To put food on the table, he got a job as a waiter in a seedy diner. And you never know if you don’t try!”Īnd so, at the age of 40, Sean began pounding the pavements in Los Angeles, going for audition after audition. “A lot of us talk about going to Hollywood, but none of us ever do it,” he points out. That meant “going right back to Ground Zero” – uprooting his entire life and relocating to a country where no one knew who he was. He left Malaysia to chase the American Dream.
In 2009, Sean made one of the most momentous decisions of his life. “So, instead of performing for the whole week, they sub-contracted me for five shows and cut my pay!” “As soon as I did the first night, which was pretty triumphant, all the sick people in the cast got better!” he laughs. He did, winning rapturous applause from everyone in the theatre.īut, proving that there really is no business like show business, Sean barely had time to reflect on his performance before the rug was pulled out from under him again. And I thought – I have no choice but to nail this!” “When it came to Angel’s solo, Today 4 U, everyone backstage came to the wings. “I knew all the big songs, but I had to have all the other dialogue and lyrics written on my props,” he laughs. He had to learn the role in English overnight. Within a day, he had packed his costumes and taken two flights to get to London. Even if you don’t know, you go with the flow.” “But we were always taught in our training to just say yes. “They asked me if I knew the role of Angel in English – and I didn’t!” he confesses. Due to a bout of flu hitting the London company of RENT, they were out of actors who could play the role of Angel. While covering the lead role of Angel in Berlin, Germany, he received a call from a producer in New York. Sean has also had to pull off a last-minute ‘ RENT Rescue’.
Sean and bobo swing it full#
By the end of my two-year stint, I was covering 23 roles and I was the dance captain! I even stepped into a girl’s role once, in full wig, tights and heels!” “I had to create my own ‘show bible’ to track the movements of every single actor I covered. “It was such a great training ground,” he recalls of his time as a swing in the West End production of Miss Saigon. He’s learnt and honed his craft as a performer on stages all over the world, working his way up from swing to understudy to lead actor. There’s no doubt that Sean knows a great deal about “the peaks and valleys” that make up a career. The highs, the lows – the days that you cannot afford to eat are balanced by the days you get a standing ovation in London.” “You start to see your whole career as a jigsaw puzzle,” he explains. Painful though the experience was, Sean has come to realise that it’s just as much a part of his career as his biggest successes – which include sharing the screen with Jodie Foster and Chow Yun-Fat in Anna and the King and performing at the Hollywood Bowl with pop orchestra Pink Martini. “It was traumatising – I really should have had therapy about it!” he says, with a wry laugh. Instead, he was given a litany of excuses: he was a Malaysian, he didn’t have a degree, he hadn’t served National Service. “They had no plan for me, and they weren’t interested in developing anything new with me,” reveals Sean. “I thought that the Fame Awards would help me get more exposure in the region – that I could get more theatre work and make a name here for myself.” “I had moved my life back from Germany to Southeast Asia for this opportunity,” he remembers, with a trace of sadness in his voice. In 1995, he competed as a singer and a host, impressed the panel of judges, and won the top prize. One of the biggest disappointments of his career took place at the very first Fame Awards in Singapore. And you can get really down on yourself.”Ĭheck out some highlights from Sean’s incredible career! “You get so used to rejection – it becomes like your friend, or your middle name. “Being in this business is hard,” he says frankly after dancing the morning away in choreography rehearsals for La Cage Aux Folles.
In truth, Sean has worked incredibly hard to get to where he is today, and has suffered his share of disappointments and heartbreak along the way. One of the brightest stars in Malaysia’s performing arts industry, Sean has dazzled audiences with his singing voice and his acting chops for over four decades.īut, as is often the case, achieving one’s dreams only looks easy. You’d be forgiven for thinking that show business is in Sean Ghazi’s blood.