Meet Xian the racer, baller and indie filmmaker

Xian Lim

In the History Channel reality show “Celebrity Car Wars,” Xian Lim joked that he had joined the tilt thinking it was a basketball tourney.

Kidding aside, Xian is a multitasking multihyphenate, in both the show biz and sporting worlds.

The actor-musician recently signed up with the Mandaluyong El Tigre team of Manny Pacquiao’s Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League. Then, there’s this baller’s head-scratching stint as speed racer in “Celebrity Car Wars,” which premiered on Sept. 9.

Racing for the History show was “insane,” he recalled. “It was crazy but really fun at the same time.”

He described working with his fellow contestants as an “exhilarating, exciting” experience. “I got to mingle with these people who didn’t know me at all,” he recounted. “It was just a blessing to be around them. I got to know more about myself because we were given the freedom to bond in a different way. Plus, we were allowed to break things!”

He singled out the most vital piece of discovery on the show. “Now I know how it feels when you are run over really hard.”

The show unleashed his gung-ho spirit, as well.

“In the beginning, the producers asked me: ‘Are you a competitive guy?’ I said: ‘No, not really.’ They asked again: ‘Do you want to win?’ I was like … ‘I guess so.’”

Then, when the challenges started rolling in. “I was like: ‘Yeah, I wanna win!’ I discovered that … I can be pretty competitive, too, but at the same time, I prefer to have fun.”

And there was no shortage of high-jinks and hilarity on the set—courtesy of the other contenders, Lydia Sarunrat and Matthew Deane of Thailand, Hans Isaac of Malaysia, Munah Bagharib of Singapore, and compatriot Diego Loyzaga.

Xian considers Hans as the toughest rival on the racetrack. “Hans was really good. He’s a pro.”

The zaniest was Lydia, he related. “She didn’t know how to drive a manual. She was really confused the whole time, so it was fun to see how she was learning on the spot.”

As for Diego, he proved to be another threat on the track. “Diego’s really impressive,” Xian asserted. “I consider him a pro driver. He knew what he was doing. At first, I was aiming for first. Then, I met Hans, so I started aiming for second. Then came Diego, so I ended up eyeing third place. I just kept going down!”

He looks up to retired German racing champ Michael Schumacher as his idol.

Xian conceded, however: “I’m not really into speed, but I like drifting. That’s what I enjoyed the most.”

He shared with the Inquirer an important realization on the set: “Racing is not safe at all. I guess, like any other sport, you just have to work at it. But it can really be dangerous.”

Fearless Xian is venturing into the danger zone again—trying out a new field, filmmaking, for a change of pace. His script, “Tabon,” made it as one of the finalists in next year’s Cinemalaya.

It’s like coming full circle for Xian who made his big-screen acting debut in a Cinemalaya entry, Gil Portes’ “Two Funerals,” in 2010.

He is grateful to Ricky Lee for encouraging him to pursue this new passion. Xian joined the award-winning scriptwriter’s workshop last year.

Said the acclaimed writer of his star student: “Xian is very assiduous and curious, always asking, always wanting to find out things. He has a very vivid imagination. And he’s very hardworking. Oftentimes, he would drop by the house, sit in a corner and write by himself for hours.”