Joanna Bessey (born 1976) is an actress and director from

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

. She is best known for her role as Marie Tan in the

situation comedy A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ne ...

Kopitiam A ''kopitiam'' or ''kopi tiam'' () is a type of coffee shop mostly found in parts of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Southern Thailand patronised for meals and beverages, and traditionally operated by the Chinese community of the ...

which ran for 7 seasons.

Early life

Bessey was born in West Sussex to a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

father and Malaysian mother of

Malay Malay may refer to: Languages * Malay language or Bahasa Melayu, a major Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore ** History of the Malay language, the Malay language from the 4th to the 14th century ** Indonesi ...

descent with Minangkabau lineage.

Career

Bessey has appeared in over 200 episodes of television, 6 TV movies, 5 feature films, commercials with 2 major celebrity endorsements, voice-over work for commercials and animated series and numerous theatre productions, over the last 10 years. Other TV credits include ''La Dolce Amira'', ''Bilik 13'', ''All Mixed Up'' and Island FM. She has been in feature films such as Lips to Lips, Buli, '' 1957- Hati Malaya'' and ''

Waris Jari Hantu ''Waris Jari Hantu'' (Ghost Finger's Heir) is a 2007 Malaysian horror film directed by Shuhaimi Baba. The film won Rusdi Ramli, one of its lead actors, The Best Actor award at the 20th Malaysia Film Festival. Plot Tok Wan Rimau (Azean Irdawaty ...

''. Bessey appeared on

BBC World News BBC World News is an international English-language pay television network, operated under the ''BBC Global News Limited'' division of the BBC, which is a public corporation of the UK government's Department for Digital, Culture, Media and S ...

hosting the travel documentary "Exploring Malaysia". She is also an environmentalist. In 2020, Bessey made her videogame debut by voice acting as Eve in ''

No Straight Roads ''No Straight Roads'' is a 2020 action-adventure game developed by Metronomik and published by Sold Out Ltd. The focus is on an indie rock duo who battle an EDM empire to free Vinyl City from their control with the power of rock. The game combat ...

Personal life

She is married to German husband Aurel Wunderer. They have a son born in 2011.

Accolades

She has had the following nomations: 'Best Actor in a Supporting Role' at the 'Boh' Cameronian Arts Awards 2007, "Best Director" for her directorial debut of Ibsen's 'An Enemy of the People", 'Best Actress in a Comedy Role' for the award-winning sitcom, "Kopitiam" at the Asian Television Awards (Singapore) and was highly commended. She was voted Best Female Artist in 2000 by a public online poll.

References

External links

*
JoannaBessey.com
1976 births Living people People from West Sussex British emigrants to Malaysia British people of Malaysian descent Malaysian people of Malay descent Malaysian people of Minangkabau descent Malaysian people of British descent Malaysian people of English descent Malaysian film actresses Malaysian television actresses Malaysian television personalities Malaysian women environmentalists {{Malaysia-actor-stub