Exploring Confusion: An Interview with Filmmaker and Actress Stephanie Jack

Stephanie Jack aka 恩典 is an Australian-Singaporean actress. She graduated in 2015 with an M.F.A in Acting from the American Repertory Theater / Moscow Art Theatre School Institute at Harvard University. Jack's stage highlights have included playing the Queen in the NYTimes' Critics' pick, 'The Light Princess' at the New Victory Theater (2015). Her semi-autobiographical short film ‘She’ll Be Right’ (2017) won best first short at Los Angeles Underground Film Forum. We had the amazing opportunity to share a few words with her about her youtube series Mixed Up which explores her mixed race experiences in China. You can find the link to her channel here!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpsYQbQdjtseM9cVXAVAg_w

Addison Lee: Your creative work spans across charity art events, to acting, to creating short films, but how did you find yourself in this insane creative zone that you live in?

Stephanie Jack: Okay, so let me think, right now, I feel like my creative life is really diverse, and I think actually it was like that when I was really young. I feel like when I was really young, I didn't know whether I wanted to be an actor or an artist. I just knew that I liked creating things and I was an only child.

So I was just creating a lot of stuff all the time on my own. And I was putting on plays, I was also doing artwork. And I feel like it's kind of come full circle. I'm almost back to that place now. But in the meantime, I think, during school I got really into drama and that became a really nice way to express myself. And then drama led to going to England to study drama, which led to going to the states for drama school. So then I was for a few years, I was focusing really heavily on acting. But after a little while, I think especially being mixed, I realized it was pretty hard to sustain myself just with acting alone.

I think a lot of the acting work that you get initially as a mixed person can be commercial work as well. And that's not necessarily the most creative work to be doing. So I started to get more involved in other projects and I would start to help friends produce their Web series or I would put on a charity exhibition because I wanted something creative to do. 

And at that time, it was that same feeling of wanting to explore.

I wasn't so much exploring what it was to be mixed in a very direct way. But I guess I was in some sense because I made a short film called "She'll Be Right". It's me talking to my mom about how my career is going. And I guess in a way it does explore being mixed, but it's not super direct in how it explores that.

So there have been lots of little projects that I've done and I feel like, what I'm working on now, which is "Mixed Up", is probably the biggest creative project I've done to date, especially since I do everything for it. So it's probably the biggest undertaking so far, but I also feel more passionate about it than I have felt about anything before this. So I think it's a combination of being generally a creative person since I was younger and then also moving to a lot of different places, and it’s just led to my creative life becoming more and more diverse. 

AL: What was the inspiration for Mixed Up? 

SJ: I decided to move to China really spur of the moment, I was back in the UK for the second time and I went through this big breakup and I decided to move to China really, really spur of the moment. I remember I had just gone through the breakup and I woke up one day with this idea that I had to move to Shanghai. And so once I'd made that decision, I thought, well, I'm going to be studying Chinese,  I need a creative outlet. I also felt like if I created it, then I would have other people encouraging me to keep learning Chinese, to keep doing kung fu. And there are actually so many reasons. I think another part of it was as an actor you're relying so much on a lot of different people to help you. I mean, it's a team thing, right? It's a team effort. When you're acting and I wanted something where I had a lot of agency and I could just create it on my own and I could just pick a topic and go out there and interview people or just film something about my own life. I think it's given me a lot of agency. 

AL: I really love how personal and vulnerable it is because I think doing that right on with YouTube is really hard to do. And I think it does it right. 

SJ: It's interesting actually when people say that because I don't think initially I realized that that's what it was. I don't think I thought it was that personal and vulnerable.

But as the views have increased a little bit, I've gotten to the point where I'm like, wait a minute. This is really personal,  and it's just out there and anyone can see it! But I think that's also kind of a nice thing as well. 

AL: Now what would you say is sort of your relationship or journey with your mixed identity?

SJ: Such a journey. When I was a kid, because I grew up in Australia in a relatively small town, most of my friends and family friends were white. So I think at that time I just felt like I was a white kid who happened to have some family in Singapore. Because I didn't think there was anything particular about my life that reflected the fact that I was mixed apart from maybe the food that I ate, because my mom would cook half Chinese food and half, just kind of Western food.

That was probably the only everyday interaction I had with being mixed. And then it changed so much probably, I think in the past five years, it's changed the most because even through high school and drama school, I didn't really notice that I was particularly different in any way. 

It became very real when I started reading casting notices and thinking, wait a second, I don't know where to place myself in this because I don't know whether to apply for the white roles or the Asian roles or to wait for the odd mixed role to come up. So then it became very real and I started to feel very confused about things.

And then I kind of realized that maybe I needed to just delve a little more into the Asian side of things. Maybe I needed to learn Chinese, maybe I needed to live in China if I wanted to become a bit more comfortable in my own identity. So now it's really, really different. Now I feel quite 50 50 because I've been living in China for a while and I can speak some basic Chinese. 

So I feel like I really am half Chinese and half white and I'm right in the middle. And I don't know, I feel like that could shift if I stay in China longer. It might get to the point where I feel like I identify more strongly with Chinese culture. I'm not sure yet. 

AL: I would love to get your thoughts on what you touched on it a bit, about specifically your experience in being a mixed actress and about mixed representation in the media. 

SJ: I think it's tricky, because to some extent I feel like as a mixed person there are so few roles that are specifically written for us that if we can't do the rules for the Asian people or for the white people, then we're not gonna get any work so for some it's just a pragmatic thing, “Hey, I'll take anything that I can take”.

Of course, that's me talking from the point of view of someone who is starting out in an acting career. I think that if I got to the point where I felt like I was quite successful and I really had a name, I'd be more careful with what I take and I'd maybe have a slightly different stance, but I think at the beginning. There's just not that much work out there specifically for mixed people, so you have to be fairly pragmatic about it.

I think another one of the things that's been really confusing for me is that sometimes I'll get called in for things that are neither white nor Asian. And that's when it gets very confusing. 

I don't know if there's any kind of right and wrong. Because I think on the one hand, you want to try to be pretty specific. But on the other hand, maybe it is better if all of our definitions of race are a little more fluid so that everyone kind of has an opportunity to do different types of roles.

 I think at the moment my main feeling is that I just have to be pragmatic about it. I think it's a little uncomfortable when you need to use costume and makeup to become more white or more Asian. I think that's when it starts to become really uncomfortable. When you get cast as white or Asian, both of those feel fine just because I guess I am half. But it's when it gets more specific and they say actually, we want you to look more white so you need to bleach your hair blonde. Things like that are where it becomes uncomfortable because it starts getting into this realm of appearances and stereotypes and it's a tough one. 

I really don't know what to think because there just aren't that many roles that are written for mixed people. 

So if you're a mixed actor, what are you gonna do?

AL: How specifically has being mixed changed in all the different locations and cities you've lived in? 

SJ: That's a really good question because it changes so much. I've noticed one of my favorite places to work and live is Singapore because Singapore is already quite a mixed country. They have four different national languages. There's a few different major racial groups already there. So I think their understanding of mixed people is a little bit better than in other places and usually in Singapore I was getting called in for a mixed role or occasionally they would use this term in Singapore which is also extremely confusing, which is Pan Asian. Which is just generally Asian, like I could be half anything. So that's also super confusing. But I did find it a little easier. 

And in China, they think I'm white. I mean, really, most people think I'm white. To the extent that I've been on set before, I was doing these, these kind of kids videos and there was one where I was acting as a child and there was another woman acting as my mom and the mom was Chinese and everyone in the crew was like, “how does she have a Chinese mom?” “This is super weird.” “It doesn't look right.”

And I was like, “my actual mom is actually ethnically Chinese, this is crazy”. 

So in China, they basically treat me like I'm white. 

AL: What is one piece of advice you'd like to give to a young, mixed creative person looking to express their creativity or become an actress or really anything? 

SJ: I can probably talk about it from the point of view of my own regrets, which is when I was younger, I really regret not delving into all of this a little bit sooner. And I think another one of the things I would say is not being afraid of exploring the confusion of being mixed.

Because I think sometimes you set out with a creative project to find answers, right? You think that through that creative project, you're going to find an answer and you're going to realize, yes, I am actually Asian or I am actually white. But I don't know if those answers exist. I think that as a mixed person, you are going to spend most of your life making creative work that explores the confusion of being mixed.

I think it's just being comfortable with staying in that realm. I think the younger you are, the more access you have in terms of if it's gonna be easier for you to learn the language that you need in order to explore that other culture- when you're a kid, people are generally just a bit more open to you as well. So you have the privilege of being young. I think the younger you can start exploring that other culture, the one that you feel like you identify a little less with, then the better it'll be. 

Photo taken by Wanjie Li