Ask some actors about their dream role, and they're likely to offer range of answers: a character from Shakespeare, a superhero, the lead in Phantom of the Opera. As for Daniel Dae Kim, a Korean-American actor who has had roles in Lost, Crash and most recently Hawaii Five-0, his dream is to play a romantic lead. Any romantic lead.
But Kim said that there's a reluctance on the part of many studio heads to cast Asian-American actors in romantic roles. He said he has asked people in every level of the film industry for data to show that casting white actors is more profitable, and they can't provide any. "It's just this institutionalized thinking," he said. "[They] have it in their minds that it cannot be that way."
Kim joined Arden Cho, Sang H. Cho and John C. Yang on Wednesday night for a panel discussion hosted by
Mnet America
The panelists touched on familiar frustrations — lack of representation and mentoring; whitewashing of Asian characters; ossified power structures. Arden Cho, of Teen Wolf and YouTube fame, talked about how limited opportunities for Asian-American actors affect self-perception.
"I can remember one of the first times I saw an Asian-American on TV," Cho said. It was Whitney, a minor character in the 2000 movie Bring It On. Still, the moment was meaningful for Cho. "I was like, oh my God. I could be a cheerleader."
But Cho said that the landscape for Asian-American actors hasn't changed that much in the past 17 years. She gets frustrated by being repeatedly asked to read for secondary characters but never for the leads. She said she asks her agent, "Can I read for A? And he goes, 'No. They're gonna go white on the lead.' "
Cho is looking forward to the day that changes — she said her dream is to play James Bond. "I want to be badass," she said. "I want to be the one that's saving the day. I want to be the hero." In the meantime, she said, she'll continue to make her own opportunities on platforms like YouTube.
Kim, who is currently producing his own show, The Good Doctor, was also excited about carving out space for a more diverse group of actors and stories. He started working on
The Good Doctor
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