There was a moment about a decade ago when “Mission: Impossible–The Final Reckoning” star Stephen Oyoung, who plays Pills, a U.S. Navy Dive Master, decided it was time to “just say no.” After finding success as a stuntman and fight coordinator, the martial artist realized it was time to get serious about becoming the credited actor he longed to be.
“It’s the hardest thing,” Oyoung said in a recent interview with The Epoch Times.
“I remember my first movie, ‘The Last Airbender,’ I was doubling Dev Patel. I remember we were training on one end of the stage, and he was training on the other. And we were separated by this plastic tarp. And I just remember thinking to myself, ‘I’m so close to these actors, but I’m so far.’”
Like in any other business, movie/TV productions have boundaries around job titles and their duties, said Oyoung, who has trained and choreographed fight sequences for major productions, including movies starring Keanu Reeves and Denzel Washington.
“When you’re below the line talent, you’re put in a box and they want you to stay in that box because you’re a technician,” Oyoung said.
A Passion for Martial Arts
As a child growing up in the southern California town of Cerritos, the idea of making it in show business didn’t seem impossible to Oyoung.
“My theory was just the whole world came to California to try to make it in Hollywood, and here we are already in southern California,” he said.
Like many of his peers coming of age in the 1980s, Oyoung said, “‘Star Wars’ was the first movie that really blew my mind. I watched that over and over again.”
A Kung Fu enthusiast in high school, Oyoung put his energy into that passion.
“My father was already a martial artist, but he was a mechanical engineer by profession,” Oyoung noted. “When I was in college, I basically blew off all of my classes just to train in martial arts.”
Maybe he’d open a martial arts school, he’d think during practice, but in his heart was another dream.
“I kind of want to take a crack at being an action star,” he recalled telling his parents. “Because I was always doing drama as a kid, and so melding the two would be cool.”
He was pleasantly surprised that his traditional immigrant parents were “very encouraging,” which made him even more determined to give it a go.
From Stuntman to Call Sheet Actor
Around 2015, with years of built-up stunt and fight coordinator credits, he began his pivot to becoming an actor.“I told myself, I was getting up there in age,” he said. “I'd done the stunts for around 10 years, and this thought stuck in my head, which is, if I don’t make my dream come true, I’m just going to work to make other people’s dreams come true.”
After that revelation, everything changed for Oyoung, who began turning down anything but acting auditions. He had to start over until little by little he built up enough of an acting resume for “people in the business to consider me,” he said, recognizing at some point that, “Oh, right. He’s an actor.”
As his acting credits multiplied, bigger projects came calling, such as a role in the big screen hit “Twisters,” the buzzy HBO series “Insecure,” and the compelling voice actor role of Martin Li—Mister Negative—in the 2018 video game “Spider-Man” and its 2023 sequel.
Then, of course, came the call he’d been waiting his whole life for—the chance to play an action hero alongside one of the biggest names in action films: Tom Cruise.
It did not disappoint.
“He has so much energy,” said Oyoung of Cruise.
“He’s not only an actor, he’s a producer, he’s basically a co-writer, a co-director. He’s juggling all of these plates in the air. And then in between these scenes, he literally is saying, ‘I gotta go train for the next scene.’ That man is always preparing.”
Landing a role in “Mission: Impossible–The Final Reckoning” crystallized for Oyoung where he is at this moment.
“I’m just a local guy from Cerritos, so watching me in ‘Mission: Impossible,’ having scenes with Tom Cruise, the whole journey paid off,” he said. “Martial arts, stunts, that helped with the whole action thing.”
So where does he go from here?
“For now, I take it one day at a time,” Oyoung said. “Honestly, if I could just get into ‘Top Gun 3,’ that would be great. For real, seriously. I got to pull all the strings I can. I got to talk to Tom. I let him know on the last day of shooting, ‘Hey, whatever you need, man, I will be there.’ ”
Besides working on landing his next movie role, Oyoung, who recently celebrated his one-year wedding anniversary to wife Tanya Pam, is striving for another part—real-life father.
“We’re working on it,” he said with a laugh. “I would love to have kids.”
