Albert M. Chan SM '99, PhD '04
MIT Engineer Coming Soon to Theatre Near You
As an MIT grad student in electrical engineering and computer science, Toronto native Albert M. Chan SM '99, PhD '04 tried acting in campus theatre groups as a fun diversion from the rigors of the Institute and to explore his creative side. Now, he's building a Hollywood acting career and has just earned his first filmmaking credit-all while living in Boston. What's more, he's an engineer by day.
On May 1, he'll appear on the big screen alongside Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, and Michael Douglas in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. Chan plays one of three groomsman, and the film largely takes place at a wedding. Some scenes even required him to improv in the background, a skill he found so intriguing he's now taking classes at Boston's Improv Asylum. Last fall he filmed scenes for the movie Every Day (currently in post-production), which stars Helen Hunt, Liev Schreiber, and Brian Dennehy. He's also appeared in the movie Underdog (2007), on TV in Showtime's Brotherhood as a brothel manager, and in indie films with roles including a punk musician, a police lieutenant, a vengeful casino assistant, and a foul-mouthed bar patron. Watch clips of his performances and view the rest of his filmography.
Fate Scores
On April 25, his own film, Fate Scores , which he wrote, produced, directed, starred in, and composed and performed a song for, will be screened at the Boston International Film Festival at 6:00 p.m. and at the Memphis International Film Festival. Fate Scores premiered April 5 at the Wisconsin Film Festival and has also been shown at the Southeast New England Film, Music & Arts Festival in Providence, RI. The 12-minute film, which depicts the seemingly random interactions between ten strangers that eventually culminates into something extraordinary, features a single location: a long cement bench on Carleton Street outside of MIT Medical.
Albert M. Chan films a scene for Fate Scores with Heidi Rhodes.
Chan originally conceived of the project, which was inspired by his observations while riding public transportation, as a way to gain exposure for his acting career. "I wanted to put more of my fate into my own hands," he says. With responsibility for so many aspects of the film, Chan found his MIT background perfectly suited for the challenge. "The skills that are most useful in making a film are drive and problem-solving," he explains, especially when coordinating numerous schedules and details for production work. Of all the different hats he wore, Chan still enjoyed acting the most, but derives satisfaction from just touching people with his story. "Whether or not I'm actually acting or filmmaking, it's all the same thing," he says. "It's storytelling." Being a producer was the most challenging role for him, but he used his MIT connections, like his friend Alecia Batson, who works in President Hockfield's office, to help procure valuable resources, such as permission from the Technology Licensing Office to film on campus. A rough cut of the film was shown at MIT to students, members of the Office of the Arts and the Technology Licensing Office, a Tech reporter, and friends whose feedback informed final edits.
Balancing Two Passions
When he's not pursuing artistic aspirations, Chan works as an engineer at Cambridge-based Vanu, Inc., an MIT start-up that works with software-defined radio to create innovative wireless infrastructure solutions. How does he balance two careers? Focus. "Every waking moment, I'm either doing engineering or something related to acting," he says. And he enjoys indulging both passions, saying he'd be equally excited to land a role as to publish an article in a respected journal.
While most people generally assume working actors live in New York or Los Angeles, Massachusetts' tax breaks to filmmakers have brought numerous acting opportunities to the region, although that's slightly abated because of a contract deadlock between the Screen Actors Guild and producers.* All of Chan's roles have been shot in the Greater Boston area except for Every Day, which filmed in New York City. Typically, his acting gigs are daylong shoots, but for Ghosts, Chan spent five weeks on set.
And his academic training and engineering work is also used to add depth to his characters-and sometimes land auditions. "The beauty of acting and filmmaking is that it recognizes and affirms everything you've ever done," he says. He landed his first major audition, for a supporting role of a Chinese chemistry grad student in Dark Matter starring Meryl Streep, because he was an engineering grad student at the time. While he received a callback, ultimately he spoke a different Chinese dialect than the one the director was seeking. The day before the interview for this article, Chan received word of an audition in New York (he's now represented by an agent and manager in NYC) for a role as a nuclear physicist in Fair Game, a movie about the life of ex-CIA agent Valerie Plame starring Naomi Watts and Sean Penn. For this role, casting directors were specifically targeting people with a science and engineering background to more convincingly sell the technical terminology. No word yet on if he got the part but he did indulge in his ritual post-audition treat: on this day an iced mocha latte.
For now, Chan continues to take acting lessons at Carter Thor Studios in Boston and auditions about once a week in New York plus any Boston auditions he receives. He's also considering another foray into filmmaking to build more personal buzz, this time with a series of webisodes created with a friend.
Read the Slice of MIT blog to learn which Hollywood A-lister Chan has most enjoyed working with so far, how he prepares for an audition, and the difficulty getting killed on screen.
* Update : on April 19, 2009, the board of the Screen Actors Guild approved a tentative two-year agreement with studios and producers, pending union members' approval.
By Amy Marcott
Published April 23, 2009
