[This story contains spoilers for episode four of The Sympathizer, “Give Us Some Good Lines.”]
You hear about James Yoon before you meet him. The fourth episode of The sympathizer, HBO and A24's limited series adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen's Pulitzer-winning novel, is an interlude from the usual business of espionage as The Captain (Hoa Xuande) is sent by his CIA contact (Robert Downey Jr.) to serve as a cultural advisor serve. for a Vietnam War movie by a hot-headed author (also played by Downey). While telling Lana (Vy Le) about the movie, The Captain says that James Yoon is in the cast. Lana doesn't recognize the name, but The Captain says she'll know him when she sees him: he's the man Hollywood turns to when there's an Asian role.
That's why it almost feels like an easter egg when James Yoon shows up a few scenes later, played by John Cho in a surprise cameo alongside David Duchovny as the method-acting lead who refuses to break character, to the nervousness of everyone on set. Of course, Cho was one of the few actors of Asian descent in the early 2000s to land substantial roles in Hollywood, even literally becoming the poster child for Asian American representation in the viral social media campaign “starring John Cho.”
Cho spoke to The Hollywood Reporter to discuss his casting, how he relates to the episode's focus on Hollywood (especially the treatment of Asian actors and characters), and the impression Xuande made on him when they first worked together a few years earlier.
How did you get involved in this project?
It was through director Park [Chan-wook, who co-showran alongside Don McKellar]. We just knew each other socially, we never worked together, but we met over 15 years ago, something like that. He's just someone I've admired for a long time, so that was an easy yes.
Given what James Yoon's journey in Hollywood represents, do you find your casting meta?
I certainly think there is a way to read it that way. But for me, I was thinking about the generation or two before me, and that seemed to fit better in terms of the social mood of the time and how that person would have been treated on set at times. In my eyes it was more of an ode to the people who came before me, my mentors. Many of the Asian American actors I was first introduced to were primarily theater actors who didn't pay all the bills through film and television. Those were the people I was thinking about. But absolutely, I see it, especially if you're young, and maybe Harold and Kumar go to White Castle may be the first time you're aware of an Asian-American presence on screen. So I can definitely see how someone might think that.
Can you identify with any of the ideas satirized in this episode?
What I can recognize in the James Yoon character, our connection point, is that he tried to do the very best with this role he had. What he didn't do was criticize the bigger picture. Maybe these days I'm more inclined to, for example, look at a script and say, “While this character isn't at all offensive or demeaning lyrically, portraying this person in context no longer makes any sense or is inaccurate, or because of that positioning of the story itself may be suspicious or possibly racist.” I definitely identify with that character, James. [not] to do that. That's the way we had to think. To some extent I still live by it.
You had actually already worked with Hoa Xuande when he played a supporting role Cowboy Bebop. Hoa said he was inspired on that set by the way you treated others and strived to be the kind of leader you were if he were ever number one on the call sheet. Who would have thought this would happen just a few years later?
Yeah, who cares?! (Laughs) So many Asian Americans of my generation, we grew up in kind of all white circumstances, and especially the men, I felt like we all had this 'lesser than' thing that we had to deal with during our adolescence, and we We had to figure out a way to deal with the “less than” weight as we became adults. When I became an actor and moved to LA, I met all these guys from Hawaii and they really opened my mind because they walked longer. They seemed fundamentally different, and I was so fascinated by them. When I thought about it, it's probably because they grew up in a predominantly Asian culture, so they're wired differently. And in a softer, very subtle way, I immediately felt that with Hoa. He grew up in Australia, so I guess he didn't grow up in a predominantly Asian neighborhood, but he still had some of those tastes. Or maybe it's that he's a surfer, so there's that balance and grace that makes you walk differently. But anyway, my impression of him was: this is new blood. I like this attitude, and he was a good actor – not that you could see in that role the total breadth of what someone can do – but I thought, oh, I'm very fascinated by him, and I like him. You never know how far someone can go based on something like that, but I thought I'd post it. [Mimes jotting down a Post-it note.] But I immediately really liked him and I think I was attracted to his energy.
James Yoon's storyline revolves around his big torture scene. Much is made of David Duchovny's character method, but James Yoon is the one who chooses to stay on the torture rack during lunch break and pushes himself to the point of vomiting. That sounds like a very pointed choice, a conscious statement about the sacrifice required of actors who might not get these kinds of opportunities every day. But what do you make of it?
It does depend on the level of power someone has on a set. I'm not a well-trained actor and I don't know what it means to follow the full method, but there is a way to keep yourself in the things that you do privately, and then there is a way that, when you're in character actively interfere with the working methods of others. And one person in that storyline was abusive and selfish in the way he worked. And there is another actor whose working methods may be similar, but who crucially was not unlawful and did not interfere with the way other people worked. Who can afford not to work with the rest of the cast and crew, and who, in order to keep their jobs, must to collaborate?
I think this is a connecting point between the 1970s and 2024 sets.
A little (Laughs).