Singapore-based actor George Young reveals what it took to land a role on American TV show Containment.
The 36-year-old actor tells Today that the casting process for the 13-episode series involved two rounds of audition, a studio test, a session with executive producer Julie Plec and a final audition in front of 15 network executives.
“I think I’m a bit screwed up in the head, but I do like auditioning,” Young says about looking forward to more auditions in the future despite its vigorous process.
In Containment, Young plays medical researcher Dr Victor Cannerts who has to make the tough call of enforcing a quarantine when a deadly virus breaks out in Atlanta. “What intrigued me about the show is the dramatic question it asks: What would you do if your friends, family or loved ones are stuck one street away and trapped in this city-wide containment quarantine because of a very real threat and you may never see them again, or if you do, you may catch the virus,” he shares with Hyphen about what drew him to the show.
“And it’s something that can happen because we’ve seen the Ebola virus a few years ago.”
Young, who is of Chinese-Greek-Cypriot descent, also spoke about being an Asian actor in Hollywood. “It’s certainly progressed a lot, especially in American TV. Containment, which is set in Atlanta, is a very good example of diversity in casting and reflecting back the real world that we live in. The character of Dr Cannerts just happens to have an Asian ethnicity, and for the most part, race is treated as something incidental in the show which is definitely a way forward.”
Containment airs every Monday at 8.25pm on Fox HD (Astro Ch 724).
