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Chang was born and raised in Taipei, Taiwan, and attended Taipei American School. Trips to visit family in her mother\u2019s hometown of Neodesha, Kansas, throughout childhood laid the groundwork for her eventual arrival at KU. \u201cMy mom was a teacher, so she would have the summers off, and many of our summers were spent in Kansas,\u201d Chang says. \u201cKansas felt like home in the United States, and that was a large part of why I chose KU. If I was going to be thousands of miles away from my home in terms of where I grew up, then Kansas was like my second home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reflecting on her time at KU, where she earned her degree in theater, Chang treasures the personal growth and lasting friendships cultivated against a backdrop of the joyful rites of student life: sledding down Daisy Hill on dining hall trays, celebrating her 21st birthday on Mass Street, walking down the Hill for Commencement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think KU was a good spot for me to be during such a paramount time, when you\u2019re on your own, you\u2019re independent for the first time, you\u2019re discovering your identity,\u201d says Chang, who today lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, with her husband and daughter. \u201cAt a time when I felt so untethered, KU was a good tethering spot. And also just seeing, how far away I was from home, how alike human beings can be\u2014that experience was also formative and important.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chang recently chatted with Crimson & Blue<\/em> about her fondest college memories, forging a career in entertainment, and the most fulfilling part of her turn in \u201cHeated Rivalry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chang: I lived in Corbin my freshman year, and I met one of my dearest friends there who I\u2019m still good friends with. We ended up being roommates the whole way through KU. One of my really core memories from freshman year is getting pizza at Pyramid Pizza (laughs). I\u2019d get the pizza, and then of course the honey. And then I lived in Hashinger Hall my second year. I have good memories of Corbin, but I think Hash was a way more formative experience. We just did so much there, and I made even more friends that I\u2019m still friends with today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I remember The Crossing (a bar once located where The Oread now stands) was the<\/em> place to be back then. I lament that it\u2019s gone! Before I was old enough to be there, I would stand on the sidewalk and talk to my friends who were allowed to be on the deck with a beer. And then finally my senior year, I was allowed to stand on that deck and go into the bar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That group from Hash, we all lived in a house together on Kentucky Street my third year. I kind of stayed with the same group of friends all through school, and that core group, we\u2019re still friends. We\u2019re all on a text chain and still in touch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ron Willis, who has since passed away, was the director of \u201cMacbeth,\u201d and he was my favorite professor there, hands down. He also had my heart because he had a grandchild who would call him \u201cy\u00e9ye,\u201d which is \u201cgrandfather\u201d in Mandarin. That was really sweet to have that connection. It seems funny to call it a connection, but because I was so far from home, and this was pre-cellphones and pre-internet, communication was so limited with family that something as little as his knowing how to say \u201cgrandpa\u201d in Mandarin was really heartening. I think he also saw that I was homesick and that I was a little insecure, being a freshman and not knowing where my place was in this department that had a lot of talent. He took me under his wing as a freshman, and I really cherish that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And also Jack Wright, who was head of the University Theatre for years and years. He encouraged me to go down the graduate school path, and he was instrumental in helping me figure out which school to go to. One program was more about film and television, and they were offering me a stipend, but that\u2019s not really where my instinct was telling me to go. I was interested in theater. So Jack basically reflected back to me that it was the University of Washington that I seemed the most excited about when I heard I\u2019d gotten in. And he was right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s a Broadway director named Tina Landau, and when I was in grad school at the University of Washington, Tina was workshopping an off-Broadway play called \u201cThe Trojan Women\u201d by Chuck Mee. She and the head of our program connected, and our class\u2019s thesis project was to do that play with her. We workshopped it in Washington, and then when Tina was going into rehearsals in New York, she asked me to be a part of that production. That allowed me to get my Actors\u2019 Equity card and took me to New York the summer I turned 25.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I did a couple of off-Broadway shows, never making it to Broadway, and it was really tough to make ends meet. It was four years of slogging in the restaurant business and temp jobs, so that\u2019s why I started auditioning for commercials. My first TV experience was on \u201cAs the World Turns.\u201d I played an FBI agent, running through a barn in heels with a gun in my hand (laughs). When I was 29, I ended up auditioning for (TV producer) Dick Wolf\u2019s show called \u201cDeadline,\u201d and I got that part as a series regular. I credit Dick with pulling me up into becoming a working actor. I\u2019ve been really blessed and very grateful that I\u2019ve been able to make my living acting since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this career, everybody has a different path. There is no one way to go. So when people ask, \u201cWill you tell us how to do this?\u201d I say, \u201cI can tell you my<\/em> story, but that\u2019s unique to me.\u201d Talent of course is important, but it\u2019s also timing, it\u2019s who you know, it\u2019s persistence and resilience. I think persistence is the No. 1 thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Given my own experience, I would say: It\u2019s OK if your first plan isn\u2019t your final plan. I think back on when I was in school and how much pressure there was to pick the right path. You better go to the right school, and then you better get into the right school within<\/em> that school, and you better stick to it and not mess it up, and then you better do this, this and this. Now, with a teenage daughter who\u2019s thinking about university, I look back at how young we were then and how undeveloped our brains were still, and I think it\u2019s wild we have this expectation that teenagers have to make a decision that the 40-year-old or 50-year-old in them has to live with. So, I have to remember this when I talk to my daughter\u2014that your first plan doesn\u2019t have to be your final plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s funny, because when we were filming it, nobody had any idea that it would have the number of eyeballs on it\u2014the original intent was for the show to only air in Canada, on Crave (a Canadian streaming service). Working on that scene with Hudson (Williams) was a delight. The day we shot it, Jacob (Tierney, the show\u2019s writer and director) told us in the morning that he was rewriting it. The outcome was the same, of course; he was just tinkering with the words. He made it better with the rewrite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The most fulfilling part of being on this show has been getting to hear about or read about the experiences of people who\u2019ve been touched by it very personally, whether that\u2019s been through conversations that are sparked that are healing, or conversations that they\u2019re about to have, and they\u2019re hoping this show provides a good template for that. Or, also, people who aren\u2019t able to have those conversations and are grieving that, but the show gave them a cathartic place to begin the healing process. I\u2019d say that\u2019s been the best part, and all the rest is gravy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Megan Hirt, c\u201908, j\u201908, is managing editor of Crimson & Blue.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The actor and KU alumna reflects on her college years, her career on screen and her role in the \u2018Heated Rivalry\u2019 phenomenon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":1592,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,13],"tags":[54,91],"class_list":["post-1591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-jayhawks","tag-college-of-liberal-arts-sciences","tag-pop-culture"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat are some of your favorite KU memories?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/kualumni.org\/stories\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/06\/Christina-Chang-actress.jpg\")
Which of your KU professors had the biggest impact on you?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
What eventually led you to working in TV and film?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/kualumni.org\/stories\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/06\/Heated-Rivalry-Christina-Chang.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nWhat career advice would you most emphasize for current KU students or recent graduates?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d has been a phenomenon, and your character has a really moving scene in the season finale that has resonated with a lot of viewers. What has being a part of this show meant to you?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nPhotos courtesy of Christina Chang
\u201cHeated Rivalry\u201d still by Sabrina Lantos\/HBO Max<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"