By Mike McCarthy
Whether you know it or not, you have seen actor Byron Mann in at least one movie or television show that you enjoy. Byron Mann has been in Hollywood since the early 90’s with his first big movie being Street Fighter, starring alongside Jean Claude Van Damme, Raul Julia and Ming-Na Wen. Since then, Byron has been in countless films and even more television shows, both in the U.S. as well as abroad.
Byron has been in hit shows such as The CW’s Arrow, CSI: Cyber, Dark Angel and countless others. Right now you can see Byron on AMC’s Hell on Wheels which is in it’s fifth and final season as Chang, the lead antagonist to Anson Mount’s Cullen Bohannan. He is also working on a film in Hong Kong as we speak.
On December 23rd, Byron will be starring alongside Brad Pitt, Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling and Steve Carell in The Big Short. The Big Short has already been nominated for four Golden Globe Awards this award season, and I have a feeling there will be several other nominations. The Big Short is about the mortgage crisis back in 2008 and the people that sensed that it was going to happen. Make sure to take the time and see this film, it looks phenomenal and a definite must see.
We were discussing the amount of people that watch certain television shows in Hong Kong as opposed to the US and Byron gave me this to think about, “There is a buddy comedy that was made this year in Hong Kong called Pancake Man (yes that is the real name) for $3 Million U.S. This film made over $200 Million U.S. in China!”
Wingman Magazine: I have heard that you have a thing about hair in your roles. Can you elaborate a little bit?
Byron Mann: Yeah, absolutely! I think every actor has an entry point. I heard that Christopher Walken has to have the right shoes. I heard it from James Foley, who directed Walken in the film, “At Close Range.” So for me, it’s always my hair, and what does my character look like. After the hair, comes the clothes and everything else. If you look at all of my movies and all of the hair is a little funky. The hair really sets the tone for me. If I don’t buy the hair, then I won’t buy the character. Whether it’s a wig or if I cut it a certain way, all the kind of stuff. In The Big Short, my hair is normal, but in other roles it’s crazy. In the Man with the Iron Fist, it was a Japanese guy with like a rocker style cut. On Hell on Wheels, the hair was a really subtle but specific cut that really set the tone. After time, the audience picks it up as well.
Wingman Magazine: The must see movie of the holiday season…that isn’t called Star Wars is The Big Short. Tell us about the film and your part as Mr. Chau
Byron Mann: The movie is roughly about these four characters played by Brad Pitt, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and Christian Bale. All of them saw something fishy about the housing market in 2006-2008. That’s when the subprime mortgage crisis happened and people were defaulting on their homes, mortgages doubled or tripled, so on and so forth. They bet against these housing-backed mortgage products, that they were going to go down, but they didn’t know how these products really worked nor the impact they had on the economy. So they tracked down my character, Mr. Chau, who was working with Merrill Lynch. At that time my character ran a company that had the world’s largest portfolio of subprime mortgage products. In a pivotal scene in the movie, my character explains to Carell’s character how these things worked and his character realizes the horrific impact they would have on people’s lives. These scenes were all based on what really happened.
Wingman Magazine: This is not one of your normal kick-ass style films or shows. What was your mindset like going into this project?
Byron Mann: I just knew that it had some big name actors and the director Adam Mckay did Anchorman and Anchorman 2. To be honest, I didn’t know what to expect. I just didn’t want to mess up and didn’t want to embarrass myself, and I hope I do justice to the part. I read up on my character and the housing crisis and basically showed up, and it was really fun. Steve Carell and Adam Mckay are great guys, and doing scenes with them was a lot like doing Saturday Night Live. I say that because there was a lot of improvisation involved and it was a lot of fun.
Wingman Magazine: What made you want to become an actor?
Byron Mann: I did acting in high school for fun. To make a very long story, short: I ran out of things to do! When I graduated from college I didn’t know what to do. When I went to graduate school and law school, I was intending to become a lawyer. I realized in real life that what I wanted to do in law was nothing like you see on TV. On television these lawyers give these compassionate speeches every single day, and it’s all untrue. In real life these lawyers type up these perfect contracts for fifteen hours a day. I worked for one summer for an American law firm in Hong Kong, and at the end of the summer he said that I should do something else because my heart wasn’t in law. Since I was going to USC, he told me I should explore acting, so I did. About a year later I got an agent and never looked back.
Wingman Magazine: One of my favorite of your projects, Street Fighter … thinking back was the game played at all on set? And did you play as Ryu?
Byron Mann: No! That was the first video game movie. They were coming out at the same time, and no one really knew anything about video game movies. I had never played a video game before. The only time I played that game after the movie wrapped, I was pick pocketed, while I was playing my own game! That was the last time I played a video game. It was virgin territory, and we all thought we were just making an action film. It was a very memorable, tumultuous shoot, to say the least. They did a huge expose` on Street Fighter, check it out.
Wingman Magazine: You were on the first season of my favorite show, Arrow as Yao-Fei. Having such a huge part in the first season, how does it feel to help launch one of the most popular shows on television?
Byron Mann: When I was doing it, it was the first season and no one knew what it was, it hadn’t even aired yet. They gave me an offer, and told me it was about this guy that shoots arrows?! These guys shoots uzis and machine guns, and he shoots them with arrows. I was like, “come on, this show will not last five episodes.” It definitely sounds silly. The writing is really incredible, and when we were just filming our own little thing. Midway through the shooting it aired and started to get some acclaim and became a big cult following. In China, it became a huge show. Let me give you an example: On the CW in America, they will get about three million viewers, which is huge numbers. In China, it averages fifteen million a week!!
Wingman Magazine: You joined the fifth and final season of AMC’s hit show, Hell on Wheels. How did you prepare for not only your part, but the weather of where the show is filmed?
Byron Mann: You know about the weather in Calgary?! I didn’t know anything about the show, but when the show runner called me, I was in Hong Kong. I am in HSBC bank and trying to imagine 1868 in Calgary. Anson Mount who plays Cullen Bohannan reached out to me and he said welcome to the show. I said, “what should I prepare for?” He told me, “the weather.” When you come out of the trailer, you may be stepping in a pile of mud, so get boots. And the first day out of my trailer there was a pile of mud. So the boots saved my life in Calgary and doing a shoot you don’t know what the weather is going to be. It could be raining, snowing, sleeting, sunshine all in 12 hours. That’s what it was like shooting a show about building railroads in 1868; lots of mud, lot of grime. I am grateful for the opportunity, one of the highlights of my career.
Wingman Magazine: You play the character Chang on Hell on Wheels. Tell us about that character.
Byron Mann: Hell on Wheels is about the building of the railroads in 1860’s. There were two different railroads; the Union Pacific that went from east west. Then there is the Central Pacific that goes west to east, and that railroad started in San Francisco and it had a lot of Chinese workers on it. There were roughly 15,000-20,000 Chinese workers on that rail line. So my character, Chang, is the one that brings all of these Chinese workers to California and I negotiate for them and protect their rights.
Wingman Magazine: Had you seen the show before you were cast? And if not, did you watch any of the previous seasons after being cast?
Byron Mann: I had never seen the show before, but I had a conversation with the producer, John Worth, and he told me about the other actors on the show. Most of the actors on the show are some of the top stage and film actors, because they have to play specific time periods. My character really didn’t need to know about the previous seasons.
Wingman Magazine: You went to UCLA for Philosophy and USC for Law. Who were you rooting for last month? (USC won 40-21).
Byron Mann: There is no question, it’s always about where you go for Undergraduate. So I’m a Bruin at heart, for sure. I rarely will attend games when I am in the area, but I did attend one game about a month ago. I didn’t grow up with football but I love it. I knew nothing about football, because I grew up in Hong Kong. One Christmas my brother gave me a pigskin and I was playing catch football with people in L.A. and I haven’t stopped loving the game since.