Peach Pachara’s One Night in Bangkok

The accidental artist

Southeast Asia is notorious for its traffic jams. In densely populated cities like Bangkok, Jakarta, and Manila, getting stuck on the road for hours is a way of life. It’s not unusual for people to make plans around rush hour—waking up earlier than usual, stalling time in the office or a café, or taking work calls in transit—so that less time is wasted.

So, when VMAN Southeast Asia wanted to do Pachara “Peach” Chirathivat’s cover shoot in Bangkok, the team took the capital city’s notorious gridlocks into account. The plan was ambitious: to shoot the Thai actor and singer in three of Thailand’s coolest bars and restaurants, all a few kilometers away from each other, within eight hours. To save time, the team decided to hold an online interview a few days before the photoshoot.

Come interview day, Peach logged in on time. When he switched his camera on, we saw that he was taking the call while stuck in traffic! He said not to worry; then, he proceeded with the interview with eloquence and cheeky humor. Around twenty minutes in, we took a break while Peach transferred to a better location at his home. When we continued, he picked up where we left off with ease. His professionalism and chill demeanor throughout the whole thing tell us that he’s been in many situations like these before.

On new ground

That Peach manages to keep his cool amid an inconvenience like this is impressive, given how incredibly busy he is. Over the past decade, he’s become one of Thailand’s in-demand actors, appearing in various films and TV series. Most recently, he starred in a Netflix crime drama series called ‘The Believers,’ which delves into questioning religion and tradition in Thailand. Peach also makes music, writes his own songs, creates film scores, and plays for a band. He counts Radiohead, Depeche Mode, and David Bowie as some of his influences. And if that’s not busy enough, he’s also an entrepreneur and philanthropist. Armed with a business degree, he manages several food and beauty franchises in Thailand and the Philippines, and he regularly engages in charitable efforts in his home country. It’s an impressive track record, considering that Peach thinks of his acting career as a “happy accident,” and that he only studied business out of spite.

“I hated being in front of people. Anything related to public speaking, like presenting a report in front of the class, I failed. Traditional Thai dance classes, I failed. So, I thought by default that acting wasn’t going to be my dream job. It will never happen. But then, it happened,” Peach recounts. On the day that he was scouted around a decade and a half ago, it was actually his sister who had an audition; he just happened to accompany her at the time. Peach recalls someone randomly approaching him, asking if he could also shoot a few videos. In his mind, he bombed the audition, so he was shocked to receive a call a few days later that he passed.

Peach’s lucky streak continued in 2011 when he was shooting for his debut film. In a lengthy and crucial scene in the movie, he decided to go off-script, and his co-actors went along with it. Fortunately, the risk paid off. “The director said that [the improvised scene] was better than the script. But at that time, I didn’t realize what I did correctly. It just feels so liberating,” he shares. “That moment was truly beautiful to me. I really fell in love with acting afterwards, with working your way through to learn about being someone and trying to creatively express that into something tangible.”

Peach’s unlikely romantic relationship with acting transformed him into an artist who’s not afraid to take risks. This is best seen in The Believers, where he’s one of three protagonists who exploit the donation systems in Buddhist temples to dig themselves out of a failed business venture and a mountain of debt. “In doing a work of art, you need to walk on that line. You have to be on the edge, right? You have to provoke people to do something, to feel something,” he notes. “I think that’s why I was really attracted to The Believers, because we’re tackling something that people don’t like to talk about, but is still very important to us: religion. It’s all around us right? But we’ve never questioned it. And it’s wrong that we never did. We’re supposed to question things, because once you stop doing so, you just follow things blindly. I’d say it’s a downward spiral for society when you stop questioning things.”

Read the full cover story in the pages of VMAN SEA 01: now available for purchase!

Photography Doc Marlon

Creative direction Vince Uy

Fashion Rex Atienza

Grooming Natcha Tangmanus

Hair Pussadee Dokruk

Sittings editor Patrick Ty

Retouching Summer Untalan

Photography assistant Joel D. Ramos

On location Ruen Mallika, Tai Soon Bar, and Teens of Thailand

Special thanks Conrad Catimbang Jr. and Pia Campos of W Talent Management