barely had time, the weekends for myself, and then they look at you in like horrified, you're like, what, how could you do that to yourself?
• 34:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's horrible, right?
• 34:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're not taking care of yourself.
• 34:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: You need to relax, you need to, you know, it's just interesting the different dynamics.
• 34:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Dynamics and culture and behavior patterns.
• 34:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, so it's really, it's been nice, it's inhaling for me in a sense, because I'm pretty extreme when I do something, I really want to go all the way, like I want to go gum home and, and it's nice to to have different perspectives and have a balance, but let
• 35:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: the right, quote unquote, the right way to instill cultural habits in acting.
• 35:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: Okay, here's what I'm saying.
• 35:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: When I'm looking at something on film in the Vietnamese cinema space, culturally they're going to have a different expression.
• 35:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: Maybe there's different mechanism and levers in their brain.
• 35:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I think when you're an American born coach or you come from a different society and then you come in and you are infiltrating, I'll use the word infiltrating because what are we doing?
• 35:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: We are putting a quote unquote a better technique as a Western or more technical method of acting onto this new this this young culture, right?
• 36:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: And
• 36:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm wondering, um, when we look at things and it feels natural, it just feels better, right?
• 36:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: When we sing, we act and it just, you have, you remove the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the the strict controls of, of, of the pipes or the, the body's movement.
• 36:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: And it just feels better as an American.
• 36:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: We're looking out that we're like, oh, that's gold, right?
• 36:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: But does
• 36:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, it's, um, I'm not telling you.
• 36:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm just, you know, I, I, I, I, I get rich in it.
• 36:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I, I want to clarify.
• 36:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: The first few years when I, when I moved to Vietnam, yes, I did think that, oh, I have some techniques that can make things better, right?
• 36:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: But.
• 36:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: I realize it's not about better or less better, it's just a different point of view, right?
• 37:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's just how I grew up.
• 37:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: And let's say in America, it can be more common that we are just, we're just ourselves.
• 37:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we, because why?
• 37:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because we are not,
• 37:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: stuck or confined in these areas of having to listen to the older or being the role model for the younger.
• 37:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Earlier, what I said, right, about when in America the way you even get gets in hall, what the way you talk to everyone, you already assume we're all equal.
• 37:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right.
• 37:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: So just that one
• 37:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: it can really help free you to feel like the sky's the limit.
• 37:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Every time you talk to anyone, you know, you, you, so so you don't feel naïya.
• 37:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: But in the Vietnamese culture, yes, it could feel a bit the word is home or like not respectful, right?
• 38:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you're too, think you could be any body to anyone.
• 38:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
• 38:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, and I do see the value, it's like, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my
• 38:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: fully live the life of this person or you do not understand where this person is coming from, then how can you disregard any of their expertise or what they've been through or what wisdom they have to be able to give you what, you know, you could arguably
• 38:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: debate the two of of of of of of of understanding your boundaries as well.
• 38:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I do feel it's it's great to see things from both sides and balance and find your own balance.
• 39:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so I'm not saying that it should you should just be like this and not be like this.
• 39:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I think there's great things to learn from from each side.
• 39:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right?
• 39:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so then, therefore, I do feel that that is the biggie.
• 39:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: When you love him, the biggie, thaiye, hello.
• 39:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, go, go, go.
• 39:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, Cathy, she's very like, she's just kind of free.
• 39:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: She doesn't take herself so seriously and, and, and, and I like that about myself.
• 39:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love that about myself, but sometimes there are moments when, when, when, when, when, when, yes, let's say, I'm, I can be,
• 39:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love that about myself, but I have a lot to learn from the Vietnamese culture and how they also, there's nice to have those boundaries as well in certain environments and certain situations, right?
• 39:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I feel like that is...
• 39:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: That is what I feel I have to offer.
• 39:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's I feel is my value of what I can share to the young actors here.
• 40:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: To give that, them, that empowerment of, don't limit yourself to where you are in life and where you just came from, even.
• 40:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now you're here in this studio, in this acting room, and now you could be free.
• 40:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: You don't have to worry about limiting yourself.
• 40:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think, what does that mean?
• 40:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Free to be not perfect, right?
• 40:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: free from worrying to be perfect, worrying that have to be good and behave and think about everyone else, but me.
• 40:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that's where sometimes the Vietnamese culture can be a bit self-sacrificing, meaning we are very, we are amazingly so good at thinking about others and thinking about our family and we're so thoughtful, and we're so all about the team, all about
• 40:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: for the better of the community, for the better of this household, for the better of the family.
• 40:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: And as sometimes we don't put ourselves first, and then therefore then that comes with resentment, right?
• 41:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it comes with passengers and it comes with like, frustration that we're like contained and we're locked.
• 41:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: But, um,
• 41:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: But then on the flip side, if you're American, then sometimes you're so free and you're so thinking about your ambition and your goal that it could be thought as a bit selfish or but more just not making enough time and spending time with your family, that could be the extreme way that you could stereotype, right?
• 41:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: So
• 41:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's like absorbing those two POVs and I feel that's what I can share because my understanding two sides, yeah.
• 41:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then finding a happy medium for each person that I work with, right?
• 41:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Each student, each actor, they'll have
• 42:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: their levels of how much they need to free themselves or how much they need to be more connected with others.
• 42:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now, connection even, right?
• 42:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Connection is a balance of talking and listening, yes.
• 42:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's not just expression.
• 42:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: So earlier we, you and I have been talking purely about expression.
• 42:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: How to be the most free and inhibited to express the most it factor of ourselves.
• 42:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now that's only 50%, that's only 50% of it, yeah?
• 42:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: The other 50% is how free we are to really listen absorb and fully listen to what's being going, to what's going on as well, to what that person is saying to us.
• 42:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: We couldn't be amazing at expressing, but let's say someone tells us something or they open up to us because they had a problem.
• 43:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: know how to fully take in and we don't fully listen with our open heart, then there's no way what we have to, after is going to be completely relevant and connected to that situation to that person.
• 43:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: You could be very selfless in expressing yourself, but you could be selfish
• 43:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Another 50% which is super important.
• 43:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Not visual.
• 43:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's very quiet.
• 43:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's very unassuming.
• 43:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's not celebrated enough.
• 43:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: But how deep a listener is is is is is is also very beautiful, too.
• 43:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: That that will make you feel that person is authentic.
• 44:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's the thing that they're not being said, or not being shown out on their body language.
• 44:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because that is silence, right?
• 44:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's, you can't, there could be people that are super confident and super radiant.
• 44:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: But they maybe don't listen, I need to say, right?
• 44:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: They don't, they just, they're just ones, right?
• 44:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: that doesn't make you feel like you want to connect with that person, even though they're super common and super in.
• 44:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: That makes so much sense, you know, and I think that, um, yeah, even I've been doing this for many years and I never thought about that.
• 44:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: I never thought that
• 44:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: how we show up in our relationships are so important.
• 44:57
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like, you know, to take a moment to meditate, quick moment to meditate about like what's being processed in our mind when somebody speaks to us and then what's coming back out?
• 45:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: That is the key to this mad business of acting.
• 45:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I, I think it's not a cultural thing in terms of like Vietnamese, American or Japanese or it's more of the art of,
• 45:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: allowing the space to process the information coming in and then how do you craft the expression going back out to the person that you're sitting with.
• 45:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: I think that is really what this is about now and I never thought about this.
• 45:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's acting.
• 45:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: There you go, Ken.
• 45:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: I love it.
• 45:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: I am, um, you know, I always wondered like what you did in Vietnam, you know, you know, I, you know, I grew up in LA.
• 45:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: I know what acting teachers do, right?
• 46:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: I, you know, actually Tim and I went to, um, when he directed the Green Dragon, uh, you know, I went to acting class at Santa Monica City College because they, you know,
• 46:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: And we, you know, I was tagging along with him because he was going to direct and, you know, it was, I think it was first time directing a big feature.
• 46:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: And so he, we took classes together.
• 46:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'll never forget.
• 46:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: So I understand how it works.
• 46:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: But I always wondered, like, what is Kathy do to this like,
• 46:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: I wouldn't call it a baron desert in Vietnam of acting sort of like, you know, back in the day when you were starting out as an acting coach, I always thought about that.
• 46:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: I was like, what is being brought to the table in New Vietnam in modern Vietnam?
• 46:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: What is she bringing to the end?
• 46:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm so glad that, you know, we're talking about this because you understand it from a Western point of view, you understand it from the honorifics.
• 46:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: the juu back gong gong, right?
• 47:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: You understand it from that level.
• 47:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: And you can really make it all make sense.
• 47:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I think that this is not only important in entertainment and acting, but it's also important in other mediums, like singing and rapping and hosting and all of these things, even down to organizational management.
• 47:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: There's a branch in psychology called organizational management.
• 47:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, thank you, it's been, I think acting is really help open up doors to make me feel confident that I could play and enter and start new roles of my life.
• 47:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think, you know, it's everything came from a love of acting.
• 47:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then the love of acting made me, you know, have the guts to write a script because I wanted to act in a role, right, that my dream role.
• 48:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then that made me become a producer, not because I thought I could but a producer just said one that doesn't give up on the project right and then it helped me become an act coach and the director and then and then opening up the business has almost so really brought in my perspective on what it takes to open a business, which is so super hard.
• 48:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: and about, like you said, organization management of people and task and skills and jobs and then even now, and being a wife and a mother, it's endless, and then you realize that,
• 48:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: knowing and having better understanding of how to play roles on screen has really helped me to know how to perform different roles in life.
• 48:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's where I think the greatest that's where I think the greatest impact that the art of acting can help others is is not just
• 48:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't want to just open up the academy just to only to help actors.
• 49:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: That was never the vision.
• 49:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: The vision always wants to help as many people of many ages, of many types, of many cultures to become the most confident they can be in the best expression of the many roles that they can play in life, which is on-camera, on-stage-in-life.
• 49:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I know that's such a big vision or a big dream, but hey,
• 49:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: I, you know, I love big dreams, right?
• 49:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, so that's basically in a nutshell what I've been devoting the last, you know, a few years of doing.
• 49:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think we, and I feel really happy because we've been able to help all different types of people.
• 49:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: The people that come here are not just actors.
• 49:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you would, you would be surprised.
• 49:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have so many different types of people from all types of scopes of work.
• 49:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: engineers, dentists, surgeon, accountants, computer coders.
• 49:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: But dreaming to become an actor on screen, is that why they're there?
• 49:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: Or are they just trying to better communicate with the outside world?
• 50:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, probably 60, probably they probably 50% come here because they, they know they want to become a professional actor and then that's their goal right and they come here to learn the skills and training to become a professional actor.
• 50:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's another 25% that.
• 50:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now this is new technology, everyone, a lot of people are content creators, a lot of people want to reach a lot of people, everyone in the world and the only way to do that is to shoot on camera.
• 50:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of people are amazingly confident in what they do in real life, but when the cameras on them, they freeze.
• 50:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're
• 50:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: like doesn't justify or showcase what they're capable of expressing on camera.
• 50:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: So then there's another chunk of people that come here just to be more confident on camera.
• 50:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Even though they're already confident in life.
• 50:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Then there's the remaining percentage that come here because they do want to find a way to understand their emotions unlock them and free themselves so they're more confident in life and a lot of them come here and
• 51:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: they break down.
• 51:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like transformative, right, in that sense.
• 51:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I feel that's the best thing because I know how tricky it is as an actor.
• 51:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: I can't guarantee that you're going to book a movie.
• 51:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but you know what I can guarantee.
• 51:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: I can guarantee that you will be a better husband or a better a better father or a better friend or a better, you know, and better better understanding your emotion.
• 51:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, better at that I can guarantee because because once you understand your emotions and your thoughts and you can be able to express fully.
• 51:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: then that's the key to life right you have you to you being you and these many roles you play in life and that I feel is okay now that is something I feel confident I can deliver right and and and and when you book movies and you book roles then that's like the cherry on top that's amazing then good for you then then hey we're set right so that's
• 52:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, those are just the basics for what I would love to help people with.
• 52:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: And yeah, I have a question.
• 52:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: I think that I know actors in LA who continually work in the craft.
• 52:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: But I'm also curious, I'm just going to put an example out there.
• 52:40
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm gonna go to Vietnam and stay for six weeks with my daughter.
• 52:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: And my daughter is very gregarious, very open.
• 52:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: She loves singing and acting and all these things.
• 52:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I'm just using this as an example.
• 52:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: But if I go to Vietnam and both of us, my daughter Mia and myself, we enroll for six weeks, what can we expect?
• 53:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: to get out of six weeks a month and a half in Vietnam and we're there.
• 53:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know.
• 53:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: Maybe two or three times a week at in class with you.
• 53:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: What can we, you know, a nine-year-old and a 50-year-old man?
• 53:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: What can we get out of this six weeks?
• 53:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: The first of all, we haven't launched the parent and kid classes, but that is something that I really want to launch this year.
• 53:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because I think the connection is basically, imagine what it would be, it would be partner exercises.
• 53:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: It would be connection exercises.
• 53:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: It would be how to, how do you drop your, your, your, any, um, uh,
• 53:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: about any, like, I guess, uh, Rao Gang.
• 53:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: I, I, I, I, I, I, he's great.
• 53:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he found me.
• 53:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's wow.
• 53:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to do this now.
• 53:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: There were so many times during this interview.
• 53:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just want to blur it out the word in Vietnamese.
• 53:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, okay.
• 53:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because I can, myself, because before I could only think in English, um, there's, you know, Rao Gang.
• 54:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to do a nang lag.
• 54:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: That would be great.
• 54:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, like, um, I, I'm thinking like railings are like, something to,
• 54:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: Rokang is definitely a literal transition of railings.
• 54:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: Um, but I think you mean borders and boundaries.
• 54:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
• 54:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: So letting that go.
• 54:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: And just feeling instinctively free for let's say she tells you something.
• 54:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, these are common exercise we do in acting.
• 54:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: We can just repeat the same word back and forth, right?
• 54:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: We do this here, it's called Maudaud.
• 54:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: It would be an exercise where you and her would just Maudaud.
• 54:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: So she would just say, Maudaud, and you don't know what she's saying.
• 54:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because she's going to keep saying the same word.
• 54:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: But you really can feel gam, young dog, like her emotion, what she's really telling you in her eyes.
• 55:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you feel that deeply.
• 55:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: you listen to a deeply without judgment without like, hey, don't do that.
• 55:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't tell you, you listen without judgment.
• 55:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then you purely take it in and you react, you know, mow, dang.
• 55:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she goes, wow.
• 55:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm gonna do it.
• 55:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then she listens to you.
• 55:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then when she feels that you listen to her fully,
• 55:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: She'll feel like you accept her more.
• 55:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she's heard.
• 55:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: That makes her more willing to connect you.
• 55:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you guys will move towards the same objective as a team, right?
• 55:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's when, let's say she goes, Mauda, oh, like, let's say she's pleading for you for something.
• 55:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then you go, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma,
• 55:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: And now you just want to tell her what you want to tell her.
• 55:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's going to have the reaction of, he doesn't, he doesn't, he doesn't, it's, it's pointless.
• 56:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Why should I even express my wants or vulnerabilities when he doesn't even care?
• 56:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Or he's too upset or he's too busy.
• 56:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then eventually, the person shuts down, it's, and that's what happens with all relationships.
• 56:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, not just father, daughter, but it can be in love relationships or any work relationships, right?
• 56:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Even now, I'm, sometimes, I'll have problems, you know, I have not problems, but I'll get in obstacles with my staff as well.
• 56:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I've got to find a way to, you know, we've got to connect again so that we can move towards a common goal of teamwork here.
• 56:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, but...
• 56:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: that happens in all types of communication, right?
• 56:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so if the more we can just be like, okay, I'm going to listen to you fully, whatever you give me, you know, if you give me fear, you give me scared, then I'm going to help you find a way to overcome it, for example.
• 56:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that's what we call, these are partner exercises, right?
• 56:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now we also do voice and body warm-up as well.
• 57:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: And now I'm giving you just kind of a general format for all of our acting classes, right?
• 57:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: You'll be surprised.
• 57:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of people in the summer that come from California, that come from Canada, that come from New York, regardless, from Australia and France and Hong Kong.
• 57:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: And they've been coming to study here.
• 57:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I love it.
• 57:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: I get so excited when they go, I'm here from M&D, you happen in May, and you want to go ahead, M&D, and I'm happy to be there.
• 57:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm happy to
• 57:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: they they they struggle with their Vietnamese like, oh, yeah, I just like you, but I feel so proud when I see people that come here and and because they're here visiting the relatives and they're visiting their call they're they're where they came from.
• 57:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's like, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to also get in touch with my feelings, right?
• 57:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And my emotions during the summer break.
• 57:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I get really excited to see when I see people like that.
• 58:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I just going back to the class breakdown, but normal class, what you'll have is we'll have voice warm-ups.
• 58:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like I said, a lot of people are very blocked in their voice.
• 58:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 58:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And they go through
• 58:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: until 36 years old, I'm speaking in my chest voice.
• 58:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Can you believe it?
• 58:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because I think as a girl or as an actress, I need to be feminine and soft and so I'm always speaking in a reserved manner because I think it's eloquent and sophisticated.
• 58:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, it doesn't do anything for me because it's not really me maximizing my potential of what I can really express.
• 58:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so we do voice warm-ups and then
• 58:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's repetition.
• 58:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: You can't just do the exercise once and then expect results and these warmups you can always do it over and over again.
• 58:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: You would every day until it becomes normal, right?
• 58:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then we do the partner exercises, different types of variations to increase the listening and the connection and the reacting.
• 59:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then we'll have certain scripts and scenes.
• 59:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: where then you will learn additional scene study tools.
• 59:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: You'll learn how to analyze a scene to know what questions to ask yourself, to prepare, and then you'll perform, and then you'll perform with your scene partners, and then our teachers will give you commentary and tips.
• 59:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: And usually that's a flow of normal acting classes here.
• 59:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then we also have different...
• 59:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, that's the normal flow, I mean, you think that's interesting, then that's important.
• 59:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I think it's very interesting, and I'm always looking for ways to keep my family busy, what we're in Vietnam, and I have a son.
• 59:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 59:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I think that he's 7, she's 29, and I think that that is, and I need acting classes, because when I'm up there, I'm seeing, or when I'm doing talking into the camera and giving
• 1:00:05
  [SPEAKER_04]: they help me to stay in present moment and I think that I wish that I had more time in America to go to acting classes but when I'm in Vietnam and with my kids we have a lot of time and that has always been something that I wanted to do acting classes and singing classes for my kids.
• 1:00:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: I was I studied performing in my early days a lot just singing specifically.
• 1:00:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, with to formal classes to learn, improvise, you know, singing improvisation, and all of those techniques are probably shared within the acting space.
• 1:00:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: So, I'm very excited to kind of go back to Vietnam and really experience that with my kids.
• 1:00:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, yes, I definitely think, I mean, if you have time, the adult acting class would be great,
• 1:00:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: want to organize a parent to a kid kind of like a kid.
• 1:01:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, we don't, you know, I don't have to do one with the kids, but do you have, do you train kids?
• 1:01:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: Do you have acting class?
• 1:01:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: We are launching our kids program.
• 1:01:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, we we currently do teach, um, we teach enrichment programs, uh, there are a few international and Vietnamese primary schools where we offer acting classes as an, uh, like an after school enrichment program and then we're just in the process of planning to, uh, launch the kids and teens classes.
• 1:01:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, since you brought the word international, I want to know how far you think our industry in Vietnam is.
• 1:01:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: The film industry as it relates specifically to actors, how far along are we, you know, is it the writing?
• 1:01:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: Is it the script first and then the actors will follow suit or where do you think we are in terms of international standards?
• 1:02:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think a recently or did you hear the news that UNESCO has chosen Vietnam as emerging country for filmmaking?
• 1:02:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: Nope.
• 1:02:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I am.
• 1:02:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they're there.
• 1:02:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, we're in the heart of this business, you know, I'm like talking to all of my partners, you know, basically daily about filmmaking in the industry and yet I have not heard anything about UNESCO.
• 1:03:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Desit in late 2025, establishing itself as a key hub for regional and global cinema to foster industry growth, collaboration and culture exchange supported by initiatives for studio training and festivals.
• 1:03:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: October 2025, UNESCO officially welcomes Ho Chi Minh City into the creative cities network, UCCN for film.
• 1:03:22
  [SPEAKER_05]: There you go.
• 1:03:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, you got it.
• 1:03:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's there.
• 1:03:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: All right, so we've got it up.
• 1:03:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: I have strong promise and hope for Vietnam, not just because of this news, but this year there's over 70 to 80 film productions to be shooting and coming out in theaters.
• 1:03:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: That is record high.
• 1:03:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Last year was only 30, 35.
• 1:03:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right before COVID in Vietnam, there was the highest it's ever been, was like 35 to 40 films being produced a year.
• 1:04:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Then COVID hit.
• 1:04:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then it went down.
• 1:04:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then even the year after COVID, the industry was still recovering.
• 1:04:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: People were scared to go to the cinema.
• 1:04:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it wasn't until just maybe a year ago.
• 1:04:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, a year ago, in 2025, where it started climbing up again into people now people like, what COVID?
• 1:04:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I don't remember COVID, right?
• 1:04:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: But last year was like, maybe 40.
• 1:04:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: And this year is a record 70 to eight, that means now actors can start being demanding, right?
• 1:04:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because now producers and directors are telling me, we're going to hurry up and book the actors before, because another film is going to take them, you know?
• 1:04:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, don't worry, we have plenty here, but not worry.
• 1:04:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: I got you back, but um, but this is amazing for us for
• 1:04:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: And also last year, I met with producers and directors from China, from Korea, from America, that were already coming here and exploring options to shoot productions in Vietnam, just because it's more affordable to shoot production here.
• 1:05:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now, whether, but, and some of them, yes, we're looking to do co-labs with Vietnamese talents and Vietnamese productions, but some purely just wanted to shoot their entire project, having nothing to do with Vietnam, but just using Vietnam as the landscape and the environment and hiring Vietnamese crew members, right?
• 1:05:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Just for their projects in their
• 1:05:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: because that's going to make Vietnam the go to, right?
• 1:05:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then, and how that's going to help everything is, yeah, it's going to increase more jobs, right?
• 1:05:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's going to increase more hope for young filmmakers and actors to see that there is possibility to work more often, more frequent.
• 1:06:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I think it's a really great news.
• 1:06:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I definitely see a lot of promise and lately and now I do feel that the quality of the films and the stories and the acting and the filmmaking, the storytelling in general is is improving increasing year by year.
• 1:06:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so now that the audiences have
• 1:06:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: seen what is really great and they can they can kind of they they understand now they're they're their standards are increasing yeah so so I think filmmakers have to work harder you know to to produce a better project a better film to deliver to the audiences which is great
• 1:06:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: Well, we at East Films, you know, bow Anderson Jenny Ham, Lynn, you know, myself.
• 1:07:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: We are, you know, at, on the other end of the spectrum with producing, you know, these guys are directing our,
• 1:07:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: We would love to see exports coming out of your school so we can start putting your students into film projects or music videos or whatever it is in the United States.
• 1:07:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm putting it out right now because this is something we discuss all the time as internally in talent managing for these films.
• 1:07:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: We talk about this a lot because we want to be the
• 1:07:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: You know, we want to be the people that are on this side, receiving the exports from Vietnam.
• 1:07:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: We want to be that bridge to, with open arms, bring our Vietnamese talent abroad.
• 1:07:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: I am so thankful that you guys have been building that.
• 1:07:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Everything takes time, right?
• 1:07:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I know that's it's a lot of hard work to build something brand new, but really thankful for that that you guys are creating amazing, you know, Vietnamese American stories and supporting Vietnamese American artists and building that I guess distribution channel and I think I'm very, very aligned with that same vision I think I want to do my best in Vietnam where I'm at 22
• 1:08:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: to cultivate and and and grouping these talents to high standards and then be able to work me guys yeah be working with you guys to introduce these talents because you know everything has got to grow from all different angles and sides for us to grow together ultimately right
• 1:08:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: We're going to listen to this conversation two years from now, and the landscapes can be totally different.
• 1:08:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: That all being said, though, I do have one scary sticky problem with this whole scenario.
• 1:09:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 1:09:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: How is that affecting all of us?
• 1:09:05
  [SPEAKER_04]: And especially you with all of this, oh, this AI virtual sort of like we're looking at these, I forget the one AI character that like the big agencies like CA or William Morris is a,
• 1:09:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: taken on as of client now, right?
• 1:09:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like the creators of that AI is being represented by a major agency here in LA.
• 1:09:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: It's a scary thing, because if one happens to take off, there's going to be an infinite amount of these characters that are going to be managed by real agents, real credential creators, and
• 1:09:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: There might be, you know, less and less roles for human actors.
• 1:09:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I always thought it's...
• 1:10:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know 100% believe that the human emotional expression
• 1:10:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: can be replaced by robot.
• 1:10:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I believe that some of it can be duplicated and be reproduced, but the intricate layers of that character trauma of the past earlier what we talked about, all those nuances of all that imperfectionism,
• 1:10:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 1:10:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's going to be missing, I feel, because it takes years and years to train in AI, the natural lifespan of a human being.
• 1:10:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, you can train, I am guessing.
• 1:10:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, not that I, I have seen so many of these performances by these AI robots.
• 1:11:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm guessing, though,
• 1:11:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's going to be more perfect, these, I'm guessing these performances would be more polished, more perfect, and if we as humans are more, if we can listen deeply and fully, I think we can feel that it's fake.
• 1:11:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: which we are getting used to actually are short attention spans and are not really listening to absorb fully.
• 1:11:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: We just want to get the recap.
• 1:11:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: We just want to add just some of the notes, just get to the chase, just tell me what you need to hear, just text it to me, right?
• 1:11:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like everyone now just wants instant, fast, resolve outcomes.
• 1:12:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Then yes, then maybe yes, watching an AI,
• 1:12:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: actor will be satisfying for you because you just get to the point of with the emotion out the scene is about, right?
• 1:12:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I don't know.
• 1:12:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just find it really hard to believe.
• 1:12:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's just like, um, we will, I think who knows about our kids, right?
• 1:12:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: But
• 1:12:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: us.
• 1:12:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: We were born in in a generation of differences between the authentic and the not the analog and the digital, right?
• 1:12:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to feel something's missing.
• 1:12:41
  [SPEAKER_04]: But Kathy, I'm going to warn you right now.
• 1:12:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: I have to tell you this story.
• 1:12:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't, yeah, I don't want to make you scared, but I'm going to tell you a story.
• 1:12:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: I have been listening to Spotify for many years now.
• 1:12:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: I've been listening to music.
• 1:13:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: And now listen to a lot of soul music, a lot of meosol music, a lot of ravi, black soul music that is like Motown era.
• 1:13:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: You know, Adele is considered like meosol and you know, these are singers that like are in the black community, right?
• 1:13:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like I consume a lot of that music, right?
• 1:13:26
  [SPEAKER_04]: Recently I stumbled upon this one artist and I was like so in love with this guy and he sounds like everything that is a winning formula in a song and I started listening like 50 songs I was like wait they're all really good and they're all really making me feel a certain way but it has the sort of the same temperament and then um
• 1:13:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: and then I found out that it is a human writer.
• 1:14:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: And so he feeds the words.
• 1:14:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: But the way he feeds the words is he's writing the basic idea of the song out and then it'll go through an AI, like whatever, Chagbiti, they'll pause the song and then he'll...
• 1:14:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: plug it into a program where it's generating the music and the voice and the whole thing.
• 1:14:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: And you're like, oh, no, I was tricked for like six months listening.
• 1:14:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: So now here's the danger.
• 1:14:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: I listen to it now with my kids.
• 1:14:32
  [SPEAKER_04]: And now the game in the car is like,
• 1:14:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: AI or analog.
• 1:14:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: And many times we don't know as we're listening to it, we don't know anymore.
• 1:14:41
  [SPEAKER_04]: So what we do is we have to go to the about section in Spotify to find out who the creator was, or if it's a real ban or a real singer.
• 1:14:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: So my daughter and I, we play this game with, you know, my son, we play this game of, is it real or AI?
• 1:14:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: and many times we fail at this.
• 1:14:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: And that's just on the audio level, but it's getting better because this imperfection isn't that you're describing.
• 1:15:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: is going to be programmed into the AI functions.
• 1:15:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I'm so scared that when it gets to acting on screen, that the infectionism is going to also be programmed into this.
• 1:15:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: So I don't want to scare you, but I'm like, this is part of the exploration of our life, our modern life is going to be dealing with this.
• 1:15:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't think it's going to be like,
• 1:15:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't think it's gonna be here for another five years fully, but it is creeping, I think maybe it's creeping in.
• 1:15:41
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, sorry.
• 1:15:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know?
• 1:15:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, maybe because in Vietnam, I don't feel that I don't feel that I'm big.
• 1:15:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: push and change as as much as you probably feel it in America.
• 1:16:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 1:16:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 1:16:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so, um, so maybe I am more in hanging, like, more optimistic, right, for this, um, I'm protected.
• 1:16:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: But, um, but when you said that, I just suddenly thought to myself, this, this touches back on earlier when you talked about, um,
• 1:16:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let's say, in the next few years, human beings, don't have to deal with the angst of having to solve problems for too long because we can just quickly find the answer and get it done and solved on AI.
• 1:16:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let's say.
• 1:16:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: So therefore, what trauma, what's going to motivate us to want to express any emotion?
• 1:16:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: What we haven't been through all those failures
• 1:16:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: So then, therefore, it will eliminate our, our, our eggs to express.
• 1:17:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Therefore, everyone is just going to be letting AI soak in all the hard work of, of troubleshooting and obstacle dealing, and us humans,
• 1:17:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: like our like monks, right?
• 1:17:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're just like, we give you the problem.
• 1:17:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: You solve it.
• 1:17:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: You give the answer great.
• 1:17:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't have to deal with that trouble finding the answer.
• 1:17:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: I give it to you.
• 1:17:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then we, then that's how it's going to be because you only, why do we want to become artists?
• 1:17:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Why do we want to sing?
• 1:17:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Why do we want to act?
• 1:17:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Why do we want to express?
• 1:17:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because we have something within us to tell.
• 1:17:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have a story to tell, we have a, that's not fulfilled yet.
• 1:17:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have a problem within us that we're trying to solve.
• 1:17:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Core words and wounds that we're trying to overcome.
• 1:18:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that's really scary in that sense because it's through that, you know, it's through all those wounds and failures and rejections and all that bad stuff we don't want in our lives that creates all the beautiful things that we want in life, right?
• 1:18:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: All those magical goose bumps moments when we hear live music, you know, you can hear the feeling and their voice so deeply that it.
• 1:18:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: It makes you have good grades, it resonates.
• 1:18:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: But even think about it, even if you talk about theater versus film, I mean, film is still a manipulation of life performance, right?
• 1:18:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: When it's live, it's me sharing that emotional story uninterrupted.
• 1:18:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it feels like a real expression of the full story.
• 1:19:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Even in film, you cut to the, you cut, you know, you cut to the wide and you manipulate it to then tell the story how you want it.
• 1:19:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Even that is a manipulation of the real, right?
• 1:19:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: So now AI is manipulating the film, which film manipulated the real and so at the end of the day everything is going to get so second and third and fourth and tenth.
• 1:19:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: uh, sources.
• 1:19:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 1:19:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: The greens.
• 1:19:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 1:19:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Grease, right?
• 1:19:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: The degrees of of of of of of sources that in the inactuality, what bulls down is just you and me in real life having a conversation.
• 1:19:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that's the pierce.
• 1:19:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: it really is a purest.
• 1:19:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: It really is the purest form of, and I think we're returning back to this form of like, you know, people, young people are putting their phones down.
• 1:20:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: They're not buying into this, but I don't know if all young people are doing it, but a lot of young people, maybe not even 20%
• 1:20:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: But the problem is, if the majority of people are mindlessly, and that may include it, are walking in the street, and I'm on my phone, and I'm walking across the crosswalk, mindlessly walking and returning emails, and you know, replying to people.
• 1:20:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: The chances are a lot of young people in the future are gonna be completely trapped in this endless cycle of manipulation.
• 1:20:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, they'll hopefully they'll get to a point where enough is enough and they'll rebel against it, right?
• 1:20:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 1:20:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, even so they, they know that now and I don't know.
• 1:20:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's just, you're right.
• 1:20:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: You have, you have a lot, a lot of years in Vietnam where you, you know, you're probably not going to have to deal with it anytime soon.
• 1:21:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think, I think that there's,
• 1:21:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: There has been a lot more advancements, right?
• 1:21:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: That is not yet trickled down, but I always think that when we were younger, right?
• 1:21:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: And our grandparents, our parents for older, and we always thought, oh, you don't understand us, you don't understand.
• 1:21:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're so outdated, things are doing so weird, right?
• 1:21:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then we think a week or a while, we're going to be the cold dad, we're going to be cold mom, and we're going to, really.
• 1:21:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know anything more.
• 1:21:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to be ahead of everything.
• 1:21:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're not going to be that we're going to have not had that big gap.
• 1:21:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: But here we are, you know, every, you know, it's is never, it always repeat itself.
• 1:21:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, there are always big gaps.
• 1:21:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: There is always going to be different points of views
• 1:22:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, there's always going to be a great pro and cons for each way you look at things.
• 1:22:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: The next time we do a podcast that we're going to probably have to do it in Vietnamese, that'll be fun.
• 1:22:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 1:22:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: I do it for you all the time.
• 1:22:20
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, we should do it in Vietnamese.
• 1:22:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: Kathy, thank you so much for sitting through this podcast.
• 1:22:27
  [SPEAKER_04]: It was so delightful and very eye-opening for me.
• 1:22:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: I came for the stories of like, I read to you the questions.
• 1:22:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: As you can see clearly, we probably just hit on 10% of the questions, but we got to discuss much.
• 1:22:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: for the beyond the things that I can imagine writing in my question set.
• 1:22:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: So I'm very happy with the conversation we've had today.
• 1:22:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you so much, Kathy.
• 1:23:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
• 1:23:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think I was impressed.
• 1:23:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: You led it to have so many different topics.
• 1:23:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, such a short time.
• 1:23:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think when I get all these categories here,
• 1:23:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 1:23:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 1:23:13
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I think that's sort of like what you talk about about listening, right?
• 1:23:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: You know, over the years, I've realized that I am a bad listener.
• 1:23:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: You know, over the years, I've realized my entire life, I'm thinking thoughts before you're answering.
• 1:23:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm like, I'm anticipating what's being said.
• 1:23:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: I still do it.
• 1:23:37
  [SPEAKER_04]: Well, I think we all do it.
• 1:23:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: And I can see how you think about what's being said.
• 1:23:43
  [SPEAKER_04]: You're processing, I can see your eyes.
• 1:23:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: You're taking the time to really digest what I'm saying.
• 1:23:49
  [SPEAKER_04]: And then you give it pause.
• 1:23:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: Because most people are like me.
• 1:23:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: We just like, all right, we hear the first,
• 1:23:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: two, three sentence, and you got like 12 sentences, but I hear the first two, I'm locking in.
• 1:24:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to answer and reply the first two sentences.
• 1:24:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's where my mind goes.
• 1:24:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: But now, like talking to you or your slowing things down where you're really, you know, really processing what I'm saying.
• 1:24:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: I have to do the same for it's a courtesy.
• 1:24:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Really, okay, you know, a lot of people are like that.
• 1:24:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think I myself can be like that as well, depending because a lot of things, not that it's intentional, but we're in a rush or we want to stick to the point where we want to help, we want to lead a certain way, right?
• 1:24:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm, I'm relaxed because I don't know the question.
• 1:24:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm going to let you lead, right?
• 1:24:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's easy for me to be in the moment more.
• 1:24:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
• 1:24:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
• 1:24:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: And it's awesome.
• 1:24:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: I really enjoyed it because, you know, I think that there's some trepidation on your part.
• 1:24:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: You're some hesitation when you were like, wait, I didn't get the question set.
• 1:24:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: And then I think when we started, you just kind of like, all right, we're going to improvise this.
• 1:24:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: And we're going to just be in present real time.
• 1:24:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: I just really got to see the joy of the color response in the dialogue happened and there's magic.
• 1:25:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: Deep magic in that human interaction that's very different from AI.
• 1:25:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, thank you.
• 1:25:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, I'm glad for our moments of connection.
• 1:25:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: And now that's making me think, hurry, I got to make his make feels like can't be for.
• 1:25:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hey, I started to infiltrate and take over all the actors of ACT Academy,
• 1:25:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: I didn't mean to create that panic.
• 1:25:30
  [SPEAKER_04]: But I do want to say that we should, like many of the guests that have come on, we should check back in annually, and it isn't going to be annual, like if you have another movie that you're in or you wrote or direct or produced, let's get back on talk about that, you know, because I think there's a lot of opportunity to always have dialogue, and I'm always wanting to make sure that our Vietnamese culture gets amplified.
• 1:25:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's really the name of the game.
• 1:25:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, when you come your next, like you said, you're coming here in the summer, right?
• 1:26:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 1:26:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Then you have to come to an acting class at least.
• 1:26:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, no.
• 1:26:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: I want to sign up for like something regular, maybe twice a week for like four weeks or something like that if I'm bringing my kids where, but even if I go by myself, I think I need to do either that or stand up comedy because I want to get more comfortable in front of the camera, what I'm talking to the camera and I want to, you know, let's speak or whatever, I want to just want to polish that and get real comfortable getting on stage and being able to be funny and being able to give my delivery and push my voice and control it,
• 1:26:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm just be very cognizant of what I'm doing on stage, you know?
• 1:26:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think you're ready to do in Great Kent, so you should do so.
• 1:26:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: But yes, we can help you with some more tricks of your sleeves, so that you don't care.
• 1:26:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: I appreciate that.
• 1:26:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I want to
• 1:26:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you, thank you for the vote of confidence and, Kathy, yeah, we will definitely have a, you know, come back on the podcast anytime when you have, you know, when you have the need just this is what we're here for we're here to amplify our industry, you know, we're here to grow it.
• 1:27:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
• 1:27:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, can I hope it's not five more years.
• 1:27:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: really an honor.
• 1:27:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for your persistence.
• 1:27:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: And look, look, I'm working out.
• 1:27:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I wanted to do everything.
• 1:27:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Happy that.
• 1:27:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: In case you can post this before that, if not then hope you had a great that.
• 1:27:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Either happy that don't have a great that.
• 1:27:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I look for it.
• 1:27:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: I think you will be because I realized that isn't a few days.
• 1:27:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: Right, it's nine and like three days four days on the 14.
• 1:27:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: Huh on the six on the 17.
• 1:27:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, okay.
• 1:27:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: So good.
• 1:28:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: All right.
• 1:28:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: We'll get we have some time.
• 1:28:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: The other few days.
• 1:28:02
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, well, it is, because like I said, we always have, you know, three to six lined up in the queue, but then it's really eight or nine that we've recorded, and so we just keep stacking them.
• 1:28:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: But, you know, because you have your, oh, yeah, on and we are jukman, you know, we are wishing everybody a happy that, so we're going to slide it and make sure that there's such them without.
• 1:28:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: like oh yeah all right happy that okay hope you have a relaxing time of your family and hope everyone can express more of their it factor this year yeah
• 1:28:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that's a wonderful wish for everybody, you know, I wish everybody can dig deep inside and take the words that Kathy has said today and we all deserve to be able to express that it factor and I think that's so such a beautiful message to start the new year thank you once again Kathy and I am I look forward to seeing you in Vietnam very soon.
• 1:29:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: All right.
• 1:29:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much.
• 1:29:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you everyone for listening to the Vietnamese with Kenneth Wynn.
• 1:29:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: Special thanks to Brittany Tran, to Jane Wynn, Catherine Wynn, Tina Fam, Sydney Jamie, and Crystal Trin.
• 1:29:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: Please find us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at the Vietnamese podcast.