The Adorable Hermit
Punlapa “Paula” Taylor is instantly recognisable to Thai youngsters. Born in Bangkok, the half-Thai half-English 22-year-old grew up in Perth and Brisbane but visited the Thai capital, where she has relatives, annually.
It was during one of her annual holidays to Bangkok that Paula was spotted by a modelling scout while out shopping in the Word Trade Centre. (She previously told The Malaysian Star that in Thailand she was “considered exotic - and at 13, I was already modelling”.)
Her fresh-faced charm landed her the girl-next-door role in horror flick 999, which resulted in a presenter role with Channel V Thailand, and a subsequent part in the imaginatively titled rom-com Sexphone and the Lonely Wave.
When we meet at quiet Thai
restaurant in Siam
Discovery Center,
Paula is impossibly pretty, upbeat and bubbly;
the very embodiment of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I, to my professional
credit, am hideously hung-over, bleary-eyed and barely rested. Although I’ve
yet to eat, I decline Paula’s offer of joining her in tucking into khow pad muu, tom yum kung and som tum, and sit there fidgeting and
sweating instead.
“I heard you grew up in a boat?” I say. “A boat!” she laughs incredulously. “A boat? No, I don’t think that was me… That’s a really good one though.”
(It turns out that my Thai friend, when translating a magazine article over the phone, had actually been saying “abroad”.)
Next, I gamely volunteer that I’ve read, on a Paula fansite, that she’s studying Chinese. It’s Japanese. (She loves everything Japanese – “It’s just a very cool country” – but wants to “learn every language and be real multicultural”.)
Shortly afterward, I go to sip my lemon crush but miss the straw, which pokes me in the eye. Glancing up, I catch Paula’s assistant politely stifling a snigger. So far so shabby; it’s time to pull myself together.
Who have you interviewed in your role as VJ for Channel V?
I’ve only interviewed Dogstar - you know them? Keanu Reeves’ band. They were so
drunk at my interview – it was pretty funny. Everyone knows Keanu so they all want
to talk to him, but he tells record companies to tell everyone: ‘Don’t ask him
anything about movies. Don’t give him too much attention or he’ll think you’re
favouring him.’ So it was really weird. At the end of the interview everyone
started wanting to take photos with Keanu – and only Keanu – and he just left.
Do you think he was being a bit precious?
No, I understand. If I was trying to start a whole new business and all they kept asking was about something else, it’s hard to make something progress. If I was him I wouldn’t do that – but I understand. You got to feel sorry for him: he’s trying to get a band together and nobody cares about it.
How about the Thai artists you’ve interviewed?
I don’t really get to interview them, because my Thai’s not perfect. But I know a lot of them personally. Want to know who I like the most?
Er, yes…
I really like Palmy; I think
she’s cool. She was the first person who made me 
star-struck in Thailand. She came
to our second Music Video Awards, and I was like: ‘Oh My God! I am so taking a photo with her.’ Then as
soon as she came offstage and walked past me, I was like [mimes nonchalance],
‘Do-dee-do-do-do’. I couldn’t go; I just sloped in the background. I met her again and I was
telling her: ‘I really love you; I was so shy last year’.
A couple of weeks later, a local student notices Paula striking poses for the photo-shoot as he passes the semi-enclosed garden. Even though it’s a quiet weekday afternoon, a quick call is all it takes to summon a gaggle of whispering classmates sporting thrilled grins all round. One asks Paula for a photo and she poses for him, carefully holding her bottled water out of shot.
Has fame become intrusive for you now?
It has - but there are ways to stop it. I remember the first time I was like: ‘Hey! Are you nuts?’ I was at a wat [temple] praying and someone tapped me on the shoulder and said: ‘Can I take a photo with you?’ I was just thinking ‘Damn! I’m not even Thai and I’m trying to do a Thai thing. You should not interrupt someone while they’re praying.’ I thought that was really rude.
I went to Chiang Mai to see the pandas, and I almost didn’t get to see them. I kept having to take photos. I can stop it by picking the places I go to. If I go to Siam, people stare and yell, but not too many come up and annoy me. But if I go somewhere more suburb-y, one person stops you then another, and it’s hard to move.
There’s a burgeoning horde of Paparazzi now too.
I know; they’re getting worse. I once had someone lie to me that the Paparazzi got me making out with my boyfriend. When did I do that? I don’t do that in public. But I got freaked out and since then I’ve always been really careful. It wasn’t true, but it scared the hell out of me.
The Paparazzi in Thailand have only just started. Before it was not allowed, but now they’re trying to copy overseas. I’ve heard that they’re actually starting to follow people from home; park round their house. The thing is, Westerners here are like ‘Oh, who cares?’ But in Thailand they accept what they see.
Ever had any trouble with fans?
No, I’ve been really lucky. I haven’t got anyone scary sending me underwear or anything. That would be freaky.
Paula has a pronounced Australian accent and I think looks more foreign than many mixed-race Thais. She says Thais make allowances for her. “If I say something wrong they’re like: ‘Oh! That’s so cute,’ whereas if a Thai person does the same thing they’re like: ‘Go back to school.’ They’re really nice that way.”
Having just finished filming fantasy romantic-comedy for Thai TV, she claims she is “so over doing soaps, cos it takes too long. It’s just so long and so monotonous: 5 am – 10pm every day. It’s nuts.
“The past year I’ve worked so much that I’m not accepting that much work anymore. You know when you get so tired that you just want to stop?”
It seems celebrities in Asia push themselves to their limits, working non-stop, I say. “It’s different in Asia,” she agrees.
“If it’s your moment everyone wants you and if you don’t do it then, sometimes it won’t come again.
“I understand, but it gets to a certain point where you have to go: ‘I’ve had enough now; it was fun’. It’s been two years since my [second] movie came out, and that was when everyone went crazy.”
So how do you spend your free time?
I stay home – nowadays I’ve turned into a hermit. I know if I go out then I have to deal with people. I do everything at home now: buy movies, eat, everything. If I do go out it’s usually just around my neighbourhood where people are OK, they’re all cool.
What about out of Bangkok – where can you go and feel safe?
I feel unsafe everywhere now. I saw Paparazzi shots of some couple in Koh Samet. I was like: ‘Damn! They’re even going to the beaches now?’ I was really worried because people take photos all the time. Sometimes they’re so rude: when I’m eating, I just hear ‘click’ and I turn round and he’s just walked off. A Thai people thing is: they think you’re going to reject them, so they don’t ask.
I was at the beach, in the sea with my boyfriend, right? I saw some lady pointing a video camera at me, so I just turned around and stayed in the sea, with water up to my head.
You never know, they could sell it to the newspaper. It’s like a whole month’s wages if it makes it to the front cover. That’s just so Thai: if they can get money they’ll do it, they don’t really care. It’s annoying having to put my towel around me and see if anyone’s got a camera before I go out to the beach.
It’s a shame you feel you have to stay in.
"I travel a lot, though. I’m
a shopaholic, so I like to go to the cities. Recently I went to
-- Published by In Residence magazine, 2005