Cover Story: What Daiyan Trisha has learned at thirty

Our March issue — the month of new life and a ‘reigniting’ of hearts — dives into the illustrious life of Malaysia’s sweetheart, Daiyan Trisha, as she enters a new decade and learns the meaning of growth, gratitude and letting go.

It is easy to find yourself drawn to Daiyan Trisha. Call it alluring charm, or a magnetic personality; one would naturally gravitate towards Daiyan wherever she may be in the room at any given moment. At present, we’re cosy in the corner of the studio, musing on life over a bucket of fried chicken. Daiyan’s makeup is still flawless from our cover shoot, during which she has been all decked out in pieces from the latest H&M Studio Spring/Summer 2024 collection and she’s treading carefully, both pinkies up. Her hair, trimmed into a trendy bob only last August, is tousled — a deliberate and successful attempt at making it look cool.

After some long and productive months, Daiyan’s 2023 concluded with a milestone birthday. “Thirty and flirty!” she exclaims, grinning. “You know, I used to look at it like it was such a bad thing. But no, not at all. I actually am really happy and excited to turn thirty.”

Suffice to say, she’s had an eventful year. She starred in both the widely acclaimed series Projek: High Council and the local adaptation of popular K-drama W: Two Worlds, the latter of which she calls “a project that felt too good to be true”. She made international strides in the fashion world, whisking away to Japan, Paris and then New York — just to name a few. And to top it off, she became a published author with the release of her book, Tulisan.

“When I was twenty, I would never have imagined publishing a poetry book,” Daiyan tells me. “Like, really really?”

Tulisan is an intricate peek into Daiyan’s mind in all its artistic glory. It is a culmination of her deepest thoughts, built upon years and years of writing. The poems may look like an easy read, absorbable — but they pack an emotional gut-punch. I ponder the possibility of a second collection. “Of course,” she says, grinning. “I have not stopped writing, you know? I haven’t figured out the concept for the second one, but it’s coming. We’ll see when we have enough materials, and I’m gonna see what ‘theme’ is gonna be for the second one.”

A new chance, a new calling

It’s always been about feeling for Daiyan Trisha. For someone so enigmatic and versatile in her performances, she is quite the open book. She has always taken to speak her mind, never feeling the need to hide whatever she wants to express. Where music gave her the voice and acting the medium, Tulisan gave her the courage.

“I feel like what gave me strength was knowing that in my vulnerability, people would be able to relate,” Daiyan muses. “One of my strengths as a songwriter — and as a personality — is when I’m authentic. Sometimes I have like these long captions [on Instagram] that I think people won’t want to read. But it turns out those are the ones that make my friends DM me, saying that they can relate. That’s where the love comes from. And that’s why you love a person so much when they write songs about the things [everyone goes through], like, ‘Oh my god, she knows exactly how I feel.’ Right? And you don’t even know this person. I feel like that’s something special, and if you have that, use it.”

In many ways, Daiyan’s journey is evocative of Taylor Swift’s. Always seeking the next big thrill, ready to shed her old skin for something different. New year, new era. In this particular instance, Daiyan is giving Lover — the hopeful, bright skies after some long and hard lessons. (Taylor also released Lover the year she turned thirty.) Thus thirty, to Daiyan, feels like a chance to reinvent herself yet again.

“How I tackle life is, I never restrict myself,” Daiyan elaborates. “I tackle it like water. If I feel like I wanna go here, I’ll go here. If I wanna go there, I’ll go there. So, I just let it flow. And Alhamdulillah, it’s worked really well for me.”

Within the entertainment industry, Daiyan has dipped her toes in every water. She is a multifaceted figure in every sense of the word — she writes, sings, acts, models, and she takes the fashion world by storm. “If you restrict yourself in that sense, you’ll never know if it’s something that you can be a part of or explore,” she says, referring to the free flow with which she navigates life itself. “So I feel with writing, that just happened! I never intended to be a poet. When I started @tulisanbydaiyantrisha [the Instagram account], it was one of the flows that made me go like, ‘Just buat lah, just create that account, you know.’”

Daiyan’s mother, Dr. Samsiah Mohd Nor, is a writer herself — having published a range of books back in the 1990s. “I never really grew up thinking, ‘Oh, I need to be a writer,’” Daiyan laughs. “But I grew up writing songs. And that was one of the ways that I felt I could go. By then, tulisanbydaiyantrisha already existed. I started with writing aphorisms. I’m someone who wants to self-reflect, all the time. And I needed a space for me to put all of this. And over the years, these aphorisms became poetry because makin lama makin panjang (the longer I was doing it for, the longer the words became). You know, you have some kind of wisdom and you go deeper into yourself — you have a lot to think and say. I was like, ‘Okay. It’s time for me to publish everything into a book.’ And that’s how Tulisan came about.”

Tulisan centred Daiyan and made her much more in touch with her own feelings, getting right down to the root of it. “Writing was one part of it, and preparing myself for the release was another part,” she shares. “When my publisher sent me a finished copy of the book, I couldn’t open it for a couple of months. Because every time I opened it, I cried. I would open it, then cry. I put it on this couch in my bedroom, and I would just… look at it for, like, three months. It was a freaking process! It was kind of like facing head-first everything that has broken you, and to be able to look at the pain and say, ‘I’m not affected anymore.’”

“I think a lot of people tend to underestimate just how brave that actually is,” I say in muted awe.

“Yeah, it is!” Daiyan exclaims. “Because it’s not just pain — it’s, like, trauma. And you can never really know, because everyone’s level of tolerance is different. Someone might be ‘stronger’, and someone else is… not weaker, but just more sensitive, you know? So, to be able to face all that has hurt you and stripped you down to your core. It’s like, ‘Oh my God, you’re seeing me in my most ugly self, and you have to face it.’ So, that’s courage. And that’s what I’m most proud of with Tulisan.”

What it takes to ‘live and let live’

“I’m a Capricorn,” Daiyan says, and that pretty much tells me all I need to know about her disposition. Ambitious and passionate, and determined more than anything to achieve it — these traits show themselves as Daiyan speaks. “I’m pretty hard-headed. If we want something, we always, always get it. And for the first half of my twenties, that was how I lived it. ‘I want it, I got it.’”

But at the turn of her decade, Daiyan realised this mindset doesn’t quite last. “The year of 2023 has taught me one thing that was so tough for me to do,” she opens up, “and that was letting go. Letting go of people, letting go of opportunities, letting go of things that you want — but might not be good for you.

“For the first half of my twenties, it was like, ‘Wow. Bestnya! Aku nak, aku dapat,’” she goes on. “Because I worked for it. But when you reach the mid- and toward the end of your twenties, it gets harder, in a way that God doesn’t just give you what you want anymore. He gives you what you need. And because you have more experience, you become more prepared to be told ‘NO’ to. There were opportunities where I was like, ‘Nak sangat ni. I worked hard for it, I know I’ve got it, I know I can do it.’ And then tak dapat. But along the way, you understand why. It’s like, ‘Oh, that’s why I didn’t get it. God was just saving me.’ It makes sense. So, all of these things you have to let go, because as much as you want it, He knows better. But I feel like my stubbornness is what makes it more ‘worth it’ when I learn.”

Here, Daiyan pauses to take a breath, giving an almost dramatic effect. The fried chicken is dismissed to the side, and she stretches her fingers freely across the table — a force of habit, I suppose, to be able to think clearly and channel that inner wisdom she speaks of.

“Letting go is one of the things that was the most precious for me to learn,” she says. “It’s really such an important lesson. Sometimes in the process, of course you’ll get hurt, because you learn to trust, and then people betray you. And you lose friends. But at the end of the day, you figure out that maybe they’re just not meant to be in your life. Because your space is too precious to be spent on someone who doesn’t deserve it. They don’t know how to use your time to the fullest, and appreciate you in the sense that you would. And all the opportunities, it’s like that. Faham tak? We just have to accept that what or who we get in our lives, they’re there for a reason. It’s just the maximum value capacity of what a person can give you, and what you can give them. Life is like that in the end. It’s a cohesive circle.”

Wrapping up the twenties with a bang

Despite having shed her skin over the course of her twenties, when I ask her what’s next, Daiyan tells me that she’s looking forward to going back to her roots. Music is, ultimately, her very first love and the path that has led her to where she is today.

“There are still some things that I want to explore more, especially with my music, because in the last two years, I have put it on pause for a bit,” she admits. “I’m only one person. And as much as I want to release music, I’m very much tied into a lot of other things. My acting hat was needed, my fashion model hat was needed, and there was my travelling, you know. There were a lot of things I was doing that needed more of me than I could give. So, when I feel like I’ve done my best with everything else, then I’ll slowly go back into music. I’m always writing more songs, getting more things out of the archives. Because I never stopped. What I do is I put them in the vault first, and then, you know, let it out one by one.”

After our comforting, balm-to-the-soul conversation, I end it by asking thirty-year-old Daiyan what she would say to her younger self, if given the chance. “Oh my God, brace yourself, girl. You don’t know what’s comin’! But in a good way…” she reassures.

“I know what would make you happiest is the fact that you can be a contribution to your family, so whatever you’re doing, know that your parents are proud of you. That’s the most important thing. And along the way, you’ll be able to find something that you never thought you’d find — growth.”

editor-in-chief MARTIN TEO | interview PUTERI YASMIN SURAYA | styled by AZZA ARIF | assisted by MALLIE MARAN & RONN TAN | photography EDMUND LEE / ONE3FOUR STUDIO | videography FION KOH | video assistant BIRDY LEE | makeup KF BONG | hair JUNO KO | wardrobe H&M 

Find out more about DAIYAN TRISHA in the latest issue of LSA Digital Cover Vol. 018 HERE.