Trieu Love for the Art

Trieu Tran’s career began in pursuit of an easy “A.” “My friends in the theater track told me, ‘Did you know you can get into law school with any major?’” Tran explains. This notion sealed his decision to ditch the 20-page papers at the library for the stage.

For Tran, acting not about joking around or chasing fame — it’s about the work.

“My dream would be to constantly work,” Tran says. “Not knowing where your next paycheck is coming from, waiting for the phone to ring — it’s a horrible experience.”

Tran hopes his latest work will be his big-budget breakthrough. He stars in this summer’s action comedy Tropic Thunder alongside Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., and Nick Nolte.

Director and producer Stiller was impressed enough by Tran’s audition to write a new part for him. Tran plays what he describes as the “hot-headed henchman” antagonizing a crew of self-absorbed actors working on the most expensive war film ever. After ballooning costs force the studio to can the movie, the director refuses to stop shooting, leading his cast into the jungles of Southeast Asia in the middle of a real struggle. Tran calls it “all of Ben Stiller’s greatest hits in one.”

He speaks fondly of Stiller, who previously helmed Zoolander and The Cable Guy, as “very professional, down to earth and committed to the movie … You wanted to do the best because he was so passionate.”

Stiller’s support pulled him through a recent spell of doubt. “I wasn’t getting parts for six months,” Tran recalls. “I even took the LSATs. Having people at that level of their careers having that much faith in me — it’s humbling.”

Tran credits his upringing for teaching him “to work hard no matter what.” Born in Vietnam during the fall of Saigon, Tran escaped with his mother as a boat refugee when he was five years old. The boat carrying 115 people was attacked by pirates twice on its two-week passage to Thailand, where he lived for a dreadful 11 months in a refugee camp. Finally, a Baptist church sponsored them to Canada, where they reunited with his father who had fled several years before.

Tran first understood racism growing up in East Boston, historically an Irish and Italian area. “There were lots of problems, fights everyday,” he recalls about the five high schools he attended.

Today, he wants to “give back to the community by portraying roles and stories that actually happen out there.”

Tim Dang, director of three plays in which Tran starred with the East West Players theater company in Los Angeles, cites life experience as Tran’s asset for imitating life on stage. This “wealth of emotion” allows Tran to display spontaneity — the unscripted parts that make “one of the more exciting things about theater,” according to Dang.

But Tran realizes there are limited roles for Asian American actors in Hollywood. “We need more Asian writers because the roles are very ethnic-specific,” he says. “One day, an Asian lead will kiss the female lead in a big film.”

Until then, Tran will keep plugging away at acting — without the ego. “Too many people get concerned with how many lines they have,” he says. “How my mother raised me was that it’s not always about me.”