Actor, Simon Yam Tat-Wah
With his striking looks and impressive track record, Simon Yam is the actor and model topping every casting agent’s wish lists.
Beginning his career in police dramas in the late 70s, he went on to work with John Woo (“Bullet in the Head”) and Yuen Wo Ping (“Tiger Cage”). In the 90s, he became a veteran figure in the industry, working with Johnny To and mainstream Hollywood players (“Lara Croft: Tomb Raider”), while supporting low-budget international independent productions. Today he’s a family man. He talks to Yvonne Young.
I was poor as a child. My dad, a former police chief, passed away when I was eleven. I learned to become independent at a very early age.
I started as a model only because it was paying in hard cash. I could survive on my own with that. Now I still model, also only because of the hard cash.
As a kid, we lived in police quarters. Once at a sunset at 7pm, I saw three guys wearing perfectly neat uniforms. It was the perfect shot for a film. I could hear them walking in sync – the whole picture is so sacred. At that moment, I told myself I would be a policeman.
But later I realized I love acting even more. But in most of my years in show business, I did a lot of parts as policeman. I think I just had the genes to do it well.
I can’t act in comedies. And I think comedy is not an art that lasts forever. It can’t stay for a hundred years. I don’t think anyone will talk about “Kung Fu Hustle” in five years. But people will remember “PTU” in the next five years, and people will still talk about “Election” in ten years. 50 years later, I’ll be dead anyway, so I don’t care.