Interview: Megan Le

Hapa Mag - April 6, 2020

By Alex Chester

Megan Le is a name you will know. She is an actor, producer, creator, stunt woman, and mom. Basically, she does it all. Currently, Le plays the villain Agent Tran in the new and hilarious Netflix series, Medical Police, a spinoff of David Wain and Rob Corddry’s Emmy-winning Adult Swim series, Children’s Hospital.

My first question, and I always ask this, is what makes you Hapa?

What makes me Hapa? Not knowing where the heck I belong. To expand on that, my dad is Vietnamese, my mom is Scottish American, and I grew up with my mother in Indiana... not a big Vietnamese population there. So, not really fitting in there, and everyone looking at me knowing I’m not straight white, asking, “What are you?” Really from when I was young, just a sense of “nobody wants to claim me.”

What came first for you: stunt performing or acting?

Acting. Definitely acting. I moved out here to study acting right after high school at a conservatory called American Academy of Dramatic Arts. My first film involved action, and I had never done any action. So I had to learn it, and from that movie I met my husband who was a stuntman, and from there everything fell that way.

Has it been a challenge being a stunt performer in a very male-dominated profession?

It's funny because they need women to double women, but there's very much of a boy’s club in the stunt industry. You’ve really gotta hold your own, and for a lot of women in male-driven industries, you have to do more, do it better, and not complain in order to get equal treatment. That's changing. A lot more women are getting recognition for the work they do, especially because the actresses speak up and own that, y’know? “That woman is amazing and she made me look good.”

That’s wonderful. So how did the charity Artists in Motion come about?

A friend, Jeaneen Tang, and I both wanted to do more community outreach in our lives, so we started holding each other accountable, and we started doing more and more. People heard about it, and we thought, “You know, let’s get other artists to do what we do on a regular basis.” So now we’ve sort of mobilized people. We reach out and find causes people are interested in because sometimes it’s hard to get in the door with nonprofits. They do their due diligence, as they should, because they don’t want just anyone walking in. There’s a bit of a process, and I think sometimes that keeps people away when they want to do something that’s just for a day. So, we try to take the leg work out and make it easy while also building a community of artists. We want to connect on a more human level and not through red carpet or business talk.

How do you balance everything in your life? Family, charity, acting?

Oh, thank you! I like to do it all. I’m a Gemini, so I’m always like, “What are we doing now? What can we go do?” and my husband is like, “Slow down!” I guess it’s a constant battle for me to say, “Megan, focus. What are the things that matter most to you right now? Let's focus on that.” A lot of my “free time things” are the things that I want to do, and I have a family that supports me doing all of these things.

You are currently playing a villain in Medical Police on Netflix. Tell me about your character? Do you think she’s actually a “bad guy” or just misunderstood?

I guess it depends who you ask. She's doing her job, and she’s doing it really well. She is committed, so it’s fun. She’s driven to do one thing, and that is to capture and kill these two. It should be an easy job because they are two absurd doctors, and I’m a trained assassin. It becomes more and more frustrating as we go, which makes the character even more and more bloodthirsty, and it's a lot of fun to play.

Any words of advice for women who want a family and an acting career?

I focus on a lot, and the key to doing all the things I do is to feel like they’re all interconnected. They all share similar purposes, so don’t compartmentalize each thing or else you’ll feel pulled from one direction to another. My daughter inspires me and brings out this kind of childhood love, sense of make-believe, and honesty that can sometimes be taken away from us. I use that in my art, and then my art inspires me to be a good mother. I want my daughter to see a strong woman who still has a life of her own because I want her to have a life of her own. You only learn that by example. So, my advice would be to let them [family and career] be in service to each other.

For more information on Artists in Motion, and their upcoming events, check out their website: www.artistsinmotionla.org.