PAULA TAYLOR ON STELLA MAGAZINE
FOR JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2010 ISSUE
PHOTO CREDITS: www.wtalentmanagement.com

An Amazing Shoot with Paula.

It took five months of coordinating, a return trip to Thailand  and eventually Paula’s trip to Manila – to come up with this issue’s cover. Doc Marlon, who was also with us in Thailand and pretty much everyone in the team, had to do an Amazing Race  to Manila to shoot this cover, in Ninyo Fusion Cuisine in Katipunan, immediately before Paula left the country. During the shoot, we all discovered that Paula Taylor is an absolute sweetheart. She spoke in a cute British droll and likes to say please and thanks, even under duress. As she was flying back to Thailand immediately after filming, she turned up in her jeans, shirt, beloved Chanel flats, and a great big Thai smile.

ONE BIG ADVENTURE

Paula Taylor’s life is just that – plus a few lucky detours and a firm resolve to follow her heart.

The call of the dream is irresistible, but it actually takes a lot of guts to leave everything behind to follow that inner voice to the ends of the world, if need to be. A monumental decision, to be sure, to shake up one’s life in pursuit of a mere possibility. But take your pointers from Paula Taylor, who has done just that- crossed to the edge of the world  and back.

Paula first caught the eye of Filipino audiences in the reality show “The Amazing Race Asia II” as one half of an unlikely but formidable team. Unlikely, only because the lively, unassuming girl who, with close friend Natasha Monk, quite literally gave fellow contestants a run for their money, was then already one of the most famous personalities in Thai show-business, with more magazine covers, TV ads, movies and product endorsements to her name than there were pit stops in the game. Wherever in the world the race took her, no one would suspect that half-English, half-Thai Paula could not walk down a street in her adopted home, Bangkok, without getting mobbed.

She shrugs off the notion of being too famous. “I do get recognized a lot, but that doesn’t affect me much. I believe in keeping my personal life private,” she says.

But long before the race or the fame, Paula was already a seasoned adventurer, having lived out of her suitcase  all over Asia since she was a teen. Having grown up in Australia, she was scouted at age 12 whilst on vacation in Thailand. She landed one modelling  job after another, working during school breaks and going full blast after finishing high school. Modelling across Asia was supposed to be a temporary engagement before entering university in Australia, as a business major. But in 2003, the romantic comedy “Sexphone and the Girl Next Door” catapulted her into Thai viewers’ hearts. Since then, she has never looked back.

GOING PLACES

Now, at 26, Paula’s still on a roll, accumulating more projects than ever before. Her first Philippine movie, Love Online, which paired her with Vic Sotto, came in between multiple endorsements for major brands like Kenny Roger’s, Myra-E, Plains and Prints, among others. But the surest indication of her celebrity were her EDSA billboards, the front row of advertising,  reserved for the biggest showbiz names.

Then, just when she seems to have made it, she sets out on the road again, this time setting her sights on Hongkong. One would think that the project beckons to the star, but Paula has no prospects yet, even on the day before her flight. Incredulously, she’s basically going to start from square one. “I’ll have to go to casting calls, and go-sees, and hope that someone will like me,” she explains. She chatters on about how she’ll be attempting to break into the HK market, one of the toughest in Asia. This from someone who could easily rest on her laurels, in two Asia countries.

But apparently, this is classic Paula. “I’m the type who likes to challenge myself all the time. As soon as I get comfortable, I’m already thinking of what to do next.” She’s careful to avoid an “overdose”. “Pretty often I go for things that don’t pay much, but happen to be stuff I haven’t done before. I don’t want to get jaded. I’ve reached the point where it’s not about the money. I want to do the things I enjoy.”

This revelation sheds some light about how she came to be huffing and puffing across the world in TARA 2. “My friend and I had always watched the show, thinking we could do that”.

Reality shows are not exactly the best image-shapers but true to form, Paula blithely shrugged off the warnings from industry friends. “I was in it for the experience and the challenge. I really didn’t think about its consequences on my career.”

The consequences turned out hugely in her favor, and the rest is television history. That race is long over but in the larger context, she’s never stopped running after the dream. In the same spirit, she’s conquering one region at a time. “I won’t lie and say I’m not scared,” she says, albeit grinning. “I’m nervous about trying it out in Hongkong, and anyway, there’s the risk of being away too long that your career turns cold. But at the end of the day, it’s about following your heart.” So far the most she has is an agency and an apartment.

But there’s no shortage of determination in this girl who books her own gigs in Thailand. “In Thailand they know me, but I can’t expect the same recognition in, say, the Philippines or Hongkong. Another country, another market. You really have to go there.”

Keeping up with Paula seems a mighty task, given that kind of rare but refreshing energy that is apparent even in the way she speaks-empathic, rapid, as if her words were racing with her own thoughts. Her statements are punctuated by giggles and that thousand watt smile, so distinct it could be a brand on its own. It’s a smile that has been frozen on countless ads and magazine covers without losing an ounce of genuineness. In person, she lets it loose generously and naturally, a flood of light that spreads to her eyes. One could say that Paula Taylor is one of the best ambassadors of the legendary Thai smile.

Enthusiasm is easily another of her strongest traits, hand in hand with her inexhaustible energy. “I’m typically Thai in that I’m very cheery. I try to always look at the positive side of the situation. Negativity drains your energy, makes you feel so tired,’ she says. When I do feel down, I cut it off as soon as I become aware of  it.”

“But I do need a lot of support,” she adds. The fuel for this energizer bunny are longtime, trusted friends. “I know a lot of people but I have very few that I’m really close to. These are friends I’ve had for a long time,” she says. “They keep me grounded.” Earthly too are her preoccupations, and surprisingly contradictory: reading, and that most painstaking of activities, forming giant jigsaw puzzles. Nothing less than a thousand pieces, if you please, and none of those simple pictures. She prefers an abundance of difficult blacks and grays, such as the jigsaw Mona Lisa she completed in less than a week. If puzzles make life interesting for Paula, travelling enriches it with meaning. She gushes about an eye-opening trip to Istanbul (“So full of culture and history!”) and a safari in Zambia (“Incomparable, to really be out in the wild.”)

There’s no stopping her yet in exploring all she can of the world and of life’s possibilities. “Happiness is the most important thing. You have to do whatever makes you happy,” she stresses then quickly adds, “But don’t step on anyone to get it.” Even as we leave her to her journey, she turns back for a characteristic parting shot: “Keep being excited!”

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Tags: Paula Taylor, Stella Magazine

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