Tuyen Do was born in Vietnam and raised in East London, the youngest of seven children whose family came as refugees in the early 80s. Ignoring her artistic impulses, she followed a traditional route through University with a degree in Finance, before joining her sisters in the restaurant business. After several years, she found that she could no longer suppress the need to express herself creatively and began attending adult drama classes. Juggling training by day and running the restaurant by night, she made the decision to break from hospitality to follow her heart on the morning of her 30th birthday.

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Since then, she has made her name as a writer and performer on stage and screen, with her professional debut in the short film My Dad the Communist alongside Benedict Wong. Other credits include performances at the National Theatre, Royal court, Hampstead theatre and many more. Her leading role as Joy in I will still be whole (when you rip me in half) by Ava Wong Davis at the Bunker Theatre, and her self-penned one woman show Long Me at the Vaults both received critical recognition, earning her a growing reputation as a dramatic stage actress. 

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On screen, her performance as Ohval Saran in Shadow and Bone ll (Netflix), earned her a Best Guest Actress consideration in the 2023 Emmy nominations. Her latest role as Lan in Cold Snap by Ellen Evans, backed by Sixteen Films and BBC films will be premiering at Bfi LFF 2024.

 

As a writer, she is a pioneer in her community, bringing the first British Vietnamese story to the UK stage with her play Summer Rolls, the success of which helped her become one of the recipients of the 2019/2020 Channel 4 Playwrights award. Since then she has contributed to various publications, including the ground breaking East Side Voices, which seeks to improve the visibility of East and South East Asian voices in the UK.

 

Her debut novel based on the play Summer Rolls is due to be published by Trapeze at Orion books, an imprint of Hachette April 2025 and is now available to pre-order.

 

Tuyen is an artist who believes in the healing power of storytelling for all, reflected in her work as both an actor and a writer.

 

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