Will Or interview: Hong Kong’s new generation of actors is rising, and Will Or is one name to watch, nominated this year for Best Supporting Actor and Best New Performer at the Hong Kong Film Awards for his performance in 濁水漂流 (2025).
Hong Kong has produced a wave of new acting talent in recent years, and Will Or (柯煒林) is one of the names worth following. He first drew attention for a role in the Fresh Wave short film 如霧起時, and over six years he has built a steadily visible career across short films, television, music videos, and online projects.
濁水漂流, a locally produced feature that received 11 nominations at this year’s Hong Kong Film Awards, put Will in the spotlight for his nearly silent role as “Muk Jai,” a young homeless man living with aphasia. The performance earned him nominations in both supporting actor and newcomer categories, an uncommon double recognition for a new performer.
This week, during the Hong Kong Film Awards season, he sat down with us to tell the story of who Will Or is and how he reached this moment.
Will Or interview: an unexpected start
Before he became a full-time actor, Will studied in the School of Creative Media at City University of Hong Kong, and he originally planned to work behind the camera. A successful audition for a Fresh Wave short changed his trajectory: the director said “Good take” on set, and he felt goosebumps. That reaction, he says, is what hooked him on acting.
His on-screen debut came in the 2016 feature 點五步, where he played a character known as “Niu Si.” He later appeared in the ViuTV drama 二月廿九, music videos including 銀河修理員 and It’s Okay To Be Sad, and co-founded the YouTube channel 16:9 with a group of peers. It was the role of Muk Jai in 濁水漂流 that pushed his work to a new level.
Preparing for a largely silent role
To bring Muk Jai to life, a character with almost no spoken lines, Will made specific physical and emotional choices. He shaved his head, and he deliberately skipped meals to alter his appearance and state of mind. “Playing a homeless person does not mean I have lived that life,” he said. “I look for similar experiences to imagine from, not just an occupation or label. I need ideas and emotions to build the role.”
He said those preparations helped audiences engage with the character. Will grew up watching the Hong Kong Film Awards on television, and walking the awards carpet this year felt like more than a career milestone. “I felt so pumped,” he said, using a Cantonese phrase that captures both relief and thrill.
Acting, desire, and craft
Will says acting satisfies a personal desire to be moved and to move others, but he is not someone who wants to perform every hour of every day. “When I act well, when the script, the director, and my scene partners align, I get a huge sense of fulfillment,” he said. He still chases that feeling of goosebumps from a good take.
He describes film as the medium that requires immersion. “An actor’s responsibility is preparation, and preparation is my source of security,” he said. He studies roles carefully, collects materials, and rereads scripts until new discoveries emerge each time.
Finding the overlap between self and role
“Every role has a piece of me, each is me, and each is not me,” Will said. He warned against trying to copy past approaches. “Sometimes you face a similar character and feel like you can paste previous work onto it, but each piece requires a fresh level of commitment.”
He builds a relationship with each character by inserting elements of himself, then extracting the shared traits to form a unique performance that also preserves the character’s variability. For some roles he even uses music as an emotional anchor: he narrows a playlist down to a single song that evokes the memory of the shoot.
A committed performer, not an artist label
Will rejects a simple classification of film as high art. He argued that film production follows many conventions, and while contemporary art practices encourage breaking the frame, movies still rely on complex craft: script, production design, lighting, cinematography, music, editing, and storytelling choices that respect audience comprehension.
“Art emerges through practice, and work needs work as its carrier,” he said. “An actor can be a carrier. Whether a film is art is ultimately up to the audience. For now I call myself a performer, a persistent performer, focused on craftsmanship.”
He reflected on how acting forces him to confront inner feelings such as envy and admiration. Those emotions, he said, can be productive lessons that push him to learn from others and avoid taking the easy route in his work.
Will described this past year as a special one. He recognizes the role luck played in his path, but he also believes opportunity favors the prepared. “There is no such thing as chance, only inevitability,” he said. Whatever the outcome at the awards, we congratulate Will Or on his nominations and look forward to his next performance.
Credits:
Executive Producer: Angus Mok
Producer: Vicky Wai
Photography: Issac Lam
Videography: Andy Lee, Joyce Che
Styling: Vicky Wai
Makeup: Angel Mok
Hair: Oscar Ngan @ ii ALCHEMY Hair
Video Editor: Andy Lee, Joyce Che
Editor: Carson Lin, Yoanah Chan
Wardrobe: MIU MIU, GUCCI, DEMO
