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In the world of martial arts there are very few ‘legacy’ stars – the ones who not only impress with their own capabilities but also come from a family equally famous for delivering the goods. There’s little doubt that Celina Jade fits the description. Now a confident star in her own right, her heritage is of Chinese, Spanish, French and English descent and it would be amiss not to note that her father is the legendary Roy Horan who shared the screen with the likes of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan.
But while that perhaps explains an instinctive and inevitable interest in martial-arts, Celina is certainly carving her own niche beyond expectations – citing the likes of Whitney Houston’s voice and Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby as influences in her creative pursuits.
“I actually tried to NOT be an actress just because of my father. I didn’t want to follow in his footsteps,” Celina admits. “My dad is a very good martial-artist but when I graduated from university I was actually singing and with a record-label. After university I signed to a subsidiary of EMI and my manager at the time said ‘Celina, you fight, right?’ Everybody knew my father fought and I said ‘Yeah’. He asked me whether I wanted to audition for a kung-fu movie. I thought I’d try… it was for the lead role in Legendary Assassin. I got it – that was my introduction into acting, but I never thought I’d actually become an actress. I remember the first time I met Jackie Chan and I was already a grown woman. He was very nice and then I told him ‘Roy Horan’s my dad!’ and he was like ‘What? Wow! We must be getting so old!’ (laughs)’. A lot of the people in the industry still know my father from back in the day. I met Stephen Chow and he knew my dad as well. It’s a small circle…”
Bringing a new meaning to 'colour co-ordinated' it might have been inevitable that Celina Jade would join an action show with a distinctive 'green' lineage. Her latest project, one that has boosted her international presence is the recurring role of Shado in the hit series ‘Arrow’. She already had a significant skill-set in martial-arts and linguistics, but still had to learn some new abilities for the role.
“I do Taekwondo, Ta-Chi, Muay-Thai and a little bit of Wu-shu. I love fighting… I mean I look like a ‘girl’ but my mind is like a boy!” she laughs. “I learned archery for Arrow. When I first got Arrow I started training in Vancouver with my teacher, Patricia… and it’s really cool. I now have my own bow which I hope to take back to Hong Kong… we learned shooting straight while standing but also hunting and crouching, moving and shooting. It’s exciting. I’ve worked with the stunt-choreographer a lot he knows that I know some certain moves that the producers may not KNOW I know. So I might have a butterfly kick or something worked in to the skill-set I already have…”
In recent years, television projects have seen an injection of extra budget into their schedules, with several network shows managing to produce effects and set-pieces that might once have rivalled the bigger screen. Celina says that even though the actual shooting schedules can still be very tight on Arrow, the production values have remained high.
“They can achieve a lot. Their budget is pretty high – Arrow’s production values are very high. If you watch the show you can see that in season one that there are lots of explosions and helicopters. The only thing I would say is that because it’s a television show it shows very fast. I have to learn an action sequence in the morning and go straight in shooting. It’s tough but because I have the background in fighting, I’m used to it. If someone says “…it’s punch, punch, left hook, right-hook, spinning-kick… “I can do it. But it’s a little bit difficult because we’re fighting outside in the countryside and in the mountains, so it’s very slippery and it’s wet and it’s raining non-stop. It looks like we’re on a beautiful tropical island, but really we’re in freezing temperatures where it rains non-stop (laughs). But our stunt-teams and stunt choreographer are very, very good.”
Given that she’s had key experiences in both the east and western markets, does she see any notable differences between the two arenas?
“I think in Hong Kong there’s still a lot of wires. I think Chinese actions movies are often still like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon where there’s a tendency for big, ‘dramatic’ movements. In the West I think the fighting is more combat and mixed martial arts – more grounded,” she considers. “ For an actor, fighting, it’s very different between fighting in Hong Kong and fighting in Vancouver because of the weather. In Hong Kong I warm-up for maybe half an hour – after twenty-minutes or so I’m fine for the rest of the day… but in Vancouver, because it’s really cold, if you’re NOT fighting for more than a few minutes everything gets tight. You need to be constantly warming-up to keep ready and not injure yourself. I think there are tax-breaks for shooting in Vancouver, but also – more importantly – this scenery. In Vancouver there’s very tall woods and trees. “
“It’s not that difficult – I just take whatever comes. Whatever project comes, if I have time I do it and I try my best. I have a really good team who work with me – my manager, my agent, my publicist… everybody helps out in terms of scheduling so that I’m not run down and burned out,” she continues.
If it’s true that if there are some obvious parallels to her father’s early career, Celina is now demonstrating just as much pragmatic and practical savvy away from the screen.
“I learned management in London and I help my father out with his Hong Kong consulting company, Innovea. That’s mainly on the side and most people don’t even know about it. But I really enjoy business. After my father stopped being an actor he became a professor at a university and was teaching creativity and also research in neuroscience. He sees how the brain functions,” she explains. “Martial arts and acting was fun for him. He loves the Asian culture and somebody asked him if he’d like to be in a movie but when he finished he went back into academia. People tend to leave university when you get to a certain age so he started his own company and I help him with that…”
That pragmatism appears to extend into the other creative aspects of her life as well. She continues to sing and decided that it made more sense to release her music independently so that there’d be no conflict of interest with other parts of her career.
“Right now I’m signed to Arrow so they have priority over my career. I’d love to continue to do films as well. My acting career has taken off, but it’s very difficult for me to sign a record label as well as my agent for acting… they’ll fight. If I get an offer to act and then an offer to tour musically, each person has their own interest in what I do. There’d be a conflict of interest,” she explains. “So, because I still love music, I decided to release it independently and what I’ve done is place my songs in films or television I’ve done. When I shot Wish Upon a Star in France, I wrote song placements and then sold the rights to them to use it. I also sang the theme song for Legendary Assassin. For me, I enjoy it. I like having the creative control. I don’t need to sell millions and millions of albums. I can still do concerts and tours when I have the time. I’ve done a lot of Chinese songs already and wanted to challenge myself with writing an English album…”
Jade continues to consider her base to be in the East, but spends more and more time travelling and working internationally – essentially wherever the work takes her.
“I think Legendary Assassin is still probably the biggest project I’ve done in China. It still plays two or three times on CCTV/national television. It’s a role that’s well-loved by the Chinese because I play alongside Wu-Shing, the national champion of Wushu in China… he followed Jet Li after he won. To play an innocent half-eurasian girl who falls in love with an Asian man – they loved it! For that movie I toured China for a year – I went from city to city to promote it and it brought a lot of attention to my career,” she notes.
“In Europe I got known for Drive of the Dragon with Sebastian Vettel. Everybody watch I teach him kung-fu and he teaches me how to drive. My favourite art of the thing was driving. We went on the track. He gets in the seat and he’s going to show me how to race. Just before I got in the car there was a BBC journalist that came out after he took her around and she just threw up! Blarrrgh! (laughs) Everyone kept asking me if I’d be okay. I was a little scared. I got on the car and it was like ‘Is this all you got? Drive faster!’ (laughs). We did some 360 degree spins and he told me how you apply the accelerator all the way and then if there’s a curve you go around the outside and brake as late as possible, cut late and let it drift and accelerate again. I copied him and scared him a little bit (laughs). He’s a nice guy to work with – I’ve been very lucky to work with such nice people…” she smiles.
Arrow is broascast in the UK on Sky One each Monday at 8:00pm.
All portrait photographs courtesy and copyright Laurent Koffel. Additional text by John Mosby.
