French-Vietnamese actress Linh-Dan Pham talks to Oi

Best known for her breakthrough role as Camille, Catherine Deneuve’s adopted daughter in the Academy Award winning Indochine, Linh-Dan Pham has gone on to star in dozens of movies and television shows, earning her a nomination and a win for Most Promising Actress at the Cesar Award, the highest film honor in France.

Oi talked to Linh-Dan about life as an international film star, her Vietnamese roots and what it will take to put Vietnamese cinema on the map.

Looking back on the young actress who played Camille in Indochine, if you could go back in time, what would you say to her?

Actually, I wish I could go back to the young actress who played Camille: the innocence, the fearlessness! It’s like the more I know, the more I doubt. It’s like I’m a freshman every time I prepare for a role.

After Indochine, you quit acting for 10 years, bowing to your mother’s wishes to pursue a more stable career. Do
you think that was related to your Vietnamese upbringing?

Maybe it was my Vietnamese upbringing… but this could also happen in any traditional family. Acting is still a very unstable profession and parents want stability and safety for their children. But to be honest, in my case I did not really discover a passion for acting after I shot Indochine. I had a great time shooting it but I didn’t really miss it when it was over. Yes, I missed the attention you get on a shoot being in the lead part, but I didn’t really miss the “craft.” I didn’t realize that was what I wanted to do. I realize now that I can only express my creativity through acting.

You left Vietnam when you were only one. People in those circumstances often feel torn between two worlds – not quite having the typical “look” of their new home while not sounding “native” enough for their home country. Have you ever felt that way?

This is an interesting dilemma that you mention… but it is one that I never felt. That’s maybe because of how I was raised. There was never a doubt in my parents’ minds that we were Vietnamese people living in France. So for example, I spoke Vietnamese and had to abide by “Asian” rules (respecting elders, not going out, heading home by 10pm when all my French friends were going for a night out, etc…) but I went to school with and had Caucasian, North African, Jewish friends. And we were all French! To me, I am Vietnamese with a French passport. I always thought that that was a strength rather than a weakness. I speak Vietnamese, French and English fluently, I’ve traveled far since I was young. I feel comfortable everywhere most of the time.

To date, what’s been your proudest achievement as an actress?

There have been many great moments of which I’m proud, but thinking about my career to date what really gives me satisfaction is that I’ve found my place in French cinema without resorting to typecast parts of the Asian chick. I get approached by directors and casting agents because of my body of work, and because they see me as an actress, not as an Asian actress, so I’ve been able to explore different genres and not be limited to certain types of films, resulting in an eclectic filmography. That doesn’t mean I won’t take roles that are specific to an Asian character, like in The Beat that My Heart Skipped, when I feel excited by the acting challenge that it presents.

The character I’m most fond of is Cam in Adrift (Choi Voi) [an award-winning 2009 Vietnamese film which dealt with modern themes like homosexuality and loneliness]. I’m not Cam, but I felt very much at home in Cam’s skin. Cam is a young woman who is writer, single, living with her mother, and there is such a richness and complexity to her persona, which is charged with all the contradictions of her position. On the surface she seems calm, in control, and sometimes a little callous towards her younger friend, Duyen (played by Do Thi Hai Yen). But underneath you can glimpse all of these conflicting elements driving her actions.

She’s clearly modern, yet her artistic life seems set amid that very traditional environment of a writer’s studio. She’s single, but with hints of complex romances. There is the traditional mother-daughter relationship with the mother’s calmly unquestioning and patient expectation of the ultimate goal of a wedding. And then of course there is the ambiguity of her relationship with Duyen, who seems so pure and simple against Cam’s complexity.

It was wonderful to try to capture and play all of that, to try to carry these motivations inside and allow them to emerge. Anyway, for me it was a wonderful experience, especially as the first fully Vietnamese production I have done. I never expected it to be a box office success, but I was captivated by the script and by [director] Bui Thac Chuyen’s vision from the very beginning.

I was thrilled with the final product and so proud that it got an award at the Venice Film festival.

Outside of a small handful of films, Vietnamese cinema has made a very small impact on the world scene. What needs to change to put Vietnamese cinema on the map?

Most movies made in Vietnam are commercial films, which need to make it at the box office in Vietnam, since there is  not a wide international audience that can support ticket sales. At the same time there is limited finance for films and the production companies need to survive without taking too many risks, so there is a lot of formulaic plotting, copying of successful concepts from abroad (“Let’s make Sex and the City for Vietnam…”), and a focus on numbers.