For her very first acting gig, Lauren Tsai landed in the third and final season of Legion – a rather befuddling television series with a fan base that is obsessive to the point of being unforgiving. She had never watched the show until she was preparing to audition for it, and has never taken a single acting lesson besides watching “how to act” videos on YouTube. Those circumstances might have overwhelmed most newbie actresses. But for this model, artist and reality-show star, being self-taught is something she is accustomed to.
Best-known for her role in the Japanese Netflix reality show Terrace House: Aloha State, Tsai is the newest recruit in an established cast that includes Dan Stevens of Downton Abbey fame and the ever-exceptional Jean Smart. She plays Switch, a time-travelling mutant joining an existing band of mutants who specifically aligns herself with Stevens’ David Haller.
Filming was not nearly as jarring as she might have feared, she tells the Post during a recent interview at a hotel in Pasadena.
“There was not a cell in my body that ever doubted I would take this part,” says the 21-year-old. “Everyone has been extremely welcoming. The actors, producers, camera people, lighting – there was never a moment where I felt like I would become lost. Whenever I expressed uncertainty, people ran to my aid.”
It has been a fairly seamless transition for the new actress, who says her life has seen its fair share of serendipity. Born in Massachusetts – her father’s family is from Beijing, her mother is American-European – Tsai was a shy and introverted child, and acted in school plays as a way to shore up her confidence.
“I loved acting when I was a kid,” she says. “That’s when I felt at my most confident. Raising my hand in class gave me a heart attack. Acting was a way for me to be able to become a different character and enter a different world.”
She moved with her family to Hawaii when she was seven and then to Tokyo at 18 to model and “for art and adventure”. Art, specifically, has always been a big part of her life; growing up, she would spend hours sketching fantastical creatures.
“When I graduated from high school, I knew I wanted to do art,” she says. “I applied to art schools because that was the obvious thing I was supposed to do. But something didn’t feel right. I had modelled in Japan over the summers so decided I would move to Japan instead of going to college right away. I promised myself I would do everything I could never do at college.”
While on the modelling circuit in Tokyo, Tsai saw a Facebook post about auditions for the Terrace House series, and was eventually picked as one of six members for the season that was set in Hawaii.
I realised [filming Terrace House] that no matter what you do, whether you’re fake or real, people will dislike you and people will love you, so you have to put yourself out there for the world to see – Lauren Tsai
The show is markedly different from the typical American reality series. Everyone is calm and respectful, pleasantly sharing a gorgeous home, going about their lives in a blissfully drama-free way.
She spent about six months shooting the series. “Everything was being recorded, but I had to overcome worrying about what people were going to think of me. I realised that no matter what you do, whether you’re fake or real, people will dislike you and people will love you, so you have to put yourself out there for the world to see,” she says.
“Because how else will the right opportunities find you? I’m grateful that I took that risk. Usually the things that scare me at first are the things that satisfy me after.”
After the series, Tsai was back in Tokyo when she heard about the Legion opportunity. She happened to be sitting at the office of her modelling agency when the casting call went out, and ducked into the conference room to run her lines. Noah Hawley, creator of Legion, liked her initial audition so much that he asked her for a second and gave her the part, moving her to Los Angeles.
Tsai says she still draws and sketches every day. Earlier this year, she designed some Marvel comic covers and did an accessory collaboration with Marc Jacobs.
“Art is always something I come back to,” she says. “For me, it’s a way of understanding something that’s happened. Whenever I draw, I listen to music and I’m thinking about something that someone or I said. It’s a way of understanding my feelings. I like to visually say the things I couldn’t get out in words.”
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