Expats

The rise of an amateur

By Lara Farrar (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-02-11 07:57

US actor Jon Zatkin tells about his journey into Chinese movies and the importance of 'fitting a niche'

For an actor who is American, Jon Zatkin's resume is an odd one.

One side of the document has the requisite head shots required to get roles. The other contains a litany of films and television shows Zatkin has performed in - all standard for the industry except that his are entirely in Chinese.

He might be from the US, but he has never acted there. His Hollywood dreams of stardom have materialized in China.

"I love it. I feel totally blessed that I had the opportunity to do it. I never would have even dared to dream about acting in the States," Zatkin, 64, said. "Many are called but few are chosen (in Hollywood). Here I have a niche."

Ironically his niche in China is that he is not Chinese. He is one of the relative few foreign actors in the nation's entertainment industry, so when a production company needs someone to fill the role of an aging white guy with graying hair Zatkin usually gets the call.

"For the most part, I play a lot of business people," he said. "I also play a lot of professors and that can be interesting."

Zatkin actually was a professor in real life for a while. After moving to China permanently in 1987, he worked for a computer company and later as the headmaster of an international school in Beijing before taking up acting fulltime in 2005.

The story of how Zatkin journeyed to China from his home in San Francisco begins with Zatkin's late stepfather Julian Schuman.

Schuman, who learned Chinese as a member of the American military during WWII, moved to Shanghai in 1947. There he began working as a journalist and correspondent for ABC radio and the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper. He became co-editor of the China Weekly Review, an English-language magazine later.

Schuman returned to the US in 1954. Nine years later in 1963, he came back to China with Zatkin's mother, whom he had married in 1959, and began working for the Foreign Language Press in Beijing.

Author of Assignment China, a book on changes in Shanghai between 1947 and 1954, Schuman stayed in Beijing until his death in 1995.

Zatkin, who made his first trip to China in 1975, said Schuman cultivated his fascination with the country.

"He ignited my interest in China," said Zatkin, who moved to San Francisco when Schuman married his mother in 1959.

"I created an environment in San Francisco to support learning Chinese with Chinese friends there."

Zatkin's life as a foreign actor in Beijing is not particularly glamorous. The money is decent, but not great. And work sometimes goes more than it comes. Zatkin said he earns around 4,000 yuan ($588) per day of filming or 12,000 yuan per episode. Top foreign stars can gross up to 100,000 yuan per production, he said.

"This year [2009] has been really bad for me," Zatkin said. "There have not been that many parts for foreigners."

Unlike Hollywood actors and actresses, Zatkin does not have an agent to help him find roles. "There is no agent here that really promotes you," he said. "Agents in Hollywood push you, they are getting scripts all of the time. Here it is nothing like that."

Instead he mostly finds work via producers and agents who contact him. "They all know me. I have been doing this here for 12 or 13 years," he said.

One of the first acting gigs Zatkin landed in China was in 1997 with a part in Restless, an American-Chinese romantic comedy set in Beijing.

Michael McDermott, co-producer of the film, asked Zatkin to play Uncle Sam in the movie after seeing him dressed up as the character in an Independence Day parade at the US Embassy.

More roles soon followed. Zatkin worked with famous Chinese director Ying Da in his series Chinese Restaurant and Detective Hunter.

Some parts have bordered on the slightly bizarre: In the TV series Chinese Peacekeeping Police, Zatkin is a New York City law enforcement officer working as a local police captain in East Timor.

In Heroes Struggle on the High Seas, he is William Pandagou, captain of a Dutch East India Company trading ship. The various series mostly air on CCTV.

"I have had very few parts that I did not like," Zatkin said.

"You don't have the same level of professionalism (as in Hollywood), but one of the things that gives me the greatest joy is being with the crew. The more time I get to spend with the crew, the happier I am."

Zatkin was never formally trained in acting. Instead he learned techniques from productions he was in back in the States and Israel, where he lived for a while.

"I am an instinctive actor," he said. "I just draw on life experiences and try to be the character based on having experienced similar things."

Right now, Zatkin is in Fujian province for the filming of Empire of the Deep, an adventure movie about a band of Greek sailors who discover a secret underwater kingdom of mermaids.

The sailors fight off evil forces that threaten both the mermaid and human civilizations. The $50 million film is one of the first Chinese productions based on an entirely Western story. Zatkin plays Damos, father of Atlas, the hero of the movie.

"I am just playing it a day at a time," Zatkin said. "And enjoying it while I can."