Hollywood actor John Cho has done a variety of roles over his 25-year-old career—from a man into elderly woman in the American Pie series to an investment banker in the Harold & Kumar series to playing the famous Hikaru Sulu in the new Star Trek film series. It’s fascinating how he has continuously stayed away from stereotypical Asian characters. While comedy is his forte, and his recent release, Don’t Make Me Go, is very much a comedy, his characterisation is rather sombre—he plays a single parent with a terminal disease trying to connect with his teenage daughter.
Excerpts from the conversation:
You play a serious character in a comedy film, and your filmography has shown you gravitating towards such roles.
I guess. I am doing another comedy later this year, but some of my recent work has been on the dramatic side. It’s a little by design and little by accident, but that’s the way it has worked.
When compared to playing Sulu (Star Trek), how different is playing your character in Don’t Make Me Go?
This one didn’t feel like a character that required a whole lot of preparation. I have a daughter myself. Even though I haven’t suffered from a serious illness, this is still something I have thought about. What if? These circumstances felt within my emotional reach. When Mia Isaac got cast as my daughter, I saw her as someone who could easily be my daughter. It all felt organic.
Being a single parent is one thing, but being an Asian parent is quite another.
(Laughs) Thankfully, I didn’t have to give any input for this role. I recognised that this script wasn’t written for an Asian character. On the other hand, when I went through the script, nothing felt inauthentic. I guess it would have been more different if the household had two Asian parents, and perhaps the grandparents living with them too. Maybe then, the scenes might have been different. But here, it really worked as it was.
Being a father yourself, when you do films like Don’t Make Me Go or Searching, do your fatherly instincts kick in and influence how you play the character? Or do you learn from the character?
I think it’s a bit of both (smiles). The paternal side came out a little bit with Mia, in the case of Don’t Make Me Go. I wanted to take care of her as it’s her first feature, and I wanted it to be a good experience for her. I also wanted to be a good acting partner, more so than normal. In Searching, I didn’t get to interact with other characters a lot. Even still, I tried to be a good dad!
I particularly enjoyed the scene where your character finally reveals his illness to his daughter. Was it an overwhelming scene for you?
Some of those scenes were tough. The father-daughter dance scene was difficult to get right, the fight after the car crash, as well as the scene you mentioned… were all complicated. They were emotionally tough days as I recall. You don’t want to be modelling but be straightforward and realistic. It’s hard to stay in that space and sustain that. It all comes down to honouring the material, and if it works, I’m glad.
You were the first Asian-American actor to play the lead in a US rom-com series—Selfie—and then came Searching, which saw you headlining a mainstream Hollywood thriller. What’s your opinion on Hollywood’s inclusivity?
To my eyes, it has become a lot better, much faster than I might have predicted. Based on how things were 50 years before I got into the industry, nobody thought it was going to change much. It has though, and I want to keep it going. I want to keep my eye on the prizes and make sure that we are expanding the definition of what Asian stories are and broadening it as much as possible. It’s important not to do only stories that everyone else would consider ‘Asian’.
Don’t Make Me Go speaks of leaving some legacy. As an actor, what do you hope will be yours?
(Laughs). To be perfectly honest with you, the thing that pleases me the most is when other actors call my work a good performance.
I just want to be a good actor, and if I go down being that, as someone who did more good work than stinkers, I would be really happy.
Don’t Make Me Go is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.