By Sharmila Nair

IT is not easy to get a hold of Astra-Imelda Elizabeth Yapp for she is one heck of a busy woman. As a media and entertainment producer for a local production house, Astra is always on the move – and that’s how she likes it.

“As a producer, I get to travel a lot, meet new people and experience new things. That really is the one of the best parts about my job,” said Astra, 25.

She got the chance to interview Dominic Purcell (of Prison Break) when he was in Malaysia for a shoot recently, and was quite impressed by the actor’s professionalism.

“It was obvious that he was tired from all of the interviews he had done before my slot and I told him that I’ll just keep it short. He was very cooperative and was quite a nice guy to talk to,” she said.

Astra, who studied Communications at Universiti Sains Malaysia, started out as a production assistant five years ago and slowly worked her way up in the entertainment industry. She is now in charge of producing a few web TV shows.

“I have a show called 24/7 which is aired on Astro Ria. It gives people a peek into the world of celebrities and lets us experience what a day in the life of an artiste is like. We get the artistes to do some extreme activities and the crew also get to join in on the fun,” she shared.

Astra is always up for some fun and excitement and her adventurous ways are apparent just by looking at the many tattoos the pint-sized Sino-Kadazan girl has.

One of her favourite tattoos is the dragon on her left shoulder blade, which she says she got to commemorate the dragon year her father was born in.

“According to the Chinese zodiac, my dad was born in the year of dragon. I got the tattoo done when I was 19 and I only told my parents about it afterwards. My father was cool with it, although he said that it was small, looks like a lizard and is not even pretty!” said Astra with a laugh.