Katie Luong In Search of a Midnight Kiss

In Search of a Midnight Kiss is directed by award winning filmmaker, Alex Holdridge whose last film, Sexless, is the only movie to have won the Jury and Audience Award for best feature film at the SXSW film festival (2003).

Asiance caught up with the cast at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival where tickets for this film were sold out!
We were able to speak with Vietnamese American Katie Loung and are still trying to figure out, why director Alex Holdridge’s one word description for Katie is “Crazy”… Crazy Katie!!

ASIANCE: Can you tell me about your past and your decision to pursue acting?

Katie: I actually stopped pursuing acting a year ago; it was never really full time I just kind of did it randomly, whenever I got a call from my agent and manager. I started like over ten years ago. It was not full time, just whenever available.

ASIANCE: In Search of a Midnight Kiss opened at the Tribeca Film Festival. What was the experience like?

Katie: It’s an awesome thing to be a part of and I think it went well.

Check out the Midnight Kiss trailer

ASIANCE: In the movie you play someone who kisses her boyfriend’s best friend the night she is proposed to. What is it like to play this somewhat “devious” character?

Katie: Ha ha. Well, I don’t think it was devious. There was a lot of humanity in it. You know, the character, she wasn’t happy with him, so when you’re not happy you don’t realize you’re doing anything that affects that. If you were really happy with someone you wouldn’t go looking elsewhere. Not realizing she was doing that, she went and looked elsewhere. So I think it’s very human to make a lot of mistakes.

ASIANCE: Have you ever been in that situation in real life?

Katie: I think. Close. I was dating someone and I got to that point where I realized I wasn’t happy with that person. I only started realizing I wasn’t because I started noticing other people like, “I would like to get to know this person or that person” and I realized the only reason for this was that I wasn’t happy with the person I was with.

ASIANCE: Your costar mentioned he played his character based off his real attraction to you-

Katie: Haha, that’s sweet!

ASIANCE: How does this make you feel about the role of beauty, and it being such a powerful tool in this industry?

Katie: Yes it is, overall it’s a powerful tool in life. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Someone might find someone beautiful and someone else might not find that person beautiful. But attraction works where if you find someone attractive or someone who is attractive to watch, yes, it is important for a lot of people. But again, it’s in the eye of the beholder. I love certain actresses and my friends are like, “oh my god she’s ugly!” So there we go.

Katie Luong

ASIANCE: Do you feel that Asian women in Hollywood are put in a particular role?

Katie: I think that happened a lot before but it’s really stepping away from that now. There are a lot of Asian actors playing parts that are not for Asians at all. I don’t think so anymore, I think they’re really stepping aside from that.

ASIANCE: Why do you think it took so long for Asian women to be featured in films in America?

Katie: I think with every culture, living in America, say Spanish, African Americans, every culture has taken time to get opened up and I think maybe because… well, America went through a lot of wars and they weren’t able to kind of, create an entertainment industry out of that country for a long time. Now it’s just starting. There hasn’t been a war for a long time, like a lot of people are coming to Vietnam to open companies. The industry is rising more and more. Maybe because with the Asian culture there were a lot of wars that went on that kind of repressed things down. I don’t know, it’s just my opinion.

ASIANCE: What is your acting method? Who do you admire as actresses?

Katie: I’ve not taken acting classes. I kind of base it or parallel things on certain experiences I had in life, see how I felt for certain situations. I love Cate Blanchett and Naomi Watts. I love Gong Li. Yeah.

ASIANCE: What are some of some of your favorite things you’ve been doing this year?

Katie: My favorite thing is my camera; I also take photography and I got this digital Nikon. I love taking pictures. What else do I love? I cook also, my dad got me a set of Teflon pans, really high end and I love cooking with them I’m happy about that. Yeah, those are some things I’m happy about!

ASIANCE: Do you think it’s a good thing to bring the community of Asian women across the country?

Katie: Yeah, it’s good thing to show we’re all alike deep down inside. Even with different color skin, it’s good to show we’re all the same. Does that make sense?

ASIANCE: Anything else you’ve been up to? What are your future projects?

Katie: Well like I said, I kind of stopped acting a year ago so if there’s anything for me, it would be a surprise. Right now I’m working on my photography and that’s it!

ASIANCE: Do you have a boyfriend?

Katie: No. (giggle)

ASIANCE: So what is the single life like in L.A.? What are some of the good aspects?

Katie: Single in L.A. is, well, because people are all here for a dream so it’s very hard to form a relationship with anybody because everyone is focusing on working on a dream of theirs. It’s very unpredictable. It’s an unpredictable thing and it can be difficult, but it’s good to meet some great amazing artists to learn and be inspire by…having a lot of great friends. But it does get lonely because, of course, everyone wants someone they can come home to and think about or call and talk to. I think it has its good and bad thing, meeting people and being inspired. But the bad things are you get really lonely.

ASIANCE: Thank you so much you have been wonderful!

Katie: Thank you!

InsearchofaMidnightkiss.com

Photos and cover shot by Luke Duval LukeDuval.com