The 80s and 90s were, in my opinion, the best music had to offer the world. Sri Lanka hardly had much in the way of arts and entertainment during that period; the airwaves and Lankans as a whole were more occupied with suicide bombings and the price of bread. But for the youth that was stuck with hours that segued into days with boredom, there was music. As an 80s child growing up, I honestly can’t remember a music artist from Lanka that put English music first and foremost into the Western airwaves. Then there was Alston Koch. I remember grooving to It’s A Shame back in the day wearing neon shorts and Bata slippers, because you know, it was cool.
Slowly but surely Alston and his music disappeared as he made a home for himself in Australia, and the socio-economic climate evolved and changed. As music changed, and tastes evolved, priorities changed, and life went on, and Alston Koch became a distant but pleasant memory for me. So it was a trip down memory lane when I was invited to interview and chat with James Koch. James is the son of Sri Lankan-born Alston Koch — the multi award-winning singer-songwriter, record producer, actor and television star who migrated from Sri Lanka to Australia 45 years ago.
Surely children are supposed to follow in their fathers’ footsteps, yes? Well, music is not what James regards as a passion; instead he finds acting more to his liking. And he certainly looks the part. With a man bun of sorts, open white shirt, and clad in jeans, he looked the typical bohemian suffering through scripts desiring to flesh everything out realistically for his audience.
Not too eager to open up about his achievements and accomplishments, I realized that I had to do some digging of my own. Many a Lankan denizen would have seen the movie A Common Man, which was released in 2013. James scored his break in this major Hollywood film, which starred Ben Cross and Ben Kingsley. The film won a slew of awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor awards at the Madrid International Film Festival and bronze medal in the Feature Films category at the New York Festivals’ International Television and Film Awards.
At present, James has signed with the Prestige Talent Agency in Beverly Hills, and will be starring in Impact Earth, The Queen Of The Golden Triangle, in addition to a few more movies. Yet while we have established that James surely is an up and coming actor that already has tasted the best of what Hollywood has to offer, justice would not be done if we don’t allow James to speak and tell us of his hopes, dreams, and future plans.
Like any good kid, James started life off by studying very hard: he graduated with a double degree from the Monash University and was well-versed in Studied Computer Science and also majored in Linguistics in Japanese. Thereafter, he went to Japan on scholarship where he immersed himself in Japanese culture. It’s probably the pride and honor that your average Japanese citizen places in the work that they do that resonated so heavily with James. It’s this same work ethic that he infuses his art with. When he came back to Australia, he worked at the Department of Defense. It’s at this juncture that the acting bug bit him, and he travelled to USA to begin his career as an actor.
Yet James is very much into writing and directing as well. Only James could eloquently craft an analogy of what an actor is — a paintbrush that a director could use to create a story. What better way can you live a thousand lives than to slip into an inspired role? Acting is something that gives James in his own words — “unadulterated joy”. So what’s the future looking like for him? Well, he’s working on an adventure story, which is a collaboration with his father, that he selfishly liked to keep under wraps despite my ardent inquiries to get more information. Although he did suggest — with a twinkle in his eye — that there were some well-known names attached to the project.
Although, I was entertained by a James who was lively as he was jovial, and I did wrongly assume that he would enjoy playing comedic roles, however, that was a very wrong assumption. For him, it’s the action flicks that gets him in his element. For instance, the type of action that A Common Man was riddled with is the exact type of role, which James can easily blend in with. One thing we both had in common was the shared love for Monkey Magic — a Japanese television drama based on the Chinese novel, Journey to the West, by Wu Cheng’en — that ran in the early 1980s, Star Wars, Aliens, and Battlestar Galactica.
With so much of opportunity beckoning him, he did leave me with a snippet of wisdom: you really should enjoy what you do, because this is real life, and we owe it to ourselves to experience every single emotion possible. And once you do experience all these singular emotions or a blend of all can you confidently state that you have lived.