Julia Nickson

The Action Woman Stereotype

Julia Nickson became an icon of the big screen with a crossbow and a tragic fate in the jungles of Vietnam. In 1985, Sylvester Stallone was looking for a presence that could balance out the testosterone of Rambo: First Blood Part II. She had barely any prior experience, but her face was seared into millions of memories that summer.

That role as Co-Bao was not just a debut. It became a label that was hard to shake in an industry that still didn't know what to do with an actress of Chinese and British descent born in Singapore.

The die was cast.

Her arrival in Hollywood coincided with an era of rigid stereotypes, when Asian actors were relegated to very specific supporting roles. But Nickson managed to land big-budget projects thanks to that first international exposure. In 1987, she married actor David Soul, and her public profile grew as she tried to avoid scripts that only asked her to be the exotic face on the poster.

In 1992, she starred in Sidekicks alongside Chuck Norris and a young Jonathan Brandis. The film performed well at the box office and proved she could carry the narrative weight of a family martial arts production. But 1990s cinema began shifting its priorities, and substantial roles for Asian women became scarce again at major studios.

A Safe Place on Television

Television was where she found the stability she needed to stay in the public eye. During the 1990s, Nickson became a familiar face in cult sci-fi and fantasy series. She appeared in Star Trek: The Next Generation as Ensign Akiac and later played Catherine Sakai in Babylon 5.

The phone didn't ring as often anymore.

Despite the setbacks in her film career, she never fully gave up acting. In 1994, she joined the cast of Double Dragon, a video game adaptation that critics tore apart mercilessly, and she kept working in independent films that barely reached Spanish movie theaters. Her career became an exercise in endurance, where every role was a victory against being forgotten by Los Angeles casting directors.

In 2004, she appeared in the series Lost, playing a woman named Sian in one episode of the first season. It was a brief return to prime time that reminded viewers of her ability to inhabit characters with very little screen time.

It wasn't all red carpets.

Her personal life also affected her work pace after she divorced Soul in 1993 and focused on raising their daughter, China Soul. Hollywood had typecast her, but she preferred to take small roles in projects like One Kine Day in 2011 rather than retire from the spotlight entirely. In 2018, Steven Spielberg brought her back briefly for a cameo in Ready Player One, where she played the character Commuter.

The film's estimated budget was $175 million.