Interview: Danielle Ayow and Liam Ma Discuss STREAMS FLOW FROM A RIVER

Canadian short-form series, STREAMS FLOW FROM A RIVER, recently premiered this month on April 1st. The series unravels the internal conflicts of an immigrant Chinese Canadian family past and present. When a snowstorm traps the family together in their Albertan home, they are forced to detangle the trauma and events that tore them apart almost 10 years before. STREAMS FLOW FROM A RIVER highlights the struggles immigrant families go through while making a home in a different place and addresses the intergenerational trauma that can occur with it. The series is created, directed, and executive produced by Chinese Canadian writer-director, Christopher Yip, who was born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta. Presented by Fae Pictures on Super Channel Fuse Canada, the 6 episode series is also available through streaming live and on demand with Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+.

STREAMS FLOW FROM A RIVER became the first ever series to be selected for the Canadian Film Fest slate this year along with having the first ever all Asian writing room in Canada. The series stars Jane Luk, Simon Sinn, Liam Ma, Danielle Ayow, Jinny Wong, Raymond Chan, Adrian So and Dana Liu, with Benjamin Sutherland, Brett Houghton and Wesley French. BroadwayWorld had the pleasure of speaking with Danielle Ayow and Liam Ma who played siblings Loretta and Henry Chow respectively in the series. We talked about their experience playing siblings, memorable moments during the filming process, and their thoughts on the prominence of Asian roles and stories in TV and film! Read the full interview below!

BroadwayWorld: Thank you so much for making time for this interview! I really appreciate it. Congratulations on the series, I recently watched it and really loved and connected to it. It must have been a truly great experience to be part of a project like this!

To start, how did each of you get involved with the project?

Danielle: I auditioned for the series, got a callback, and then the director, Christopher Yip, thought I was the right fit to play Loretta and we went from there!

Liam: It was a long audition process as there were a lot of gaps between each of the audition steps (first audition, call backs, etc). The whole audition process was maybe a month. I remember when I read the breakdown, I immediately knew this was something I wanted to be a part of. The series had such a grounded script and was so personal that I saw myself in it really easily. The month of waiting to hear back was so difficult! When I met Chris (the director), we shared very similar personal stories. I don't know if I believe in things that are meant to be, but I am very lucky and privileged to have a small part in this story that is a part of a bigger movement that we are seeing.

What was it like to play siblings? Do each of you have siblings of your own and if you do, did you find that you used your experience with them in the role that you play in the series?

Liam: On our first day on set, I didn't think Danielle liked me! I am generally very introverted and pretty shy when it comes to meeting new people so, I didn't really know how to approach Danielle. She was kind of intimidating and even throughout the first day I was like, "I don't know what she thinks of me." Eventually, our dynamic became very sibling-like. We tease each other and have a very similar sense of humor (we are both very dry and sarcastic). Never have I been met with such an equal, yet opposite force of such intense sarcasm and I don't think I was prepared for it! It was such a fun relationship that we developed as both actors and people.

When creating a character, you get to develop them in relation to other people. In the show, the way that I interact with my sister is not the same way that I interact with my mom or dad. For me, I like to build my role relative to other characters and that was obviously a really fun process with Danielle. I have an older brother that is 3 years older than me. I don't think I thought about him at all during the shoot (which is pretty awful), but I totally should have pulled something from our relationship. On the flip side, I think that speaks to the power of how I could just drop Danielle into that sibling role and just play off of her.

Danielle: I have 3 sisters and they are all older than me. Both Liam and I are both kind of reserved people. Once we got to know each other, we realized that we were actually very similar and had similar senses of humor. Our sibling relationship reminded me a bit of my relationship with my sisters because he was comfortable to be around. My mother used to call me and one of my sisters "the insult twins" because we liked to insult each other all the time. It wasn't malicious by any sense! We love each other, but are always constantly jabbing at each other! I think Liam and I started to develop that same kind of relationship. We would tease each other all the time and text each other during meetings saying things like, "did you hear what he just said?" It just became that sort of relationship organically and hats off Christopher Yip because maybe he knew we'd get along when he casted us.

Cast of Streams Flow From A River, (Left to Right) Simon Sinn (Gordon Chow), Jane Luk (Diana Chow), Liam Ma (Henry Chow), Danielle Ayow (Loretta Chow). Photo Credit: Fae Pictures.

Is there anything that happens to your character in an episode or a specific occurrence in the series that you resonated with or made you feel deeply emotional towards?

Danielle: I think I am similar to my character. We are very similar in age! Just like Loretta, I am entering a part of my life where I'm no longer a child and now taking over a little bit of responsibility for my parents. There is one line that Loretta says in a scene in the car about how she tries to take her parents to every appointment she can and tries to give them the best food, but her mother says it's too expensive. I also saw that kind of behavior with my own mother and found myself saying similar things to her like: "you need to eat better" or "did you call the doctor?" Sometimes when you assume responsibility for your parents, you forget that they are your parents and treat them more like a child than you realize.

Liam: Similar to Danielle, I also resonated with a scene that occurred in a car. There's a scene where I go for a drive with Brett Houghton who played Thomas in the series. The scene was one of the most pivotal moments for Henry in the story and revealed a lot about him and his character. There was much going on relating to the complexities of that moment in terms of shame, tension, and unrequited love. Being that there was so much history between those two characters, the emotion I felt during that scene was brought up from my personal experiences. It wasn't hard to drop into that moment because the script itself was so real. Whether or not contextually that is exactly how you see your life and/or whether you are from an immigrant family or not, you see pieces and slices of reality and humanity in it. For me, that scene was so heartbreaking. There was no part of the series that was over the top or expositional in its nature. It was just so nuanced, which was almost the most heartbreaking because it was often in the mundane details where we saw our humanity revealed in those moments. I think a lot of dramatic moments in my life have happened in a car. There is a sense of escape and safety in there. For example, if your home isn't safe, the car can be for some, depending on who is in that space with you. Often the home is governed by our parents and the car can be more of a neutral space.

"STREAMS FLOW FROM A RIVER" is the first series in Canada to have an all Asian writing room! There has also been an increasing number of television and film projects that have featured casts with a majority of people of Asian heritage. What are your thoughts on this in relation to your experiences in the industry?

Liam: I think it's really exciting! We were doing interviews earlier in the campaign and we talked a lot about movies like "Everything Everywhere All At Once," "Riceboy Sleeps," and now, "Beef," which is out now! With "Beef" in particular, I resonated with a comment that one of the cast members said ( I think it was maybe Steven Yuen or Ali Wong). They talked about the fact that when there is an all Asian cast and the main cast is all Asian, it is an opportunity to just live out life as an Asian person and to put that on display. It's no longer about putting a person in a role to service the story in any stereotyped way. It's about getting to add depth to these characters because of thoughts and feelings that we want reflected. There's depth to these characters and with relationships that we haven't seen previously which is the most exciting aspect.

I hope and I think we have moved past this conversation about representation that I think is somewhat stale. We're moving past that in terms of tokenizing it and saying, "oh, this is great because this is representation." Now I think we are slowly moving to a place (maybe in the next 5-10 years) where this is just a story about a family that happens to be immigrants and happens to be Asian. It's not so much an anomaly in the landscape and gamut of media. I think that is what is most exciting in terms of the industry.

On the other hand, these things also can move very slowly. I've seen a lot of things happen where casting teams specifically cast for a BIPOC male in their 20s to 30s and then when I saw who got the part, it was a white actor and I was like, "well what happened there?" Even in this press run, I had an article published about me and they posted a picture of a different Asian actor that wasn't me. I think there's so much in the industry that's really frustrating and upsetting; however, when we get a story and script like "Streams Flow" and it's received in the way that it is, we hold on to a bit of hope that what we're doing is moving things in the right direction!

Danielle: I completely agree with Liam in a sense that we are moving away from tokenism and the idea that we are just creating stories that have a substance and plotline that is familiar to everyone across the board. It's not specifically because we are Asian and it's not driven by our race and doesn't always have to do with our race. I think Christopher did a good job creating a script and filled the world with diverse people. Their lives weren't driven by the fact that they were Indigenous or by the fact that they were a different colour, etc. I still think we have a long way to go and still have some work to do!

Liam: I just wanted to add that even after what we have done in terms of launching, I am excited to move past a place where sometimes it feels like our identity is commodified. I think that goes back to tokenism and this inauthentic representation. I hope that we move past the commodification of our identity and just put out the stories we want to tell. I hope we will be able to tell any story we want and not necessarily strip it of our cultural identity (may that not be the driving force as Danielle said).

Lastly, I have a fun question for each of you:

For Liam, I know you are an engineer. If your character, Henry, studied engineering in university, what stream of engineering do you think he would have pursued and why?

For Danielle, I read on your website that you can quote every single episode of The Simpsons. What is your favourite episode of The Simpsons and which character in the show do you think Loretta is most like and why?

Danielle: The episode where the monorail comes to Springfield is obviously a great one and the first one that comes to my mind. There's also an episode called, "There's Something About Marrying," where they try to increase tourism to Springfield by legalizing gay marriage. I like this episode because it stands for gay rights and acceptance. I just thought that was great! I think my character (Loretta) is similar to Lisa. They are both very logical and heady. I think that's the closest one and I'm trying to think of tertiary characters, but I think she fits Loretta the best.

Liam: I know people won't be happy about this, but there is a very clear hierarchy of streams of engineering and I am a mechanical engineer (they are obviously at the top)! They are the most well respected, are taught to do everything, and have the ability to do everything (but we choose to do mechanical). The rest of the engineering streams only do parts of what we do. People will argue everything about this claim and also say that mechanical engineer's biggest rivalry is with civil engineers. That's just a quick brief on the hierarchy of engineering.

I would say that Henry would be an environmental engineer. Environmental engineers are well respected because "who doesn't respect the environment?" Henry navigates life in such a quiet and caring way and has a very reserved nature. In respect to all the things that come together to make life, I think that he would do good service in environmental engineering. He's such a creative person that would be able to bring creative solutions to environmental problems. I think he would find a lot of purpose in that.

BroadwayWorld: That's all I have for today! Thanks so much to you both for your time! I wish you both success and I hope to see you again in more projects in the future!

[This interview was edited and condensed for clarity]

Photo Credits: Fae Pictures, Danielle Ayow, and Liam Ma 2023.

To post a comment, you must register and login.