We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Chuti Tiu. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Chuti below.

Chuti, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

What a great question! Because so often people can focus on what their parents did wrong.

I’ve been blessed to have parents that showed a lot of love, to me and my siblings and to each other. Physical and verbal declarations of love and endearment are things I treasure and need in my life, and I’m grateful to have had that kind of emotional foundation.

Other things my parents taught me are the values of hard work and dedication, equality and justice, imagination and the arts. For example, growing up, when driving to school, my Dad would make up fantastical stories of robot dogs in space, talking ducks, and the like. It was like our own personal interactive podcast every morning! And my Mom directed plays, concerts and cultural dance presentations (once, she paired me up with my grade school crush – helps to have inside connections.)

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m an actress, writer, producer and filmmaker, currently touring the film festival circuit with the feature film “A Summer Night”, which I starred in and produced, and my husband Oscar Torre wrote and directed. You can see me in the recently released “Prisoner’s Daughter” with Kate Beckinsale and Brian Cox, in the upcoming Amazon series “Expats” with Nicole Kidman, and in “Lilly”, the biopic of Lilly Ledbetter starring Patricia Clarkson.

Growing up, I always had a passion for storytelling. You could say my first break was being cast as Snow White in an otherwise all-Caucasian cast, back in the first grade at St. Matthias Parish School in Milwaukee. Studying classical piano, my teacher Clara Saler always encouraged me to find the story behind every piece: what was the journey I wanted to communicate through my music?

At one point, I considered being a politician, wanting to help people universally, of all backgrounds and walks of life, but I really disliked the frequent dissension and vitriol. I came to realize that I could unite my love of storytelling and my desire to make a positive impact through acting, writing and filmmaking. These allow me to embody the human condition, share different journeys, and hold up a mirror to the audience, in the hopes that they can see themselves in the stories of others.

Striving for authenticity, for truth, for fairness – that’s a common thread you’ll see in my projects. You see this in my roles as the investigative reporter Leslie opposite Kelly Reilly in “Yellowstone” or the discerning Judge Gage opposite Viola Davis in “How to Get Away with Murder.” It’s also evident in my past work as mediator for the Center for Conflict Resolution in Chicago or working for the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. And you definitely see these themes in projects I like to watch. Whether it’s on a global scale, like Debora Cahn’s “The Diplomat”, or on a personal one, like Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story” or Oscar Torre’s “A Summer Night”, there’s an underlying passion to get to core truths and attain some sort of peaceful resolution for all parties involved. Life is messy, and all of us are just doing our best to survive and thrive: these are the kinds of stories I like to act, write and watch. Oh, and I really like cats. I like all animals, but especially cats.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I’ve always prided myself in being independent. Well, years ago, I did an Outward Bound Adventure Winter Camping trip in Maine. One day, I’m leading our group through a mountainous trail, feeling like this powerful leader, and we come upon a tall crag, covered in ice and snow. I start climbing, carrying my 50 lb. backpack and jamming my ice cleats into the headwall. I get halfway, and a branch I grabbed breaks and I slide all the way back down. Needing to gather up my energy again, I let two people go past me and I try again. This time I get almost to the very top, and someone offers me hand, but I refuse. I wanted to do it all by myself. My boot loses its grip and I slide to the bottom again (many expletives spewing from my mouth.) This happens several more times, until I’m the only one who hasn’t made it up the crag. I’m exhausted, I’m angry, and everyone is cheering me on. So I get close to the top again, but I’m just spent – I can’t go on. Steam is rising from my snowsuit, I’ve been exerting myself so much. Finally, one team mate says to me, “Just take my hand. You aren’t a lesser person for getting help.” I acquiesced, reached up, and he helped pull me over the top.

I learned that it’s okay if I can’t do something all by myself and I need some assistance. It’s okay to put aside my pride and just ask for help. Crazy, but that’s a lesson I keep learning. And in our film “A Summer Night”, that was an unexpected theme. I love how, along the journey of storytelling, the life lessons that my character learns are often things I need to embrace in my own life.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

One of the most rewarding aspects of being an actor, writer and filmmaker is when an audience member tells me that they feel like they’ve been truly seen. Performing the play “Fabric” by the late Henry Ong, I played a Thai garment worker who risked her life to escape enslavement, and one night, the person I portrayed was actually in the audience. After the play, with tears in her eyes, she hugged me and thanked me for telling her story. When doing the festival circuit with my film “Pretty Rosebud,” there were numerous women who pulled me aside and said that the film had captured what they went through, and they were so grateful it was being shared with the world. Giving voice to the voiceless – that’s definitely one of the biggest gifts of this work.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.chutitiu.com
• Instagram: @chutitiu @asummernightmovie
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChutiTiuFanPage/

Image Credits
Profile photo: Travis Tanner Next 8 photos, L to R: 1. Still photo from A Summer Night 2. Still photo from A Summer Night 3. Still photo from Yellowstone, with Kelly Reilly 4. Photographer: Travis Tanner 5. Photographer: Travis Tanner 6. Photographer: Paul Alvarez 7. Still photos from How to Get Away with Murder, with Viola Davis 8. Photographer: Albert L. Ortega