DAVIKA HOORNE COMES INTO HER OWN

THE THAI-BELGIAN MODEL-TURNED-ACTRESS MAY BE GOING AT HER OWN PACE, BUT ONE THING’S CLEAR — NO MATTER WHAT, SHE DEFINITELY GOING TO GET WHERE SHE WANTS TO GO

- FARISIA THANG

 

There are a few important things you should know about Davika Hoorne: she started out as a model, she’s known in Thailand as the queen of presenters, and she never thought she would become an actress.

Correction, “Never in a million years did I ever think that I would be an actress.”

Like most multi-hyphenates of today’s generation, pursuing acting was an instinctive path for the creative. In 2010, she was only 18 years old when she made her acting debut in the television series Ngao Kammathep, taking on the lead role. The Thai-Belgian actress played Tien, a girl who was raised as a boy but is actually the missing heiress to a family fortune. If there was any uncertainty over this path, this initial brush with acting changed her mind entirely. “After my first role, I knew that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life… I realised that this was my calling.”

After that, she starred in a running list of Thai television series, like Neur Manoot and Maya Rasamee — it was a year of appearances on the small screen until she scored the female lead role of Mae Nak in the film Pee Mak (2013).

This movie achieved such commercial success that it still lives on nine years after its release and remains Thailand’s highest-grossing film of all time. But even before