Samurai Girl: An Interview with Jamie Chung

My dream wedding has always included ninjas.

This week, ABC Family launches the miniseries Samurai Girl, based on the young adult novels of Carrie Asai. Jamie Chung stars as Heaven, the sheltered adopted daughter of one of Japan’s wealthiest and most powerful families whose life is plunged into mystery, samurai training, and yes, wedding crashing ninjas.

Pink Raygun editor, Juliana Weiss, caught up with Jamie Chung at this year’s San Diego Comicon. Here, Chung talks about her Samurai Girl action sequences and growing up as a Korean-American.

PRG: What’s your favorite part about being on this show?

Jamie Chung: It’s all the action sequences. It’s playing a young female, a strong character. And I feel like there is not enough of that on television, and I think it is an honor to be able to play that for the younger generation. I think that’s cool. And it’s the fight sequences – the fight choreography.

PRG: Do you do most of your own stunts?

JC: Yes, I always try to. You know there are certain things they just refuse to let me do, like jump out a moving vehicle onto a motorcycle, although I got to go on a ride on the roof of the vehicle for a bit. But my stunt double did the actual jump. Things like that, they make me use a stunt double for.

PRG: What is the style of action?

JC: You know, it’s mixed martial arts. It’s a lot of weaponry. It’s using the katana mostly. But there are a lot of martial arts like tae kwon do kick, and a little bit of woo shu which is really smooth. A little bit of kung fu, so it’s really a mixture of your martial arts.

PRG: What’s the hardest thing to play about your character?

JC: I have to say the biggest challenge was playing a foreigner. You know, having grown up in Japan, she [Heaven] was sheltered and yet she had a American tutor. And she—you know, pop culture is so powerful. You know, anyone in the world would know American pop culture and would be somewhat Americanized, but I grew up in San Francisco. So I think I came off too American, and really it was the hardest thing, especially with the language and they way that I said things on paper, the script that they gave me. You know a lot of phrases and terms were Americanized, so it was difficult for me to carry on the true essence of Heaven, which is someone who is from a foreign country. That was the biggest challenge.

PRG: What are some thing you did to get in touch with that side of her? Did you do any research?

JC: No, you know, I grew up as a first generation Korean American, so I kind of put my shoes in that culture again, you know. Growing up in San Francisco, I kind of fought it. I fought my culture a lot. And I wanted to be more Americanized, and for the show, I embraced it. Now that I am older, I embrace it even more, but you know it is respecting elders, which we don’t see in this society much. It’s how to act, be respectful when you’re at the table with your parents and while there is guest. How to be proper. How to be a lady, basically.

PRG: What’s the atmosphere like on set?

JC: It’s lots of fun. Lots of energy. It’s important I think for the actors to be ready to work, to be on time, and to on it - on their A game all the time, because a lot of other people are working to, and for them to be waiting around for you is ridiculous, and the actors who do, and they take their time, they’re really just wasting everyone else’s time. You know, they have families to go to, they want to get out of there. We’re there to work, and I think we were all on it. We all had some much fun. In between shots, when they were relighting our scenes, we would goof around and talk and really bonded. I feel like the entire cast, we all just really love each other. We really do.

PRG: What’s it like to make the transition from being on The Real World to acting?

JC: The Real World was four months of my life, and they will be my friends forever, but I was so uncomfortable with reality TV. The cameras came around, and I wasn’t willing to fight for face time and camera time. I didn’t want to act not like myself just to get that air time. I just wasn’t comfortable with doing it. And with acting, you know, you’re paid. You’re there to do your job. It’s specific. You have your artistic creativity, and it’s not a constant struggle to improvise and dramatize and kind of exaggerate your personality just so you can get air time. It’s not my thing. I don’t make drama; I play drama, you know?

PRG: What’s it your initial goal to become an actress?

JC: Yeah, but the opportunity fell into my lap, and I really wanted to do it. And I felt really lucky to be able to do it. And I have good memories from it.

PRG: When did you first know you wanted to be an actress?

JC: My parents would send me away to these Korean-American camps for young kids. So elementary school, middle school, we were always sent to these camps, and we were joined with all other Korean-Americans in the Bay area, so San Jose, Oakland, San Francisco. We would all get sent away in the woods. We would do fun things. We learned a lot about our culture and Korean pride and the Korean language. It really made you proud of who you were. Because you tend to lose your identity growing up in the States. And we’d always put on these like plays and skits. And they were funny, and they were the most fun for me. And I was never afraid to be on stage, in fact I love it. I loved to play another character and to really go crazy with the idea of playing someone not me. And its been a passion since I was young, and I didn’t really have the opportunity to act on it until I graduated college, because I wanted to get college out of the way. If I set a goal for myself, I want to finish. And college – just to have my degree – was one of my goals, and make my parents happy. Once I did that, I was like you know what? I’m going to be brave and bold and take a leap and go take up acting. I’m just going to concentrate all my time into it, and I did. And through hard work and a great team – I have great reps – they found me small parts, and slowly I started to get better and better. It’s a process. It’s a job, and you can only get better at the job if you really want to.

Samurai Girl is a three night miniseries from ABC Family airing at on September 5th, 6th, and 7th. For more, visit the official site.

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Juliana Weiss is an aspiring Television writer in Los Angeles. She currently works as the head of the web content department for the star of an Emmy-nominated reality series. In this column, she will share with you her own experiences, thoughts, and theories about making it in the business, as well as the stories of other women who are working to make it-or have already make it-in Hollywood.

This interview was conducted by Juliana Weiss. The intro is written by Lisa Fary.