Vanessa Eng fully expected to become a lawyer, but now all evidence points to her becoming a successful film star.
The 27-year-old who grew up in Jericho is about to make her feature film debut in director Yorgos Lanthimos’ dark comedy “Bugonia,” which opens in Manhattan on next Friday and on Long Island on Oct. 31. In the movie, she plays the dutiful assistant to a high-powered CEO (Emma Stone) who is kidnapped by aliens.
And in a turn of events that seems as quirky as any scene in one of Lanthimos’ typically surreal films, Eng wasn’t even aware of what the film was about when she answered the cast call and then won the role.
“The casting director called me and said ‘You got it.’ And I didn’t even know who it was for, I was just sobbing hysterically. It was like somebody saw me and is giving me a chance,” said Eng, who now lives in London. “And then she said, “Yorgos really liked your take on the character,’ And I was like, ‘Yorgos, what are you talking about?’ ”
Getting to work with Stone, whom Eng calls Emily, was a truly rewarding experience, she said. “She makes your job easy. She’s such a great actor that it just comes naturally when you’re opposite her.”
Eng especially loved witnessing the interaction between Stone and Lanthimos, who’d previously worked together on “The Favorite” and “Poor Things,” as they’d work through scenes. And Eng also relished her moments on the set with Lanthimos. “Yorgos is one of those directors who’s like ‘You guys do your own thing and if I have a direction I’ll tell you, But her rarely does that. He very much trusts his actors in the process.”
Collaborating with such high-caliber talent was a long stretch from Eng’s first acting venture, when she played Dorothy in a fourth-grade production of “The Wizard of Oz.” She got cast, Eng recalled, because the teacher thought she was “loud and obnoxious enough” to play the lead. “I said, ‘I don’t think that’s what Dorothy is.’ But I think their feeling was that I wouldn’t be afraid to do this in front of a crowd.” Eng said. “It was superfun but I remember being a lot more nervous than I thought I’d be.”
She waited five more years to try again, this time in a school production of “Seussical: The Musical” as Vlad Vladikoff, a “human bird running around on stage,” she said. When she played her first dramatic role in high school, she was hooked. “The first day I set foot on stage, I said my lines and I thought, ‘I love this.’ It felt like a really transformative moment for me.”
Still, when it came to time for college, her parents convinced her that law would be a safer career choice than acting. But even after getting a doctorate in political science from the University of Miami, Eng knew she’d rather be on a movie set than in a courtroom.
In her last year at graduate school, she took some acting classes and appeared in a few short films, which led her to answer that fateful “Bugonia” cast call.
Eng just signed with a manager and an agent in the United States, which she hopes will open even more doors. And even her parents have no problem with her career change.
“When I told my mother I got the part,” Eng joked, “she said ‘Tell Emma Stone I say hello.”
Daniel Bubbeo is an assistant entertainment editor and has been with Newsday since 2000. He edits Long Island arts and technology coverage.
