Story | EliteGen team Photo | Courtesy of Jessalyn Wanlim
Jessalyn Wanlim, the actor best known for her role as Jenny Matthews on the hit original CBC show Workin’ Moms, has gone through the typical Hollywood ups and downs. From her second-generation Canadian upbringing in Calgary that many born-and-raised Asian-Canadians are intimately familiar with to the hard work and dedication she’s put into her acting career for close to two decades, Wanlim has made a name for herself.
Jessalyn Wanlim, the actor best known for her role as Jenny Matthews on the hit original CBC show Workin’ Moms.
In an industry still reckoning with an underrepresentation of Asian actors, characters and stories, Wanlim has blazed a trail for others to follow, having landed roles in many major North American TV shows such as Gossip Girl, All My Children, Scoundrels, Orphan Black, and of course, Workin’ Moms.
Evie Cho, played by Wanlim, is the main villain in Orphan Black season 4.
We sat down with Wanlim earlier this year—virtually of course—to chat about her journey as an actor of Chinese Indonesian and Filipino descent, and to talk about filming during the pandemic while balancing the realities of being a first-time working mom.
But first, Wanlim wanted us to know that her journey didn’t start with acting: “I started off in everything arts and dance related,” says Wanlim, “following in my sister’s footsteps. Everything she did, I wanted to do and my parents were so open to just finding out what I loved to do.”
At just three years old, Wanlin was enrolled in dance, followed by lessons learning the violin, the piano and how to sing. But none of thosewere in the cards. Acting was.
THE EARLY YEARS
Her career as an actor started unexpectedly while attending New York’s Juilliard School. It was a close friend who convinced her to crash auditions for non-union commercials and music videos. In fact, one of Wanlim’s first acting appearances was pretending to be a back-up singer for Shaggy (the singer best known for the hit song “It Wasn’t Me”) in one of his music videos. “It was awesome,” she says. That experience was quickly followed by her role on the long-running soap opera, All My Children, which allowed her to pay for acting classes. In 2009, her agents told her it was time to make the move—to Los Angeles, that is. “That was a big step for me, As a New York actor I think you were limited to how much work you could actually do, and they said I was ready.” So, she packed her bags and “hauled-ass” to L.A.
Wanlim in the romance film In My Dream (2014).
Wanlim describes her first year as surprisingly successful. But for all the doors that opened, plenty of doors closed, too. Wanlim shares a painful anecdotal moment. After being booked as a guest star on a well-known American sitcom three weeks after arriving in L.A.—after an “insane amount of callbacks”—she landed the role. After attending the first table-read, she says, “I got sent back to my dressing room and I was like, ‘something’s weird here’. Sure enough, they fired me and ended up going with a five foot nine blonde.” She described it as a heart-wrenching moment: “It just made me question how I had to build up the strength to stomach this on a weekly basis.” Feeling somewhat disheartened, Wanlim questioned if she was cut out for Hollywood.
Wanlim appeared in a teen musical comedy A Cinderella Story: Once Upon a Song in 2011.
Today, however, being passed over for roles is something Wanlim doesn’t bother getting upset over. Instead it has emboldened the actor whose father is of Chinese and Indonesian descent. When asked about how her background has played a part in her journey, she says, “I’m Asian and I can’t help that sometimes I’m not a specific type of Asian. But just as typecasting can be a hindrance, it can also be a benefit. “I’ve had opportunities where I’m literally the only person of colour in the mix, and they end up going with me because I’m ‘diverse’. So, it’s this really awful tug of war. L.A. has definitely tested my will.” And the call to audition for Workin’ Moms came as Wanlim was on the verge of quitting acting altogether. In fact, she was already thinking about her second career in real estate. “It was just one of those things where I was like, ‘You know what, maybe I should just stick it out and see, and do real estate when [acting] is slow’.’’ And that’s where she is now, acting while working on her next real estate license.
ON-SCREEN REPRESENTATION
From Sandra Oh as the lead on Killing Eve to the cast of another CBC hit Kim’s Convenience—including the show’s Chinese-Canadian actor Simu Liu set to become Marvel’s first Chinese superhero and Paul Sun-Hyung’s
recent role in The Mandalorian—Asian actors are becoming increasingly represented on North American and European screens. During an interview with 660 News in Calgary, Wanlim recalls a recurring feeling throughout her acting career: “You never saw any people of colour who were just in the leading role. Every audition I got was for the quirky best friend, and that’s all I thought my career was going to be.” For Wanlim, it’s inspirational to see such positive changes in the industry and for diversity to be reflected in the main roles and storylines like those recently on Workin’ Moms. “The representation of Asian couples is pretty fantastic. They could have gone with anyone to play this role. I’m excited to work with Alex Mallari Jr., a Filipino-Canadian, who plays my boyfriend.”
Wanlim plays Jenny Matthews, one of the two tritagonists in Workin’ Moms.
Her own excitement about the show going forward is one of the reasons why Workin’ Moms continues to be a hit. Wanlim explains that her character Jenny is a mom first and foremost, and it is fantastic that she also represents the Asian community. But the show is not about cultural differences, and the goal of Workin’ Moms is not to unpeel those types of storylines. Wanlim says she loves playing the role of Jenny for many reason. One of which she says that has also resonated with the audience is that Jenny is such a strong character, a woman who is trying to, says Wanlim, “live her life and figure it out. I don’t think her [culture] is the one thing people are paying attention to.” The show has certainly resonated with a worldwide audience, whether you’re a mom or not. “I feel like the show itself is about working moms everywhere—all working moms.”
A REAL WORKIN’ MOM
Although Wanlim admits to disregarding her own culture while growing up so that she would “fit in”, she’s hoping to expose her one-year-old son to both sides of her heritage. “I want my son to be raised with both the Chinese and Filipino values because I was never surrounded by them,” she says. And one of the ways she plans to do that is through food. “My family was raised around the table; all we do is congregate in the kitchen and eat,” says Wanlim. “Getting him familiarized with all of these different flavours is really important to me.”
Jessalyn Wanlim: a real and first-time working mom.
And what was it like being a real, first-time workin’ mom during the pandemic? Overwhelming says Wanlim, but she says she is grateful that her work has allowed her to stay home. She relishes in the fact that she has been able to watch her boy grow up every second of the day. And although being so far away from her family during this time has been tough, they video chat with her parents every morning so they aren’t missing out on any of their grandson’s big milestones.
To wrap it up, we asked Wanlim what she’s looking forward to most when the pandemic wanes and restrictions are lifted. “Forget travel, forget going to restaurants,” she says, “I know this sounds so pathetic but it’s being able to go to an ice cream shop and sample the flavours with my son.”
Catch up on all five seasons of Workin’ Moms on GEM, the free CBC app.
