SINGAPOREAN

Chin Han, who’s now based in Los Angeles, is quick to point out that his role in 2012 is not one of those token roles usually dished out to Asian artistes. He said he has a pivotal role in it playing a Tibetan character called Tenzing.

"Even my role in The Dark Knight was quite a strong one," he said, adding that he turns down offers to do roles which he feels are mere window dressing. "I tend to look for characters that are usually played by Caucasian or African American actors. In 2012, for instance, Tenzing is as important as all the other characters. It is an honour to be considered an equal when working on a movie set like that. It is gratifying to be treated as a peer."

He said he read the script for 2012 just before the premiere of The Dark Knight last year. The plot – which spins around a global cataclysm that brings the world to an end – caught his eye.

"As an actor, I’m always looking for different kinds of projects to work on. This movie (2012) gave me the opportunity to do action on a scale that I’ve never done before," he said in a tele-conference interview when he was in Singapore recently. He said the fact that it was directed by the ‘king’ of disaster movies, Roland Emmerich, also enticed him to be part of the project.

His co-stars include an ensemble of talented Hollywood actors like John Cusack, Danny Glover, Tandie Newton, Woody Harrelson and Chiwetel Ejiofor. The movie will open in cinemas nationwide on Nov 12.

Chin’s character in 2012 finds out about a secret that the government is keeping from the rest of the world. And he has to make a difficult decision that will determine the fate of a group of survivors.

"In a nutshell, this is what my character is all about," he said, adding that he had to learn Tibetan to make his character more believable on screen. "It is not like learning French or Japanese which people normally learn in school. Tibetan was very new and foreign to me. The producers gave me CDs and put me on conference calls with Tibetan instructors. When I got on the set, we had a Tibetan translator who made sure I pronounced all the words the right way."

Learning to speak Tibetan wasn’t the only challenge; he also had to do quite a few stunts himself. "I had a lot of stuff to do like running and climbing. It was very intense." To prepare for his role, he worked out in the gymnasium five days a week.

Asked if he felt overwhelmed working alongside big Hollywood stars in The Dark Knight and 2012, Chin said he felt a lot of excitement intially but "it quickly changed to terror when I realised I’d a lot of work to do with these ‘giants’ of Hollywood. To be treated on par with them on the sets, I had to pull my weight."

Being a movie fan, Chin, who made his Hollywood debut in the movie Blindness which also starred Vivian Wu and Joe Lando, said he grew up watching Hollywood movies and that he was also a fan of Cusack.

"I was quite nervous working with him. He was every bit as quirky and private as I expected him to be. I didn’t get to work directly with Harrelson but when we met on the sets, I found him amazingly talented, funny and crazy! Both Cusack and Harrelson left a deep impression on me."

So, has 2012 all the makings of a box-office hit? "Well, what do you expect from a master storyteller like Ronald Emmerich who made brilliant films such as Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow? This movie easily tops his other movies and it’s easily 10 times the destruction you get in The Day After Tomorrow," revealed Chin.

He said one particular scene which depicts the destruction of Los Angeles blew him away.

"I live in LA and I can recognise all the landmarks that were destroyed in the movie. It is a scary experience since I know the place intimately."

He said 2012 also deals with issues such as family, love and choices one has to make in life, which is quite unlike CGI films where the characterisation gets lost in the storytelling process. "I think people will connect with this film."

Chin’s showbiz career took off 20 years ago when he landed the lead role in Singapore’s first English language television drama series Masters of the Sea.

He has dabbled in theatre and has also tried his hand at directing and producing.

Some of Chin’s notable achievements include helming the direction of the Asian premiere of plays like David Hare’s The Blue Room and also co-producing the official musical adaptation of Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet.

Well, looks like Chin has finally arrived in Hollywood ...

The thriller 2012 opens in cinemas nationwide on Nov 12.