The oriental charm of Tamlyn
By Isabelle Caron, Télé 7 Jours, 1998	Home   Cette page en Français

At 16, she played Ming Li in Santa Barbara, and, the following year, she was hired for The Karaté Kid, Part II. Since, Tamlyn Tomita affirms being protected by good fairies. "If not how to explain my chance ?" Noticed by a casting director in Los Angeles where she lived (she was born in Okinawa, Japan, in 1968), Tamlyn started by refusing a job which she considered as transitory. She wanted to be a journalist. "My objective was to change, by my articles, the opinion of people about Asian women." Then she yielded, counting on her celebrity to transmit her message of equality. But in the films she plays the one after the other (Come See the Paradise, by Alan Parker, Hiroshima : Out of the Ashes, To Heal a Nation...), the actress is chosen for the color of her skin. At the theatre, she especially plays Molière. "It was my way of proving that I could play other roles that those of Japanese women." Then she records an album, Sweet Surprise, come out in 1991 at Polydor.

Nicknamed "Fearless" ("That suits me very well because I am really without fear"), Tamlyn finally finds a role at her measure in the show The Burning Zone. "I am Kimberly Shiroma, a medical legist. I enormously like this kind of strong woman. I am attached to this character as never yet with my other roles." This year, she however returned to cinema, ensuring in Cannes, France, the promotion of Evan Crooke's movie, The Killing Jar.

Tamlyn is also starring in Hundred Percent, by Eric Koyanagi, which will come out in September. Then, it will be another album, or another TV show... "It is necessary to know to take risks. To fly away further, higher, to seek splendid roles." Her private life is less happy. "I only think of love and I did not find my charming prince yet." But what are doing the fairies ?