Two Must Reads: Asian Actors Speak Out, and Method Acting's History
Monday, May 9, 2016 at 6:00PM 
After two hit TV shows Daniel Dae Kim is Broadway's new King of SiamTwo Must Reads today that are a pleasure to highlight
The Hollywood Reporter published a piece called "Where are the Asian-American Movie Stars?" that's definitely worth a look. Kudos to fine actors like Maggie Q, Daniel Wu, Daniel Dae Kim, Ming-Na Wen and others for forging and holding down careers (it can't have been easy) and speaking out about the white-washing. The problem is not just that Hollywood doesn't get it but that they also don't make use of what they already have. There is plentiful camera-ready talent out there, but Hollywood mostly ignores Asian Actors.
The white washing is so egregious lately that even an upcoming animated film from China called The Guardian Brothers has an all non-Asian voice cast for its US release! What the holy f***? That cast includes Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman, and quite frankly that pisses me off. They should know better. Neither of those perpetually working Oscar winning goddesses need the exposure, the work, or the money that that job will offer.
[More after the jump on this topic and Method Acting, too...]
A still from The Guardian Brothers (which was released in China as "Little Door Gods")
And publicly refusing to take roles that should go to Asian actors would be a really low stakes way for movie stars to win high praise and contribute to bettering Hollywood; they lose nothing, Asian actors gain something. It's a win-win for everyone.
Why do major stars keep thinking this is okay? Their careers are fine without these roles. (One caveat: I don't much mind the Tilda Swinton casting in Doctor Strange because they've obviously rethought the character entirely and I can see artistic reasons for going off the wall / off gender / off race / off Earth -- we all know Tilda is an alien creature -- and such with that extra-dimensional project but the other recent examples have just been easily avoidable and embarrassing for all involved.)
One excerpt from the THR piece.
One prominent Hollywood agent told THR that the holy grail is in developing Asian-American actors who can become stars on both sides of the Pacific. But a few already exist: Q and Daniel Wu, now starring on AMC's Into the Badlands, are Americans who built successful careers in Hong Kong before crossing (back) over to the States. "Starting in Asia was interesting because my career was so confusing for Hollywood. Before I got Mission: Impossible III, I met with the big agencies at the time, and I don't think they were as aware of the global market. There was almost zero interest in me as an entity," Q says. "My agency now [CAA] was the only one that said, 'This is unique. Half the world knows you already.' That for Daniel and I both was a huge plus because we could bridge the Asian gap and they could bank on us to do movies here and be able to sell them in foreign territories. That was something very unique that has only happened to a few people that I know of."
Finally, please do click over to the Telegraph to read an amazing piece by Robbie Collins called "Why Hollywood Went Method Acting Crazy" that looks at Method Acting from a really unique angle that made me rethink acting history altogether. It starts with Jared Leto's Joker but, never fear, that's just there as the hook to rope in unsuspecting readers via click-bait.
After surveying recent examples of Oscar winners, Collins writes:
There’s always a lot of talk about actors ‘disappearing into roles’, but in situations like these, that’s not what’s actually happening at all. Instead, what ends up on screen is a kind of actor-character hybrid, and the hard labour of bringing the role to life becomes part of the reason – sometimes even the main one, in fact – we want to watch.
One problem with the new craze for method acting is that it has almost nothing to do with real method acting in the slightest, which was adapted from the teachings of the Russian theatre director Konstantin Stanislavski by the American acting coach Lee Strasberg in the 1930s.
It's fascinating so go read it!
Reader Comments (25)
The Guardian readers would have a collective faint if they knew their beloved was being confused with The Telegraph.
It drives me nuts when people use the "there-are-no-bankable-Asian-actors" as an excuse to not cast Asian-Americans. They can't become bankable until they are given a chance. As pointed out in the article, Chris Pratt was a minor star when cast in "Guardians of the Galaxy." I had not heard of Margot Robbie until "The Wolf of Wall Street." Yet someone took a chance on them and now they are being cast in major films. Enough with the BS!
Why wasn't Harry Shum Jr in Magic Mike 2?
summer -- oops. thanks for the catch.
raul -- it's the same excuse hollywood uses when they cast people who can't sing and dance in musicals. it's all some dumb and short-minded.
brookesboy - good question.
To be honest- I do not know why we have to cast ANY celebrity to do a voice in an animated film....
There's no excuse for casting white actors in Asian roles - Tilda included.
Asian Actors Speak Out -- At last!
Maybe that first article can put to rest the adage that "Hollywood only cares about one color: green." If it did, it would pay even the slightest lip service to East Asian and South Asian audiences with the standard token representation. No, Hollywood cares about white so much that it gives up making more international money.
That's not to say that Hollywood isn't racially aware. They cater to Asia's own racism by downplaying black contributions. Like shrinking John Boyega on a Star Wars poster, or allowing urban dialogue in Michael Bay movies, so long as they are spoken by Transformers or Turtles.
At least Tilda Swinton can talk to her co-star Benedict Cumberbatch about stealing an Asian role and incurring the wrath of a billion people. Never again, until the next time.
Brevity -- wait. what did i miss. what did Benedict play?
"Why do major stars keep thinking this is okay?" Because they have a legacy of white supremacy telling them that it's perfectly acceptable. This world is full of ostensibly well-meaning, good-natured white people who'd have no problem addressing overtly racist or discriminatory behavior but wouldn't dare challenge the structures and systems of racism that continue to work in their favor. In their minds they're totally different coins instead of two sides of the same.
I love you Troy.
Nat, I think Dr. Strange was originally Asian, too.
Here is another article from an Australian angle. It's especially disappointing since we like to crow about being such a multicultural society and yet an Asian family moves into Ramsay Street some 30 years late and it's a huge big deal. Sigh.
http://www.dailylife.com.au/dl-people/dl-entertainment/how-nonwhite-aussie-actors-are-struggling-for-recognition-20160420-goarr4.html
be careful, Troy!
Nathaniel: Benedict played Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness.
It's understandable to hire Ricardo Montalban as Khan in 1967, as there were no Indian actors in North America then. It's also understandable to keep him in the role for a 1982 movie for the sake of continuity. But it's unforgivable to slap a pasty white (British imperialist?) face on Khan in 2013 and hide behind the John Harrison fake out, aka Hollywood's worst kept secret.
Not a big fan of Max Minghella being cast in The Social Network, either.
Strange to not get angry at Tilda taking a live action Asian role, but to some voice work. Where was that anger when every studio Ghibli movie came out in America with white voice actors?
Yeah, Benedict getting cast as Khan got tons of bad press.
On a better note: Maggie Q was super intense and awesome on Nikita. Very good actress.
everyone -- i'm confused. Khan is a totally fictional character created in the star trek universe which is mostly about Aliens and originally cast with a Mexican -- so why is he supposed to be Indian? Genuine Q.
Ryan -- I think it's just happening so frequently this year (the close proximity of all these press releases) that it's easier to be like WTF is going on? and thus more outrage. Including from me. I mean I have been super annoyed with whitewashing before (all posts on the proposed Akira, Pan, etcetera) but i've never seen this many announcements about Asian or Asian-influenced movies with non-Asian cast members coming out simultaneously before. It's like a sudden plague rather than a spotty flu.
and I don't think it's strange to not be mad at Tilda. I gave my reasons. If there are never any exceptions to the general rules than you remove all concept of artististic license when a creator wants to reimagine or reinterpret something. By the same token in the opposite direction Netflix/Marvel really ought to have changed the character of Iron Fist to an Asian character because they only reason he was white in the first place was the time period he was created. Because everything else about his origin story / background suggests he should have been an Asian character all along.
Aside from the character's full name Khan Noonien Singh. How his character is originally visualized on the series suggest this intent. Of course Hollywood prefers convenience over authenticity. And for fans complaining about Cumberbatch, an East Indian actor was not considered for the new movie. Original choice was Benicio Del Toro.
well, the 'artistic', 'reinterpretation' excuse used for excusing tilda is the excuse used by directors, casting directors no? "we didn't look at race, we hired the best actor for the job, [white actor] suited our vision for the movie"... ok then! tilda excused!
"The Telegraph" piece lost all value at the mention of Channing Tatum being watchable.
Tilda Swinton isn't just some 'pretty white actor' which is usually what happens in these situations (look at the Martian casting / Exodus etc), the character was changed from male to female also and she is unique and has that alien like quality Nat mentiond, I agree with Nat I get the reasoning behind her casting and Marvel has been fairly good with Asian / minority characters in their universe.
There need to be nuance which is sadly always missing in these types of discussion, and I am speaking as a Middle Eastern actor who sees white people get parts meant for me all the time!
Ghibli animations are always dubbed by white actors for US release which I think is similar to this Chinese toon. While I think movies are best watched in their own languages, I don't think this case is worth angry for. I mean, should all characters in Kung Fu Panda voiced by Asian actors? I'm not feeling this one but I get where you're coming from re: Tilda.
I wish Gong Li found more success in Hollywood but she's a legend regardless.
Jija -- but the characters in the Guardian Brothers are human characters not animals. So all these Asian looking characters will have very white or black voices.
Really, Maggie Q and Daniel Dae Kim should be huge stars and Ming Na should be winning Oscars.
Regarding Khan in Star Trek: Ricardo Montalban was cast as Khan because in that era, actors who were considered "ethnic" were cast in any part that was considered "exotic."
Rita Moreno talks about this dynamic in her memoir. In addition to latinas, she played lots of Pacific Islanders and Asian roles early on (most notably in The King and I). She now expresses her guilt and regret about this, but at the time thought she needed to take whatever parts she could get. The racism in the industry forced minorities to compete against one another for whatever crumbs they could get.
Nathaniel: I'm not a Star Trek expert, so others can feel free to correct me.
To expand on what 3rtful wrote above, Khan's full name is Khan Noonien Singh, a kind of genetically enhanced Earthling (not alien at all). His name and origin is North Indian, presumably Sikh, and he lived and ruled over parts of Asia and the Middle East before being cryogenically frozen. I've read that the writer of the TV episode that introduces Khan originally created a Nordic character (with a different name, I assume), but that Gene Roddenberry specifically wanted to make the global point that a genetically enhanced master race would probably not be white. So JJ Abrams' tone deaf casting of Khan was not only racially offensive, but the opposite of Roddenberry's original intent.
I had heard the rumblings of Benicio del Toro (and maybe Nestor Carbonell?), which would continue in the Montalban tradition, but would also ignore the availability of Indian actors in 2013. (Not that he'd be a good choice, but Kal Penn is at least as famous as John Cho, right?)
There is the counter-argument that casting Indians only as villains is somehow bad, or at least reductive, but I don't see it. Looking back at the Indiana Jones franchise today, the decision to make Indian culture in Temple of Doom so graphically exotic may have had some negative effect, but at the time ANY visibility was perceived as a good thing.