Profile | Mei Mac, British-Chinese actress, on her advocacy for fellow East and Southeast Asians in UK and her role in comedy that tackles Asian stereotypes: ‘It put a fire in my belly’
- Actress Mei Mac talks about the ‘Mama Mei’ nickname she earned for standing up for fellow Britons of Asian heritage, and why representation matters
- She recalls the time she met Hayao Miyazaki, and her pride at being nominated for an Olivier Award for her role in a stage version of his My Neighbour Totoro
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With a blossoming stage and screen career that’s already seen her appear in two acclaimed adaptations of Studio Ghibli animated films, actress Mei Mac has earned herself a nickname.
“People have started calling me ‘Mama Mei’,” she says when we speak over Zoom. “I had no idea what to do with it at the beginning … [but] I’m learning to embrace it.”
She puts it down to her “protective maternal instinct”, supporting other people of British East Asian and Southeast Asian heritage. “I do see it as a serious honour that people perceive me in this way, that I am some kind of a mama in the community!” she adds.
Born into a Hong Kong Chinese immigrant family in Birmingham, in central England, in 1992, Mac is fiercely passionate when it comes to representation.
Just take her latest role, the lead in Kimber Lee’s untitled f*** m*ss s**gon play, which transfers to London’s Young Vic in September after a run in Manchester.
“[When] I first read it … it put a fire in my belly,” says Mac of the wild, era-spanning comedy which, as its provocative title suggests, confronts Asian stereotypes head on.
Playing Kim, Mac’s character is transported through time, visiting moments in history “where we have somehow normalised the mistreatment of East Asian women”.
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Mac calls it a reckoning. Cultural touchstones like the musical South Pacific and Robert Altman’s Korean war comedy M*A*S*H are encountered, as well as Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil’s theatrical spectacle Miss Saigon, which was inspired by Puccini’s 1904 opera Madama Butterfly.
“The women are often portrayed as very meek and very mild, and most importantly, their storylines are often without agency,” says Mac.
“And so these characters very rarely get to decide what they want to do. Especially Madame Butterfly, Miss Saigon … the women kill themselves after falling in love with a white man.
“I suppose the question that we have been asking is why are people enjoying telling this story, watching ‘poor peasant East Asian woman’ kill herself and have such little agency over her own life?
“It’s quite harrowing to keep experiencing this storyline.”
“At the time, there was a bit of tension, because obviously, as a Chinese actor … I think people found it difficult in Japan to see a Chinese actor play that beloved role. And I do understand the reasons for that.
I was the first East Asian actor to be nominated in the best actress category. To be the first … it’s a huge celebration and feels like a victory
“Miyazaki-san obviously had heard this. And he had said to me, ‘I’ve never imagined San as a real life person. But if she did exist, it would be you’.”
The play opened in 2022 at London’s Barbican and has become a sensation, with Mac nominated for a prestigious Olivier Award. As grateful as she was, it left her with mixed emotions.
“I was the first East Asian actor to be nominated in the best actress category. To be the first … it’s a huge celebration and feels like a victory. But I also felt incredibly sad that it’s taken until 2023, for me to be the first one.”
Now 12 years into her acting career, it could have all been so different for Mac. She came close to studying medicine, but her extracurricular drama activities at school led her to switch paths.
“I took a year out and I worked my butt off, worked five different jobs,” she says. “I knew whatever I needed to do afterwards, that it would be obviously much riskier than a career in medicine.”
Inspired to pursue acting by artistic director Kumiko Mendl of the New Earth Theatre, a performing arts group based in London, she started working in repertory theatre. “I had a very, very traditional career, I suppose. I really worked my way up,” she says.
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As for her relationship to Hong Kong, Mac’s parents – her mother was born in Indonesia, her father is from South China – met there before moving to the UK.
“I’ve spent a lot of my life in Hong Kong and South China – places that I love dearly,” she says.
Mac speaks Cantonese, and admits she’d love to work in the region, but her ambitions extend beyond that. She’s already made tentative steps towards screen work, featuring in the perennial BBC drama Call The Midwife, and naturally she’s hungry for more.
“I have an interest in representing the British East Asian experience much more authentically, and in a light that is powerful, empowering, and empathetic.”
During coronavirus pandemic lockdown, she co-founded Rising Waves, a mentorship scheme for British East and Southeast Asian artists (its patron is Benedict Wong, the actor known for his appearances in the Marvel Cinematic Universe). It’s all part of her community work – and no doubt why she’s earned her nickname.
So does she feel she’s in the vanguard when it comes to pushing for representation?
“I suppose you could say that I’m at the front of that wave of change, but I stand on the shoulders of giants who have done work before me. I have said this time and time again … it is my aim, and I think I’ve been achieving it: to make my shoulders broad enough for people to stand on.”
untitled f*** m*ss s**gon play opens at London’s Young Vic on September 18.
