Keen to create new acting roles for Asian women and work with friends, JJ Fong and Ally Xue teamed up with fellow actor Perlina Lau and director Roseanne Liang to create web series Flat3 and Friday Night Bites. Fong and Xue talk in this Funny As interview about taking on comedy, multitasking on set and other subjects, including:
- Meeting each other (and fellow Flat3 star Perlina Lau) while acting in a children's play at university
- Asking Roseanne Liang, who'd just given birth to her second child, to write and direct Flat3
- Creating new acting roles for themselves after being sick of being offered gigs as prostitutes or dragon ladies
- Giving comedy a go for the first time on Flat3 — "...we were like, let's just do it guys. We didn't even know if we were funny either"
- Taking a gamble to release Flat3 on YouTube at a time when web series were a new concept
- How they became political and topical in follow up series Friday Night Bites
- Next goal is to make a programme for television as "we have finished doing online web series now"
This interview was recorded for 2019 TV series
Funny As: The Story of New Zealand Comedy.
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