Jonathan Kos-Read frequently appears on TV and cinema screens across China. The frantic photographer and doting father could be a script writer or a DJ, but he has chosen to be a full-time actor.
The 39-year-old Los Angeles native has been living in China for 15 years since he came here seeking a romantic adventure after learning Chinese language and history while studying acting at New York University.
"Usually when you learn history, you learn the history of your own country first, and then you sort of spread out to the countries around your country," he says, adding that he thought, "But why don't I do it the opposite, why don't I, on a lark, start with China, and then go in reverse."
In his Chinese class at NYU, his longing to come to China was what prompted his teacher to give him a passing grade, leading the adventurous young American to embark on his journey to the Middle Kingdom.
In his first two years in Beijing, life was not easy. He tried his hand at many jobs before finally landing in the job held by so many other foreigners here: teaching English.
"It was so boring that I would fall asleep when I was the teacher. Students had to hit me in the shoulder. It was just boring and boring," Kos-Read complains.
One day, while on a walk with his Chinese girlfriend, he spotted an ad for a white actor for a movie. After talking with the director for two hours, he was given the part.
In his first Chinese movie, "A Dream of Youth," Kos-Read played a documentary filmmaker. Imbued with a sense of confidence after his first movie role, he started getting more roles and now he's a fixture on Chinese screens -- the go-to guy for roles that require a white face coupled with flawless Chinese.
"The part I played a lot was this rich, white business guy who comes to China and falls in love with a Chinese girl, and then persuades her for 15 or 20 episodes. She is torn, but at the end she makes the right choice and sticks with her Chinese boyfriend," he says.
As the number of foreigners in China has increased, scriptwriters have started to write more nuanced foreign characters defined by fewer stereotypes.
"It is a good change. It is a trend that should continue here and should continue at Hollywood," he says.
Although he has won some fame, as well as his own talk show in Beijing, there was a time when he panicked about losing his acting career.
"One day I got so drunk at a friend's wedding, and I could not even stand up, and it was during that time I got a phone call and was asked to audition for a caveman role," he says.
Unwilling to let his state of inebriation stand in the way of a role, the drunk but bold American took a cab to the audition and before seeing the director, he took off all his clothes and got his hands dirty on the ground and rubbed his face with the dirt. That tactic paid off and he got the role.
"I like to know what part I would be playing and try to look like the role, that really matters," he explains.
His appearances and roles in TV shows and movies already seem countless. In his latest TV show he played Joe Stilwell, a 60-year-old American general who led multinational forces during World War II, in a role that proved to be a challenge for him.
"I have to endure three hours of make up every day for five months and besides, the lines are really hard. There are sometimes two-page-long lines of military jargon for me to say," he explains.
Kos-Read says he doesn't plan to leave China.
"There are guys who speak better Chinese than I do, and there are lots of guys who are better-looking than me, guys who are better actors than me. What's really hard to have is this whole package," he says. "I fill a niche here."
Kos-Read doesn't feel much different from locals now that he's lived and worked here for over 15 years. He haggles with people selling things at local markets, jokes with taxi drivers and captures the beauty of Beijing's Temple of Heaven with his camera. The young American is happy with his life in China and, more importantly, he has a family here.
He married his Chinese wife Li in 2001, and they now have two daughters, one of whom is just a few months old.
"Being someone who makes a pretty Ok living and doing something I always wanted to do, I feel very lucky. Besides, I am doing it here, in China, in this place growing, thriving and changing, so everyday life is interesting," he says.
Xinhua
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