Here's another breakout star to watch in "Jailbreak" and it is none other than Hollywood stuntman-turned-actor Jean-Paul Ly! The actor lands his first starring role in this action-packed movie. Like his co-stars Tharoth Sam and Dara Our, who are also part of the main cast, Ly's character in "Jailbreak" shares the same name as his (albeit his real name doesn't carry the title inspector in front of it). In the movie, Inspector Ly is assisting a team of Cambodian police transfer a dangerous criminal to a high security prison. When a prison riot breaks out, Ly unleashes his fighting skills to break their way out to safety. The list below illustrates just how globally diverse this rising star's career is.
Ly, though hailing from France, is of Southeast Asian descent. His parents are Chinese Cambodians who migrated to France during the war and it was there, in Lyon specifically, that Ly was born. He did return to Cambodia in 2011, living there for two and a half years before moving to London to pursue an acting career. Having trained at the Identity Drama School of London, Ly later joined Identity Agency Group (IAG). In 2014, he was awarded the Clive Dailey Award for Best Actor by M. Femi Oguns, coming out top out of 200 actors, for his performance in a play adaptation of Nick Payne's "Constellations". As he speaks both English and French, his role as Inspector Ly in "Jailbreak" is also bilingual.
Ever since kicking off his acting career in 2013, Ly, armed with more than 25 years of martial arts practise, has mostly been involved in choreographing and performing stunts. One of his earlier works was in the Scarlett Johansson-starring, Luc Besson-directed "Lucy". Since then he's gone on to work in Hollywood blockbusters such as "Now You See Me 2" (2016) and "Marvel's Doctor Strange" (2016). His works are not limited to feature films as he's also been in numerous shorts, commercials and TV series, including Kiefer Sutherland's "24: Live Another Day". With his expertise, he, alongside co-star and Bokator Stunt Team leader Dara Our, also choreographed the stunts and trained the stunt team for "Jailbreak".
For his work in "Doctor Strange", in which for 7 months he was part of the Core Stunt/Fight Team and assisted renowned fight choreographer Jonathan Eusebio ("Fast and Furious 8", "John Wick 2", "Avengers", "Iron Man 2"), he received the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards nomination for Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble. Aside from that, he was also nominated for the Taurus World Stunt Awards' Best Fight accolade.
Those swift movements and high kicks did not happen overnight, Ly put in a lot of hard work over the years to get where he is today. At the age of 5, he started practising martial arts and thanks to that, he now has a diverse range of martial arts skills including Hapkido, Taekwondo, Capoeira, Tricking, Karate, and Kick Boxing. Fans of these martial arts might be able to spot them in "Jailbreak", which showcases several martial arts styles including the ancient Bokator.
From Cambodia back to London, Ly's second feature film role is in a British thriller called "Amber", in which he plays a supporting character named Chan. "Jailbreak" is not his one and only lead role, however, as he also stars as Jake in JLP Pictures' 2017 TV series, "The Division".