Controversy is the key to stardom for "unknown" actor
Sakda Kaewbuadee played the lead in two of Apichatpong Weerasethakul's movies that won awards at the Cannes Film Festival, but his countrymen barely recognised his face - until just last week.
It didn’t help that Sakda lives in France, in the city of Montpellier, but fate went and found him. Thai expatriates who support the People's Democratic Reform Committee’s anti-Shinawatra campaign gathered there to blow their whistles and Sakda showed up carrying a sign that read “Respectez mon vote”. But, much to the demonstrator’s dismay, he wasn’t on their side. Sakda wants the February 2 election to proceed.
So the streets of Bangkok were being created in a French microcosm until the cops showed up. The PDRC crowd had a permit to demonstrate, but Sakda didn’t, so they gendarmes told him to clear off.
Not to worry: Sakda duly reported the event on Facebook and earned a round of digital applause from the pro-government red shirts. Suddenly he was famous in Thailand as the actor Sakda Kaewbuadee. Then, however, Sakda got annoyed that he was being labelled a red shirt himself. Sarcastically, he posted a new profile picture on FB, showing him in a red T-shirt – it’s a still from the film “Uncle Boonme Who Can Recall his Past Lives”.
Sakda’s profile says he’s currently studying at Universit Paul Val
