FAYE KWAN
full name: faye kwan
pronouns & gender: she/her, cis woman
birthday & birthplace: october 12, 1982 (41); los angeles, ca
location: aurora bay drive
time in aurora bay: on and off since birth, permanently since april 2024
sexuality: bisexual
occupation: owner of the movie house
@aurorabayaesthetic
about.
drugs tw, overdose tw, addiction tw, racism tw
faye is the second oldest of four born to esther and george kwan. esther and george were both actors who made a comfortable enough living doing multiple jobs a year in film and TV. at first, it was mostly bit parts in hayes code war movies that featured some pretty egregious asian stereotypes, but esther got her big break in a soap opera in the 70s, just before faye was born. that steady gig and the residuals from the show were enough to secure a nice home for the family and let both parents take their foot off the gas a bit career-wise.
the family also bought a small summer home in aurora bay, where they'd take their kids on weekends or between jobs.
faye first got in front of a camera when she was five, playing the daughter of her mother's character. she only got a short arc, but the experience was formative for her. although their parents' line of work didn't seem to interest her siblings much, faye wanted to get back on a set as soon as she could. her parents' agent sent her out for commercials and small "daughter" roles, but work for asian americans was still hard to come by then, and the roles that did come up were competitive.
still, faye was hard-headed. school was sort of a passing afterthought (she coasted on straight B's and C's until she graduated high school), but after the bell rang she was going over sides with her parents or they were shuttling her to acting lessons or auditions. even though she was technically a child actor, neither she nor her parents had anywhere close to enough success for hollywood to get to her head or fuck her up (yet). the three of them were very much working actors.
she decided to forgo college after she graduated high school and dedicated herself full-time to work, and more of it did come as she got older. the rise of the teen sitcom in the 90s did wonders for her — casts were diversifying a bit, and getting on any one of those shows was a good way to get eyes on her quickly.
the (first) Big Break came on an ABC sitcom when she was twenty-one. she started as a recurring character, the token ethnic best friend, but audiences (and the showrunners) liked her enough to bring her back as a main cast member in the second season. she started earning enough money to move out of her childhood home and start having her own life.
having her own life did mean going off the rails a bit. she was twenty-one and getting checks with more money than she knew what to do with, and she felt desired for the first time. she started dating a co-star, nathaniel, who led her into a world of young hollywood parties that included a certain volume of drinking and drugs that she'd never experienced before.
she fired her parents' agent, thinking that he was far too stuffy and old school for where she was trying to take her career, and got a new one whose ambitions matched hers. four seasons into the show, he'd lined up something big for her — an audition for a small but substantial role in a blockbuster movie that he promised could take her to the next level.
she did get that job, her agent strong-armed her current job's showrunners into writing her out of the show, and she was off to the races. over the next twenty-something years, she transitioned into movies fully and her roles got bigger and bigger. she got a house in beverly hills and one in aurora bay, where she continued to spend her time off through the years. she started to rack up wins and nominations for almost every award but an oscar, and got married to nathaniel, that same actor from her silly sitcom who she'd been off-and-on (and tabloid fodder) with for years.
all the while, though, she was keeping herself motivated and tirelessly working through those same drugs nathaniel had gotten her into when they were in their twenties. he had kicked them and left acting to pursue producing and screenwriting instead, but she was self-medicating and was very good at hiding it.
but it all came to a head in early 2024, during a shoot for a movie that was already looking like it would be her ticket to that long-coveted oscar, headed by a director who was known widely as a fucking asshole but also made great movies, and a hotshot writer whose screenplay had been one of the most desirable hits on the black list. it'd been a challenging shoot from the start, and faye's difficulties with the director and long days spent shooting led her to make her first and biggest mistake in all of her years of success. a PA found her unconscious in her trailer after she missed her call time, and she was rushed to a hospital and her drug habits exposed.
nathaniel checked her into rehab, and by the time she was out she had found that her role was recast and production had moved forward without her, her agent of nearly twenty years dropped her in the face of the massive PR crisis, and her husband couldn't look her in the eye anymore.
so instead of dealing with any of it, she ran, heading down to the safety of her aurora bay drive house and serving nathaniel papers for a divorce. never one to sit idly by for long, she bought the movie theater in town and has been running it ever since, trying to keep a low profile and ignoring everything and anything that might connect her to her life in LA.
personality.
+ shrewd, efficient, amiable
– obstinate, dishonest, short-tempered
tidbits.
when she was nineteen and still hurting for work, she reappeared on her mom's soap opera twice, once as her original daughter character all grown up, and then again as her mom's character in a flashback.
owns one of those minimalist phones that only lets her call, text, listen to music, and set an alarm. she's been completely off social media ever since she left LA and doesn't touch the internet much if she doesn't have to.
the guy she bought the movie house from tried to convince her to make her own version of the nicole kidman amc ad to play before every screening, but she flatly refused.
for someone who started in sitcoms and never even had formal training in acting, she's way too pretentious about it. she refers to it as "her craft" way too often and has always intellectualized way too hard about her characters.
genuinely adores movies so so much though. her four letterboxd favorites would be wong kar wai's happy together, agnes varda's le bonheur, robert altman's nashville, and the iron giant.
she's got two golden globes and two indie spirit awards. they're both collecting dust in a storage unit somewhere. however, her razzie award, which she won for her role in a particularly bad ensemble romcom (a la valentine's day), is one of the few things she sent for from her house in LA. it's on her mantle in her AB house.
she's still in the process of divorcing her husband, who she hasn't actually seen in person since she left LA. she's never gone back up, and he's never come down, even though he knows exactly where to find her.
she's beefed with every single one of her narcotics anonymous sponsors. the longest any of them has lasted is three weeks.
hostess with the mostest. her parties back in LA were legendary.
