Joanna Bessey (born 1976) is an Asian film and television actress from Malaysia. Her father is British and her mother is Malaysian. She is best known for her role as Marie Tan in the situation comedy Kopitiam which ran for 7 seasons.
Joanna was seen worldwide on BBC World News hosting, "Exploring Malaysia", a travel documentary. Joanna is an actress and also an environmentalist.
She has had the following nomations: 'Best Actor in a Supporting Role' at the 'Boh' Cameronian Arts Awards 2007, "Best Director" for her directorial debut of Ibsen's 'An Enemy of the People", 'Best Actress in a Comedy Role' for the award winning sitcom, "Kopitiam" at the Asian Television Awards (Singapore) and was highly commended. She was voted Best Female Artist in 2000 by a public online poll.
Joanna has had an illustrious acting career in television, film and theatre having done over 200 episodes of television, 6 TV movies, 5 feature films, commercials with 2 major celebrity endorsements, extensive voice-over work for commercials and animated series and numerous theatre productions, over the last 10 years. Other TV credits include: La Dolce Amira, Bilik 13, All Mixed Up and Island FM. Joanna has been in feature films such as Lips to Lips, Buli', 1957- Hati Malaya and Waris Jari Hantu.[1]