LOS ANGELES – At age 68, Singaporean actor Lim Kay Siu is getting a big second wind in his career – and a second stab at Hollywood.

He plays the monk Gyatso in the fantasy series Avatar: The Last Airbender, which became the most watched English-language show on Netflix globally shortly after it premiered on Feb 22.

Gyatso is a mentor to the main character, Aang (Gordon Cormier), a boy whose ability to manipulate the elements makes him the last hope for peace in a war-torn world.

Lim’s role in the live-action remake of the acclaimed 2005 to 2008 animated series of the same name is his most high-profile one yet. He was previously best known for the local sitcoms Happy Belly (1996) and Phua Chu Kang Pte Ltd (1997 to 2007).

The actor’s last Hollywood projects were the fantasy miniseries The Monkey King (2001), starring Thomas Gibson and Bai Ling; and the biographical film Anna And The King (1999), with Jodie Foster and Chow Yun Fat.

But he did no other work in the United States for two decades, and in a Zoom chat with The Straits Times, Lim explains why.

After Anna And The King, he and his wife – 60-year-old Singaporean actress Neo Swee Lin, who also appeared in that movie – went to Los Angeles and tried to look for agents and roles.

But Lim was still struggling to process the loss of his mother, who died of cancer during the making of the film.

“We flew back from filming and attended her funeral.

“But when we went to Hollywood to try to see whether we could make a life there, I started grieving really badly,” recalls Lim.

His brother is Singaporean actor Lim Kay Tong, known for his role in the Mediacorp drama Growing Up (1996 to 2001).

Realising he was not ready to take the plunge in Hollywood, Lim Kay Siu and Neo returned home.

“And we enjoyed a marvellous time in Singapore doing art, theatre, films and television about our own culture and society,” says the actor, who played Neo’s husband in the plays The Moon Is Less Bright (1990) and Tender Submission (2023). “So it was really rewarding in the end.”

But fast-forward 20 years and Hollywood is beckoning once more.

“Now, we’re at a stage of our life where we have no parents. And we have no pets and no children,” Lim says.

“We’re older. We’re not so kancheong or anxious about it. So I think it’s good to try this again.”

The couple also stumbled on a second career when the Covid-19 pandemic began in 2020, and they started singing and playing the ukulele on the live-streaming service Twitch.

They now perform on it as the NeoKELELims, with videos of their sessions also posted to the video-sharing website YouTube and social media.

And they recently debuted a song, Time, on the streaming service Spotify. It is a ballad “lamenting the transience of life”, Lim says.

The actor is not sure why all these new opportunities have arisen in his 60s.

“It’s a big puzzle because the audition (for Avatar: The Last Airbender) just came.

“I sent off a tape. And from that taped audition, we managed to get a second audition by Zoom – a reading opposite Gordon Cormier,” he says of his 14-year-old Filipino-Canadian co-star, who was 11 at the time.

“And we really clicked. We could both feel it.”

“I think there’s a lot of luck involved in these things,” Lim adds. “But it feels somewhat like it’s meant to be.”

The actor is open to doing more in Hollywood, especially given the success of Asian performers and creators there in recent years.

“We’re trying to keep our ears to the ground a lot more so that we know what’s happening: what projects are coming up and where there may be nice characters for us to play.

“Because in the States now, Asians are playing very human characters, so it is a good time.”

• Avatar: The Last Airbender is available on Netflix.