23MASALATEXT BY CU FLESHMAN
In Too Deep
Desmond Chiam might be Down Under for his latest TV show, but
he’s only going up from here.
It’s winter in the Southern Hemisphere, but on
Australia’s Gold Coast, it’s sunny and 75 (well, 23
Celsius). And actor Desmond Chiam is swimming
in open water, in a bay almost 30 feet deep, shoot-
ing a scene for the new ABC crime drama Reef Break.
It might sound dreamy to paddle the turquoise
waves of the Pacific for work, but Chiam tells a
different story.
“I am deathly afraid of water,” Chiam says, with a
gravelly, self-deprecating laugh. “It’s a completely
irrational fear. Even in pools, if I’m in the deep end,
my heart rate starts to go up.” He explains that, before
filming that particular scene, he sought reassurance
from a few ex-army extras on set, only to be told that
they themselves would never go out in that water.
“But we did it, and I’m still here,” Chiam says.
It’s not his first time in the deep end. Chiam, who
grew up in Melbourne, is best known today for play-
ing the sinister General Riga on MTV’s Shannara
Chronicles, the first of his recurring television roles.
But long before all of the casting calls and auditions,
Chiam competed as a swimmer for 14 years, encour-
aged by his well-meaning parents who thought it’d
help his fear (it didn’t). By the time he realized the
sport wasn’t for him, he was on another path that ulti-
mately wouldn’t work out, headed toward the white
collar world as a lawyer.
“I grew up in the typical Asian family,” says Chiam,
who’s Singaporean-Chinese. “It was sports and study
for as long as I could remember. I had no idea creative
jobs existed. I thought that photography or writing or
acting were all just hobbies that you didn’t get paid
for.” He eventually learned how the other half lives
during an exchange program that brought him to the
University of California, Irvine, where he met the
woman who would become his wife, took up break-
dancing and joined a dance crew. For the first time,
Chiam met students who wanted to be directors or
actors. But back in Australia, with only a year left of
law school, he decided to stick it out and ended up
working at a law firm—until one fateful conversation.
“I went out for lunch with the partner of my firm,
but it turned out that the guy just needed a full ther-
apy session,” Chiam says. “He said something like, ‘I
sit at the office waiting for my shift to end, then I’m at
home waiting to have dinner, then I’m waiting to go to
sleep, I’m waiting to wake up, and in the end, I’m just
waiting to die.’ Which he said to a new-hire of four
months, and at that point I was like, ‘Yeah ... I’ve got
to go.’”
Fortunately for the TV-watching world, Chiam
went back to the office and put in his notice (as did the
law firm partner, whom Chiam says is “much happier
now”). He then booked a couple of minor roles on
Australian TV, but quickly learned that there wasn’t
much space for an Asian actor. He landed a guest
role on the sitcom Neighbours, but because Remy Hii
already had his own recurring part, the show’s casting
director told Chiam: “We can’t have two.” Just like
the lunch that ended his law days, Chiam realized it
was time to leave. “I knew that if I stayed, there would
be a drought,” Chiam says. “So, I packed up and left.”
Nowadays, Chiam can’t seem to get a moment’s
rest. He’s been juggling roles on Disney’s Magic Camp,
Syfy’s forthcoming We Were Tomorrow and, of course,
Reef Break. As dashing detective Wyatt Cole of the
fictional Reef Island, Chiam has spent much of his
past few months logging 15-hour filming days, rid-
ing speedboats and helicopters in Queensland. But
according to Chiam, he doesn’t mind his hectic sched-
ule. “I spend a lot of my year fighting and battling and
doing these auditions, and putting myself through
the ringer to get onto a set,” Chiam says. “Then once
I’m on a set, I’m not going to fight to spend more time
off-set, you know? This is what I wanted.”
It might have taken him a few wrong turns to get
here, but it’s clear that, finally, Chiam is exactly
where he’s meant to be. And he doesn’t hold it against
his parents for pushing him into law, or his ill-fated
swimming career. “The lesson with those is that you
can still excel, to a large degree, at some pretty wrong
things,” Chiam says. “So, when you do find the thing
that you’re right at, the possibilities are pretty end-
less, for anyone.” Whether it’s to the sunny waters of
the Pacific or the hills of Hollywood, we can’t wait to
see where those possibilities take Chiam next.CM