Kung Fu: Kheng Hua Tan Explores a Lighter Side to Mei-Li in Season 3

Kung Fu began with protagonist Nicky Shen (Olivia Liang) and her mother Mei-Li (Kheng Hua Tan) navigating their tricky relationship, even before Nicky became an accomplished martial arts hero. Mei-Li has warmed up to her family's antics considerably as the hit CW series has continued. While running their family restaurant in San Francisco Chinatown with her loving husband Jin (Tzi Ma), Mei-Li cares for her entire family as they become embroiled in defending their neighborhood from crime across the city. As Kung Fu Season 3 continues, Mei-Li's role in Nicky's martial arts destiny and the defense of Chinatown only grows as new threats arise.

In an exclusive interview with CBR, Kheng Hua Tan praised the cast and crew for giving her and the Kung Fu team the space to grow and collaborate together for the show. She shared some of her own suggestions for developing Mei-Li and revealed the joy of getting to play such an important character in Kung Fu.

CBR: I've loved seeing a lighter side to Mei-Li in the past several seasons and having her get in on the fun. How has it been approaching the character with these lighter colors?

Kheng Hua Tan: I love it! It is an actor's heaven to have a group of people that are helping you develop and create your character that are listening so intently at everything in order to grow your character. I get that sort of support from the team. It really is an actor's heaven, and they're close to us. For example, we can sit down and have a WhatsApp chat with Bob Berens and Christina Kim, our bosses. We really can go -- and this is a true story -- "I have an idea for Mei-Li. Here are some of the clothes she can wear following the storyline for next season that you guys are playing with." I'll send photographs on WhatsApp, and they'll go, "We love these! We're going to send them to Angus [Strathie], our costume designer."

That sort of close communication is precious because you really feel like you're part of a team. It really makes you feel relevant -- you own your work, [and] it gives you a sense of belonging. You don't feel like a puppet, like you're just given these lines, come on set, and say these lines. You feel so much more engaged, and I know they don't just do this for me. They do this for everybody in the cast, and they are wonderful. I'm really just highlighting that it's not about me -- it is about the team that is helping me to be as three-dimensional as you are seeing.

When you sat down with Christina and Bob, what directions did you personally want to see Mei-Li grow into and explore for this season?

When we first started, one of my main entry points really was motherhood. Motherhood is a favorite theme of mine because I am a mother. It comes so naturally to me. My mothering instincts in all the scenes that require me to utilize my experience as a mother sit on the surface of my skin, they're so easily accessible. I knew that in Season 1, they really needed an actor who understood not just the flaws, restrictions, and difficulties of motherhood but also the joy and the pleasure, and I certainly had that.

As we grew together as a team -- and I wish this on all teams in all industries and manners -- as we grew as a team, there really was a lot of information-sharing. The information-sharing allows not just the actors but the creators to expand the definitions of where this particular character started from. As they saw my work, I think they could pinpoint things that they really liked about Mei-Li, [like] "We never [thought] Mei-Li could be like this, but [we've got] shades of it, so let's develop this!"

And so it goes, as the song goes, as we grow up together as a team. Here we are in Season 3, and all the characters are given scenes that you never would've thought, in Season 1, that they would've grown into. Yet everyone set so comfortably into their new shades. [laughs] It was so fun, Sam!

In terms of the team, I feel like Kung Fu's cast and crew feels like a genuine family. Having to work with people like Olivia Liang and Shannon Dang for three seasons now, how is it finding new directions to grow and explore together?

Just yesterday, I shot a text message to Bob and Christina, telling him and her the delight that I feel and the sense of ease that I am finding as Kheng playing Mei-Li. When I use the word "ease," I don't ever want to play down the amount of work that goes into the filming of Kung Fu; everybody works very hard, including myself! But the ease is something [that] makes for better everything when it comes to acting. When you don't have to try so hard, and the feelings are there, that is ease, and that makes, for me, the ease in my acting in playing this character is how I can find the detail that I like in my work and the portrayal of this person.

With that ease, sometimes the acting becomes too planned out and cerebral, and that takes away detail. With ease, you find moments that you never thought were there because your heart can breathe, and you can be free to fly in a scene. As another example, me and JB Tadena -- the wonderful actor playing Sebastian -- we are joking like two clowns and laughing and laughing. Once "action" is called, he and I are like waterworks. We're crybabies, and we just cry. [laughs] I never want to play down how precious and difficult it is to find the trust and ease in the acting, especially with co-workers, creators, and writers, and we certainly have that in Kung Fu.

Kheng, now that you've lived with this character for three years, are there any directions and developments that have surprised you about Mei-Li as she's grown?

There are times when I think about the next season and the next season, and I'll suddenly see or hear something that makes me excited about wanting to bring that into Mei-Li's life because I may be an actor, but at the risk of sounding corny, I live a life as an artist. Every moment for me in my life is creative, and this creativity goes beyond my time on set. I'm living a creative life here in Stawamus, looking at the mountains. Ideas, thoughts, and feelings come to me, and then I translate them into my work, which is why I feel very thankful that I'm in a type of work that is my passion and is something that I love that I can do this, working 24/7 and not feeling like I'm working.

Many times I see something that I want to bring into Mei-Li in, let's say, Season 4 if we get renewed, and I get excited about it. That makes me feel so happy to be alive, so thankful to be an actor at 59 going on 60, having done this for 35 years of my life and still getting excited. I want to live like this for the rest of my life; I want to die like this. [laughs] That's what I want, not just for Mei-Li, but any other role that is going to come to me in the future.

Developed for television by Christina M. Kim, Kung Fu airs Wednesdays at 9 pm ET/PT on The CW.