Actor identified emotionally with lead character’s dilemma

ike Faist was willing to take a chance to land a when this script came across my desk,” he said. “I read it, and I immediately related to the character because I felt that way.

“It was something I needed to do — mostly for myself because it’s almost therapeutic, to liberate myself from those feelings, by lashing out in the film.”

The story took a roundabout route to Truong.

Kang, an elite martial-arts trainer in Greenwich, Connecticut, and his students wanted to create a movie advocating Kang’s philosophies of focus, discipline and respect. (The film title is a motto that Kang instills in his students.) They created a story and took it to a different filmmaking team.

Eventually, one of Kang’s students who plays basketball with Truong’s husband, film producer Brian Yang, approached Yang about the project.

“By the time they came to Brian and myself, we read it and I didn’t connect to it at all,” said Truong, 36, who shuttles between homes in New York and Los Angeles. “I think it was about gangs in Connecticut, which I didn’t understand.”

Truong rewrote the story, blending her experiences of being bullied as a youth with Kang’s values.

“I took what he was teaching and molded it into a story that I could connect with,” she said.

Since the movie was filmed, Faist has stepped into a brighter spotlight. “Dear Evan Hanson” opened on Broadway last December, and Faist continues to perform in the play. Earlier this year, he received a Tony nomination for his work.

Faist appreciates the recognition but knows that it provides no guarantees.

“The work is never really done,” he said. “It’s a strange industry, where you’re constantly having to prove yourself. I’m auditioning all the time still, finding the next project — working, not working, getting a job, not getting a job — all while trying to persuade people that I’m worth it and figuring out what I want to do.

The nomination “is all really good — it’s where the work paid off,” he said. “But the work is where I get my true satisfaction.”