Posted in: Exclusive, Interview, Movies, Sony | Tagged: Joshua Wong, Kara Wang, survival, The Calm Beyond

The Calm Beyond: Kara Wang on First Leading Role & Dir. Joshua Wong

When Kara Wang embarked on a career as a screen actress, she saw the opportunities limited in the United States before making the conscious decision to become a star in the Asian entertainment industry in 2010, working in Hong Kong. She would be a staple in film and television for the next five years since making her theatrical debut in 2011's Hi, Fidelity. One of her contacts was with the late director Joshua Wong, who was about to tackle his first theatrical feature in The Calm Beyond. I spoke with Wang about working with Wong, who passed in 2020, and the learning experience of working with the first-time movie director in her first leading film role.

"So I met Joshua [Wong] actually a couple of years ago. When I shot a short film for him back in Hong Kong, I worked in Asia from 2010-to 2015, and that's where I met him because he had basically only been doing short films," Wang said. "When he decided to do his directorial feature, he sent me the script, and I just love the script. I read it from front to back. I was so fascinated with the character and also because I knew where the story was born from when he was undergoing cancer treatment for the first time. It was just such a personal project, and I had developed such a great relationship with Joshua, so I ended up saying 'Yes,' flying over and filming it in 2019."

The Calm Beyond follows Asha (Wang), a young woman who lives hidden in plain sight in a ruined Hong Kong building after a tsunami destroyed the city – A castaway on a concrete island. Her concealed existence is changed forever when a small child literally floats into her life. "I would say it was a really smooth process [filming]. We had an incredible cast and crew, and they were so supportive considering I wouldn't call it a guerrilla-style indie," the Top Gun: Maverick star said. "It was an indie, and we shot fully in Hong Kong, but there was such a good supportive crew that I felt really taken care of. I would say probably the hardest part was tackling the character in itself. It is my first title feature lead, and to be on set every single day and to carry the film, it was hard, but it was so rewarding and fulfilling. There were definitely some very physical aspects of the film. I did all of my own stunts, and there were about three or four days where we had to shoot in like a room where the water pretty much came up to my thighs, and we had to shoot in sort of these conditions. It was something that I just had never experienced before. So in that sense, it was challenging, but it was really fulfilling."

Wang felt her experience on the film was very collaborative on set. "I feel like we really helped each other out, and he was very open to my ideas on the character, my take on the character, what I would say if I was the character at this moment, or if I felt like a line didn't resonate with me," she said. "He was very open to changing it on the spot and making sure that the story and the character were authentic to me. So it was a good experience. There were days where I feel like we were both kind of just like, 'Okay, how do we tackle this?' But there was a little bit of trial and error, but we definitely got through it [laughs]."

The star also sees herself directing in the future. "As I move through my career and I'm experiencing being on different sets, whether it be television or film, and working with different directors, it's definitely been really inspiring. I've seen a lot of my actor-colleagues move on to directing as well. It's definitely something I would love to tackle in the future. For a lot of the directors I've worked with who have either taken acting classes or formerly or current actors, it's really refreshing to work with them because they have experience in the acting realm. I think they communicate with actors very effectively, and I think it's definitely something I would love to try my hand at. It's very it's just fascinating to not to project from that perspective, and that was the whole vision and to see it through from beginning to end versus from an actor's point of view. Sometimes you're just in there for a couple of days or a couple of weeks. You deal with your character, and you peace out versus a director's vision. I think authentic storytelling is so important to me, and I would love to try my hand at it eventually in the future." Sony Pictures International's The Calm Beyond, which also stars Sarianna Boggs, Terence Yin, and Joyce Cheng, is available on-demand and digital.

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