Christopher Chung Is Having a Moment — And He's Earned Every Bit of It

2026 has been quite the year for Christopher Chung. With Netflix's My Brilliant Career debuting to number two globally and Slow Horses Season 6 airing now on Apple TV+, the Australian actor is suddenly everywhere. And doing it in two roles that couldn't be more different from each other. Jim Halterman sat down with Chung on behalf of In Creative Company to talk through both projects.

Acting wasn't always the plan. Chung's first love, he readily admits, was music. Growing up in Melbourne, he had dreams of pop stardom, the kind fueled by the reality TV competition boom of the early 2000s. He tried Australian Idol, X Factor, and Pop Stars, but none of it took off in the way he'd hoped. Though the clips are apparently still very much findable on YouTube, something that has caused him some mild existential debate. In the end, he's made peace with leaving them up. As he put it, they show how far the journey has been. From there, a love of musical theater gradually led him toward acting.

For now, though, the conversation rightly began with My Brilliant Career . Based on Miles Franklin's landmark 1901 novel, the series follows Sybylla Melvyn, a young woman from an impoverished family who is sent to her wealthy grandmother's estate and expected to marry well and live conventionally. Chung plays Harry Beauchamp, the man who rather spectacularly derails those plans. In the original text, Harry is a figure of wealth and status, but screenwriter Liz Doran made the bold and inspired decision to reimagine him as a man of East Asian descent. That single creative choice is a large part of what drew Chung to the project immediately.

He described the moment the script landed on his desk with barely contained excitement. An Australian character of Chinese descent, in a period piece, as a romantic lead. Several things, he noted, that he had never seen on screen together in an Australian production. The opportunity to be part of something that genuinely hadn't been done before was reason enough to say yes without hesitation.

The show's contemporary sensibility extends well beyond the casting, and Chung spoke enthusiastically about the creative decisions around tone and soundtrack. The filmmakers walked a careful line — not wanting to tip into Bridgerton territory, but equally wanting to avoid something stuffy and inaccessible. The result is something distinctly, unapologetically Australian, with a soundscape that includes Rod Stewart's Young Turks and, in one particularly memorable fireworks scene, Kylie Minogue. It just fits, he said. And importantly, none of it pulls the audience out of the world of the show.

His chemistry with co-star Philippa Northeast, who plays Sybylla, is one of the series' great strengths, which makes the story of how they actually met all the more delightful. Chung was the first actor cast, and went through several chemistry reads with potential Sybylla candidates. None of which involved Northeast, who was cast independently. Their first meeting happened not on set, not at a rehearsal, but in the makeup chair. Chung had rollers in his hair for a perm. She was covered in tinfoil having her hair dyed. That was the introduction. From that unlikely beginning, something clicked immediately. A shared commitment to honoring the source material that meant the chemistry, when the cameras rolled, came naturally.

There are also dance sequences, which Chung approached with self-deprecation, describing himself as a "crappy mover." But the choreography was deliberately contemporary in feel, particularly in an early ball scene where Sybylla deliberately disrupts the stiff formality of the party and lets things get raucous. Giving both actors room to move freely and have fun. The scene works precisely because it isn't trying to be authentic to the period. It's trying to be authentic to the characters.

The wardrobe, on the other hand, is another story entirely. Chung was admirably candid about the logistics of period costuming, specifically the ordeal of trying to use a bathroom when your suspenders are threaded through your shirt which is buttoned into your pants. Getting out of it, he said, is like trying to escape Fort Knox. But costume designer Mariette Kerr's work is clearly something he holds in high regard. The costumes pop off the screen, he said, and there were pieces he'd seen on other cast members that stopped him in his tracks. One scene in particular seems destined to draw comparisons to a certain Colin Firth moment. Chung dives into water to find Sybylla, and there was apparently a “wet t-shirt test” conducted to find the right fabric for maximum Mr. Darcy effect.

As for the ending of My Brilliant Career, Chung acknowledged that it divides audiences, even now. Sybylla's final choice is one that felt radical in 1901 and still manages to surprise people watching in 2026, which perhaps says something about how persistent our expectations of romantic storytelling remain. Chung finds that fascinating rather than frustrating. He's also, understandably, hoping very much that the data supports a second season.

The conversation then shifted to Slow Horses , where Chung has played Roddy Ho since the show began in 2021. Season 6 combines two of Mick Herron's novels, Slough House and Joe Country , and Chung was clear that it is a season that will shake the audience. Fan favorites die. Characters whose departure leaves a mark not just on screen but on his own experience of making the show. The names of Marcus and Min came up with genuine feeling. These aren't just characters to him. They're part of the fabric of something he has built over six seasons, with a seventh already filmed.

One of the most interesting threads of the conversation was about the challenge of playing two such wildly different characters in public simultaneously. Roddy Ho is, in Chung's own words, the complete antithesis of Harry Beauchamp. The concern, going into My Brilliant Career , was whether audiences who knew him only as Roddy could recalibrate. Harry, he said, is actually much closer to who he is as a person. Washing off a character as specific and outsized as Roddy Ho and finding a blank canvas is hard work. It was also, he admitted, a significant part of what attracted him to the challenge.

Roddy's accent, it turns out, is something of a key that unlocks the whole character. As soon as Chung slips into it, the behavior follows. He described moments in rehearsal where he'd start to explain an idea and find it simply easier to voice it as Roddy. From that, lines emerged that were never in the script. The now-legendary "you can't cage a dragon" from Season 1 was entirely improvised, the result of a director leaving the tape running to see what would come through. Season 6 opens with Roddy quoting Fast and the Furious. Not as a joke exactly, but as genuine wisdom and comfort, delivered with complete sincerity. It is, as Chung observed, perfectly him.

Watch the full interview below.