Open your heart completely “Chai Chatyodom”, a famous actor on the WOODY FM program, shed tears! Revealing the inner issues of the important change in life for the first time when the faith in acting that he had devoted himself to for more than 10 years began to fade away. Feeling disappointed and disappointed with himself, causing conflict between his career and happiness in family life?
What have you done in the acting field in all forms? I would like to know how satisfied are you with it today?
Chai Chatyodom: If I really tell you, there are many stages in my life as an actor. Before Chai dared to call himself an actor, he had to work in the industry for at least 10 years before he dared to call himself an actor. Because I value this word very much, I give it a lot of importance.
Because being an actor is a career, it’s everything for a man, it’s something that gives life, it gives a good life, it allows a man to take care of himself, to take care of his family, and more importantly, it fills everything in a man’s life. Whatever is empty, whatever is in his heart, he can fill it up to the point that he can’t believe that one day he might be able to stand here and do this job, have the opportunity to do this. It wasn’t until he felt that way that he had been working in the industry for more than 10 years.
So, were you happy with the performance today?
Chai Chatayodom: If today Chai has an ambiguity in life, it means that we used to be very confident, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this is what Chai loves the most. It is everything in life. I devote every second of my life to this. Acting is what I love and believe in the most. Mom Noi once asked Chai… do you like acting? How do you feel? Chai answered that I love it very much. I love acting very much. But she said that true love is not enough. Love still has selfishness, wanting to have, wanting to be.
But if the word faith, if you believe in something, you will lift him up above that. You will not hurt him. You will believe in what you do and do what you believe in completely. There is something more than love that makes a man understand that, oh! This is what we really devote our whole life to. So it was always the goal of my heart at that time that if we love, we really believe in what we do, we will never betray him. We will be determined to do our best, not hurt him, and do the best that we can, so we devoted ourselves to that.
It is very true that if we believe in something and devote ourselves to it, good things will come back to us and it has always been that way. Until one day, out of nowhere, I stopped loving him, which I never thought would happen. I set a goal in life to be an actor, to be in this position until my last breath. Then, out of nowhere, one day, I just didn’t want to do it anymore. I didn’t want to go, I didn’t want to meet anyone, I didn’t even want to look at the script. At the time that I felt this way, I also felt very disappointed with myself.
How did you fail?
Chai Chatayodom: Chai can’t get his feelings out of him. Chai always says, tells everyone that the chances of a person entering this profession, being an actor, are very slim. We can count on one hand who has the opportunity to enter this profession. It’s not just Thai actors, it’s actors all over the world. There’s only a handful in this world who have the opportunity to stand here and do this. One day be a billionaire, the next day be a beggar. It’s exciting.
What other career would give me the chance to do something like this? None. Entering the world of dreams, living there through characters. Do you think it’s easy to get in here? They’ve already chosen you as one of the people who will have the opportunity to do this. Won’t you do your best? Won’t you use this opportunity to create something valuable? And then one day, I’ll be that person. When will filming be finished? (laughs)
What triggers that gland to come up?
Chai Chatyodom: This is something that I didn’t dare to say or tell anyone before because another thing that came in and changed my life and changed my thinking is the thing that I love the most, which is my family (voice shaking, tears welling up). My family is what I’ve dreamed of all my life (crying).
Have you started a family yet?
Chai Chatayodom: It was happiness. Seeing happiness in another dimension that we had been waiting for our whole lives. Chai was confident since he was a child that he wanted to have a family. He planned to get married when he was 20, and have children no later than 25. But when the time came, it didn’t go as planned. It happened when he was 35. When he got married and had a family, he felt that it was so good. This is what he had been waiting for all along. It made his life so fulfilling. And when he had children, it was what he had dreamed of his whole life. And then on that day, it suddenly switched without warning. Chai didn’t want anything anymore. He didn’t want to go to work. He didn’t want time from this life to be taken away.
Is this before the drama Matilda?
Chai Chatyodom: Before, for quite a while, it was a time when Chai fought with himself very hard because I didn’t want to go anywhere. I didn’t want to be taken away from me, the thing I love. My child is the most precious thing to me. I didn’t want to miss even a second of his growth, his development, his first steps, everything that was the first time. I wanted to be there.
If someone calls to ask for a date, I’ll be angry. Why does it have to be like this? It’s a terrible time. Because I know that it’s one of my duties. When I get angry at that time, I feel what happened to my life. Before this, this was my everything. I was happiest being on set. It’s the color that fills my life. I can’t switch myself back. I can’t find a way to have a good attitude towards what I have to do. I can’t find it no matter how hard I look.
I stayed like that for years. When my first child was born, I didn’t do anything. I stayed with my child for 2 whole years without going out. My mind was already there. I didn’t look around. Until I realized it when I was angry. And every time I was sitting on the set, I felt like it was a waste of time. When will it be finished? Whenever I was like that, when I became conscious, I hated myself so much. I hated myself for thinking like that. For being that kind of person. Because I have always opposed people with this kind of mindset coming into this industry that I said I loved. I believed in. Anyone who had this attitude towards acting, I would be extremely opposed. That day, I became that person.
If I go out to film today, will there still be some scabs or will it still be the same?
Chai Chatyodom: I still can’t go back to the original place. I confess that right now I can’t even go back there. But I’m still fighting with myself. I’m still looking for a way out for my life. Because the 2-3 years that I’ve been there have been really hard. I’m still working. I’m still on set. I’m doing it when I’m not in a good state of mind. I don’t know if people can tell.
Many times I feel like I’m faking it when I’m playing different characters. I still feel like I’m guessing what I’m doing, like I’m not being as sincere with the character as I want it to be or should be. For example, in the drama Mata Lada, I still don’t know if Chai deserves to be admired or not (voice shaking, almost crying)
I believe that if this content is the organizer who wants to call you, you might be more mindful?
Chai Chatyodom: No (laughs). You can still hire. That’s another concern in my mind because I have children. I don’t want to have this mindset to go to work. I try to go back to that place. But a career must be something that supports our lives and supports our family. I don’t want to take a break.
I wanted to have a career to support my children and send them to school safely to shore. But we yearned for the love, faith, and dedication that we once had for our career, which could not be undermined by anything until we knew it existed. But what brought us to this point, still living and working, is that people do not have to love and devote themselves to one thing for the rest of their lives. We just started to understand that passion is something we want to devote our time, body and soul to fully at that time.
But if one day we will move on to other passions, it is not wrong. In fact, we can have passions for many things. It depends on what we devote our time to at that time. And try to balance it. If we have to do many things at the same time, how much time can we allocate and dedicate to him? But all that I have said does not mean that I can do it. It is just the timing of life. Right now, I may not have so much work that I do not have time to be with my children, so I am relieved. Or now that my children are in school, I have more time to go to work and devote myself to my work.
Today, it’s like we’ve fully known your feelings and would like to give you encouragement?
Chai Chatyodom: Chai felt that if he didn’t talk about it, he wouldn’t be able to get out of that cycle. I’ve never talked about it to anyone, never seriously. The most I’ve talked about is Vicky. She gave me encouragement and I could feel it. But today, it’s like I’ve been released. I feel like it’s really unlocked that I can feel this way. I’ve always felt guilty. I’m glad I can talk about it. (smiles)
