Meet Jeff Locker: the American actor has already made a name for himself in Taiwan and China, and now
he's in Hollywood using his Mandarin skills to further the East-West conversation.
Since the China-Hollywood production line is heating up, Locker, who hails from the Midwest and
spent a good ten years overseas in Taiwan and China in the 1990s and early 2000s, is slowly
getting Hollywood to pay attention to his stellar Mandarin skills for TV show, movies, commercials and
voice-over parts. This is one American who can speak Chinese like a, well, like a global mandarin!
In his recent work with Second City, Locker was able to bring in references and actors from China, Hong Kong, and
Taiwan in order to give Americans some exposure to some of his favorite
Asian and Asian-American actors, singers, movies, and TV shows.
"I still feel very connected to Taiwan," Locker said in a recent email interview, "and I'm working hard to bring more
Taiwanese and Chinese culture into the projects I'm working on here in Los Angeles. I'm filming a web-series now that I helped create and which is in both English and Mandarin, and I plan to have some Taiwanese actors and
singers do cameos. It's very exciting times here, and I'm hoping for some breakthroughs. Hollywood's a tough town,
but with current interest in all things Chinese, things are happening."
Locker also finds time to teach Mandarin at a couple of private schools i the Los Angeles area, and some of his
students are celebrities and their children, he said.
"I've just filmed a comedy video with Second City, which is a huge
honor for me, since so many of their videos go viral," Locker notes. "But what I'm most
excited about is that it's their first video in Mandarin in their over 50-year
history!"
"Second City, of course, asked me to help write and perform in
it, and there is actually an English-language version I'm in as well," the well-tavelled thespian said.
"We had been discussing a project for weeks and wanted to do something to
respond to the allegations of abuse fo some workers in
the Apple FoxConn computer factories in China. And since it's Second City, it has to be done in a satirical way to shed some light on the problem."
Irony is hard to convey in Chinese, as anyone who has lived in China or Taiwan knows, but Locker
thinks the Second City videos worked fine. He would know, if anyone would. From overseas jobs at
a radio DJ in Taipei to acting in movies and TV variety shows in China and Taiwan, Locker has been around
the block a few times.
"Of course, the Fox Conn factories topic is newsworthy," he notes, "due to the problems in
China, and with the recent iPad launch there. And the fact that Second City, with
all their famous alumni, wanted to do something in Mandarin is huge."
The Second City videos do a nice job of going after the ''untouchable'' Apple in a touchable way. and the cast
and crew who worked on them is hoping their work will go wide and viral, domestically and overseas as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q40htpFU5ag
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUk8u1vnfTM
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