Alan Luk - All in

It is the day episode four of COURT! goes live on ViuTV. Alan Luk is at the once a day store on Elgin Street, Soho, coffee in front of him, easy to smile. The city outside doing what the city does.

Filming wrapped weeks ago. All twelve episodes in the can. The audience is only just catching up. For a man who has spent months inside a legal drama about truth and justice, he carries it lightly.

He was trained at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, the finest drama school in Asia. Twenty years of work came after. Before COURT!: Lost Love, opposite Sammi Cheng. The work is serious. The manner, today, is not.

| THE CONVERSATION |

COURT! is produced by Yau Nai Hoi and Elaine Chu and directed by Terry Ng. Twelve episodes, airing Monday to Friday on ViuTV, built around three interconnected cases: a judge, a detective, a murder investigation. Each pressing on the same uncomfortable question: how much can anyone truly know, and what does justice look like when the evidence runs out?

Alan plays Fat Cheung. He describes his approach simply: "fully in, no matter what it takes." The character gave him one line that followed him off set.

"Not that I don't believe the world has ghosts — I just don't believe in people."

He lets it land without explanation. It is the kind of line that works because it is delivered by someone who clearly believes the opposite.

As a private person, he describes himself as approachable. Someone who leads with humour. Empathetic. Professionally, something else takes over. He puts himself fully into a role, no matter what it costs or how much it takes from him.

He carries one thing from the Academy. Not a technique. A principle. Stanislavski:

"Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art."

It explains something about how he operates. No vanity in it. Just the scene, and what the scene requires.

Asked what he would have become if not an actor, he says a director. It makes sense. Someone who reads people this closely would eventually want to control the frame.

| THE PERSON |

In his wardrobe there is a wool sweater he has kept for over twenty years. Bought in Japan with his mother. Their first trip together, a free-and-easy itinerary with no fixed agenda. The fabric is still remarkable. He will never get rid of it. Not because it is perfect, but because of what it holds.

Hong Kong, he says, gives him something no other city could. Proximity to an enormous range of people, always close. For an actor, he says, they are all like treasure.

It sounds like something a person says. Then you watch him say it, and realise he means it completely.

| THE #ONCEADAY–MOMENT |

Every morning, before anything else, Alan Luk drinks a glass of water. That is all. A small reset. The day starts clean.

once a day was built on exactly that kind of logic. One good thing, done with intention, without noise. A deliberate pause before the city claims the rest of the day. It turns out to be a philosophy that fits him well.