By Sarah Bianucci

International School of Minnesota (ISM) 2005 graduate Doua Moua wrote in his college essays that he wanted to win an Oscar someday.

Little did Doua know, only three years later, he would be in a film that might quietly sweep the Oscars away from all others.

Doua Moua, along with three of his cousins, graduated from ISM in 2005. He had attended ISM since seventh grade. During his ISM career, Doua said he was a “floater,” involved in almost everything, except sports. Doua’s accomplishments include: ISM’s Student Life Organization, ISM Yearbook team, membership in several different choirs including Mixed Show Choir, Concert Choir, Jazz Choir and Madrigal Choir ensembles, and on stage in Thorton Wilder’s “Our Town” and the 1958 societal satire “Bye Bye Birdie.”

When asked about his career as a student at ISM, Doua said that setting aside the academic rigor – which he identified as an obvious life skill – he couldn’t have been more prepared for the last few years without all of the teachers at ISM. Doua said he understands hardship and what it takes to be successful outside of the classroom in life. “New York City is a city of performing,” Doua stated, “without Mrs. Everitt, [my Performing Arts teacher at ISM], I would still have small eyes. She really opened up the avenue for acting and entertaining for me. She was like a second mother to me.”

After applying to several colleges in New York, California and Minnesota, Doua chose Marymount Manhattan College in New York City where he lived in the dorms, met good friends and studied psychology and communications. Doua was there for almost a full year before deciding to follow his dream in the performing arts. In spring 2006, Doua left Marymount to start taking acting classes and dive into the rawness of New York City living as an aspiring actor, understanding his commitment to go back to finish someday.

Doua talked about some of the road blocks in his journey. The hardest was being away from his family. Doua has met many new people, good people, bad people and the people in between and acknowledges that they have helped create who he is as a person, a brother, a son and an actor today.

Going to auditions and utilizing what he has learned throughout his previous performing arts practice and career and realizing that people won’t always be there has really helped build who he has become. Another challenge has been thinking too much about whether he really is on the right path. He came to understand that there are always people that are going to bring you down.

His lowest of times was being homeless last summer. He would sleep at the subway station, head into the gym to shower each morning and then perform in Off Broadway shows at night, living a couple of months this way. When asked how he got out of dire straits, he responded, “Humanity. Humanity brought me back to life. They gave me a piece of their heart.” Friends helped him through it, offering him a place to stay for a couple of weeks at a time. Again, it was this experience that made his eyes open wider to working toward his dream.
Doua has met several people over the past few years that he has really aspired to work with. Joseph Gordon Levitt (from the movie “Stop Loss”), Lynn Collins, Chris Meloni (star of TV’s “Law & Order”) and Ralph Fiennes (most recently in “The Duchess”). He dreams of working with accomplished actors, Josh Hartnett, Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn and James Franco.

Over the last few months, Doua waited to find out if his audition was worth his hard work. He found out that he received the role of Fong/Spider in Hollywood legend Clint Eastwood’s film, “Gran Torino,” which opens locally on Friday, Jan. 9. A discontented Korean War vet, Walt Kowalski (Eastwood), sets out to change his neighbor, a young Hmong teenager, who attempted to steal his prized possession, his 1972 Gran Torino. Doua portrays the older cousin of the lead actor who is trying to pull his cousin to the bad side and gang life. Two weeks after he found out about his audition, production started on the film where they shot for one and a half months in Michigan.

When asked what he learned from Eastwood during production, Doua said that he has such a great aura surrounding his work. Eastwood carries so much knowledge and is very wise when it comes to direction and production, let alone his acting. Doua said that he took every scene in, and Eastwood believed in everyone and everything on the set throughout production.

When asked what lies ahead for Doua, he stated that his dreams are to make it to the Oscars for being part of one of the year’s best achievements in film. His future also includes the hopes for a “thumbs-up” for this film and hopes to hear from additional agents after they see him on the silver screen.

Sarah Bianucci is a marketing representative at the International School of Minnesota in Eden Prairie.