Merk Nguyen's ambition is driven by emotion
A profile of an artist who's not tortured anymore
In this interview excerpt, Merk reflects on her long journey out of an emotional morass.
If you try to picture a "typical" voice actor, you'll quickly notice that it's basically impossible. As a novice voice actor myself, that's actually my favorite feature of the craft: that my face isn't really involved. Voice acting resists the glamour and spectacle of Hollywood culture, which I've always been leery of (why should being a visible artist leave you exposed to the indignities of tabloids?) My entrance into this field was largely accidental, occurring only after hosting a brand podcast garnered compliments on my speaking voice. I was really flattered, and equally intrigued to discover a potent new outlet for my wordsmithing skills. But most of us voice artists don't need so much convincing. Voice actor Merk Nguyen also made a broadcasting pitstop on her career journey, though for her, voice acting was a deeply-rooted but dormant dream that was awakened by a crisis.Â
After studying journalism and media production at Washington State University, Merk launched a career in public radio that took her from coast to coast. In the late 2010s, as co-host of YR Media's Adult ISH, Merk discovered that podcasting made more space for the subjective storylines that most inspired her, like an episode she co-created on the expectations and realities of taking mental health medication. In it, Merk narrates a poetic essay she wrote about her ambivalence on being treated for anxiety, a daring flourish I really admired. "It was produced during my low mental health state about my low mental health state," she tells me, emphasizing her desire to be transparent in depicting that journey while it was ongoing.
Merk finds that episode tough to listen to now, but looking back on it, she continues, "I'm so proud I got through it." Despite such triumphant moments, her apparent success in podcasting and public radio was only suppressing her deeper creative desires, until depression and burnout forced her to reckon with them. Once Merk could no longer deny her dream of being an actor, she understood that honoring it was the only way through the storm. "Even in those times of darkness, I could still identify that there was this light wanting to shine through me," she reflects, grateful as ever that she followed that intuition.
Merk was born and raised in Lynnwood, Washington, just north of Seattle. Her parents jointly ran an auto body shop, and as the youngest of three, Merk was part of the kind of upwardly mobile suburban clan that inspired old sitcoms. Merk didn't just look up to her brother and sister: she couldn't always tell where their interests ended and hers began. Her pursuit of media communications was inspired by her siblings' high school study of news production and video editing. Ultimately she alone would claim the discipline, which became an exacting tool for carving out her own identity, apart from the influence of her family.Â
Though warm and supportive, the Nguyen family did contain some difficult dynamics, like when Merk's brother and sister would be consulted during their parents' arguments, whereas she was excluded for being "too young to know." But moments like these were precisely what seeded her deep affection for storytelling, a result of her habit of seeking solace in books. Shortly after high school, Merk was brought on at one of Seattle's NPR outlets, KUOW. She'd been accepted at RadioActive, a youth media program designed to give students a foothold in public radio, where she continued producing stories while completing her WSU degree.
Upon graduation in 2018, Merk hit the job offer jackpot, being offered not one but two audio journalism gigs in short succession. The first was as an assistant producer for a social science show depicting the lives of everyday New Yorkers. She moved all the way to Brooklyn to accept it, but Merk was also offered the opportunity to host Adult ISH just a few weeks later, which was "kind of a dream job" for its personality-driven voice and vision. Despite being based in Oakland, YR Media allowed Merk to host the show from New York, where she'd so recently put down roots for the first job. But the arrangement suited her well, as adaptability has always been a strong undercurrent of her career.
Everywhere Merk has ever lived caresses a coastline, from Washington State to New York, and then later California. I ask her what she imagines when she hears the word home. "Anywhere by the water," she answers easily. "Water represents freedom to me, the people I come from, the places I've been, and the places I want to go." She romantically describes how reflective she feels around bodies of water, and the calm that comes from the sensory immersion imbued by it. I notice that the geography of Merk's life resembles that of her parents, both originally from the central Vietnamese city of Huế, and who also built their lives across a series of coastal settings.Â
This family lore has been an inheritance of sorts for Merk, one that she's integrated into her vocation. "I like to say my dad's life story started my life as a storyteller," she tells me. "He left his home in quote unquote 'postwar' Vietnam at age 14, and the first public story I ever told was about his escape from the country." Broadcast in 2014, the story was called "Water is the Sound of Freedom for my 'Ba'", an award-winning radio short imbued with terror, triumph, and grief. I loved the lake sounds and how the piece featured snippets of Merk's mom and siblings, forming something of an audio family portrait.Â
Merk was always keenly aware of how closely her apple fell from her father's tree. Others would point out their shared mannerisms and facial features, and her dad, known to her as ba, would eagerly agree. "He'd say, 'You're my twin without the mustache,'" she recalls fondly. The two had always been close, but in telling his migration story for KUOW, she "got to understand a lot of how he came to be who he is." I’ve also enjoyed learning about Merk's father, who I goofily describe in my notes as "Ba the Builder," a reference to his penchant for construction.Â
At the moment, Mr. Nguyen is working on metal sculptures of banyan trees for the Vietnamese Martyrs Parish in Tukwila, WA. An auto mechanic by trade and a self-taught sculptor since adolescence, Mr. Nguyen's skillset includes sandblasting, metalworking, stained glass, and more. That he's also a soulful singer of Vietnamese country songs gives his creative energy a sense of boundlessness. Throughout Merk's life, her dad has outfitted the family's yard with various adornments, including a replica of the Space Needle and a private oasis christened Angel Pond, complete with a waterfall. She would later learn what a deep sense of comfort that little body of water could offer in troubled times.Â
Three years ago, Merk hit a professional and personal low. Her work was feeling uninspired and her mood was starting to plummet, each factor reinforcing the other. Her friends had noticed she wasn't herself, and she was increasingly tempted to leave YR Media despite a triumphant three-year run, which had included a move to Los Angeles. Merk describes this period as a "really dark depression," one largely triggered by the collective upheavals of 2020. Along with watching the pandemic unfold, the reckoning with systemic racism following George Floyd's murder, including the #StopAsianHate movement, was hitting very close to home. Around that time, YR Media approached her about a new role as a news editor, which involved working on stories about the spike in violent attacks on Asian Americans.Â
At first she thought she could handle it, but deep inside, a dam was bursting. "I'm someone who can hold other people's emotions very well and put my own on the back burner, especially in a heightened or dramatic situation," says Merk. "But then eventually, it catches up to me." That's what happened in early 2021, when the depression firmly took hold. She also noticed she was less eager to explore her personal life in public. "I was starting to feel like all the light in the world was fading for me," she continues, including the voice acting dream that had quietly inspired her big-city moves, but was enkindled when her then-boyfriend, now-husband Samuel introduced her to The Legend of Korra, the Nickelodeon series spun off from Avatar: The Last Airbender. That dying dream was a blaring warning sign, as it had played a big part in keeping her stable during the prior year's turbulence. She knew she couldn't let it fade, and decided to double down instead.Â
Slowly, things started slipping into alignment. Even as her mental state unraveled, Merk would tell anyone who would listen that she wanted to be a voice actor, and received ample encouragement in return. A new boss at YR Media connected her to a colleague with a background in casting, who recommended a voice acting MasterClass to help her get started. Not long afterward, a former KUOW employee reached out to Merk on LinkedIn, offering a free trial of the exact same MasterClass that the colleague had recommended. "I was like, 'Okay, well that's definitely a sign,'" she laughs. She took the class and enjoyed it, but her depression didn't budge, and her doubts about this bold new direction persisted. When she would talk to her loved ones about it, the most common response was that she seemed to want to quit her job in podcasting. At first, she demurred. "I've gotten so much creative freedom from this place," Merk recalls thinking. "How could I do that? How could I leave?"
While she mulled it over, she continued to dabble in and educate herself about the craft of voice acting. She was offered a small gig on a "true crime" podcast for tweens, where she played the inner conscience of various misbehaving children. It was at that job where she struck up a rapport with the sound designer, who was also eyeing the exits of the industry. The two met up for lunch to commiserate and discuss their next moves, and when Merk's acting ambitions came up, the sound designer offered to connect Merk to her mother, a casting director. That intro was one of many tiny turning points leading Merk to her eventual agent. But on her way to that pivotal moment, there was still a huge decision to make.Â
Merk finally quit her podcasting job and left L.A. in the summer of 2021, but returning to Washington wasn't an instant cure for her still-ailing mental state. Her voice acting career was barely budding, and she was still wracked with doubt over blowing up a stable creative career to pursue it. Her mood was getting harder to manage; on one memorable occasion she had a cathartic cry while sitting by Angel Pond with Ba, who was an essential source of support. Even so, the depression was becoming so all-consuming that Merk barely had the energy to dial the agent she'd recently been connected with. But she made it happen anyway, and soon her entire life would change because of it. Â
Angel Pond isn't just a striking feature of the Nguyen residence— it's actually a monument honoring Merk, whose birth name is Angela. Only her inner circle addresses her this way, ever since Merk's nickname (and now stage name) was coined from a classmate's offhand crack about former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and accidentally stuck. Now married, Merk also has a new surname, but she still uses Nguyen professionally to represent her roots, something inspired by an old moviegoing ritual of her mother's. When Merk would go to the movies with her mom as a kid, after every single film, her mother would point out the Vietnamese names that appeared in the credits, a quiet proclamation that we are here. Now as an adult, Merk is thrilled to no end by seeing her own Vietnamese name scrolling by in the credits of some pretty major projects.
Just as she'd hoped, signing with an agent unlocked numerous professional doors for her. By 2022, Merk had landed roles in a video game and an English dub of the anime series Summer Time Rendering on Hulu. A steady hot streak ensued as she picked up small acting and narration roles for giant studios like DreamWorks, Paramount, and Netflix. Earlier this year, Merk announced that Nickelodeon had cast her in The Fairly OddParents: A New Wish, a 3-D animated reboot of the early-aughts cartoon. She plays Jasmine Tran, a Vietnamese-American girl who befriends the protagonist, which felt like a dream within a dream. Some might call Merk lucky, but she'd probably put it as "blessed."
Merk's faith has been a grounding force throughout this ascendant period of her career, particularly when her inner darkness was still lingering. "It was a lot of mediation, a lot of prayer, and a lot of accepting and admitting what was," says Merk. She would integrate that wisdom in a multitude of ways, like dancing uninhibitedly in front of mirrors or writing love letters to herself. Nature, of course, was another source of support, from crying jags by the water to recording in her audio journal during hikes around Lynnwood after leaving Los Angeles, a record Merk is grateful she kept. "One of the first recordings I made during that time was just like, 'Hey, future you. By this point, you've probably made it out, but right now, this is how you're feeling.'"
Merk can deftly process her own emotions for wellness and self-knowledge, but she's struggled to determine just how much transparency she owes her audience. As co-host of Adult ISH, Merk had built a brand out of emotional bravery, and withholding her ideas or experiences could make her feel like she was letting down the listeners. At the same time, she wasn't sure how they'd react to certain parts of her life, like her simultaneous embrace of her queerness and her Catholicism. She'd been raised in the faith, but as a kid, Merk mainly attended church because it pleased her mom. As she got older, the religion began to resonate more deeply for her, or as Merk puts it, "I started to experience my own happy."Â
Merk was Confirmed in the spring of 2021, when pandemic accommodations made RCIA classes available online for the first time. It's a moment she proudly shared on Instagram with the caption: "Got Confirmed this weekend and can confirm it was a #blessed time." It was actually during the Confirmation process that Merk came out as queer to her parents, an experience she describes as "pretty positive" largely due to her siblings' support. The timing of these transformations in her religious and relational life made perfect sense to Merk, who insists "I couldn't experience one without the other." But it did make coming out publicly a bit more fraught.
"I remember it was hard talking to production on Adult ISH about how I'd explore this, and I was so freaking scared about what other people would say about me," Merk recalls. "There's going to be Catholics coming for me like 'She's not Catholic enough,' or queer people who are like 'You're with the Catholic Church, you're dumb.'" But over time, as she sought out trusted counsel and strengthened her resolve through self-acceptance, Merk became more discerning about which voices to take to heart. Is it really worth losing sleep because you failed an ideological purity test you don't even subscribe to? "I had to let go of the idea that I'll find the favor of everybody, because that's not realistic," she concedes.
Merk is much more protective of her privacy now than she used to be, and can better distinguish between healthy self-preservation and hiding. "I didn't like how I looked for a good chunk of my life, especially in those formative years," she admits, explaining her early aversion to working on-camera as an actor or news journalist. But coming out of her pandemic-era depression, she was finally forming a clear sense of who she was as both an artist and a person, and taking real pride in it. This has manifested as a boost of self-assurance around being in front of the camera. She can even get excited about a new headshots, which she was adorably eager to show me. "Talking about it now, I feel so grounded and like I don't have anything to prove to anyone," she says. "I can just do the things I want to do, and that I feel called to do."Â
Though screen acting is now definitively one of those things, Merk is still a passionate voice actor, and was just booked for some still-top-secret video games. But now she can openly claim to her loftiest dream: to one day play the titular character in a live-action version of The Legend of Korra, the cartoon her husband introduced her to that reignited her desire to be performer, and inspired her belief that it was possible. "My mind, body, heart, and soul are leading me toward that role," she says longingly. "It's scary putting it out there because yeah, it might not happen. But [the uncertainty] is all part of the process."
Merk Nguyen doesn't need any new achievements to feel a deep sense of pride in where she is right now. When I ask her how she defines success for herself, the question literally moves her to stand from her seat in contemplation, an incredibly charming reaction. But I love her answer answer even more: "My definition of success is being in alignment with what God wants for me, and that which I also want for myself." By that metric, she's been a successful artist for quite a long time, just by following the tides of her inner coastlines, and braving the open ocean.Â
Correction, 18/09/24: An earlier version of this story described Merk’s parents as immigrants from Vietnam. Her mother was an immigrant, but her father was a refugee.
This is a beautiful piece. Such a gentle and intimate portrait.