Sunny Suwanmethanont raises his thick eyebrows and chuckles. He forks a piece of mango into his mouth while he considers something -- an existential query of sorts.
Sunny Suwanmethanont, actor PHOTO: GDH 559
"People keep saying to me, 'You're good at playing yourself in movies,'" he says, looking one part confused, and another amused. "And I wonder, 'How come?' How do they know I'm playing myself in the movies? What am I like when I'm 'myself'? Does it mean I'm not good at acting since I don't have to act and I'm just playing 'myself'?"
He has a point. But those who say that to him have a point, too.
For 13 years, Sunny, a 37-year-old French-Thai actor, has appeared in movies and TV sitcoms playing a handsome scalawag, a good-hearted nuisance, an impish rom-com leading man who can't keep his jokes to himself. And that is the impression you have when you meet him -- that of a good-humoured prankster, deadpan, mischievous and slightly a pain-in-the-neck, but never harmful or over-the-top. Even when he appears as a presenter of a soda water (under a beer brand) he uses those straight-faced good looks to good effect -- like a bored person dragged out of his bed on a Sunday morning to perform something entertaining for the benefit of the masses and starting to enjoy it.
His true self or not, that's what Sunny is giving us in his new film opening on Thursday: Nong Pee Teerak (Brother of The Year), in which he plays a possessive brother whose pretty sister (played by Urassaya "Yaya" Sperbund) is getting romantic with a man (played by Nichkhun Horvejkul). A romantic comedy with a family touch, this is a new release by GDH-559, Thailand's most commercially successful movie studio whose every new film excites the crowds and serves as a measure of the industry's vital signs. Through a combination of solid script and marketing push, GDH always makes sure that the opening of every new film arrives with a buzz. That's why Sunny's sunny face is now stalking you everywhere.
In the film industry that strives to secure a star who can "open a movie" -- a face that attracts the audiences simply by having it splashed on a poster -- Sunny has a bankable track record, a solid performer at the Thai (and sometimes international) box office. In fact, the combined box-office receipts of the titles he has starred in are among the highest of contemporary Thai actors. Last year, Sunny played a down-and-out tennis star trying to win back his girlfriend in Mister Hurt, which made 80 million baht. In 2016, he played a graphic designer who develops a strange skin rash and has a crush on his dermatologist in Heart Attack, which made 100 million baht.
Before that, his biggest hit was romantic comedy I Fine Thank You Love You, in which he plays a tough-talking foreman who falls for his English-language teacher. The film made a whopping 330 million baht in Thailand and became a hit across Southeast Asia. In Indonesia, the film was so popular that it spawned a Bahasa Indonesia remake, which followed the Thai original almost shot by shot.
But it all started with the 2005 film Puen Sanit (or Dear Dakanda). In his first film, which was a modest hit, Sunny plays an art student who gets friend-zoned by a beautiful classmate named Dakanda (played by Siraphan "Noon" Wattanajinda). The Thai title means "best friend", and Sunny's character spends most minutes of that lovely little film trying to make his feelings known to her.
"I had had no experience acting," he recalled. "Someone called me up and asked to me come to an audition at GTH [the original name of GDH-559]. He said the office was in Sukhumvit 31. I thought, OK, I could walk from the main road into the soi. It turned out that the office was at the other end of Sukhumvit 31 -- like, almost Phetchaburi Road. I arrived angry after a very long walk.
"But I got the part, so I guess it was not so bad at all."
Sunny Suwanmethanont, actor PHOTOS: GDH 559
Sunny grew up in Bangkok and studied at Phra Maha Tai Suksa school. "When I finished lower secondary level, my mother, who's French, told me I should look for a new school myself," he said, in all truthfulness that sounded like a gag. "So I got on a bus with no idea what I should do. When the bus went past Surasak Montri school, I thought this was it! I should study here!"
He finished high school there and went on to get a BA from Assumption University, majoring in advertising. With his striking good looks, he started off as a presenter for TV commercials. Then the call from GTH came, followed by that long walk into the soi, and a career in acting began.
The Thai film scene in the mid-2000s was full of hope. A number of new-wave directors were testing the limits of artistic and commercial sides of the industry, at a time when the economy in general was also prospering. Studio GTH at that point was riding on the phenomenal success of the coming-of-age film Fan Chan (My Girl), a 2003 pre-teen drama that evoked sweet nostalgia and raked in nearly 140 million baht. It was a bright beginning of a movie studio that would continue to connect with the crowds through heart-warming stories until today.
That was the ripe atmosphere when Sunny, then 24, stepped into the set of Puen Sanit. His character, called Khai Yoy, is something of a tortured artist who struggles to express his feelings. Long-haired, paint-stained and gloomy (and yet smoke-free and grime-free, despite being an art student), Sunny made an impression of a young actor who had yet to realise his full potential.
"It was that film that made me want to be an actor, like, a real actor," said Sunny. "It made me realise that I really did care about giving a good performance and take this job seriously.
"At that point I couldn't tell myself exactly why I felt that way -- why I felt more and more strongly about being a good actor. Later, I realised that it's simple. It's called passion."
His next film, however, wasn't the brightest spot in his filmography. Sai Lab Jab Ban Lek (The Bedside Detective) was a half-baked romantic comedy about a private eye hired to catch an affair only to fall for the woman at the centre of the investigation -- a film that critics loved to sneer at for its premise and outcome. Sunny plays the detective, not entirely convincingly, and it's the one film that people tend to overlook when reviewing his stellar career.
After that, Sunny starred in TV sitcom Nuer Khoo Pratu Tad Pai (True Love Next Door), which went on for seven years across three channels. And that was when he fashioned his on-screen persona of a cool mischief-maker, a goofy heartthrob with one eyebrow raised in a gesture of jokey provocation.
"Today most people still remember me from the role in that sitcom. It went on for years, and it's the kind of comedy that people like," said Sunny. "It was where I played this zany guy, and somehow I might have shaped my 'character' as people would come to remember."
Back to the big screen, Sunny scored a hat-trick with I Fine Thank You Love You in 2014, Heart Attack in 2015, and Mister Hurt in late 2016. The landscape of Thai cinema in the mid-2010s was different from when the actor first arrived a decade earlier: the enthusiasm was still there, but the unpredictability of the market was ominous. Studios want to play it safe, while the independent film scene fights their battle in a corner. In this climate, Sunny has emerged as one of a few faces that, though not guaranteeing a runaway success of a movie, at least hedges a certain degree of appeal and commercial return.
I Fine Thank You Love You wasn't a critical favourite, but you can never argue with box-office numbers: the film's 330-million-baht intake made it the second highest-grossing Thai film of all time, trailing only Phi Mak Phrakanong (both films are GTH/GDH productions). Sunny plays opposite Preechaya Pongthananikorn in a film that relies mostly on the chemistry between the two stars. The actor said that he regarded his character as a serious person -- a foreman who tries to look tough -- but because his tough expression was an act, a defence mechanism, the audiences find him so entertaining.
It was Heart Attack (the 2015 film is better known as Freelance among Thai audiences) that opened Sunny to a new horizon of film acting. He plays Yoon, a graphic designer who, as a freelancer lacking security, works day and night to please his clients to the point that he literally collapses. Starring opposing him is Davika Hoorne, playing a dermatologist who treats Yoon's skin disease at a public hospital.
"I read the script, I loved it, but I was also, like, what the heck is this?" he recalled of the film written and directed by Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit.
"Heart Attack is a story about work, love and life. It's about this guy who devotes his every waking minute to work even though he doesn't know why -- he doesn't want money, he works because he's trapped in this way of thinking that he can't stop working. It's like he's playing a video game, he can't stop. His life's worth depends on it.
"And yes, I kind of agree with that," Sunny continued. "We do something because we want to do it. It's hard and it's tiring, but we won't feel tired if it's something we want to do, something we want to see the outcome of. I think I go by that rule as well."
With Brother of the Year coming out in a few days, Sunny affirms his status as a star of the generation -- and one who has come to this point almost without intending to. "I hadn't studied acting before I landed my first role," he said. "I have learnt a few things since. But more importantly, I'm doing this -- acting -- because I want to. I would do it even if they paid me nothing.
"I don't want to 'be myself' in the movies," he added, as if answering the existential question that began the conversation. "I want to be someone else. That means good acting, doesn't it?"
Overprotective sibling: Sunny Suwanmethanont in 'Brother of the Year.' GDH 559
