KOREAN American actress Jamie Chung's father never spoke to her about sex until she decided to take part in the MTV reality series, The Real World.'He thought it was an MTV sex show and he said, 'You will not have sex on national television.' I told him, 'Father, this is the most mortifying conversation we have ever had,'' recalls the 25- year-old over the telephone from Pittsburgh where she is shooting a new film.

After appearing in The Real World: San Diego (2004), the San Francisco-born Chung decided to go into acting full-time.

'It is a passion I have always had as a child and something I enjoy doing and it is much more challenging. Reality TV is just allowing the cameras to catch you in everyday life and sometimes I am not that interesting,' she says self-deprecatingly.

But acting is a very different proposition from reality TV, as the actress has learnt.

'The whole process of auditioning and breaking down a character and script, you learn nothing of that from reality TV. I do not see it as a transition, acting is a career I decided upon.'

Her latest acting assignment is the lead character in Samurai Girl, a six-part miniseries which premieres on the Sci Fi channel (StarHub channel 98) tonight at 8pm.

Based on the popular young adult series by Carrie Asai, it follows Chung's character Heaven, a young woman who learns that the man who adopted her is part of the Japanese yakuza, or criminal underworld, and might even have been involved in her brother's death.

Read the full story in Tuesday's edition of The Straits Times Life!