Ke Huy Quan Passed on AMERICAN BORN CHINESE at First Because It Scared the Hell Out of Him

The upcoming series American Born Chinese is heading to Disney+, and it has a star-studded cast that includes recent Oscar-winners Ke Huy Quan and Michelle Yeoh with their Everything Everywhere All At Once co-star Stephanie Hsu, as well as Ben Wang, Daniel Wu, Ronny Chieng, Poppy Liu, Lisa Lu and James Hong.

Based on Gene Luen Yang’s 2006 graphic novel of the same name, American Born Chinese follows average teenager Jin Wang, who becomes entangled in a battle between Chinese mythological gods when he befriends new student Wei-Chen (Jimmy Liu).

It looks like it’s going to be a ton of fun, but it also feels like a big responsibility and honor for Key Huy Quan (The Goonies, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom), who only recently came out of retirement after decades of feeling like there were no roles in Hollywood for an Asian actor. But he jumpstarted his career with a bang, winning a Golden Globe and Academy Award for his first job back. He spoke about the opportunity to star in American Born Chinese during a post-screening Q&A at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday night, saying:

“I remember when I first heard about this character when I was offered the role, it scared the hell out of me. In fact, I actually passed on it because I told our creative team that this is the type of portrayal that we do not want to see in 2023.”

Quan plays Freddy Wong, a gawky fictional character from the ‘90s sitcom Beyond Repair who embodies several stereotypical Asian tropes.

“After having a creative conversation with them and knowing that, in later episodes, you will get to meet the actor who plays Freddy Wong and understand the struggles that he went through — and also what it means to have this type of stereotypical portrayal of Asians, and what is does to a normal kid like Jin Wang (Ben Wang) — to his own identity, to his own values and his sense of worth — I just thought it was interesting. I guess, in a lot of ways, they chose me because it’s like art imitating life.”

Star of the series Ben Wang echoed Quan’s sentiments, talking about the parallels from the story in the series to his own life growing up, saying:

“The first time I read the graphic novel was right after I got the audition. I never knew about it growing up, and I wish I had because when I read that graphic novel, it was like, ‘Did Gene stalk me? Was he hiding in a bush?’” Wang told Variety with a laugh. “It was like a perfect one-to-one of almost every single moment in my life, and I’d never experienced anything remotely close to that before.”

This series sounds like it’s going to be so good. The trailer teases a really exciting story, and it’s cool to hear how the characters and their arcs are so relatable and personal to the people playing them.

American Born Chinese premieres May 24th on Disney+.

via: Variety