While she may have been voted “Sexiest Women in the World” by FHM magazine, Steph Song is anything but “just another pretty face”. From the moment she first began her acting career in Singapore in 2002, she’s been winning hearts and awards for her roles in dramatic and comedic television and film. Already a huge success in the Asian Pacific, in 2005 she decided to return to Canada, one of several countries she made her home in as a child. She quickly established herself in the Vancouver acting scene with roles in Everything’s Gone Green, Dragon Boys and jPod. With several films in post-production and others now making the festival rounds, Steph has kept herself very busy. She now splits her time between Vancouver and Australia, not only acting but producing with her company Island Films. She took some time out of her very busy schedule to talk a little bit about her past success, current projects and future plans.
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ÜberSciFiGeek (ÜSFG) You hold degrees in nursing and journalism. Why did you decide to go into acting instead?
Steph Song (SS) Um, well, the thing with acting for me is it’s something that I’ve always wanted to do but coming from an incredibly academic family it was very much frowned upon me going into that line of career. Parents just… I guess that they, you know, just didn’t want me to be a bum on the couch, right; which probably happened for quite a few years when you first start acting. So, the thing with the nursing and journalism… I actually started off with an English Literature degree and my mother, who has a Masters Degree in Political Science and is a lecturer, she wanted me to be able to apply my skill set to something and she convinced me that English Literature is like a stepping stone degree; which it really is. I mean, if you want to apply it in any way, you need to get like a teaching degree or something. So then I put all my credits towards journalism and halfway through journalism I kind of found that I wanted to exercise something a little bit more scientific and my dad who has his PhD in Genetics encouraged me to go into medicine and well, I couldn’t quite make that commitment. So then I started something I guess kind of like Pre-med but I ended up applying most of the credits from that towards nursing and four years later I came out with a double degree in Journalism and Nursing and really not wanting to do either. I kind of told my parents, “Well, at least now you know I’ve got two degrees and I’ll never be that bum on the couch so ariva derche. I’m going to go out into the world and explore acting which is something I’ve always wanted to do anyway.” And that’s how that happened.
(ÜSFG) So, you’ve lived in other countries. You speak multiple languages. How did that end up affecting your new career goal?
(SS) Um, I wouldn’t say it affects it in any way. I speak a few languages, yes. That was due in part to my dad’s profession because as a geneticist he traveled around pioneering different programs and ended up towing his small little family as well. So we whent down to Colombia, South America, when I was young and I picked up Spanish and have subsequently and quite sadly lost that ability. Although when I hear it I understand every single word. Just the connection somewhere from brain to mouth isn’t there so I really wish I could speak it and it’s something I think I’m going to try to nourish again. And as for Chinese, I have always spoken that at home with my parents. I think that as an actor it’s very important to have, or very important to continually be expanding on, your skill set whether that is being able to sing or to dance or to do martial arts, which would be applicable I guess for me quite a bit even though I don’t know how to do it. I should, as an Asian actress. And languages are a good thing to be able to draw from as well.
(ÜSFG) You were hugely successful in the Asia-Pacific area, including a starring role in a series that was syndicated in more then a dozen countries. So, with your success abroad, why did you choose Vancouver for this step of your career?
(SS) Well, I grew up in the prairies in Canada and I’d always wanted to return to Canada, and plus I never really lost the Canadian accent and you know I feel I am Canadian. I wanted to come back here. That’s basically it, pure and simple. I loved my time in Asia because there was so… I got to do a variety of roles, like a gazillion. I got to do drama and comedy and sitcom, and sadly no sci-fi, there. It’s not a very big hub for sci-fi unfortunately, I don’t think, although there’s a lot of horror movies that come out of Korea and Thailand, right?
(ÜSFG) Yeah.
(SS) Yeah. So sadly I didn’t really get to experience that over there but hopefully it’s something I can do over here. And yeah, I came back because I’m Canadian and I love Canada despite the dreary winters.
(ÜSFG) I was looking at your Island Films website.
(SS) Oh, yeah.
(ÜSFG) You’ve really got a growing body of work there and I have to say your commercials are visual feasts. I could sit and watch those commercials all day long. Can you tell me a little bit about Island Films?
(SS) Island Films is a company that I started up with my partner Antony Redman, and he’s also an incredibly gifted writer and we decided to start it pure and simple because we just love stories. We love being told a really good story and I love going to the movies and, as I mentioned in a previous interview, my favorite thing about going to the movies is just the anticipation of being told a fantastic story, and I love sitting there with my popcorn as the lights dim and the title credits start rolling. It’s a fantastic, fantastic thing. And we started that because we just had stories and we’re always brainstorming different ideas. In fact, we’ve got a really great one called Strawberry which is a sci-fi and is set in the very, very far future and is about how… it’s dealing with cryogenics and what happens to your soul or your spirit, like if your brain is frozen and you come back does that mean your soul splinters off? It’s um… If you read the synopsis for Strawberry I think that might be something you might be interested in, Raven.
(ÜSFG) Okay. Thank you. I will definitely look that up. So, last year you were part of the award winning cast and critically acclaimed show jPod.
(SS) Mmm.
(ÜSFG) Yes, that’s actually how I became a fan of yours.
(SS) Aww.
(ÜSFG) What was it like being a part of such a dynamic cast and show?
(SS) Oh I LOVED it! Emilie (Ullerup) would be able to attest to just… It was just a joy being on set every single day with such a marvelous team of actors, and we all got along so great. Like, I count Emilie as one of my best pals.
(ÜSFG) She said the same thing about you.
(SS) Yeah, and you know I’m close with all of my other fellow podsters as well. Torrance (Coombs) lives just down the road and David (Kopp) and his girl Brandy I’m close with as well. I get to see Ben (Ayres) every now and then but he’s very busy. Um. I wish I got to see more of him. But it was fantastic. The writing is sharp. The sets were always phenomenal. We had almost a different director for every episode and they always brought fresh and wonderful ideas. And it’s Douglas Coupland. He’s just an iconic part of cultural history, the voice of a generation. So, there’s always a little trepidation going into a project that could profile in such a big way and it was such a joy, really wonderful and really quite sad. I was genuinely very distressed when the season ended and then we found out that the show was just a little bit too forward-thinking and had been canceled. And we had a legion of fans as well, which was, you know… The CBC was going for that demographic and I guess maybe, you know that particular demographic tends to download a lot more then they tend to watch TV so, um, I think it was due in part to ratings but also it was just too forward-thinking for that particular network.
(ÜSFG) Well, Emilie, when I talked to her about it, she said she thinks it’s dead but the fans are still hoping they can at least get a special to wrap up the cliffhanger ending.
(SS) Huh. Mmm. Well, I’m not… I can’t tell you anything that the writers had prepared for the second season, but let me tell you, it would have been freaking hilarious. Like, I was almost rolling on the floor laughing when the writers were telling me what they had prepared for the second season. It’s just, you know, if it’s crazy and strange and wonderful in the first season it just gets ten times more so in the second season, what they had prepared. And it’s just a dreadful shame, and you know what, I’m going to hold hope and be optimistic that the producers have enough sway to command a [special] but I’m not sure about that. I, too, feel that it might be dead.
(ÜSFG) Yeah, so… Right now you have two films in post-production, The Thaw with Val Kilmer and Paradox with Kevin Sorbo. Now, I’m familiar with Paradox slightly, because I am a comic book geek, but what is The Thaw about and who do you play in it?
(SS) The Thaw is about a group of science, or geology, students and they go up to… the Arctic I think is where it’s set, where they’ve discovered… where a scientist played by Val Kilmer has discovered the carcass of a woolly mammoth completely intact. And while he’s investigating, while he’s dissecting this carcass, he realizes that there is some kind of prehistoric bug that has initially killed the woolly mammoth that has thawed out, has started to thaw out in the mammoth and is quite open to infecting and killing other creatures. One of them being a polar bear and they, um, the students find out that the bug isn’t above infecting humans.
(ÜSFG) And then the fun starts.
(SS) Yeah, and then the fun starts.
(ÜSFG) Alright, so Paradox. It’s kind of a sci-fi/fantasy that takes place in an alternate universe Earth where magic is the rule, and you have a pretty significant part in this.
(SS) Yes. I play the female lead role opposite Kevin (Sorbo) and… I’ve always been fascinated with the concept of [other life] in the universe. I still kind of believe that there can be. I mean, it can’t just be us here, right? That’s just narrow-minded to think that we are the only… we’re the only living, logical creature in this universe. Even then, sometimes when you look around, it doesn’t really seem to make sense. But, um, the story came about… well, the script came to me about November of last year and at that time they hadn’t attached a male lead to it yet. It’s about a detective called Sean Nault and he is investigating a series of crimes and murders and he lives in a magic world. Things are run by magic and spells and it’s an Earth very similar to our Earth except where everything here runs on science, over there everything there runs on magic. Anyway, as he’s investigating these crimes he realizes there is something called a “gun” and something called “bullets” that go into that gun and “how is that possible? What is this weapon? We’ve never seen anything like this!” Which takes him to Lenore’s shop and I’m Lenore, a woman who believes in science in this magic world and therefore is kind of whispered about and not really accepted in society. He and Lenore start investigating these crimes and find a portal into the science world, and go into the science world, and that’s about all I can tell ya.
(ÜSFG) Now you got to…
(SS) And Emilie is actually in that!
(ÜSFG) Yes! I was just getting ready to ask about that. She said she…
(SS) It was so wonderful because the director, Brenton Spencer, has directed a few episodes of Sanctuary and when I met with him he was talking about Sanctuary and, um, it was our brilliant idea that Emilie must most definitely come in, her being a good pal of mine and him having worked with her before, and the whole Sanctuary connection. It was like, “Well, she has to be in it, no ifs, ands or buts” and so I got on the phone and I absolutely wrangled her into the project. It was great to work to work with Emilie again. Any time, any day.
(ÜSFG) Well, hopefully we’ll see you on Sanctuary in Season 2.
(SS) I’ve talked to her about that. I said, “You know, even if like I come back as a hideous monster or something and we have a big fight scene between the two of us. Awesome.” And she was like, “We’ll find something better for you than that.”
(ÜSFG) Well, when can we expect to see The Thaw and Paradox in theaters? Have there been dates set yet?
(SS) Um, there are quite a lot of visual effects that are going to be going into Paradox so I don’t expect to see or hear anything with Paradox for at least, minimum, at least six to eight months, although I am anticipating it coming out because we did some great work on that. It was a very, very fun set. Um, and The Thaw I think will be released in spring, I guess to coincide with…
(ÜSFG) The thaw…
(SS) Ya know, spring and everything thawing out, right. I think that’s when they are aiming for a release. I’m not 100% sure, although the trailer is already out so they can’t be too far away, and I’ve already done ADR on it so I think it’s just around the corner.
(ÜSFG) Well, I look forward to that. Are there any other projects that we should be keeping an eye out for this year?
(SS) Um, well, there’s Dim Sum Funeral, a film that I did just before The Thaw in March of last year, and that’s to do with an Asian-American family, four siblings who come together to bury their mother in a traditional Chinese funeral. Not science fiction at all, more of a family drama. They are completely antagonistic siblings… they are towards each other, which I’m guessing a lot of people can relate to. I know I didn’t like my sisters for a very long time and, um, that’s currently doing the film festivals. That’s going to, um… It just had its premiere at Pusan Film Festival last year and then was at AFI and then just, I think about a week ago, was at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, and now it’s going to the Singapore Film Festival and then the New Port Beach Film Festival and then the L.A. Film Festival and then the San Francisco Asian-American Film Festival… It’s just doing the circuit of festivals right now but I think it’s going to be airing at some stage on HBO. Apart from those three, nnn… not much.
(ÜSFG) Not much?
(SS) There are a few projects in the pipeline right now but I’m not allowed to talk about them until I get on set. A little… just a little superstition of mine that I shouldn’t start chitter-chattering about things I want to work on because I might not actually be on it.
(ÜSFG) I understand. I have the same problem. I do a lot of projects and if I… the more time I spend talking about it before I actually do it, the less I actually get done, so I understand.
(SS) Yeah.
(ÜSFG) Well, we covered everything that I really wanted to go over, so I know you’ve got a deadline. Is there anything else you want me to share before you run off?
(SS) Um, no, except I am, um… my first experience in sci-fi on Paradox I just loved, and I hope to do more of it. I guess The Thaw is kind of a…
(ÜSFG) Sci-Fi/Horror.
(SS) Sci-fiction kind of thing, more of a horror, but that was a fun experience too. I got to do a lot of screaming. It was a screamer. It was my first screamer and I feel like I’ve done permanent damage to my voice box. But it was good fun and, um, I hope to be able to show you guys something more. I hope to be able to produce something like Strawberry, so check that out on my Island Films website. Strawberry is a script that I would love to see made. The screenplay is finished. It’s fantabulous. I love it and I think we’re going to try to start funding it. I dunno; feature it on your website. You’ll find it on the Island Films website under Films. It opens up onto a bunch of, whachamacallit, I guess concept art posters and you’ll see Strawberry. It’s on the bottom right-hand corner, and click on that and it should take you right to a synopsis page so you can read the synopsis. I’m going to try to start finding funding for it so if anyone is interested, contact Island Films. Thank you very much, and I will keep you posted on those three… the two upcoming projects, and let you know where they are at and when they are going to come out, and so on and so forth.
(ÜSFG) Thank you, Steph!
While we have to wait a while for Paradox, you can expect The Thaw to arrive in theaters sometime this spring. Dim Sum Funeral is currently showing at festivals and will soon air on HBO. jPod is available to watch streaming on CBC.com and TheWB.com, and can be purchased from Amazon.com. Also, don’t forget to stop by stephsong.com and islandfilms.net to keep up-to-date on Steph’s latest projects.