Throughout Hollywood history, roles for Asian and Pacific Islander actors have been unfortunately limited, and oftentimes, the parts they’re offered are rooted in stereotypes. However, many actors have absolutely shone in complex, nuanced roles that celebrate their heritage — and both those actors and their roles deserve their flowers!
Here are 21 roles that made Asian and Pacific Islanders feel connected to their cultural identities:
1.
Playing Mary in Sinners made Hailee Steinfeld feel more connected to her late grandfather, who was Black and Filipino. On Good Morning America, she said, “Part of my research included understanding my own family history a bit better, which I am grateful for.” She also told People, “It had such an impact on me personally. Therefore, I feel like the least it can do is make an impact on those that watch it. I think it affected all of us so personally and so deeply, and I do believe that you feel that and you see that when you watch this movie. I’m so grateful for the deeply personal connection that each of us have [to the material], mine being with my family history, with my grandfather, who I wish was still here to answer all the questions that I have that this movie raised for me and making this movie raised.”
2.
Jason Momoa told The Daily Beast, “I’ve had to bust ass to be in this industry. A lot of things are very black and white. Aquaman is especially cool because being a Kanaka Maoli — being Hawaiian — our gods are Kanaloa and Maui, and the Earth is 71 percent water, so I get to represent that. And I’m someone who gets to represent all the islanders, not some blond-haired superhero. It’s cool that there’s a brown-skinned superhero.”
3.
Dev Patel told Deadline that, in Lion, “Saroo’s journey is very close to my journey in discovering India. I can relate a lot to that feeling of going back as an alien, but with connections to it. I kind of unconsciously went to India as a child, to a part of Godhra for a family wedding, but I didn’t really understand it at all. I discovered it when I did [Slumdog Millionaire]. I was out there with Danny Boyle, experiencing this whole new side to this culture. And it had a massive effect on me. I grew up hiding from my heritage in a way, so I could fit in, and to avoid being bullied in school. I felt insecure about it. And now, having gone there and worked there so much, I have become completely enthralled by the culture and the country, and it’s become a real source of inspiration for me.”
4.
Moana star Auli’i Cravalho told ABC 7, “I feel so grateful to have a film where our heroine is a young woman of Pacific Island descent. We have such Polynesian pride from across all of these islands…This Polynesian history is a source of pride for all of us. To see it on the big screen means the world.”
5.
While filming the Disney Channel movie Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior, Brenda Song realized she didn’t know much about her Hmong heritage, so she started asking her parents about their ceremonial dress and food. She told the New York Times, “Here I am telling kids, ‘Don’t lose your heritage,’ and I’m losing mine.” She was also excited to play a strong leading role because “growing up, [she] never saw Asian Americans on TV at all.”
6.
Sami Malik’s story in The Tiger Hunter really resonated with Danny Pudi. He told TimeOut, “When I first read the script, I was surprised — there were so many elements to the script that were personal to me. I thought someone had just been kind of following my life, I thought it was a prank from some college buddies! When I met with Lena [Khan], I told her I really connected to the story, because my dad immigrated from India to Chicago in the ’70s, just like the main character, Sami. I also told her I related to it because I ride a Vespa — in the opening scene, Sami’s riding a scooter through his village. So, as an immigrant story about Chicago, it was very personal to me. It was a chance for me to tell the story of my parents, in some ways.”
7.
Charles Melton, who played Daniel Bae in The Sun Is Also a Star, told The Hollywood Reporter, “This story brings humanity to the topic of immigration. I think about my mother, who moved as an immigrant when she met my father in 1990. I remember when she became a US citizen, and the tasks that were required to become a US citizen. They ask a lot of questions like, ‘Who was the 40th president? Who’s vying for state governor in Texas? Who’s running for city council?’ All of these requirements are unique because this country was founded on immigrants. To use a paper formula to measure whether you’re American or not is unique…”
He continued, “It’s just funny the kinds of requirements the US wants immigrants to learn when, in reality, this country was founded on hopes and dreams by immigrants. It’s great to see people empathize with these characters’ stories, because when you’re hearing about these policies, people really just see it at face value. But we look beyond that in this film. We bring light to a situation in which people can empathize with someone’s story because you see them as a human and not as a label, whether it be as an immigrant or Asian or Black.”
8.
Raya and the Last Dragon star Kelly Marie Tran told Pop Sugar, “[Voicing Raya] was amazing. It was absolutely life-changing. I never thought I would ever get to be a Disney princess, much less have that movie be inspired by the part of the world that my family’s from. It was such an incredible experience not only to be part of that cast and to have had a film that was written by two Southeast Asian writers, but also to participate in the press tour in a way that I felt was also giving me the ability to shine more of a spotlight on Asian designers. It just felt like a wonderfully celebratory and healing experience to be able to do that.”
9.
In an online Q&A, Henry Golding said that the “sense of displacement” drew him to the role of Kit in Monsoon. He continued, “It really reflected a lot of my personal journey from growing up and being born in Malaysia to a British father and a Malaysian mother, moving back to the UK, not ever feeling British enough, never feeling Asian enough. And so whenever I was in both those parts of the world, it was like, ‘Who am I?’ This search for identity, and I think that’s something that Kit goes through.”
“He has a premise of going back to Vietnam to find a resting place for his parents’ ashes and tries to get a better grasp of sort of his history and his being. And I think, as we all would, he arrives with a bit of bravado and trying to convince himself, ‘I am Vietnamese. I’m going to come to this city, and now it’s going to feel like I’m coming home.’ But often it isn’t the case. When he can’t speak the language, when you’ve never been in the culture like the Vietnamese culture and growing up in the UK, it’s such a crescendo of noise and smell and cultural differences…That was what really drew me to the role is his struggle for his inner identity. He has a lot of turmoil. He has a lot of family issues, which he was never able to talk through with his parents,” he said.
10.
Manny Jacinto told Inquirer.net that he “knew how lucky [he] was” that the role of Jason Mendoza on The Good Place was an “unstereotypical Asian man role.” He said, “I made sure to be present throughout and enjoy the experience from beginning to end…As I’ve progressed in my career, I took the time to understand why these stereotypes were prevalent. My biggest takeaway from the research and why these roles even exist is because these roles have always come from outsiders’ perspective. We can’t expect a middle-aged white man to write the Asian male experience. Luckily, my role in The Good Place diverted from these stereotypes, but the only way we can keep progressing is if we tell our own stories.”
11.
The character of Eliza Schulyer in Hamilton isn’t written as an Asian woman, but playing the role in the notoriously diverse Broadway show was a turning point for Phillipa Soo. She told The Hollywood Reporter, “So I’m half-Chinese and half-white, and it wasn’t until being part of this show — even though I’ve been in other mixed race casts — that I have been considered an actor of color. Up until now, I haven’t been talking about being an Asian-American woman! I don’t know why, but clearly it has something to do with the statement that we’re making in our show, and that you’re seeing so many different colors that you’re thinking, ‘Wait a minute, what is everybody?'”
She continued, “I was in Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, a Russian story based on Tolstoy and with a mixed race cast. But it wasn’t a mixed race cast playing Russian people; it was just us telling the story. Because of who I was playing opposite, I think people assumed I was white. It depends on the frame that highlights different things. Also, it hasn’t been until now that I received this beautiful letter from this young woman who thanked me for representing Chinese American people in the theater. That’s never happened to me before! But it’s beautiful because I feel like, as amazing as it is to acknowledge, it’s also amazing on the other side that people don’t even think twice about it [in Hamilton].”
12.
Voicing Auntie Pushpa in the Disney Junior series Mira, Royal Detective was meaningful to Jameela Jamil because she didn’t get to see that kind of representation onscreen as a child. She told Good Morning America, “I just didn’t see myself represented when I was growing up, so therefore I thought there was something wrong with me. I thought that because I wasn’t white and blonde and had a one-inch waist that I wasn’t worthy of being represented.”
“I love the fact that we’re representing different people from different cultures around the world. It’s just so important that other people see. I think the things that you tend to hear about my part of the world is often either about poverty or about, you know, things to do with war. So it’s nice to show the different side of us that is really beautiful and just exotic and interesting, and fabulous while being represented,” she said.
13.
Chloe Bennet told Joy Sauce that Interior Chinatown “further highlighted the way [she] already felt” about Asian American representation in media, and she didn’t approach playing Lana Lee differently from any other role. She said, “Because being mixed, and my dad being Chinese and being raised very culturally Chinese, and having lived over there, it’s always a part of every role that I’ve done. But this was really exciting because it is an unbelievably special experience. I would get chills and this weird feeling all the time on this set. Because for me, I always identified work with being this ‘white’ thing. There’s this internalized part of you that’s always telling you to kind of assimilate in a certain way, with a certain world, and that that world won’t understand this really big part of you.”
“On Interior, nothing about [those identities] had to be separated. And to look around and hear Mandarin on set, to look around and look at the crew, which was incredibly diverse. And it wasn’t because we were casting and hiring people because they’re Asian, but because they’re really good, and because they’re the best in their field, and just happen to be Asian. And that makes them able to tell the story with even more confidence and more detail. That part of it is so special. I am a big advocate for [our work] being really, really fucking good. To be surrounded by such a diverse crew, who also are so wildly talented at what they do — that’s really special. This is ultimately the type of work that moves the needle, that shifts the culture and creates change. Because it can’t just be surface level,” she said.
14.
Mandip Gil was excited to join Doctor Who as Yasmin Khan the same time that Jodie Whittaker became the first woman to play the Doctor. Mandip told Cream, “I’d worked on Casualty the year before, and it was filmed in the same building as Doctor Who. We walked past a door, and someone said, ‘Through there is where they film Doctor Who.’ It seemed very exclusive from the outside of that door. I remember thinking, ‘I’ll never be in that anyway.’ It never felt to me like an option for a young Asian girl with a Northern accent to be in something like that. All that changed. And it wasn’t a gradual change. This was an exciting leap for an iconic show, and I wanted to be part of that change.”
She also said, “I was very excited about the character, mainly because she was a police officer. The original character brief suggested they were looking for an actor’s own interpretation of the character. It was a very open, unstructured brief. So, I worked on a backstory as to why she would be a police officer – not the most common job for a young Asian girl. I know this from my own experience. I thought about becoming a police officer when I was younger. I used to see a lot of things happening around my family newsagents relating to racism that never got sorted out. I thought about joining the police to do something about all those things. Ultimately, I didn’t do that, but I gave that story to Yaz.”
15.
Speaking at Graham Chapel’s Student Union’s Trending Topics, Constance Wu said, “Before I could even sit down, the agent would look at me and say, ‘I know what you are going to say. You don’t want to play any Asian roles.’ They heard that so many times from so many Asian actors.” However, she took roles where the character’s Asian identity was an integral part of them, like Captain Jane Lee in Dimension 404. She added, “We try to celebrate our Asian heritage. We have storylines where being Asian is crucial.”
16.
Co-creating Never Have I Ever helped Mindy Kaling connect with her heritage. She told PTI, “My coming to terms with my Indian-ness is a big part of the show. I was born in the US, raised in a pretty white area, without speaking any Indian languages, so culturally I always felt I straddled the lines of two cultures…So much of Devi’s relationship with her faith is inspired by my relationship with Hinduism. I consider myself Hindu, but I also feel insecure about my understanding of my own religion.”
17.
Playing serial killer Andrew Cunanan in The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story was the first time Darren Criss played a half-Filipino role. He told Vulture, “The harsh truth is like, when else would that be a specific character? And that’s not a bad thing or a good thing. Somebody was talking about Asian American representation, and he’s like, ‘I don’t see a lot of stuff for Filipinos specifically,’ and I went, ‘I guess not, but I guess I don’t think about it.’ I have the luxury of being half-white and looking more Caucasian, so it doesn’t weigh on my conscience as much, like, ‘Ugh, why aren’t there more roles?’ I think as an actor, you just study and you wanna bring your A game all the time, and hopefully it doesn’t even matter…”
“It’s really an amazing serendipity that I’m the same ethnic makeup, more or less. I was joking with Ryan [Murphy] when he wanted to do this, ‘Of course I’d love to, but even if you decide to do it with somebody else, good luck finding somebody in your camp that’s the same age range, looks like him and is half-Filipino, because if you don’t cast somebody who’s half-Filipino, the community’s going to cry bloody murder, so don’t not do that,” he said.
18.
However, a few years down the road, playing Raymond Ainsley in Hollywood helped Darren Criss better understand how being perceived as “conventionally Caucasian” had impacted his career. He told People, “I’ve been half-Filipino my whole life. But no one ever asked about it. It’s tough, this idea of ‘white passing.’ It’s not even a term I heard of until the past two years. When people have a say in who you are — people you don’t even know — it makes you rethink what your balance is. Something you’ve had down your whole life…It’s a tricky cocktail in America.”
“Anyone who is biracial can attest to this: No matter how much or how little they look like their respective mix, it’s a constant work in progress. I’ve always been proud of my heritage, of being Filipino. Just because people don’t see it, doesn’t make it any less real to me,” he said.
19.
Anna Akana told Bello Mag, “Positive experiences where my race and this industry intersect – though fewer and farther between – are firmly cemented in my memory. On Go Back To China, an indie film by Emily Ting, we had an all Asian cast and crew. I remember being in awe when I realized I was completely surrounded by other Asian Americans and Asian cast and crew members for the first time in my professional life, telling an authentically Asian story. On Hungry, the creator/writer Suzanne Martin texted me to ask questions about how to authentically integrate being Japanese into the show’s premise of disordered eating. I stared at my phone for a full minute, completely baffled. I’d never been asked that before, and the level I was touched at this thoughtfulness is incomparable.”
20.
Elizabeth Yu told Mixed Messages, “I grew up in a very, very white conservative town. I was one of three Asian people in my whole school district — and one of the other two was my sibling. It was hard growing up in that environment and being mixed because I’m kind of fitting in with everybody else, but I’m also not. Since I booked Avatar: The Last Airbender and worked on May December, it’s been a whole 180°. I’ve never even really been in a room with more than 10 Asian people before, so these projects are so awesome, and now I know so much more about what it’s like to be Asian than I did in the first 20 years of my life. I’m still figuring it out, too; there are so many new elements to the experience that are being presented to me every single day.”
She continued, “Working with Charles Melton, Piper Curda, and Gabriel Chung on May December, we’re all actually half-Korean. Piper and Charles are half-Korean, half-white, Gabriel’s half-Brazilian. It healed a lot of wounds I didn’t know I had. We’d tell each other stories, because we all grew up with a lot of white people and them not understanding where we’re coming from and our experience of life. It’s just a safe space; there’s a profound understanding that you don’t have to put any work into. That feeling of sanctuary is amazing. If I think of people being mad at me, I might have thought I’d had a bad attitude that day or whatever, but when I talked to [the cast] about these experiences, I realized it might have been connected to me being Asian. All of these parts of my life that had so much to do with who I am were constantly being revealed to me every day.”
21.
And finally, Ross Butler told Mashable, “[After] I started getting auditions and seeing that all the auditions I was getting were these stereotypical roles, that’s when I really first realized that there weren’t any Asian American male role models. And it occurred to me that that’s what needed to change.” So, he asked his agent to stop getting him auditions for “Asian roles.” When he booked the role of Zach Dempsey on 13 Reasons Why, production made subtle changes to the character that Ross approved. He said, “My full name is Ross Fleming Butler, it’s very British-Irish. [Producer Brian Yorkey] said, ‘Yeah, we’re thinking about giving Zach a Chinese middle name, do you think that would fit?’ I thought about it and said, ‘Yeah.’ I think my mom in the show would have wanted me to have a connection to my Asian roots.”
He continued, “I thought it was right for the show because it shows that I’m just like another one of the kids at school. I’m a jock, I fit in with my friend group, and I just happen to be Chinese too — and I think that is what most accurately reflects America right now. There’s so many Chinese or Asian Americans that were either born in another country like I was and raised in America, or born in America and raised in America. They’re normal Americans, and they just happen to have a different heritage.”