[This story contains spoilers for episode four of The Sympathizer, “Give Us Some Good Lines.”]
You hear about James Yoon earlier than you meet him. The fourth episode of The Sympathizer, HBO and A24’s restricted sequence adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer-winning novel, is an interlude from the same old enterprise of spycraft as The Captain (Hoa Xuande) is dispatched by his CIA contact (Robert Downey Jr.) to function a cultural guide for a Vietnam Warfare film from a hotheaded auteur (additionally performed by Downey). Whereas telling Lana (Vy Le) in regards to the movie, The Captain says that James Yoon is within the forged. Lana doesn’t acknowledge the identify, however The Captain says she’ll know him when she sees him: He’s the man that Hollywood turns to each time there’s an Asian function.
That’s why it nearly looks like an Easter egg when James Yoon seems just a few scenes later, performed by John Cho in a shock cameo alongside David Duchovny because the method-acting lead who refuses to interrupt character, to the nervousness of everybody on set. Cho, in fact, was all through the early 2000s one of many few actors of Asian descent to land substantive components in Hollywood, even actually changing into the poster baby for Asian American illustration within the viral social media marketing campaign “Starring John Cho.”
Cho spoke with The Hollywood Reporter to debate his casting, how he pertains to the episode’s skewering of Hollywood (particularly its remedy of Asian actors and characters) and the impression Xuande made on him once they first labored collectively a few years prior.
How did you become involved with this challenge?
It was by director Park [Chan-wook, who co-showran alongside Don McKellar]. We’ve recognized each other simply socially, we by no means labored collectively however we met over 15 years in the past, one thing like that. He’s simply somebody I’ve admired for an extended, very long time, and in order that was a straightforward sure.
Given what James Yoon’s journey represents in Hollywood, do you discover your casting to be meta?
I actually suppose there’s a approach to learn it as that. However for me, I used to be fascinated with the era or two earlier than me, and that gave the impression to be a greater match when it comes to the social temper of the time and the way that individual would have been handled on and off the set. In my thoughts, it was extra of an ode to the folks that preceded me, that had been my mentors. Lots of the Asian American actors that I used to be first launched to had been primarily theater actors who didn’t pay all of the payments by movie and tv. These had been the individuals I used to be fascinated with. However completely, I can see it, particularly if you happen to’re younger, and possibly Harold and Kumar Go to White Citadel is possibly the primary time you had been form of conscious of an Asian American presence onscreen. So I actually see that somebody might suppose that.
Might you relate to any of the concepts satirized on this episode?
What I can relate to within the James Yoon character, our connection level, is that he was making an attempt to do the perfect with this function that he had. What he wasn’t doing was critiquing the larger image. Possibly right this moment I may be extra vulnerable to, say, have a look at a script and go, “Whereas textually this character isn’t offensive or demeaning in any respect, in context depicting this individual doesn’t make any sense anymore or is inaccurate or subsequently the very positioning of the story itself possibly is suspect or probably racist.” I can actually relate to that character, James, [not] doing that. That’s the best way we needed to suppose. To some extent, I’m nonetheless residing it.
You really had already labored with Hoa Xuande, when he was a supporting actor on Cowboy Bebop. Hoa stated that on that set, he was impressed by the best way you handled others and aspired to be the form of chief you had been if he had been ever primary on the callsheet. Who knew that will occur simply a few years later?
Yeah, what the hell?! (Laughs) So many Asian Individuals of my era, we grew up in form of all-white circumstances, and particularly the lads, I felt like all of us had this “ lesser-than” factor that we needed to take care of for our adolescence, and we had to determine a approach to take care of that weight of being “lower than” as we grew into adults. Once I turned an actor and moved to L.A., I met all these dudes from Hawaii and so they actually opened my thoughts as a result of they walked taller. They appeared essentially completely different, and I used to be so fascinated by them and as I thought of it, it’s as a result of they grew up in a majority Asian tradition, in all probability, and they also’re wired in another way. And in a gentler, very delicate means, I felt that instantly with Hoa. He grew up in Australia, so I’m assuming he didn’t develop up in a majority Asian neighborhood however he nonetheless had just a little little bit of that taste. Or possibly it’s that he’s a surfer, so there’s that steadiness and beauty that makes you stroll completely different. However anyway, my impression with him was, like, That is new blood. I like this angle, and he was a very good actor — not that in that function you may see the entire breadth of what somebody can do — however I used to be like, Oh, I’m very fascinated by him, and I like him. You by no means know the way far somebody can go primarily based on one thing like that, however I used to be like: Submit it. [Mimes jotting down a Post-it note.] However I simply appreciated him rather a lot proper off the bat and I believe I used to be interested in his vitality.
James Yoon’s storyline facilities on his massive torture scene. Loads is product of David Duchovny’s character being technique, however James Yoon is the one who chooses to remain on the torture rack by the lunch break and pushes himself to the purpose of vomiting. That appears like a really pointed alternative, a deliberate assertion in regards to the sacrifice required of actors who possibly don’t get this sort of alternative day by day. However what do you make of it?
It does correlate to the extent of energy one has on a set. I’m not an informed actor and I don’t know what going full technique actually entails, however there’s a approach to hold your self in issues that you simply do privately, after which there’s a means that while you’re in character, you actively intrude with different individuals’s working strategies. And one individual in that storyline was abusive and egocentric in the best way that he labored. And there’s one other actor whose working strategies may be comparable however crucially was not abusive and didn’t intrude with the best way different individuals labored. Who can afford to not cooperate with the remainder of the forged and crew, and who, with a view to hold their job, should cooperate?
I assume that’s one connection level between Seventies units and 2024.
Somewhat bit (Laughs).