Everything Everywhere’s James Hong ‘Disappointed’ Asian Americans Are Not ‘Getting Their Fair Share’ of Roles (Exclusive)

Seven decades later, James Hong is something of an expert on the representation of Asian Americans in Hollywood.

“That’s always on my mind, in my soul,” says the Everything everywhere and at once actor, who began working on screen in the 1950s – when roles for performers of Asian descent were “cliché roles like villains”.

“My first film was Soldier of fortune where I was a communist soldier, and those were the only roles at the time for actors like me,” Hong, 95, tells PEOPLE.

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After that first film credit — which, he notes, makes him “probably the only living actor to have worked with Clark Gable” — the Minnesota-born Hong accepted more and more small roles, even if they were stereotypical antagonists. “I didn’t care. I just wanted to practice my craft,” he remembers.

(L-R:) James Hong, Bryan Cranston, Jack Black and Awkwafina at the premiere of “Kung Fu Panda 4” in Los Angeles on March 3.

Amy Sussman/Getty

“Looking back, it should have been,” he adds. While studying civil engineering at the University of Minnesota and serving 18 months in the armed forces in the midst of the Korean War, Hong retained his childhood desire to act.

“I gathered all these hundreds of roles because, in a way, Hollywood was waiting for me,” he says. “I came here to California and boom! It stuck right away… She was the right person in the right place at the right time.”

Although Hong became a fan favorite for his voice roles in Mulan and Kung Fu Panda franchise, plus scene-stealing appearances in the Big problems in Little China and Seinfeldonly after the great success of the film Oscar Everything everywhere that he experienced a true career revival.

“Suddenly, in the year 70, things started to fall into place!” says Hong, who received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2022 and had his hands and feet immortalized in cement on Feb. 22 — his 95th birthday — at the TCL Chinese Theater also on Hollywood Boulevard.

James Hong (center) at the 2023 SAG Awards Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Along with co-stars Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu and Jamie Lee Curtis, Hong received the Screen Actors Guild Ensemble Award for Everything everywhere. When the film won seven Oscars, including Best Picture last year, it marked Hong’s first attendance at the Academy Awards.

“We’ve come a long way,” he says of Asian and Asian-American talent. “Now we have people winning awards, Oscars and accolades… I’m so glad to be recognized.”

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But while more than just communist soldier roles are available now, Hong says, “I still think the percentage of Asian-American actors hired to act in movies is terribly low.”

Actors following in Hong’s footsteps, he says, “don’t get their fair share of roles. Many of my colleagues who are quite good actors and actresses sometimes even have to quit their jobs or take a side job. It’s scary, you know?”

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James Hong at the hand and foot print awarding ceremony at the TCL Chinese Theater on February 22.

Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images

That’s part of what motivated Hong and other artists of Asian descent to found the East West Players in Los Angeles in 1965, the first professional Asian-American theater in the country. The list of former members of the organization, which is still strong today, includes Daniel Dae Kim, BD Wong and John Cho.

“America is a place where you have to fight for your rights, you have to speak up,” Hong tells PEOPLE. “Asian-American actors as a whole are still in the silent minority. They come from a culture where they say, like my father, mother and grandparents, ‘Don’t say anything that will excite people.’

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“That was taught to many, many generations of Asian Americans, Asians, period, and handed down to me in Minneapolis, where I was born,” he adds. “So I have to tell my colleagues: ‘You have to be loud, you have to say something. You have to be fairly represented in this business, and we’re not getting the jobs we should be getting.’ No one is going to just come out and give you a job. You have to fight for it.”

Hong acknowledges that Hollywood has “made some progress” when it comes to diversity, equality and inclusion. But “as far as I’m concerned, there has to be a lot more progress. I won’t be there to see it all, but I’m sure it will be on its way.”

After appearing in the Disney+ series Chinese born in America, Hong reprises his voice role as the Chinese goose Mr. Ping, the adoptive father of Jack Black’s panda Po, in Kung Fu Panda 4in theaters now.

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education