Manifest Star Ellen Tamaki Shares Swimsuit Photo as “It’s Been Real”

Manifest star Ellen Tamaki had a beautiful few months spent with friends and family, posting highlights on her social media. Tamaki, who plays Drea Mikami on the Netflix show, shared pictures of herself from video phone conversations, including a snap of her posing in a brown bikini in a beautiful little yard. “It’s been real,” she captioned the post. Here’s how Mikami lives her best life, and what she’s hoping for next career-wise.

1. Beauty Maven

Tamaki swears by specific beauty products for her gorgeous complexion. “Laneige lip sleeping mask- at all hours of the day,” she says. “Weleda Skin Food single handedly changed my skin. It’s very thick, so perfect for winter dryness. Supergoop glow screen SPF every day, but sometimes I use this as my foundation! There’s a little tint and shimmer to it. PawPaw ointment- for problem areas, I have had an ongoing feud with a dry patch under my nose for as long as I can remember. One of my makeup artists on manifest introduced me to pawpaw and I slather it on. I rarely wear makeup when home for the holidays, so my favorite beauty look is glowy skin! Sometimes my siblings line up and I do all of their skin care, too.”

2. Not Just a Love Interest

Tamaki is appreciative about playing a strong, complex character who isn’t just the romantic interest. “I love seeing women on TV who have more relationships than just romantic ones, and I think there can be something so dynamic and professional about female friendships and that’s kind of what we have been discovering throughout the season is the way that these two characters get along and learn from each other,” she says. “Drea comes in at the beginning and is just so infatuated with Mic and is trying to get Mic to warm up to her a little bit.”

3. Ocean Swimming

Tamaki went on a magical trip to Bali earlier in 2023 where she swam and snorkeled in the ocean. “To my Bali baddieeees- thank you for the trip of a lifetime. From spirituality and support, to morning bintangs and debauchery, I’d like to think that all of our little islands formed a perfect archipelago. Thank you @adawsss for bringing us all together. This insane jet lag was worth it,” she captioned an Instagram post detailing her adventures.

4. Superhero Dreams

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Tamaki wants to explore more physically challenging roles in the future. “When I think into the future and the projects I want to work, I feel like I love and gravitate toward roles that are super grounded and driven and moral,” she says. “I’ve read some scripts recently that are really fascinating about incoming new Congresswomen who want to evoke change in the government. Or maybe even in the vein of a detective, but the scrappy detectives who figures out that there’s something wrong with the system and she goes on and tries to fix it. I’d love to work on something really physical. My training is in physical acting, and I once played Billie Jean King, the tennis player, and so I think that if there were something where I could use my physical acting training, maybe like a superhero that I would love to dive into.”

5. Love On Set

Tamaki genuinely loves her co-stars and enjoys spending time with them. “I mean, that’s the judicious answer, right? To be like ‘everyone’s amazing,’ but it’s true, this is one of the greatest shows I’ve worked on, cast and crew and you know everybody involved, but the person who actually came to mind is Parveen [Kaur], who plays Saanvi,” she says. “I ended up getting close to her hanging out in New York and we were able to have like a couple of days on set together, but we didn’t have to get to have a big story-arc. Our characters have two totally separate situations going on and they’re really complicated stories, but I think it would be really cool to work with her and to see how these two women could maybe start figuring stuff out together.”

You star Nicole Kang went on vacation to beautiful Santorini, Greece, and didn’t quite get the pictures she wanted. Kang, who plays Lynn on the show, shared pictures of herself lounging on a boat, looking stunning in a wine-colored bikini. Another reel showed her walking up Santorini’s many stairs, looking exhausted. “Trying to give more windswept than winded but the stairs are winning,” she jokingly captioned the post. Here’s how Kang feels about her part in You, and diversity in Hollywood.

1. Joining the Cast

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Kang was incredibly nervous when she joined the cast of You. “I was in the show, You, and that was a huge shift for me,” she says. “It’s my same producer and even the same director for some episodes at Batwoman, Marcos Siega, who have seen me grow up. I remember I had never really been on a set before; I had been an extra and did some student films, a ton of theater but that was the first time that I had been on a set of that scale before. I remember I was in hair and makeup and felt like the most pampered and fabulous person (laughs). I was walking around in my own music video. They told me we are going to be filming episode two and I had only received episode one, so as a theater or as any actor, I always thought my first time I was going to be so prepared and so ready but here I was sitting in a full panic in hair. I just told myself to breathe.”

2. Batwoman Role

Kang is proud of her Batwoman role (as Mary Hamilton) and hopes there will be many more like it. “Don’t we just love strong female characters and female empowerment?” she says. “I think that’s what our show arguably does best. I think, you know, if you look at our top cast, it’s overwhelmingly women, and that doesn’t happen. And we aren’t talking about men; we aren’t needing men to tell the audience about ourselves. That is my favorite thing. That is also one of my favorite things about Mary. She is unapologetically herself in the way she dresses, in the way she comes into a room, in the way she takes on risk.”

3. New York Roots

Kang has a soft spot in her heart for New York. “I always say New York was my coming of age story, it was my cultural awakening. In that way, I owe it so much,” she says. “All of the hard lessons and the big triumphs for me, at the beginning of my career, all happened in New York City, which is like the prologue of a book. The move to LA was for work since I am in Vancouver shooting Batwoman. I thought it would be great to have my US-base be in LA since I am here for ten months out of the year.”

4. She’s an Empath

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Kang goes out of her way to be kind to newcomers. “I am such an empath; when we have guest stars, I can feel their energy,” she says. “I like to say, you are doing incredible. If we have time and a lot of scenes together I definitely make an effort to rehearse with them. My favorite part is when you feel the trust and you can feel entitled in a good way to the space and the scene. Maybe you can try something or something comes about that you didn’t anticipate— it’s like lightning in a bottle—that’s what we are trying to capture.”

5. Championing Diversity

Kang is proud of her Korean heritage, and representing it on screen. “Diversity, it’s this beautiful thing,” she says. “It’s this beautiful palette, because, listen, we tell incredible stories, but the people in Gotham, I think that’s a really, really great, exciting thing about it; it goes along with the tempo and the themes of our show in the first place. If we’re going to make another show in Gotham in 2019, 2020, then what are we going to say this time that hasn’t already been said before? The thing is, is that Gotham is made up of a bunch of people, a bunch of different people who have tons of different layered experiences.”

NCIS: Hawai'i star Tori Anderson spent September enjoying the beach—and a brand new puppy. Anderson, who plays Kate Whistler on the show, shared pictures of herself taking advantage of the beautiful terrain with her new pup Scottie, plus a gorgeous shot of her walking on the beach in a red bikini. “Bite size snack,” she captioned the post. Here’s how the actress lives her best life in one of the most beautiful places on earth.

1. Dealing With Shyness

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Anderson credits acting with helping her to get over crippling shyness and anxiety as a child. “I was terrifyingly shy as a child to the point where my younger sister would ask questions for me,” she says. “I would actually tap her on the shoulder and get her to ask my questions for me. I was very, very nervous about talking to people in general. So for me, acting started at a young age. My parents put us in a local music festival. We did poetry, monologues, and Shakespeare from the time I was around ten. And I found that there was a freedom I experienced with acting and using someone else’s words that I hadn’t felt before. I found that it was liberating for me and it encouraged me to help me come out of my shell and take on different roles.”

2. Outdoorsy Canadian

Anderson loves the outdoors, having grown up on Vancouver Island. “It’s an incredibly idyllic place to grow up,” she says. “I grew up on a farm. It was a beautiful way to grow up. Then I moved to Toronto, and it was a totally different world. Yeah, I miss it. I definitely took it for granted and wish I would have explored more and everything, but that’s the beauty of being able to go home is that it’s there, and you can always go back and take it in. Yeah, it’s a remarkable place. It’s stunning, and the people are kind. There’s just beauty at every turn.”

3. Hawaiian Lifestyle

Anderson takes full advantage of the gorgeous Hawaiian landscape and lifestyle. “We’re both getting into surfing here, so I think we’re both trying to figure it out,” she says. “It’s a big shift from Toronto, but we’re making the most out of it. Hiking, surfing, I think we maybe might take a sailing class here or there. But, yeah, just trying to embrace it. The water is so beautiful, and the surfing is unreal. We went to the North Shore last year for the surf competitions and watched these surfers from all over the world, and lots from Hawaii just go on these waves. You have to have just an insane amount of respect for them. It’s a pretty wild place to see.”

4. Daredevil Dreams

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Anderson would love the chance to do her own stunts. “I’m like a daredevil — well, I say that but I haven’t done a lot of crazy things,” she says. “But the thing is they won’t let us. I want to do the skydiving and all that stuff, but they won’t let [me]. I’ll have to do it behind their backs, secretly, maybe.”

5. Hallmark Christmas Star

Anderson is also a big Hallmark Christmas star, and watches the movies every year. “So I’m in my PJs with a cup of coffee, and it’s a morning thing,” she says. “My mother-in-law and my sister-in-law are huge, huge Hallmark fans and so they’ve always sort of recorded it from the night before, and then we wake up in the morning, and we’ll watch a Hallmark movie. We’re all kind of settling down and have had our breakfasts and are just sort of mellowing out on a Sunday or something and watching it. It’s sort of that kind of cozy vibe.”