Thong Nguyen was born in Vietnam and grew up in Paris, France. Thong is a professional dancer, photographer, athlete, martial artist, and the founder of KaizenTao: The Path to Continual Growth.It was ...Show More
Thong Nguyen was born in Vietnam and grew up in Paris, France. Thong is a professional dancer, photographer, athlete, martial artist, and the founder of KaizenTao: The Path to Continual Growth.It was serendipitous that Thong got to meet Hollywood's legendary acting coach to the Stars, Mr. Charlie Laughton. After a photo shoot in Santa Monica, Thong's model who happened to be Mr. Laughton's personal assistant (Mr. Laughton suffered from MS and was bound to a wheelchair), invited him to meet Charlie and his Oscar winning prodigy, Al Pacino for breakfast at the Beanery coffee shop the following day.At breakfast, Mr. Laughton extended an invitation to Thong to attend his acting class the following day to learn what the craft of acting was really about. Thong was honored by the offer and accepted.Thong was fascinated by the similarities between acting and martial arts, and how both disciplines used identical methods, and asked Mr. Laughton if he'd ever trained martial arts. Mr. Laughton replied, "Never. I've only studied Method Acting with Lee Strassberg at the Actor's Studio in NYC." That formed an epiphany for Thong that truth can be found in a multitude of disciplines. This later became his inspiration for revamping his martial arts perspective and creating KaizenTao.Upon returning home, Thong informed his modeling/casting agencies where he'd previously worked behind the camera as their photographer, that he'd like to get out in front of the camera, and would appreciate being sent out on auditions. This occasionally got him booked as a model as well.Shortly thereafter, Thong received a call from Betsey Royall of Taylor Royall Casting to do some "Extra Category" work for the movie Runaway Bride which was going to shoot in Baltimore, MD. Thong wasn't keen on the idea of doing extra work, but when he learned this was a different category than the normal extras, and that he'd have an opportunity to work with the genius director Garry Marshall, the man who'd helped to create iconic shows like, I Love Lucy, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Odd Couple, Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Mork & Mindy, he accepted.On the first day of shooting at the Baltimore Sun newspaper plant, Thong and Garry Marshall hit it off, and Mr. Marshall opted to Taft-Hartley him into returning the following day to play a principal role in his movie.Unfortunately, continuity issues on many of the close up scenes shot between Thong, Richard Gere and Hector Elizondo required heavy editing, but Mr. Marshall classily wrote Thong to personally apologize and invited him to come out to this new Falcon Theater in Burbank, CA to work. Thong never took up the offer as he didn't have time to commit to acting, but very much appreciated the experience of having met with, and being directed by a most wonderful and humble greats of Hollywood. Garry as he preferred to be called by his actors, was the nicest man and down to earth celebrities you'd ever want to meet. Hide
