She stirred up the residents of Ramsay Street as Katya Kinski on Neighbours and then went overseas for a sterling career in sci-fi/action series such as Dollhouse, The 100 and Altered Carbon.
Now Tibet-born, Adelaide raised and Los Angeles-based Dichen Lachman has returned to Australia for appearances at Oz Comic-Con in Brisbane on September 22-23 and Sydney on September 29-30.
“I think that meeting the fans is one of the most rewarding things,” Dichen, 36, tells TV WEEK.
“In theatre, you have the immediate reaction of the audience and in film and TV, you’re in a bubble. But having a relationship with the fans and seeing them get excited about a character you played, it’s just so wonderful, and hearing about what moments they liked or what really affected them, or sometimes what they didn’t like about a story or a moment, you can grow and learn from that.”
Dichen is even ready to take deep-dives with fans on the motivations of her character Reileen in Altered Carbon or how fun it was to spar with Skye (Chloe Bennet) on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
“I have a pretty good memory in terms of the things that I’ve done,” she says.
But if a show has continued after she has left it, that’s where things can get fuzzy.
“Sometimes I get caught with, ‘what do you think about A, B, C and D?’,” she says. “I’m like, ‘Oh, I have a three-year-old and haven’t had time to catch up on the whole thing, so I don’t know about that. But in terms of my storyline, yeah, I can keep talking about it ’til I’m blue in the face!”
She also concedes there are a fair amount of Funko Pop figurines out there with her likeness.
“I think there’s definitely an Anya (from The 100) and there might be a Sierra from Dollhouse,” she says. “People ask me to sign them and it’s cute. I never, I never thought that I’d have like little bobbleheads of my characters.”
What she’s thrilled most for is hearing what everyone is paying attention to at home.
“I love being back in Australia,” Dichen says.
“I’m interested to see what people are watching and what they’re getting excited about because now there’s so much content, you have streaming services now, and Foxtel, and then there’s the free-to-air stuff. I’m kind of interested to hear about how people here are consuming it and what exactly they’re watching that’s capturing their imagination because I find that in all the places I go around the world, something different will capture the imagination of the people in that city.”
