Asian-American actress Fiona Rene on her favourite movie genre, finding her roots and representation in the entertainment industry

In second grade, Fiona Rene was cast as a rainbow-coloured zebra for a school play. It was a moment the Los Angeles-based actress says helped her decide “this is what I want to do for the rest of my life”. Her passion for performing has led her to the biggest role of her career – as a series regular on I Know What You Did Last Summer. The series, a serial adaptation of the 1997 horror movie, is now streaming globally on Amazon Prime Video. “To get to be part of such an iconic horror franchise is thrilling,” says Rene. “It was exhilarating.” She plays Lyla Kalei, the police chief of a small Hawaiian town where the events play out (the eight-episode series was filmed in Oahu, Hawaii’s most populous island). Writer and executive producer Sara Goodman describes Kalei as tenacious in her work, but “a human being with her own pitfalls, fears and secrets”. The series is not a reboot or a retelling of the film, but is its own story and an adaptation of the 1973 Lois Duncan novel of the same name. “It’s very different,” explains Rene. “You can’t just retell something, although it does keep a lot of the iconic tropes and basic storylines. My mother fled from communist China to Taiwan, and when she came to this country, she wanted to be white ... I had to really ... search for my own roots Fiona Rene “I love horror, that’s my genre. As an actor, I like action, comedies, drama, the whole spectrum of emotions, and life that I want to be able to convey. But horror is so interesting. It has so many facets. “The only things we have in this world are fear and love, and when we have a genre that digs down into where fear comes from – all the secrets and pain we suppress as humans – that’s fascinating to me.” Rene was born in the US state of Montana to a Taiwanese mother and Irish-American father. Her family moved constantly, from Oklahoma to California, Michigan to Pennsylvania, “always seeking something better, to find the next best thing”. ‘I didn’t like being Chinese’: Asian-Americans explore their identity “Once we stopped searching, we started appreciating what we had and where we were, and we finally settled down in Austin [in Texas]. Me leaving for college gave my parents the need to create a home base for me to come back to.” Like so many other first-generation Asian-Americans, Rene has had to figure out her own identity. “My mother fled from communist China to Taiwan, and when she came to this country, she wanted to be white,” she says. “She wanted to leave her Chinese heritage behind her. I’ll never understand the ins and outs of it all, but I do know I had to really reach down and search for my own roots. “I had to learn some of my own heritage after the fact. It was beautiful, yet difficult. I resonate with not being Chinese enough and not being white enough.” At 16, Rene left home to attend Oklahoma Baptist University to study theatre and philosophy. After graduating, she returned to Austin, where she became involved in community theatre and booked her first commercial, for a hamburger brand. “I started to learn what it was like to attempt to do this, to call this thing a job. The life seemed so far-fetched and glam, although it isn’t as far-fetched or as glam as you think it is.” Behind the myth of Asian-American success lies institutional racism Rene moved to London in 2011 before returning to the US in 2016 to care for her ailing mother. After her mother died, she moved to Los Angeles. Rene has been in the industry long enough now to see how the roles being offered to her have changed since she first got into acting. “As an Asian-American, it’s interesting that I used to go for roles that were subtle or submissive. But nowadays, the characters that an Asian [actor] can play can be powerful – not so submissive or pure, maybe a big old mess, maybe the powerhouse of the room. “I grew up never seeing that kind of representation of an Asian female in that sense. They were always behind another male. That change excites me.” Sandra Oh’s future roles will be ones that deal with Asian experiences Still, Rene says, there is room for improvement when it comes to maximising inclusion in the entertainment industry. “I don’t think it’s going perfectly and I don’t think all the problems are being fixed. Any process takes dedication and time. Everyone is more cognisant and, between audience members, producers, writers, everyone knows that there is so much more of what is possible. “Networks and streaming studios are hopefully willing to take a bit more risk and realise that it’s not just about numbers but about real representation.”