Celebrity Interview | Entertainment & Film Industry - Ballard Actor Alain Uy on How an Injury Fueled His Acting Career - Dancing to Acting After Injury

Greg Staffa 0:00

You're listening to the Staffa Corner Podcast a Staffa-tarian look at entertainment and life with your host Greg Staffa.

Greg Staffa 0:15

My guest this episode is talented actor Elaine Uy. I can be seen in shows like True Detective, Grey's Anatomy, Grimm, the Last Ship, the Morning Show. Right now, his newest role is alongside Maggie Q, who we just had on in the new Amazon series, Ballard. Thanks for joining us today.

Alain Uy 0:34

Thanks for having me, Greg.

Greg Staffa 0:36

So you are a talented actor, but you didn't always start that way. It was dancing is your original passion. Is that correct?

Alain Uy 0:44

That's correct. Yeah, Dancing was my original, you know, and honestly it's still. My deep down passion is movement and dance. But yeah, that's where. That's where it all started.

Greg Staffa 0:56

Now, an injury sidelined everything and kind of made you refocus things. You broke both hips in a car accident. Is that correct?

Alain Uy 1:06

That is correct. Yeah, I fractured my right hip really bad and then on the other side just a hairline fracture.

Greg Staffa 1:11

But yeah, Is that something that has I mean, it's been several years. Is that something that fully heals? Or is there still kind of nervousness, to put you know, to stress it out, because you've done very physical roles like the paper tigers? Is there any flashbacks to those injuries?

Alain Uy 1:33

You know there are some remnants of the accident that's left over, but not that crazy. It took me about three months, I think, to recover. I was on bed rest for those three months. I couldn't move, I was immobilized specifically to sort of let the fractures heal. But I did several years of therapy, physical to, to get me back to where I am today. But certainly there's always, you know, like my, my right leg is a little shorter than my, my left, and so there's that sort of imbalance that happens. So you know, those kind of create aches and pains and it just goes up the the chain of command, so to speak, for your, your body. So now.

Greg Staffa 2:24

You originally were born in the philippines. You came to the us at a very young age. Tell us, what's that like? Growing up, being from another country and kind of finding your own voice? Was acting a way to kind of, and even dance, as a way to express yourself in a way that wasn't necessarily yourself, because a lot of times actors take on roles or dancing you're drawing from the music. Was that for you?

Alain Uy 2:56

That's right, I think you kind of nailed it, you kind of answered the question for me, as an immigrant coming in, I was like six years old. Me, I, you know, as an immigrant coming in, I was like six years old and so I was pretty aware at that time of where I was moving to. You know, coming from the Philippines, there was a sense of hope and wonder every time a family member would move to the United States, and there's a sense of privilege. You know, we were all aware of the privilege that we had to be moving to or immigrating to the United States, and so that certainly wasn't lost on me even at six years old. But I also knew that coming into this other country that you know it's, I'm going to be someone who is other. You know I'm not, you know I was.

Alain Uy 3:47

I was keenly aware at that age of, of my sense of world and you know, a friend of mine kind of put it into words recently Well, not recently, a couple of years ago that I was actually had the, the, the experience of feeling like I was my own main character, my own story in the beginning of, you know, of my life, that you know, everyone around me was filipino or chinese, so I didn't see anything other than that. And for the first time, moving into a new country, not knowing the full culture of things, you know you get a sense of like, oh, I'm different, not in a bad way, not in a good way, just different.

Immigration Experience Shaping Expression

Alain Uy 4:27

And in through that experience, you kind of you either approach that experience like more outwardly and become more extroverted and assimilate and just be, you know, more vocal and find your voice, or you could get introverted and get really shy and just start to sit back and process things. I'm more of the latter, of that. I became very internal. I observed a lot. I just I kept quiet, I just stayed to my books, didn't go out much when I was younger. And so, yeah, and you know, you experience certain things where you do say something and you have an accent and you know you get made fun of as you do.

Alain Uy 5:09

And then I process that in a different way and I said I'm never going to really talk to you, I'm not really going to express anything because I'm too scared. And so, yes, there was a thirst for expression. How do I express these emotions? And that's where I discovered dance and movement, because I didn't really have to say anything. I could just feel the music and just express myself and get a lot of these emotions out, or that, what that had been.

Alain Uy 5:35

You know that I had been feeling, and so when that was taken away from me, when I got to that car accident, you know, obviously I went into a pretty deep, dark place, um, being immobilized for three months, and just you know, I really wanted to be a professional dancer. That was my, that was my dream. And you know, at that time, 17 years old, you, you don't really see how big the world is, and so I thought my world kept was crumbling down. So you know, it was a beautiful thing to discover theater, because not only did it allow performance, which I enjoyed, it also allowed me to see a different way of expressing my emotions, because the words were written for me already and it wasn't really me, it was a character that I can embody. So to get all those emotions still and be able to use your voice, that was earth shattering for me once I discovered the theater. So that's how it all kind of played out.

Greg Staffa 6:38

Sure, now, I've often heard and I mean, I'm a white male but you're a Chinese-Filipino descent, and I've never had to look at a Tom Hanks movie and say, wow, it's great to see someone like me on screen, you on screen. But is that an overburden that is kind of placed on you? Is that a responsibility that you feel is something that you take ownership, or is that something that is just a fact of life? How do you approach the roles that you take and you feel an added kind of burden not necessarily a burden, but an added leadership of saying I want more people like me on screen?

Alain Uy 7:28

how do you approach the roles that you take and, keeping that in mind, my very presence on screen and in this industry speaks volumes in itself, where I don't even have to say anything. I think, to answer your question, I find myself looking back in my past in terms of how I've perceived my own culture and how it fits into the fabric of this America and how I'm how am I part of this tapestry? I think I've seen it and I've experienced it and thought it the other way. Where I was very vocal in I mean, I'll even take it back there are many times where I've, you know, there's that self-hate there where you kind of move away from your culture. You want to simulate, you want to be, you don't want to be. You know something that's a distraction. So that's certainly something I experienced when I was younger was, you know, I was othered in all those ways, ways and you know not to say that it's got as negative and positive to it. It's just how you sort of process that experience. But so I shied away from my own heritage, I shied away from my own culture and I don't think I'm singular and unique in that way.

Alain Uy 8:52

I think a lot of people in my generation having that sort of first-generational immigrant experience. It hits you in a different way. You become more shy and as I've gotten older, I became much more vocal in my 20s in terms of understanding my own culture and rediscovering my culture and who I am, and so there's a sense of pride there. So the pendulum swung way on the other side, where I was extremely vocal about my existence and how I fit. But as I've gotten older, I've realized that there is, in some ways, fatigue. People can have fatigue in that sense. So

Representation in Hollywood

Alain Uy 9:40

you know, I'm trying not to dance around your question, but I've embodied every version of that, and so where I am now and I'm not going to say this is, know, the notion that I exist and that I'm working and showcasing my talent should speak enough for me.

Alain Uy 10:14

And where I am at this point I don't think I need to overly vocalize representation. How it's important, because to me it's pretty obvious that it's important. You know, I think that's where I kind of stand on that, like, do I feel a burden? I used to, I definitely used to, but I've realized that that's a, that's a burden that I'm putting on my onto myself and that if I can just represent the best way I can, which is just the way my parents taught me, which is with, with um, with uh, with values that allow me to exemplify my culture in a good light.

Alain Uy 10:59

I think that's all I need to do. Obviously, that could change. I mean, I certainly mentor a lot of younger Asian actors now and you know they talk to me a lot or they ask me questions a lot about how it used to be about 15, 20 years ago and I mean it's a huge difference now in terms of the opportunities that they're getting and you know I just hope that it's not lost on this younger generation of actors that are Asian, that look like me or within the diaspora of Asian culture that it wasn't always like this and it can easily be taken away.

Greg Staffa 11:35

The Paper Tigers came out in 2020 and a lot has changed in the years since and it can easily be taken away. The Paper Tigers came out in 2020. And a lot has changed in the years since. I mean that was basically COVID when that hit. Do you? Is there a concern as an actor as far as I mean now things it used to? There used to be a pattern where a movie would come out in theaters and then a year, nine months later it would come out dvd and there would be a cult following on dvd and now everything goes. I mean, movies that were out in the theaters two weeks ago are now on streaming and you can't purchase them on dvd. That's just they're on free streaming sites. Is there a concern as an actor that we're losing our independent films? Or just streaming open up new opportunities for like paper tigers to to get more views versus being on like a dvd release there's always a concern whenever, when anything is disrupted, an industry is disrupted, and certainly streaming 2020 covid how that affected the theaters.

Alain Uy 12:40

You know we're still kind of recovering from that, so there is always a fear in what's in the unknown. Personally, I think it it's starting to settle a little bit in terms of how people are consuming, how people produce content. I think it was pretty obvious to all of us during that era of Disney Plus and all the streaming wars, if you will, where everyone's trying to pull all their IP internally and started to produce their own channel and it wasn't a sustainable model for anybody. Um, and that's why it started to shift the other way now, which is back to how it used to be uh, with with regards to these studios and networks producing their content but also licensing out to, you know, the basically the winner of the streaming wars, which is netflix or to be now, I think. For me it's. I don't think it's never going to come back that old business model of a theater release, wait a couple months, then it's the dvd release and then wait a couple more months and then it's part of cable or network or being viewed in that way. That's gone, and I think the sooner we accept that, the sooner we could look for other avenues where we can monetize our content or the product that we've created. That's the thing. I'm really curious to see how we pivot. And people are pivoting now trying to figure out well, how can I, you know, make money so that I could support the next venture, the next product, the next IP, the next anything?

Alain Uy 14:34

You know, certainly for Paper Tigers there is a cult following to it. I experience it quite a bit whenever I travel. There's always a lot of people that come up to me and recognize me for that movie and that project, more so than any project I've ever, I've ever done, and that tells me a lot. This speaks, it speaks volumes to me. So like, would people have seen that movie if it was in the theaters? Would people have seen that movie if it was in the theaters? I don't know who's to say, but I do know that it being on Netflix allowed that movie to be experienced by everybody who has that membership. And you know,

Streaming's Impact on Independent Films

Alain Uy 15:14

I'm sure the producers would have loved to have had a chance at a full theater release because they could have recouped their money faster and, who knows, we could be filming paper tigers 2 at this point, because it's got that financial resume of making money.

Greg Staffa 15:30

But I that that's where I stand with that now, at the same time, you started the production company. Them too. Was that looking back? Was that a crazy idea at the time because the industry was changing so fast? Or what did you? Did you learn more as an actor by doing the production company during this crazy turbulent time? Was that a good lesson for you? Was that a crazy lesson for you? How did that work during that particular moment?

Alain Uy 16:22

for a publication. It was a good job and at the time I'll be honest with you I was having a quarter-life crisis where I was like I'm going to be 30 soon and I haven't done shit. Pardon my French. I didn't have anything to show for and so it wasn't as volatile during that time. In terms of the industry, I think it was starting to pivot at that point, but it wasn't anywhere near where it is now, or even in 2020.

Alain Uy 16:45

So when I started that production company, it was really just an exploration of my hobby, which was photography. That led me to a lot of opportunities where I was able to learn and get paid really to direct commercials, do interstitials, create promo projects and promo videos for certain projects and certain brands and properties, and then I expended all of that and what I. What was interesting is, at the time I wasn't auditioning much. You know. We were just talking about how different it was about 15 years ago in terms of opportunity. There wasn't really a lot of roles out there, save for a few little things here and there. But you know, at that time, you know the John Cho's of the world, the Randall Parks of the world, you know a lot of these Asian males have had a bigger resume than a bigger resume than me, so they were getting the opportunities that I wasn't, and that was okay. That's just how the business works.

Alain Uy 17:46

And so I had to find other ways to sort of exercise this creative energy that I had and find avenues to let it out. And so, yeah, it led to directing, led to writing, it led to producing, it, led to all those things that ultimately informed me as a, as an actor, because you learn everything In a much more smaller scale, obviously, because I was mostly just doing short narratives, music videos, commercials, you know all of these things, but it's still kind of the same beast in in understanding the purpose of production and the purpose of a director, purpose of a writer, purpose of any creative department head, like you get it. So it definitely informed me as an actor and as I've gotten older now and more experienced, I'm now moving into more writing and understanding that craft. I've been writing a lot of things that I'm in development with Zero Gravity, my management company, so those things all informed each other.

Greg Staffa 18:52

One of the things that I'm listening to you talk and in listening to you talk it seems like there's a lot of pause and reflect in the things that you do, the choices that you're making. Was your injury a big part of that? Because you were forced back then to kind of pause, put the priorities that you had on life on hold. You weren't sure if you're ever going to be able to dance again. Did that impact how your life is now as an actor, where not everything is a promise to you, not every role is you're you're gonna get. How much of that injury kind of shaped your life

Production Company and Creative Growth

Greg Staffa 19:30

and kind of shaped your thinking?

Alain Uy 19:32

I've never really thought that deep on that, uh, as to if that had an impact in my outlook, but just thinking now, I think so. I think it allowed me to understand early on that anything and everything can be taken away from you and that it's certainly instilled. It's kind of like how do I say it's like a slingshot, right, it's like the slingshot doesn't do anything until you pull it back. It's that sort of kinetic energy and I think in many ways that's what happened while I was healing and recovering is that it was being pulled back, was being pulled back and I was waiting for an opportunity to sort of, you know, propel out of whatever I was dealing with. And so the minute I the second, I discovered theater, I was like, oh, this is it, and now I know what to do, I'm not going to squander, you know, the opportunity. So in many ways you're right.

Alain Uy 20:35

I had never really thought about that, because it certainly drove me and and looking back at it now, yeah it, it. It made me understand how precious time was and I was relentless. I'm still relentless. In many ways I'm cursed in terms of um, you know, in the pursuit of learning something and growing one of the things.

Greg Staffa 20:56

I've been doing this since 2012. Um, I have a deep respect and sympathy for the people I interview because I know a lot of my questions are not original questions. We bring up roles that you've played before and whatnot, but I think about anytime I've had like a job interview and I walk out of the job interview and I said, oh darn it.

Greg Staffa 21:17

I wish you would have asked me about this, or I wish they would have brought up that You've done countless of these interviews. Is there any question out there that you wish? Darn it. I wish someone would ask me about this, because I'd love to bring it up.

Alain Uy 21:33

Oh my God, I mean, honestly, I don't. I can't think of anything at the top of my head. I'm, I'm a pretty open book. Um, when you know, I do these interviews, I there's never really a feeling of like, oh, I could have, I wish I could have talked more about this. I, I, um, I love my craft, I love everything about acting, about storytelling, and I could talk about that for hours and so, yeah, there's really not much. I mean favorite movies, but I get that question all the time which is like what do you like? What is this? But I'm never short of breath when it comes to that.

Greg Staffa 22:22

Okay, here's one question. As a fan, I get movies. I mean, I love movies. I always have to watch movies. I'm always getting bombarded with movies. One movie that is on my list that I've wanted to watch but I haven't is Father Stew, which you were in. I don't think it got the love it deserved, and I haven't seen it yet, so I can't say if it's great or bad, but it was one of those ones that I never thought got the love that it deserved. Mark Wahlberg, give us a 20-second, plug your thoughts on it and reinvigorate me to want to see it. Finally, 20 seconds is all you're gonna give me.

Alain Uy 23:04

I'll take as long as you want. You know, fathers 2 is about redemption, right, it's about truly a person who was trying to find his purpose in life, and I think that's what we're all trying to do is figuring out why are we here, why do we exist, why are we, why do we feel pain, like, what is the purpose of all of these? You know, not only just the the strife and the challenges we go through, but also some of the pleasure, some of the most amazing things, like why does that exist? And I think that specific movie speaks truth into that story and and and how we're constantly finding that, and so the fact that it was based on a true story about, you know, this, this, this man, and how he found his truth and his purpose. I think it. You know it's something that I think is is beneficial to everyone. If you're seeking that, you know. You know whether you're not, if, whether you're Catholic or not religious at all, you know it's, it's important to see these stories.

Alain Uy 24:11

You know I learned early on that the purpose of stories, the real purpose of telling stories, is survival. You know that's how we used to do it back in the days when, you know, before civilized, you know, right. Pre pre-civilization is like you know, you're maybe a caveman and you're telling somebody through voice or sounds that there's a tiger over there. That's the story. We tell these stories about survival so we can learn something, so we can bank that story somewhere in the crevices of our mind that, should I ever encounter a tiger, I know what to do, and so this is. This is one of those stories.

Greg Staffa 24:50

Father stew yeah, it's one of the movies that I wanted to see and I was out in the theaters and then gone and then in doing research, I saw the you saw your list and stuff. It immediately brought that to mind of I really want to see it, just haven't had the reasoning. Don't see it, greg. Come on, I will see it, maybe this weekend. So you've done True Detective, you've done Grey's Anatomy, the Morning Show. You've reached a point where you can do. You know real shows, real characters. If Steven Spielberg came to you because you have a production company and said hey, I got money, I want to help you out. Here's Steven Spielberg money. Is there a role? Is there a story that you would love to tell if you could have those resources? Is there, is there something in the back of your mind that you would want to tell?

Alain Uy 25:50

there are several stories, but I want to dive straight into the short round character, if I may. You know, uh, which is the ind Jones character that Ki-Huei Kwan played. I actually wrote a script specifically for that story at the in the hopes of it being seen by Steven Spielberg. You know it's. I would love to direct it, not so much star in it. I think I've aged out of a specific you know age range for this particular character, but I would love to explore that character some more.

Alain Uy 26:27

I think it'd be interesting to see where that character would have, where that character would have gone as he'd gotten older and how he would have applied a lot of the things that he learned being around a character like Indiana Jones and and figure out what his motivations would have been. I mean, that character is an interesting character and in fact I even read a few other, you know spec scripts about other characters in the Indiana Jones universe. So certainly I would. That's the first thing I would say like hey, I've got, I've got this

Ballard and Working with Maggie Q

Alain Uy 26:59

one story that I, or even like it's. It's a bunch of little stories, uh, not even little stories, storylines for the, for the short round character. So I would love that, but, but other than that, I would love to. If I were to star in something I would love to uh do, or star in a biopic of Jose Rizal, which is the Filipino essentially legend that the country really is very proud of. That's a biopic I would love to be part of.

Greg Staffa 27:37

Interesting, although I do love the short round Disney Plus short round series. There you go. So one of the things that I want to talk about is Ballard. We just talked to Maggie Q and tell us a little bit about what brought you to that series and the world that is being created. The Bosch world is being created.

Alain Uy 28:01

I had auditioned for Bososh and bosh legacy for years and I've never booked anything. And last year my manager and my agent talked about this particular project and that I was being concerned for it and didn't hear anything back ever since they checked my avail. And then, about two days before the table read, we get an offer to play Nelson Hastings. And I'll be honest with you, I had never seen more than two or three episodes of Bosch, only to prepare for those previous auditions. So I didn't really, you know, I didn't understand or wasn't very aware of how big the boss universe was. And once I got the offer, I did a deep dive on it and talked to several friends of mine who were huge fan of the books, michael Connelly's work, and they all said, well, like, oh my God, like I can't believe you're gonna be part of this universe. But when I told them that my character Nelson Hastings, they were like holy shit, like you might want to read some of these books that involve that character because it's it's a doozy. And so that's what I did.

Alain Uy 29:13

I did some research. You know the characters in the books and the storyline deviates a little bit from or deviates from the TV show, deviates from the book, but it still has that sort of same impact, and I think I've been fortunate enough to have had a chance to work with a lot of people in my throughout my journey and being able to work with someone like Maggie Q, john Carroll Lynch, I mean, amy Hill Titus you know these are legends in the industry, so to have an opportunity to share the screen with them was, I mean, the 19-year-old version of me who was starting to discover acting, would be screaming right now. And oh, oh, my god, that's elaine, you, you're, you're making. Sorry to talk in third person, but you get what I'm saying.

Greg Staffa 30:08

yeah, now, when you're at that level where you're hanging around with someone like a meg eq is there, are you still learning from working with other actors or is it really they do their thing, they go back to their, their you know their little areas and they kind of tune everything out. How does the interaction, how does the? Is it a constant learn? Acting is a constant learning thing for you, or is it pretty much you've established yourself? Now you're there to do a job.

Alain Uy 30:38

You're not learning, you're and you're not learning, you're not growing. That's that means you're dying to do a job. You're not learning, you're and you're not learning and you're not growing. That's that means you're dying. So the answer your question is yes, like you're. You're constantly at least for me just picking things up and being around.

Alain Uy 30:50

Someone like maggie q it was, you know. I told her it's funny. I said this to her at their rap party. I told her you that she scared the shit out of me in the first couple episodes. I didn't know how to process her energy because it was so intense.

Alain Uy 31:10

She was very serious and that there is a purposefulness in the way she approaches her day, and it's sad to say, but that's rare and so you always take your cues from the number one on the show. And to have someone who takes her work seriously, who wants to make sure that she makes that she breathes life into Ballard in a respectful way, because it is also based on a real person, I thought that to be at first scary and daunting, but at the same time, you learn quickly that that's something I can learn from that. You know, her approach to work was like she was extremely professional with everything that she did Movement, wardrobe, her voice. I looked at that and said, wow, man, she has a strong command of her faculties and her instrument, and that's certainly something I will always continue to strive and I admire people that take that space to breathe. You know to arm the character that they're playing. So I thought that was amazing. And you know learning a lot from someone like John Carroll Lynch has been in so many projects and the.

Alain Uy 32:48

You know the lightheartedness that he had on set when the cameras weren't rolling and how he kept the morale up whenever I was on set. That was awesome too. Just to learn from them. And you know just even the showrunners like I. As a wannabe fledgling writer, I always have questions like why did you guys write it this way? Or I'm curious about this, or you know so, being around so many people like that, especially in the boss universe, and you know they're carrying that energy and that success that they had onto this project. Why wouldn't you want to learn? Why wouldn't you want to at the very least gather enough confidence to just ask questions?

Greg Staffa 33:32

Sure, and wrapping things up, and again, I appreciate your time coming on Going forward. What can fans of yours expect to see, either from you as an actor, or maybe something that your production company them too is doing? What are something that fans of yours, or your work can look forward to? Right now, ballard is out on Amazon, so they can check that out, but anything that you can talk about coming up, yeah, I've got season three of Power.

Alain Uy 33:58

Book Four is coming out later this fall, which is the final season for that series, um, which is very exciting uh for the fans in that universe to finally see how everything uh transpires with the, the tommy egan character. I know that fans of that show would love to know more about how it all unfolds and, and you know, the wonderful thing is that the showrunner, gary Lennon, really entrusted me with a bigger responsibility for that season and I'm really excited for the fans to see how that all unfolds and how my character is involved in that. I've got a few things cooking with Zero Gravity, like I said, a few projects that I've written, and they also have a couple of projects that they're developing for me as the lead. So there's not much. I could say it's not real until it's real, but certainly there's a lot of things that are cooking that hopefully can be served up soon.

Future Projects and Self-Reflection

Greg Staffa 35:00

And then finally, when you come on any show or any podcast, they'll see your name and then they say start in True Detective, start in Grey's Anatomy, start in the Morning Show. They go through the list of the paper tigers and that kind of sums up who you are. But when you get up in the morning and you go into the bathroom and splash a little water on your face and look in the mirror for the first time each morning, who is it that you see?

Alain Uy 35:30

I see my dad. I see my dad, I see my mom. That's who I see. I see, you know I'm a pretty simple guy. Yeah, I see the people around me, that you know. I see myself as a father, I see myself as a brother, I see myself as a son, a husband, like that's how I see myself. I don't see myself outside of the work that I do, and then I always constantly look at myself and going what is the purpose of today? What am I trying to accomplish today? Am I, you know? How do I ensure that everything that's around me, that I, that I, that I um admire and that I hold close to me? How can I keep that safe? Um, and so that's that's why I see, I see me, I see, I see everyone before me and everyone in front of me.

Greg Staffa 36:21

Well said Well. Thank you so much for coming on. I will check out Father Stew in the next few days. I promise you that. Come on, greg, you got to do it, it's sitting right there. Check out Ballard on Amazon and hopefully look forward to a short round on Disney Plus one of these days, maybe even Paper Tigers 2. But thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate you and the work that you do, and thank you.

Alain Uy 36:47

Thanks, craig, I really appreciate your time.