Maria Tran Tracer Interview

Maria Tran Tracer Interview

Maria Tran, 31 years old, from Western Sydney is not your average actor. She is a martial artist with a background in community work and have ran many filmmaking and acting programs for at risk and culturally diverse communities of Western Sydney. In the meantime, she is also honing her craft, and working across several action pack projects across Asia. Her recent movie, 'Truy Sat/Tracer" hit Australian cinemas with a premiere launch on Friday 6th of May, 2016 at Events Cinemas, Liverpool, 7pm.

Most of my skills I've honed from the community grassroots. Growing up, acting and filmmaking was just a dream that I dared not articulate to my parents who have experienced a turbulent war, fled their homelands and tried their best to resettle into Australia.

'At the same time I knew about the struggles of coming from a migrant family therefore, I ran local free workshops for young people over the years and now is based at Dong Thanh Alliance Martial Arts" say Maria.

She has been on ABC logie winning 'My Place", Channel 9's 'Australia: The Story of Us" and upcoming 'Love Child: Season 3" was brought on board to fulfill the role of female actioneer, 'Phuong Lua" as well a supporting the production team.

"It was a fantastic experience as I was able to assist in fight choreography, the producing team and take up a villainous character that had some epic fight scenes with motorbikes and weaponry!" says Maria.

In 2015, she worked on as a fight supervisor as well as played the main female villain in Hollywood movie produced by Roger Corman called 'Fist of the Dragon" and was an associate producer for ABC TV 'Maximum Choppage."

'All too often people stereotype women as the damsel-in-distress, the weaker counterparts in films and TV." say Maria.

'I've been on sets where actors reluctantly listen to me while I fulfil the role of a fight supervisor, facing condescen

ding remarks such as 'You're a girl, how hard can you hit"" adds Maria.

'It's frustrating, but through these moments of conflict, you build a tougher exterior and it shows in front and behind the camera" adds Maria.

Truy Sat/ Tracer is about a policewoman, An who is given an undercover assignment to take down the notorious Wolf gang. Things get personal when An accidentally kills one of the gang members and now her own family is at threat.

Truy Sat (English title is 'Tracer") is executive produced and starred by Vietnam's leading actress Truong Ngoc Anh and distributed by CJ Entertainment. It has premiered in Vietnam since 22 April across over 100 theatres and is set to hit Australia in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide from the 5 May through the distribution company Dreamwest Pictures.

Interview with Maria Tran

Question: How would you describe Truy Sat (Tracer)?

Maria Tran: Tracer is a film about a gun blazing policewoman in hot pursuit of criminal kingpin. The main character is An An played by Truong Ngoc Anh and she is pretty much your typical workaholic who is super focused on cracking cases. However, things get dangerously personal when her family becomes a target. It is the first of it's kind in Vietnam; a country where audiences are very new to the concept of female action leads on screen.


Question: What inspired your passion for the Truy Sat (Tracer) script?

Maria Tran: Most definitely the lack of female main characters who are strong both physically and mentally. There's still a disbelief that woman can deliver these types characters on screen, especially when most movies in Vietnam depict the damsel in distress that needs to be rescued. Even though Tracer is a work of fiction, it hopes to change the way women are portrayed.


Question: Can you tell us about your character, Phuong Lua?

Maria Tran: Phuong Lua originally was a very small bit part that grew during the film production. She is the sister of criminal kingpin; Loc Soi, who she unfortunately lost her fiancé in a botched criminal operation. She struggles to overcome her losses and fixates all her energy in seeking revenge.


Question: How can you related to your character, Phuong Lua?

Maria Tran: I'm quite the opposite from this character and had to really do my homework to understand Phuong Lua's motivations and her mode of revenge. Revenge is such a heavy psychological state that had stem from a loss of a loved one. Instead of grieving and letting go, Phuong Lua goes on a rampage. In relation to me, there are things that I find difficult to let go as well. In my day-to-day life, I have to face all sorts of issues thrown at me from sexism to racism and other ceiling effects that I have to figure out to breakthrough; not only for myself but for others. So in the preparation of my character, I really had to list out all the challenges I face in life (inner and outer) and condense them when I'm about to do a scene. It really helps and it brings the realism to the performance.

Question: What are you looking forward to most with the upcoming Australia release of Truy Sat (Tracer)?

Maria Tran: I'm looking forward to having my friends and family enjoy the film in their local theatres. This would be the first time for me working overseas and getting the opportunity to showcase it amongst my peers and colleagues back home. I'm also looking forward to the future discussions it creates amongst the Australian film industry and how they see themselves connecting to Asia and tapping into Vietnam's 90 million population.


Question: How did you go with the motorbikes and weaponry, used in the film?

Maria Tran: It was so much fun despite also being reminded of how dangerous these motorbike scenes are. Truong Ngoc Anh and I would do the acting scenes while having stunt doubles to do any of the dangerous work. But any trips of falls would me the actors could go tumbling onto the road. There was an array of weaponry used from hand guns, rifles, samurai swords… I think the samurai sword fight scenes are quite impressive as the finale in the film and it took the actors less than a month to learn and rehearse.


Question: What was it like working with Truong Ngoc Anh?

Maria Tran: Truong Ngoc Anh is such a role model in Vietnam. Not only is she an A list actress, she's charitable, a great spokesperson and open to new emerging talents like myself. She didn't know me from the beginning, but she took a gamble and through her company, TNA Entertainment sponsored me over to work on the project. I learnt a lot from her onset and during events and love the fact that we have a sisterhood connection.


Question: What inspired your love of acting?

Maria Tran: Escapism is one of the reasons why I love acting. I grew up being bullied by other girls in my grade who would call me 'nerd", 'freak", 'ching chong China girl" etc…I recall feeling so unhappy of who I am. Acting allowed me to escape and temporary leave my current realities and explore alternative identities. Through that process, I gain a lot of confidence and a solid sense of direction of who I want to become and what my range of influence will be. Interchangably, I do write, produce and direct and in general, create content and make things happen. The moment that I stop creating is the death of me.


Question: When did you first begin martial arts?
Maria Tran: I started in 1998. After a school yard brawl, where I didn't come out the victor, my parents decided that I should get some skills to self-defend. I studied Tae kwon do became a black belt, and then moved on and tried other martial arts including, Shaolin kung fu and currently hapkido. I love martial arts as I now can merge it with acting and deliver some awesome and slick fight sequences for the movies.


Question: Can you tell us about the free workshops for young people you ran at Dong Thanh Alliance Martial Arts?

Maria Tran: Depending on projects, I usually run acting and action workshops for the community. In 2013, I associated produced ABC TV comedy series 'Maximum Choppage" as well as ran free community workshops to find and hone undiscovered talent across Western Sydney. I truly believe that people, when given opportunities paired with a tenacious sense of drive will eventually get to where they want to go in life.


Question: What's next, for you?

Maria Tran: I'm back home in Australia for the rest of 2016 with the occasional small projects overseas but my main focus for the rest of the year is honing my skills, martial arts, and writing. I've just been selected as 2016 Ones to Watch by the Australian Producers Association and will be developing my feature film 'Legend of Me Linh" to be filmed in 2017. This is a story about two sisters who went against the grain, became warriors and saved their country in 40 AD. In between, I collaborate on other creative projects to keep me busy.


Interview by Brooke Hunter