Tania Gunadi’s New TV Series Enlisted at Fox 11
A big glowing red thermometer displays seventy-seven degrees Fahrenheit high above the corner of Ventura and Van Nuys Boulevard. In summer, San Fernando Valley dwellers have become accustomed to slightly higher temperatures than the rest of Los Angeles. But it’s January 19th. At 10:02 am.
Tania Gunadi, second from right .. yep, that petite girl. Have some laughs and make your day brighter by watching Tania Gunadi’s New TV Series “Enlisted” at Fox 11 every Friday 9 PM
The girl who just walked through the door at Crave Café clearly got the weather memo. She’s dressed in a light blue tank with a little green frog on the front, shorts and sandals that sparkle silver like a disco ball. As she glances my way I catch site of the “infectious smile” her publicist had warned me about. The smile that I now understand even more so as one of the likely culprits behind the ongoing string of successes this young actress from Indonesia is having in Hollywood. She plops down in the chair across from me and the first thing from her mouth is pure exuberance, “you HAVE to try the strawberry and banana crepes- they have chocolate on them!”
Her publicist was right. There’s nothing short of adorable about actress Tania Gunadi, one of the stars in Fox’s new Enlisted sitcom. I smile and sort of grunt something about it being a bit too early for me for that much sugar, then ask her if Cindy Park is Indonesian.
“Cindy is actually Korean,” she says somewhat sheepishly, as if anyone from her home country could ever take offense. “For the longest time I just sort of assumed she was Indonesian as I’ve played several roles where producers or directors would want me to throw in some lines in my native language, but I found out at around the fifth episode where I was in a scene with about two hundred crickets crawling up my arm, when the director asked me to learn some Korean…well, enough to curse, he said.”
When I point out that cursing doesn’t seem to match her effervescent personality she quickly chimes in, “I LOVE to curse! When I first came to America I got hooked on Eminem songs and I remember going into an acting class one night and dropping f- bombs like every third word. People thought I was a little nuts. On Enlisted my character is a fun combination of sweet and aggressive. Cindy loves Ryan Gosling and kittens, but is also going thru a divorce so she takes out her frustrations during her military training ops. Cindy’s got a magazine full of curse words locked and loaded, but being that Fox is a major network and all, she doesn’t let ‘em fly.”
She admits that upon first arriving in America, her primary sources of learning the English language were a day job at a San Gabriel Pizza Hut and watching syndicated re-runs of Fox’s Married With Children. She also admits to loving all things Christina Applegate. I detect only the slightest hint of her most endearing original island accent and it’s that, along with an easy going girl next door charm that have no doubt made her a much sought after commodity by Producers of voice animated television and film. She stars as the feisty Sashi Kobayashi in Disney’s newest animated series Penn Zero: Part Time Hero, and was Japanese exchange student Miko Nakadai in HUB Network’s Transformers: Prime series.
A young American girl sidles toward our table with a polite request for an autograph and mentioning something about how learning to play hockey changed her life. Gunadi obliges and, upon the girls’ exit, once more flashes her genuine signature smile. “I shot a Disney movie a few years ago where I played on an all girl’s ice hockey team. I’d get similar responses when I traveled to Canada, but who would’ve thought in LA?” To which I remind her that the LA Kings had just won the Stanley Cup a mere two years ago. She returns a polite smile in silence, and I realize that now I appear Canadian.
I ask how the role of a Private in the US Army came about. “I auditioned for casting director Wendy Weidman who I knew from a role I’d done on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I remember it being a quick thing in that I went in and did like two takes and never heard back. And about a month later my agent calls and says I booked the part. I read the pilot and instantly loved it. Just the idea of getting to be a part of a group of misfit goofball soldiers in a rear-detachment military unit in Florida seemed like a win-win. I mean, what’s not to like?” Then something dawns on her. “Oh my god, I just remembered that the girl I played in the episode of Sunny was Korean too!”
Alongside acting, Ms. Gunadi is in plans to produce and star in a feature film entitled Acting Accountable, where she’ll play an Indonesian accountant who immigrates to the United States to live the “American Dream.” So, is it art imitating life, I ask?
“Not really, there are some obvious similarities to my life but, no. At the moment we’re in negotiations with a few different investors, mostly in Indonesia. Mainly because we want to allow an opportunity for them to be involved in a film being made in Hollywood, but we want to open it up to some potential investment parties here in the states too, as we’ll be shooting both in Indonesia and Los Angeles.”
Our conversation shifts to the uncharacteristically warm and dry winter weather of Los Angeles. “I just got back from Indonesia where it was their rainy season, so the dry weather is actually welcomed.” She adds, “There are two seasons in Indonesia- hot and hotter with rain!” When asked what she misses most about her home island of Java, Indonesia she says, “My parents, my old friends, the food- ooohhh the FOOD!! I grew up in Bandung, a few hours drive from the capital city of Jakarta. And my city is extra crowded on the weekends because so many people make the trip from Jakarta just to eat the food in Bandung. Like so many cities and villages in Indo, Bandung has its own unique dialect, Sundanese, and I love getting to speak the language with my friends and family when I go back to visit. So I miss that part too. I love Bandung. I just love it.”
And what’s not to love about this petite actress from Indonesia whose star has shot from the South Pacific landing softly in its rightful place among the bright lights of Hollywood.