Meet Brian | Actor – Screen | Stage | Stunts | Seiyuu

We had the good fortune of connecting with Brian and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Brian, what are you inspired by?
I don’t know how to express this in a specific concise way, but I am a deeply passionate person about the things I love. And sometimes, there are no words. You just see something and it pulls at your heart strings, it gives you a high like nothing else. And all I can think is “Damn, I wanna do that.”

A lot of people talk about passion as a flame inside of you. That imagery is very strong for me because sometimes I meet the right people whom are just as passionate as I am, or I consume media that is the type of stuff I wanna be making. I love fight choreography and when I watch a sequence that is innovative and smooth it just hypes me up! And it’s like my flame is doused in kerosene. Which is why as a person, momentum is so important for me. If I do all the right things everyday, I show up to stunt training, I submit on actor’s access, I record my own take on a character’s voice, I surround myself with people who have similar goals and a similar drive to reach those goals, my fire just grows bigger and bigger. But the other side of this double-edged sword is that without momentum, I can start to feel unmotivated or sluggish and it really affects my work.

It truly is a privilege to be surrounded by so many things and people who inspire me.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I just graduated with a BFA in Acting from CalArts. And right out the gate, I’m trying to brand myself as a sort of Swiss-army-knife actor who specializes in four types of acting; film, theater, stunts, and VoiceOver. Or screen, stage, stunts, and seiyuu for the alliteration haha.

I love theater. That was my background, I’ve been doing it since I was 16, and now it’s my bread and butter. There’s no thrill quite like playing to a live audience. I will always remember my first professional theater production. It was Mike Bartlett’s office drama; BULL. I played one of the leads, and I remember feeling a little bit of imposter syndrome because everyone else had been working in the industry for a while, and I had just come out of high school. Well technically two years out of high school but I had just finished my mandatory military service. I worked my butt off the entire month between being casted and the start of rehearsals. I memorized not only my lines, but the entire script. I remember showing up on the first day of rehearsals, we tried to take it on its feet and I completely blanked. I felt awful, but everyone was super supportive and it was just so awesome to experience the process of theater-making as a professional for the first time. I received a lot of praise for my performance throughout the run of the show and it really validated me as an actor and an artist. But the compliment I will never forget came from my own mom, who after watching the show, told me that she wanted to get on stage and slap me. My character was the antagonist in the show haha. It meant a lot to me because every performance my mom had ever seen me in before this, she would always tell me that she could still see “me” and not the character. But this time my performance was real enough to make her wanna hit me.

I’ve never had much experience with film. And because of my theater background, my acting was always too big for the camera. I was always dissatisfied with my on-camera performances, and even a little insecure about them. But I kept trying, never said no to any opportunity. And I’m sure all that practice helped, but I think the improvement really came thanks to my partner, who is a film director. We don’t really work together because we make different genres of film. But every selftape that I had to do, she would ask to work on it with me. It would be like an exercise for both of us; she would get to work on getting better at giving direction, and I would start to understand what a film performance is looking for. I can never express how grateful I am for her and those exercises because I think I have improved a lot. The last couple of films I did I’m actually proud of my performance. Most recently, I starred in a small supporting role in my friend’s thesis film; One Minute in the Year. It just screened at REDCAT, as well as Bijou Fest. And it really fills me with so much joy as I hear how much people loved my performance. The writer and director told me how impressed and pleased he was at how I took this small character and gave it so much life beyond the words he wrote on the script. Some people have even come up to tell me that my character has a bit of a cult following haha. My character, Daniel, gets into a conflict with one of the protagonists of the film, and they’ve told me that the group of them are “staunch Daniel-defenders”. It really gratifies me that my work was able to move people like that.

Besides theatre and film, I’ve also always been interested in stunts. I did martial arts as a teenager, I even thought I wanted to be a professional fighter for a while. I was in the military for two years, became a bit of a geek about gear and tactics too. But as I’ve grown older, I came to realize that the idea of these things was what was cool to me, not the actual things themselves. While I can appreciate the technical skill and athleticism on display in combat sports, as an actor my brain is so important to my work, I can’t risk that. And war sucks, it’s one of the darkest parts of humanity. But these things were still cool to me conceptually. And through stunts I can participate in the parts of it I find cool. When I watch amazing stunt choreography, not only does it hype me up, but I think I get a little emotional about it too haha. I think it’s so beautiful, like a dance. And when the choreo is really tight and it aids the story- I geek out just thinking about it haha. I started my stunt training back home in Singapore summer 2024. And I kept up with my own training when I came back to LA. For my final year in college, we actually also had a stage combat module in our last semester which was super fun and laid a nice foundation for me. And ever since graduating I’ve been attending workshops around LA. I’ve attended two workshops hosted by Gui Da Silva which was really a “meet your hero” moment for me, I’ve been a fan of his since Captain America: Civil War came out in 2016. And now I get to train and learn from him everyday at TMPST. It really is crazy for me in a way that I cannot express, I am just beyond grateful that I met him and now am able to be in his orbit. I also attended an audition for the One Piece Stunt Show for Universal Studios Fan Fest earlier this year. Which unfortunately I did not book. But I am proud to say that I made it through all the rounds of callbacks, and finished as a finalist to play Zoro. The whole experience was amazing, getting to work and audition alongside phenomenal stunt performers, getting to try on the costume, getting to jump off the high dive on the actual Water World stunt show set at Universal Studios. As a huge One Piece fan and aspiring stunt performer, it really was such a cool opportunity for me and I can’t wait to audition again next year.

I have also always been a huge fan of anime and cartoons. Always did silly voices for my family back home, always wanted to try voice acting. Being privileged enough to come all the way to CalArts to study, I was blessed with a program that dove into dialects and accents, something I always played around with back home, but now get to have formal training for. I think I have gotten quite good at it. Attending CalArts was also a huge blessing in this regard because it is the premier animation school in the United States. If you ever walk through the halls of the school, you’ll see the walls plastered with posters asking for voice actors and other sorts of inter-school collaborative projects. I was fortunate enough to be cast in a few films over my time in school and have built up quite a nice resume for a beginner. I’ve even put together a really nice reel that I can submit. Most recently, I played a mad scientist in a student’s thesis animated film. We did a preliminary recording remotely in December last year, and did the full recording in the booth in March this year. The film is still a work in progress at the moment, but the director has shared with me some clips and it looks awesome. I can’t wait for the world to see the finished film.

I am so blessed to be where I am right now. I feel like I have a good groove and I’m improving everyday. I even have some exciting projects coming up that I can’t publicly talk about right now. It just feels like my career is progressing to its next stage and I am beyond grateful to be here. I’m gonna keep working and I can’t wait to show the world what I have to offer.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
California is amazing because it has such a wide range of geo-diversity. I’m a huge outdoors/camping guy, I’ve camped out at a number of spots here in California. These are my favorites:
1. Timber Top – This one is a simple hike. About 2.5hrs to the camp site which is near the summit. You get a great view of the ocean for a little bit of the hike. I was really lucky when I went cause when I woke up, the clouds were all around me. It was beautiful.
2. Sabrina Basin – This is substantially more challenging. It was about 6hrs to the campsite. There are a lot of pretty lakes to see and you can just stop at any one and set-up camp if you don’t want to go all the way to the last lake. This one is great because the more inland you go, the more it starts to look like you’re on a planet in Star Wars.

I’m a pretty well travelled person. So I can say with quite a lot of confidence that LA might be one of the best food cities in the world. At least top three. I mean when a city is made out of immigrants from all over the world and they bring their food with them, you get a literal melting pot of amazing food. These are some of my favorite places to chow down:
1. Auntie Qiu Kitchen 裘家生煎 – Favorite dish: Old Shanghai Fried Pork Chop Rice Cake
2. Roasted Duck by Pa Ord – Favorite dishes: Roasted Duck + Fried Pork Belly
3. KTown (there’s so much good food here, I can’t name just one. You can drop a random pin and it’ll probably be a bussin’ meal)
4. Tacos El Primo (Food Truck) – Favorite dish: $1.25 Tacos on Tuesdays! Carne Asada is my favorite but they’re all pretty good.
5. Ojai Ice Cream (Honorable mention because it’s not in LA. It’s about a two hour drive north and inland. This is my favorite ice cream spot in the world which is a big deal because ice cream is my favorite food. – Favorite flavors: Ojai Orange + Triple Chocolate Swirl

The world already has a shortage of third spaces, and it’s even more apparent in a city as spread out as LA. But there are still some places that I enjoy hanging out at once in a while. These are my favorite spots to kick back!
1. Little Tokyo – If you’re into anime and Japanese culture, this is a fun spot to hit up. Lots of great shops to check out and they have an event space that changes pretty frequently so there’s always something new to check out. Recently they’ve been doing a lot of fun collabs with popular IPs where they decorate the whole street and there are fun stamp rallies to collect if you shop at certain places. It makes for a good day out. I would say within the area the spots you have to hit are; Entertainment Hobby Shop Jungle, Book-Off, The One Piece Cafe, and Pasta e Pasta.
2. Torrance – This is also for the anime homies. Torrance as a whole area has more than Japanese culture things going on. But the big one for me is the Del Amo Fashion Center because it has the one and only Animate in North America! Animate is a big retailer for anime goods in Japan and this store brings in stuff directly from Japan. It also has a small event space that frequently cycles through collabs that are actually held in the stores in Japan. The mall is also connected to a huge Mitsuwa Marketplace, which is a Japanese supermarket that sells a lot of Japanese groceries and snacks. In that same building there’s also an awesome food court with a bunch of great food. And of course, besides the mall, the whole city is bustling with culture and other great eats so it’s great place to just spend the day exploring.
3. Round1 Burbank – I love arcades, but they are a dying breed. Round1 is actually also a franchise from Japan. They are a multi-entertainment facility that not only has a big arcade floor, but certain branches have other activities like bowling, bumper cars, axe throwing, go-karting, and many more! Going to the arcade back home is a special childhood memory for me. So coming here is always great way for me to relive that so far from home. They have lately also started bringing in some of the collab events that happen in Japan which is super fun I love that stuff. At this point, I think you can tell I am a bit of a weeb haha.
4. Morro Bay – This is another honorable mention on this list. I usually actually pass through Ojai on the way here. It’s an easy roadtrip I like to do, about four hours but you can split it up by making the stop at Ojai. Ojai is a small town with a lot of cute shops to check out and some great eats. I would recommend The Dutchess, they’ve got great brunch food. It’s like American brunch fusion with South East Asian foods. And of course Ojai Ice Cream. They’ve also got a honey shop where you can do honey tasting. Another really cool shop where you can do tasting is Ojai Olive Press. They’ve got a huge selection of olive oils, balsamic vinaigrettes, maple syrups, all on tap with disposable paper cups for you to try. My favorite is the smoked pecan wood maple syrup, I refill a bottle every time I go. There’s also a cute bookstore called Bart’s Books that is an outdoor concept, great to just check out and buy a book for the road. In Morro Bay itself there’s a cute inn I like to stay at called HarborWalk Inn. The shops on that street are all really fun. A lot of them do just sell shirts printed for tourists. But there are some fun shops like the taffy shop, and the cinnamon roll shop, there’s a jerky shop, and a fudge shop that I like too. The star attraction here though, are the sea otters and seals. Just walking by the bay, there is a designated sea otter nursing zone where you can see them sleeping wrapped in seaweed if you’re lucky. And if not, you can rent out kayaks and paddle out within the bay to get up close with the swimming otters and seals lazing on the docks. There’s a lot of seafood restaurants here and you really can’t go wrong with any of them. But if you asked me to recommend the stuff I have to get every time I’m there, it would be the mudpie from The Galley Seafood Grill & Bar, and the sexy coffee from Frankie and Lola’s Front Street Cafe.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I am so so lucky to be supported and pushed to excellence by so many people in my life. I’m gonna try and keep it short, but there’s so many of them so please bear with me. Here we go!

My parents; for inspiring my work ethic, my grit, my compassion. My siblings; for inspiring my individuality and making me feel supported. My partner; for filling my life with love and care, and for giving me extra support and motivation to chase my dreams. My friends; who are all off doing their own things killing it.

The TMPST open gym team for giving me a place to train and a community, and the instructors who are selflessly passing down their knowledge to the next generation of stunt performers.

Henry Golding, I appreciate his acting work, but I’m more so inspired that he’s getting cast in a lot of roles that I would love to play (Snake Eyes, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare). I feel like Hollywood has historically favored a specific “flavor” of asians in terms of optics. But here’s a guy who looks like me, doing what I want to do. And I’m inspired at the idea that these opportunities may be offered to me now that he has opened that door for people like us. And maybe one day I could also be opening doors for others.

Sam Sulek, who’s inspired me to be a freak and be obsessive over my passions. And last but not least, Monkey D. Luffy; who inspired me to leave home and travel 8,770 miles to pursue my dreams.

Website: https://briannai.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brian_nai/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@brianpromsuwannai

Other: Actor’s Access: https://resumes.actorsaccess.com/briannai
Casting Networks: https://app.castingnetworks.com/talent/public-profile/e58d0438-c7c8-11f0-afec-e55698909d12

Image Credits
Dongxu Yan Ian
Yunrui Li Nicola
Dewa Ayu Dewi Larassanti
Andre Chong