John Cho on His Surprise Cameo

[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 marketing consultant for a Vietnam Battle film from a hotheaded auteur (additionally performed by Downey). Whereas telling Lana (Vy Le) concerning 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 appears like an Easter egg when James Yoon seems a couple of 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, after all, 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 little one 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 therapy 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 undertaking?

It was via director Park [Chan-wook, who co-showran alongside Don McKellar]. We’ve got identified 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 simple sure.

Given what James Yoon’s journey represents in Hollywood, do you discover your casting to be meta?

I actually assume there’s a solution to learn it as that. However for me, I used to be serious about the technology or two earlier than me, and that appeared to be a greater match by way of 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 those that preceded me, that had been my mentors. Loads 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 via movie and tv. These had been the individuals I used to be serious about. However completely, I can see it, particularly if you happen to’re younger, and perhaps Harold and Kumar Go to White Fort is perhaps the primary time you had been form of conscious of an Asian American presence onscreen. So I actually see that somebody might assume 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 easiest with this function that he had. What he wasn’t doing was critiquing the larger image. Possibly at this time I could be extra liable to, say, have a look at a script and go, “Whereas textually this character shouldn’t be offensive or demeaning in any respect, in context depicting this individual doesn’t make any sense anymore or is inaccurate or due to this fact the very positioning of the story itself perhaps is suspect or probably racist.” I can actually relate to that character, James, [not] doing that. That’s the way in which we needed to assume. To some extent, I’m nonetheless residing it.

You truly 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 way in which 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 might occur simply a few years later?

Yeah, what the hell?! (Laughs) So many Asian Individuals of my technology, we grew up in type of all-white circumstances, and particularly the boys, I felt like all of us had this “ lesser-than” factor that we needed to cope with for our adolescence, and we had to determine a solution to cope with that weight of being “lower than” as we grew into adults. Once I grew to become 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 basically totally different, and I used to be so fascinated by them and as I considered it, it’s as a result of they grew up in a majority Asian tradition, most likely, and they also’re wired otherwise. And in a gentler, very delicate approach, 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 a bit of little bit of that taste. Or perhaps it’s that he’s a surfer, so there’s that stability and style that makes you stroll totally different. However anyway, my impression with him was, like, That is new blood. I like this angle, and he was an excellent actor — not that in that function you would see the overall 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 so much proper off the bat and I feel I used to be drawn to his vitality.

James Yoon’s storyline facilities on his massive torture scene. Lots is made from David Duchovny’s character being technique, however James Yoon is the one who chooses to remain on the torture rack via the lunch break and pushes himself to the purpose of vomiting. That seems like a really pointed selection, a deliberate assertion concerning the sacrifice required of actors who perhaps don’t get this type of alternative on daily basis. 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 solution to maintain your self in issues that you simply do privately, after which there’s a approach that whenever you’re in character, you actively intervene with different individuals’s working strategies. And one individual in that storyline was abusive and egocentric in the way in which that he labored. And there’s one other actor whose working strategies could be related however crucially was not abusive and didn’t intervene with the way in which different individuals labored. Who can afford to not cooperate with the remainder of the forged and crew, and who, as a way to maintain their job, should cooperate?

I assume that’s one connection level between Seventies units and 2024.

Slightly bit (Laughs).