Actor, “Severance“
Lachman has become one of the most beloved characters in Apple TV+’s “Severance.” In Season 2, the actor was front-and-center as she expanded her character, Gemma, by playing several different “innie” versions of the same person.
“I felt very fortunate that I got to go deeply into the backstory of Gemma because … obviously things are changing now, but that hasn’t always been the case. You don’t get to always play a fully fleshed-out human being,” Lachman says.
Hollywood has historically offered limited roles for Asian actors, but that’s changed in recent years, both throughout the industry and within Lachman’s career. “Severance,” particularly, has allowed her
to display her full range of skills. Her role requires her to bounce between Gemma’s disparate work selves. “It taught me a lot about being able to compartmentalize your emotions, bury them and then release them and control and pacing yourself,” Lachman says.
She’s no stranger to the sci-fi space, having previously starred in the Netflix series “Altered Carbon.” Lachman’s also known for “Jurassic World: Dominion,” “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” and “Aquamarine.”
On “Severance,” Lachman is aware of her presence as an Asian actor. “To represent the Asian community like that — it’s amazing,” she says, adding, “It’s heartwarming to see that there are really great roles for everybody now. It’s not just one archetype.”
Lachman, who is part Tibetan, was born in Nepal and grew up in Australia. She remembers developing a “thick exterior shell” as a child from being ostracized due to her mixed identity, a trait that she needed when she began acting. “Some of the things I’ve been told about being Asian and wanting to be in this industry, I don’t even want to repeat because they’re so horrific,” Lachman says. “But I kind of took it in and I used it to push me forward.”
In the future, she would be open to exploring different roles and to keep subverting people’s ideas about what Asian actors can do. At the top of her mind? A Western. “I want to try and do things that break type,” Lachman says.
Whatever she does next would, hopefully, push her to continue growing. “It’s more about just expanding out all the things that I’ve already had the opportunity to do, but in a more meaningful way, in a more challenging way,” Lachman says. —A.L.
Influences: Keanu Reeves, Steven Spielberg