Exclusive Interview: Kara Wang Chats The Calm Beyond & Creating Authentic Storytelling with AAPI Representation

Kara Wang is a dynamic creative who has brought multilayered characters to life in projects including Good Trouble, The Power Couple, Goliath, and Dinner Party. An advocate for authentic storytelling, Kara has used her platform to give a voice to the AAPI community, refusing to play two-dimensional stereotypes.

Her latest project, The Calm Beyond, is a post-apocalyptic thriller that follows a young woman named Asha (Wang) who’s hiding in plain sight in a ruined Hong Kong building after a tsunami has destroyed the city. Her concealed existence is changed forever when a small child literally floats into her life.

Pop Culturalist was lucky enough to speak with Kara about The Calm Beyond, how she created the space for herself to explore her character’s grief, and what fans can expect from Season 4 of Freeform’s Good Trouble.

PC: How did you discover your passion for storytelling?
Kara: Oh, wow. I started acting when I was around five or six. I was one of those kids that was involved in theater, performing arts, show choir, dance, and all of those things in school. I did have pretty traditional Chinese parents. It was always such a dichotomy. They were relatively supportive (I would say) as long as I kept my grades up. For so long, they thought it was a phase. I did musical theater and plays all throughout middle school and high school.

Then I ended up majoring in it in college. By then, a decade later, they were like, “Oh. Maybe it’s not a phase. You want her to be a doctor or lawyer? It doesn’t seem like she’s growing out of it.” It was something that I’ve always done my whole life. I’ve always had a passion for performing.

PC: Who or what has had the biggest influence on your career?
Kara: A very formative time in my career was when I worked in Asia. I graduated college when I was nineteen. It sounds very impressive, but once again, I was a theater major. I wasn’t like a double engineering major. But I graduated when I was nineteen, and I signed a contract over in Asia—in Hong Kong specifically. I ended up working in Hong Kong and Beijing for about five years, from 2010 to 2015. Back then, it was like the wild, wild west. The China film market and business were taking off.

I feel like I was there right at the beginning when there was such a huge influx of money. Everything was flourishing. Those five years in Asia really shaped the actress that I am today. It was wonderful to be able to work in different countries and to connect to my roots. I have very strong ties to my Chinese culture. I speak fluent Mandarin. It was really good. It made me appreciate a lot of things about the States as well. When I came back in 2015, it was nice to compare the different experiences and to bring the things that I learned over there over here. It also gave me a sense of appreciation for how the business runs here.

PC: You’ve had a lot of success already in your career. When you look back, is there a moment that stands out to you?
Kara: Wow. There have been so many moments. Meeting Josh [Wong] was a big moment for me. I actually met Josh a couple of years before we shot The Calm Beyond. I worked with him on a short film for the Swire Group, which is a big corporation out in Asia. They own Cathay Pacific and all of the Swire properties in Hong Kong. The first project we worked together on was a corporate short film. Although it was corporate, it was fifteen minutes. It was proper storytelling. It wasn’t an ad. Josh got to put some of his artistic vision and spin on it, but it was definitely different from his first feature because it was a corporate film. There was an ad agency. There were clients to make happy. All of that.

But the very first time I worked with Josh, I felt like there was a really, really powerful and special connection between us. I feel like we really understood each other when it came to him being a director and me being an artist and being a vehicle for his vision. That’s why I was so thrilled when he called and said, “Kara, I have a script. It’s my first feature. I want you to read it.” I’m just so honored that I was able to go back and work with him on that.

PC: Tell us about The Calm Beyond and your character and the film.
Kara: The Calm Beyond is a post-apocalyptic thriller that is very character-driven. I always tell people it’s a cross between Waterworld and Castaway with a little bit of Mad Max. It focuses on a girl named Asha, who is the girl that I play. We see Hong Kong in the near future where the city has been fully flooded because of climate change. She has been isolated in the top three floors of a building as she deals with themes of grief, trauma, and loss.

She’s basically been living by herself and finding a way to survive in this new, dangerous world because the world now has been submerged in water. There are these water pirates. It shows how the ugliest parts of human nature can rear their head when we are put in this type of world where we need to survive. Then a little girl comes into my life and gives me a new sense of purpose to live for.

PC: This is such a personal story to Josh, and your character was born from his first experience with cancer. Did that bring a different weight/responsibility to this role?
Kara: Oh my gosh, absolutely. 100%. When Josh first sent me the script, he was like, “Just read it and then let’s talk about it.” I read it. I loved the story in itself, even before I knew the story behind it. I was like, “Wow. It’s an incredible, kick-ass Asian heroine. She’s so nuanced and three-dimensional and has so many layers.”

When I finally got to talk to Josh about it and learned about where this character came from and how the story was inspired by his own personal journey, like you said, there was a lot of pressure, even though he tried to alleviate that pressure to make sure I was doing justice to and honoring the character. It was born out of his personal experience. But I think about so many people in the world who have gone through their own battles and experiences of trauma and grief. It’s so interesting because we shot this film mid-2019 before the COVID pandemic.

We had no idea that the next two years would be such an absolute sh*tshow. It’s crazy because I think about how differently the film hits now that it is coming out this year. Everyone in the world can watch this film and have this universal understanding of isolation, trauma, and grief that perhaps people didn’t have in 2019. The timing is very, very interesting. But from the small scale of personal stories to the larger scale of the pandemic, I think a lot of people will be able to relate to it.

PC: Something that I’ve really appreciated about you is that you’ve used your platform to talk about your experience in the industry. When you were starting out, there were less fully fleshed-out characters like we see today for Asian creatives and often they were stereotypes and tropes. When did you start noticing that shift in the industry? What advice would you give to up-and-coming Asian creatives that are looking to break into the industry?
Kara: That’s a great question. One of the reasons why I went to Asia in the first place is because of many of the reasons you said. I felt like it was really frustrating to continue to go out for these two-dimensional characters and tropes. I wanted to go to Asia and see what that market could provide me around 2015. When I came back is actually when I first started feeling the cusp of that wave being reached and thinking, “Okay, now I feel like it’s important to come back to the States and fight for the Asian American identity.” Because that’s also so different from just the Asian identity. In that identity itself, we are trying to establish how we belong in this country and how we’re just as American as anybody else. But I feel like a very, very clear moment in that cinema landscape was when Crazy Rich Asians came out.

That switch was very, very clear. Even though I feel like there had been a wave cresting already. That was a clear moment when I felt like the community finally rallied together. It was our first big blockbuster since Joy Luck Club ten years before that, which is insane, and to see the success of its box office numbers, I feel like that movie really launched what we are seeing now, which is this momentum of continuing to bring authentic storytelling for AAPI representation to the forefront and to continue pushing the needle and to continue pushing these projects forward, greenlighting them, writing them, acting in them, all of it.

PC: Throughout the film, we see your character’s grief manifest itself, physically, emotionally, and mentally. As an actress, how did you create the space for yourself to dive into all of those different aspects?
Kara: When it comes to grief, Josh was extremely, extremely helpful in sharing his personal experience of everything he went through when he was creating this character and creating this world. The theme of grief is something that everybody has dealt with, whether it be in small doses or unfortunately larger doses. When I was shooting this film, I would say that I was actually one of the luckier few who hadn’t experienced extreme, extreme grief in my life at that point. So I did draw a lot from Josh and from the people around me, who were so generous and open with their stories to allow me to be an empath and try to step into their shoes and see what it is like when you have to pick up the pieces of your life after something really, really big happens. That’s how I created this space to create this character Asha for myself.

PC: You were talking about authenticity earlier. The film does a brilliant job depicting the generational nuances within the family, which brings a lot of authenticity to this project. What was that process like collaborating with the rest of your cast as you built that backstory?
Kara: Oh my gosh. We had such an incredible cast and crew. You look at the set designs and the details. The production design is absolutely mindblowing. I got to work with some incredible, incredible actors. Notably, of course, Sarinna Boggs who plays Hei Hei, who was amazing. She’s eight years old! I’m like, “What was I doing at eight years old?” Not this. [laughs] Adults can’t even memorize lines and do what she did. She was incredible.

To go back to your question, the flashback scenes with my parents and I were really, really great to shoot. I feel like flashback scenes were really fun for me because it was such a contrast to current-day Asha and what she was going through. Those scenes, to be honest, really hit home. It hit home for a lot of children of immigrants because of this idea of expectation and Asian guilt, which we all know deep down in our core, even though it comes out of love and how much they want us to do better. But it was a really, really great experience to work with those actors. Everybody came to set and brought their A-game and was so professional. It was really easy to click into those moments because it’s just our life.

PC: You have so many standout moments within the film. Is there a scene that you’re really excited for fans to see when the film drops?
Kara: The ending is very unexpected. I got to do all of my stunts for the film, which was an opportunity that I’ve never had before. Those scenes I’m particularly proud of. We had an incredible stunt team to help coordinate and choreograph. When I saw the final result of those scenes, I was very, very happy—especially the ones where I’m submerged in water and fighting in the water. I’m excited for people to see those redeeming scenes.

PC: There are so many relevant and timely themes that this film tackles. Was there one in particular that hit home for you?
Kara: It’s hard because when we shot it, like I said, COVID hadn’t happened yet. When I think about the film, that stands out the most. I’ve talked with my friends from Hong Kong, and so many of them have not been able to leave the country to see their families. If they do, they have to come back for this 21-day quarantine and remain isolated from people. Those themes stand out very, very strongly to me. But I think when I was shooting it in 2019, one thing that Josh and I talked about was the difference between surviving and living and how there’s a really, really big difference. It’s very easy for a lot of people to go into that survival mode and coast—and not necessarily in a good way. Coasting in a stagnant way because all you’re trying to do is get from day one to day two to day three and make it through.

But there’s a difference between that and actually living—living your life to the fullest potential or living your life to be happy or living and truly enjoying what life is. That’s one of the themes that’s very clear for Asha pre- and post-Hei Hei. Pre-Hei Hei, she was just surviving. It was about getting water to drink from the rain and how she is going to scavenge and find food versus when Hei Hei comes into her life and she finally has an impetus and a purpose to go out, look for help, and go back to living her life.

PC: Actors have always said that you take a little bit from each project that you work on. What would you say is the biggest lesson that you’ve learned being a part of this project that you’re going to bring to future ones?
Kara: It was my very first time being a lead in a film and being number one on a call sheet. At the very beginning, I was a little nervous. I was like, “Oh gosh. I’m going to be working every single day. I’m going to carry this film. How is it going to go?” When I finished the film, I felt so good about it. I was like, “I love being number one on the call sheet.” I loved that I was able to tell this story of an Asian female being the hero of her own story and being able to carry the film and set the tone on set each day. I feel so confident and strong about my capabilities and abilities. I’m excited to bring that confidence into projects moving forward as well.

PC: Besides this project, you’ve got tons that you’re working on right now. Is there any that you can talk about at this time?
Kara: I play Sumi on Freeform’s Good Trouble. We actually had our Season 4 premiere yesterday. I love the character Sumi. She couldn’t be more different than Asha from The Calm Beyond. Literally the polar opposite. It’s such a great show. They’ve really developed my character throughout the season to be so fun and three-dimensional and with so much more depth than where she started in Season 1. There are a lot of exciting things coming up for Sumi in Season 4, so everybody should check it out.

I also had the opportunity to work on Top Gun: Maverick, which is the sequel to Top Gun. It should be coming out this year in May. I never want to say for sure because it’s been pushed so many times. But that was an incredible experience to work on such a big, big blockbuster film, let alone one that is a sequel to such an iconic Americana film. That was a very, very cool experience.

To keep up with Kara, follow her on Twitter and Instagram. The Calm Beyond is out on March 29th.

Photo Credit: David Higgs