THE INFINITY OF FEELINGS

ACTRESS CYNTHIA YIRU HU TALKS ABOUT HER CREATIVE PROCESS AND THE ROLES THAT HAVE SHAPED HER

Cynthia Hu was a highly-creative child; she was gifted at traditional calligraphy and has been dancing since she was a toddler. In high school, her passion for the arts developed. Everything clicked. She decided to pursue acting. Today Cynthia is an actress based in NYC working in film and theatre. She still uses dance and painting as part of her creative process when developing characters. She shares that she has a very deep connection to her body, and the physicality of a character is often what comes first to her.

Physicality is the first step, but Cynthia has a meticulous process when it comes to character development. “I do everything I can to get to know the character: reading the script, finding clues in the scripts, I invite them and welcome them into my instrument and try to answer those questions through improvisation,” she adds. Her dedication to her craft has led her to work on a myriad of successful projects both on stage and on the big screen.

Fig 1. Cynthia played the role of the ‘Hippie Girl’ in “The Man Who Turned Into a Stick,” a play by Japanese playwright Kobo Abe, directed by Saki Kawamura, and presented at ASDS Repertory in 2022

When asked which role made a bigger impact on her, Cynthia does not hesitate and shares with us her experience playing Hope in a play called An Infinite Ache by playwright David Schulner. A heartfelt play about love, time, and fate, An Infinite Ache is both heartbreaking and hopeful. These contradictions…