A veteran New York theater teacher stands next to a young man on a TV production set in Beijing while texting his friends on his cell phone.

Fifty-eight-year-old Glen Sparer studied film direction at New York University and learned the Stanford Meisner approach to the Stanislavski Method.

Beside Sparer is 20-year-old Sergio Almeida, who has never acted before. He remembers his favorite movie The Bourne Identity and pretends to be Matt Damon.

Both men reflect the diversity of experience among foreigners, who are gracing the big and small screens of China.

University campuses and weekend expat hot spots are now the hunting grounds for casting agents and talent scouts looking for those "must-have" Western faces for their productions.

Over the past 10 years, waiguoren, or foreigners, have gone from playing extras and bit-part characters to starring in major supporting roles. And, demand for foreign faces is rising.

CCTV1's Lost in Los Angeles is a 30-part mini-series filmed mostly in Beijing. The story is about Chinese twins - a boy and girl - born in America and adopted by US parents. Their real Chinese father goes to Los Angeles to find them. And of course there are twists and turns associated with any soap. The daughter and star of the series, Angela, is lured into a drug ring, gets pregnant, is hit by a car, then finds out she is adopted, and wears green and purple streaks in her hair.

Thirty-year-old American Daygan Sobotka scored a major role, playing the villain who tricks the lead actress into a nasty drug deal.

Sobotka's only acting experience before coming to China was in high school and college theater productions. But in 2005, after he arrived in Beijing, he learnt the popular Chinese comedy "cross talk" routine and attracted publicity.

The Chinese-speaking expat's cross talk fame opened many doors.

"A big thing here is that we are unique," he says. "It's likely someone will say, 'hey we need a white person and you're one of the 50 they have to choose from. So, they will take you."

He understands an Oscar-winning performance is not essential, but tries to make his efforts as real as possible.

Sobotka remembers his high school drama lessons about the different methods, internal and external acting. For example, if an actor is required to cry, the internal method involves thinking about a sad event. The external technique involves lowering the head and wiping the eyes.

"I try to make it as internal as I can, however that's not always possible and as easy as we wish it."

When it comes to China's fast-changing society, appearance is important to hundreds of millions of Chinese viewers and consumers.

Assistant to the director and foreign casting Lost in Los Angeles David Tom says the Olympics has been the catapult, which has been pushing everything up and content in film productions reflects that change.

"The focus, the economy, foreign advertising, investment, everything is coming together," he says.