How a teenager with no acting experience landed his debut role as a young murderer in Papa
The 18-year-old Hong Kong actor has won over audiences playing a quiet high schooler – who kills his family
Dylan So looks like a typical student, which placed him well for his role as Ming in Papa: an otherwise quiet high-schooler, but one who hears voices telling him climate change and environmental hazards are caused by overpopulation, and people have to die to make the world better, leading him to murder his mother and sister.
Despite having zero acting experience before Papa, So’s subtle yet fearless performance is already being tipped for a Hong Kong Film Awards nomination.
“The daughter of my mother’s friend had been working with director Philip Yung for a while,” says So, 18. “One evening when we were having dinner together, she asked if I would be interested in auditioning for Papa. I took the chance and got the role. I was a Form Five student back then. I did not intentionally imitate how a mentally ill patient or murderer might look or act, I just played the role of a son. I was going through puberty, like the character, and I applied my attitude towards my parents in real life to the role, as I believe the character was hearing voices in his head, which were not meant to be expressed explicitly.”
So’s interactions with Lau in the film are so convincing they feel like exchanges between a real father and son. When asked if his attitude towards his own father changed after the film, So replies that while he thinks it is important to talk and communicate, when “my father saw the film, I did not ask him whether he liked it. We just looked at each other without saying anything”.
Currently majoring in English at the Education University of Hong Kong, So hopes to find a job that allows him to “learn and broaden my horizons through meeting different people”.
“I may work as a teacher or social worker after graduation. I will consider acting, too,” he says. “Acting is interesting since I can experience other people’s lives through the characters. I just want to explore, and I won’t set a limit to what kind of characters I play.”
