We’re back to our regularly scheduled programming (weekly episodes of Actors With Issues) starting off with the delightful Yvonne Chapman. Yvonne has been working seemingly non-stop on a number of projects over the past few years from Canadian legal drama Family Law and three seasons of The CW’s Kung Fu to the massive global hit Avatar: The Last Airbender as Avatar Kyoshi and and returning to a villainous role as Amanda McCoy in the final season of Superman & Lois, set to premiere later this year.
Actors usually fall into one of two categories as kids. They either had off-the-wall energy and the arts were a way to channel all of that energy, or they were very shy and the arts helped them with their self-expression and breaking away from shyness. Yvonne admitted she was the latter. “I was a really shy kid so ‘performing’ meant by myself in my bedroom,” she laughed. “I didn’t think it was a viable option for me. I thought I was gonna be a lawyer, I went to Bio-Med for two years before moving over to Finance, and now I’m an actor. I basically tried everything before settling on acting.”
“It wasn’t until I was fully working in finance that I decided for myself to take an acting course because I’d always been interested in it, and that’s when the bug bit me. It was after that course that really solidified for me that I needed to give this a shot, so I packed up my car with less than a quarter of the things that I owned and moved to Vancouver to give it a try.”
In early 2020, Yvonne landed an audition for The CW’s reboot of the 1972 series Kung Fu that would feature an all-Asian cast and the role was for a recurring guest star set to be the villain of the first season, the cunning, and incredibly well-styled Zhilan.
“[After being cast] I was sort of thrown into it because production was starting very soon after I auditioned,” she recalled. “When it came time to season 2, I thought I was done. The way I interpreted it was that she was going to be the big bad for season 1 and then they’d move on, so I was pretty surprised that they asked me to come back, and as a series regular. That’s the dream as an actor, to have steady work and couple that with a wonderful cast and crew.”
Yvonne was previously featured on two episodes of my other podcast Multicultural TV Talk, once with her Kung Fu co-star Shannon Dang, and then reunited with the rest of the female cast of the show during Women’s History Month. It was around that time, nearly two years ago, that the announcement was made of her casting in Avatar: The Last Airbender as Avatar Kyoshi.
In the lead-up to the show’s release, she admitted that despite being a fan of the animated series, she and the rest of the cast were incredibly nervous for audiences to see the show. “The amount of passion that they had because they were such fans of the cartoon, everyone just wanted to do it right. The time that it takes for post-production, which they did a killer job on, takes a lot of time. So I didn’t see anything until the premiere in February.”
When it came time for our “Ask Yvonne” segment, fans submitted questions about Yvonne’s future in the Avatar: The Last Airbender series, as both she and fans hope a Kyoshi prequel/spin-off could be in the stars thanks to the novels by Y.C. Yee. “Nothing has been said to me, but if that were to happen, as a fan, I would absolutely love to see that. I love the novels so much and I love her. We’ll see!”
For the million-dollar question from actors, “How do I get an agent/manager?!” Yvonne had some great, actionable advice that anyone who is looking for representation can implement quickly. “I did research on the agencies I really liked in Canada and asked around to everybody, ‘Who do you like? Who do you recommend?’” she said.
“Do the [free] trial period for IMDbPro and look at the agents under those agencies you like and take a look at their rosters, see if there’s anyone there who is within your ‘type’. Usually, agents aren’t going to sign multiple people within the same type because they don’t want to have their clients compete [with each other]. See which agents don’t have anyone who is like you and submit.”
Scroll on up to watch our full conversation with Yvonne, or tune in on your favorite podcast platform!