Interviews

Tibetan Princess in Hollywood

By |2018-12-29T02:18:38+00:00April 26th, 2001|Interviews|

by Alex Luu, in Yolk (2001) 41(4) “I never dreamt I would be acting,” Lhakpa Tsamchoe says. “I was just taking some computer classes after my college graduation and this casting agent approached me.” Tsamchoe, starring in the new Kino International release Himalaya, is reminiscing about her “accidental” tripp into the Hollywood spotlight a few years ago, when she was plucked out of obscurity while dancing with friends at a disco to star opposite Brad Pitt in Seven Years In Tibet. As happenstance as it may sound, Tsamchoe’s journey to Hollywood is anything but accidental. Talk to her more than a few minutes and a closer glimpse into her history reveals a higher force at hand, a spiritual guidance if you will, that has steered Tsamchoe’s life. When Tsamchoe speaks, there is an undeniable tone of world-weariness in her deep voice, yet her incredibly large eyes dance [...]

Star’s Trek

By |2018-12-29T02:19:11+00:00October 1st, 1997|Interviews|

in Vogue (October, 1997) Seven Years in Tibet is the classic account of Austrian mountain climber Heinrich Harrer’s 1944 escape from a British prisoner-of-war camp during World War II and his harrowing trek across the Himalayas to Lhasa, where he became the Dalai Lama’s tutor. Actress Lhakpa Tsamchoe, who plays opposite Brad Pitt in Jean-Jacques Annaud’s epic, comes from a family that trekked across the Himalayas—but in the other direction (and before the People’s Liberation Army took over Lhasa). With her long, shiny black hair in a cascade of Tibetan-style plaits that took seven hours to braid each day, Tsamchoe looks very much the traditional Tibetan she is at heart. Before the first day of filming, she asked her mother to pray for her in the local Tibetan Buddhist monastery; Tsamchoe herself prays for people she likes, for people she doesn’t, and for the Dalai Lama. These [...]

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