Sawanee Utoomma
BIOGRAPHY
Sawanee Utoomma (Thai: สวนีย์ อุทุมมา), known by the nickname Iang (เอี้ยง) and credited in some releases as Sawani Uthumma, is a Thai actor, theatre director and playwright. She plays the principal in The Eclipse (2022) and Mata in Flower Boy (2026).
Her screen career began in 2007 and was built largely on supporting work: The Palace of Light (2007), Orahan Summer (2008), Death Happens (2009), In the Shadow of the Naga (2010), Panatipata (2010) and 69 (2011). She continued through the 2010s in films including One Day (2016) and The Promise (2017), and in television with a thirty-episode run on Pisard Hansa (2019).
The turning point came in 2021 with The Medium, the Thai-Korean horror film in which she played Nim, a shaman in Isan. Directed by Banjong Pisanthanakun and produced and co-written by Na Hong-jin, it is a co-production between GDH 559 and Showbox. It follows a documentary crew that films Nim, a medium who says she is chosen by a local deity named Ba Yan, and the story darkens when her niece Mink begins to show troubling changes. It was filmed in Thailand’s Isan region in Thai and Isan, premiered on 11 July 2021 at the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival, opened in South Korea on 14 July and reached Thai cinemas on 28 October. The performance won her three separate Thai film awards for a single role:
- Best Supporting Actress, 30th Suphannahong National Film Awards (for the 2021 film year)
- Best Supporting Actress, 12th Thai Film Director Association Awards (covering the 2021 and 2022 film years)
- Best Leading Actress, 19th Starpics Thai Film Awards (2021)
Since then she has worked across Thai and international productions: Bangkok Breaking (2021), The Giver (2022, 26 episodes), The Eclipse (2022, 6 episodes), The Murderer (2023), Thunder Monk (2023), Love in Lies (2023, 18 episodes), The Bride of Naga (2023, 19 episodes), the American science-fiction feature The Creator (2023), The Empress of Ayodhaya (2024, 10 episodes), the anthology Tomorrow and I (2024) and Tharae The Exorcist (2025). Her 2026 slate includes Omukade as Ma-u, Airy in Busan, and Flower Boy as Mata.
The Eclipse was made by GMMTV, directed by Tanwarin Sukkhapisit and aired on GMM 25 and Viu from 12 August to 28 October 2022. It is set at Suppalo, a strictly governed all-boys school where a curse is said to grow stronger as an eclipse approaches, and follows the rule-enforcing prefect Akk and the rebellious new student Ayan. Flower Boy is a ten-episode romantic fantasy that premiered on One31 on 25 April 2026, with Satjakorn Chalard and Peemapol Panichtamrong in the lead roles.
Alongside the screen work she is credited as a theatre director and playwright.
Sawanee Utoomma plays the school principal across six episodes of The Eclipse.
The role came in 2022, the year after The Medium brought her three awards for Nim. The six episodes are a short run next to the thirty she logged on Pisard Hansa.
In my view her career is a good example of how a supporting actor arrives late at the centre. She worked for fourteen years before The Medium, and what Nim required, a character who is warm, unsettling and credible as a spiritual authority, is the same quality a school principal needs in a teenage story about rules and a curse. If you want to see why the awards followed, I would start with The Medium and then watch her in The Eclipse.
PROFILE DETAILS
- Native Name
- สวนีย์ อุทุมมา
- Real Name
- Sawanee Utoomma
- Nickname
- Iang (เอี้ยง)
- Birthplace
- Thailand
- Gender
- Female
- Profession
- Nationality
- Years Active
- 2007-present
- Skills
- Screen acting, stage acting, theatre directing, playwriting
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