He said the production was set in “the perfect pocket of time” during the pandemic when coronavirus cases were still low in Bangkok.

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“I went from Los Angeles, where I was more apprehensive about going out and seeing people, to being enveloped in this cool new city where everything was more open,” he recalls.

“We filmed everything on location, all the car chases, being in beautiful temples. It was breathtaking for an actor to experience and perform in that environment.”

Now Kao, the son of immigrants from Taipei in Taiwan, is poised to embark on something entirely different – in July, he will start production on a movie that he’s spent the past five years writing.

Titled Mana, the story is about a father and son recognising and letting go of the trauma they feel over the mother leaving the family.

“They don’t realise they have to face it until the son’s ex-girlfriend comes back into his life. She acts as a catalyst so they can let go and move on. It’s also a dance movie. It’s also very funny,” Kao explains.

The script, says Kao, was based partly on his own experiences; his father left his own family a while ago. “I thought it would be interesting if I switched the mum and dad roles, and had my character experience the mum leaving and having the father close.

“I had to find myself in that experience, and put that into the movie.”

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Segueing into something new and uncharted has been Kao’s modus operandi for much of his life.

An only child, he was born in West Covina, outside Los Angeles in California, and he grew up in another suburb, Hacienda Heights. Kao says his parents were musically inclined and, as a consequence, “they threw a bunch of things at me – piano, violin, saxophone. As I grew older, I developed more of an appreciation for it.”

He joined improvisation and theatre groups at school and landed the role of Lysander in a school production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. That role galvanised an enduring love for performing.

Dance, he says, became a thing “out of nowhere”. While a drama major at the University of California, Irvine, he would see dance teams practising on campus and his interest was sparked.

“There were so many clubs, and so many opportunities to join different teams,” he says.

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Kaba Modern even came third in competitive reality show America’s Best Dance Crew, which thrust Kao and his teammates into the limelight, and allowed them to perform around the world.

Acting remained his first love, however, and he soon began auditioning for roles in earnest. In 2010, he landed his first part – a tiny appearance on the US detective comedy Franklin & Bash.

“It was just two lines, but getting the call from my manager telling me I’d booked the show … I remember how happy I was to have the opportunity to do something on television.”

He then landed a role on The Walking Dead, where he says all he did was “was walk around and then die”.

“It wasn’t much, but it was fun to be on such a big set where everything looked so crazy,” the actor says. “It made me feel like I’m actually doing something that will maybe turn into something else. I kept navigating my career knowing that something will come up next.”

The mercurial nature of the industry being what it is, Kao says it took him a while to stop worrying about the next thing, and the thing after that.

“When I look back on it now, it was unnecessary energy I was holding within me,” he says. “Now, I have more of a release from that. There is more of a trusting in the universe to let things unfold and not try to control everything so much.

“That energy of trying to control something is never good for me spiritually or mentally. I’m in a much better place now.”