John Cho Career Retrospective | Conversations at the SAG-AFTRA Foundation

Thank you so much for being here. This is an audience of your fellow SAG-AFTRA actors. Yay! Yeah. Yeah, yay! So, I always like to start by asking, how did you get your SAG card? Do you remember the job that brought that very important piece of paper to you? Is it a piece of paper or a piece of plastic? I think mine was on paper. Wow. Yes, it was Wag the Dog. That's a good one! Yeah. Most people are like, local McDonald's commercial. Yeah, I think it was Wag the Dog. I can tell stories tonight, right? Of course! Yeah, that's why you're here. Yeah, so the... I didn't even have lines. I think Deborah Zane was the casting director, and she explained that they thought that De Niro and... Robert De Niro. No, Bob De Niro. His name is Bob. Yeah, not Chico De Niro. And Dustin Hoffman might improvise, and basically they needed union actors who could speak. That was the requirement. Just in case, because a background couldn't. So, basically I was in a non-speaking role, and that's how I got my SAG card. Wow! Yeah. Because you were already in AFTRA? Because back then they were... I'm struggling to remember exactly where I was, but I'm pretty sure that that's how I got my SAG card, yeah. Yes, I had an equity card, yes. And then one more memory, which is the first day that I saw De Niro, and I still... When he came on set, and I flash back to this moment from time to time. We had come onto set, and it was a very busy atmosphere and noisy, and there was all kind of hubbub. And then all of a sudden I noticed the whole set went quiet, absolutely quiet. And Hoffman was there, and it was still noisy. And then suddenly the whole set went quiet, and I saw a giant head. And I go, I know that head. And it was De Niro's head. And I remember, I recall that from time to time, because I'm like, there's something he's doing about the workspace, and his attitude, and how he wants to enter a space. And I'm pretty sure that's the way he asked for it to be. And so I think about that from time to time. Like, don't come in. This isn't a place. This isn't a construction set right now, you know what I mean? A construction site, rather. And get into that mindset before you even enter, to some degree. Yeah, yeah. That's so cool. Well, again, thank you so much for being here. And congratulations on the current success of Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother. Thank you. Yeah, it's such a great movie. We're going to get into that a little more in depth later. But I actually really want to go back to the beginning. When did you first sort of discover performance and acting? I know you watched a lot of TV as a child. This is really embarrassing for me to be here. It's such an honor, but also embarrassing because I'm just a day player that kind of somehow still here after all these years, and that's how I think about myself. But I fell into acting in college, and I was an English major and very aimless and didn't know what I was going to do and saw a flyer for a student play and decided to go for it. And I had no training or prior interest that I was conscious of in acting, but I clearly wanted to let loose. And I was so raw. We performed in the basement of the big theater at Berkeley, and I was so raw that I would choose to enter from different places from night to night. I would just say, I'm not feeling left wing tonight. I think it's right wing tonight. And I had no idea that I was doing it wrong or that I didn't. Clearly, we had gone through tech, and I didn't understand that the spotlight meant that I had to be in that spot. I was like, I feel like we should be over there tonight. How did your co-stars feel about that? They did not like it. They did not like it. So you hadn't done like high school theater or anything like that before? No. Wow. Was it a light bulb moment where you knew this is what you wanted to do? It wasn't a light bulb moment until I, well, I did a couple more school plays and then, pardon me, by the way, I got off a plane today, so my brain is at 70% capacity generously. But I didn't really think about doing it as a career until I did a professional play, which was very haphazard because the Berkeley Repertory Theater was mounting a play and they needed a larger stage. Apologies for how long this story is. They needed our campus theater, and they were contractually obliged to hire a couple of students. Really? And so I auditioned, I got the role, and because the play was Asian-themed, I met a lot of the species that I didn't know existed, Asian-American actors. Wow. And I had no idea that they were even professional. I feel so stupid. No. But I think in my kid brain, I saw Asians on television and thought, well, I would have assumed they just got them off the street or something. I didn't understand that it was possible to be Asian and a professional actor. And I remember two things. I remember thinking, I didn't know this was a thing. And two, they're so professional. I'm coming in from… Right, right. They were so proud in their process, so disciplined. And there was a rigor to it that gave me permission to start thinking maybe I could do it because I think I thought of acting as some kind of flighty thing, but I saw such dedication and discipline. I thought maybe it is worthy of my time, and maybe I can grow over years in this craft. And so that's when I started thinking about it seriously. I know your parents were immigrants, and I think your father was a minister. Yes. Did you have to come out to them as an actor once you realized this is what you wanted to do? I did. I think my dad… they were very kind, confused, but kind. And I think my dad asked me at one point, have you considered news anchor? Because that's still respectable. Yeah. I think he said, well, there seem to be Asians doing this. God bless Connie Chung. Yeah. No, serious, big influence on me. So they never really understood it, but they were kind, and I think they were just concerned that I would starve. Sure. And yeah. So that was sort of the moment that you really said, I'm going to go for this. And where do you go from there? I just moved to L.A. I thought about New York after graduation and just knew more people in L.A. So it was just happenstance that I moved to L.A. because I knew more people here. And somebody got me a meeting with an agent, but it was mostly theater to begin with at EastWest Players, which… Whoop, whoop. Yeah. Yeah. And then just doing Under Fives, started doing those. And I'm struggling to recall, really, but it was just hitting the pavement. Yeah. Really relying on, at that time, your community, fellow actors. It is weird because people tend to think of it as a competitive relationship, but it is a community. And nothing is possible. I know these days you can self-tape and be located anywhere in the world, but wherever you're located, you do need a community of fellow actors. I really think it's not possible. This is a community effort or a collective effort, and you can't learn. For myself, I realized I really can't learn from a book or reading about things. It has to be – that can be additive, but it has to be from other people and from peers and other professionals. So did you really sort of learn the craft at EastWest Players or was it sort of on-the-job training? It was on-the-job training. I just got thrust into it and had to piece together my own methodology. And as I said earlier, I'm an extremely slow learner, but I'll take a lesson. And looking back, it took me a decade to really learn that lesson. And that's okay. When I was younger, I stressed myself out trying to intellectualize acting to an extent that was unhealthy for me. I think for some people that works. Now I think about acting as you are the operator of a completely unique machine, which is your brain, your heart, and your body. And your job over the course of your whole life that you do this is to become good at operating this machine. But you're the only one that operates this machine, and there is no manual that is applicable. One manual does not help you for the next machine. It's a singular manual. So your lessons, to some extent, all your lessons are going to be unique. Did you have to take survival jobs in Los Angeles or did you find yourself working pretty quickly? I worked at the Korean Youth and Community Center for a year, and I also taught English to 7th and 10th graders. That's right, you were a teacher. Yeah. You were Mr. Cho. Yes. I just ran into a former student in London a few days ago who is a big rap producer. Really? Yeah. I'm just thinking that there's some kids who are watching American Pie and they're trying to tell their friends, no, that was my teacher. Seriously. Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of, I mean I think American Pie might have been where a lot of people first saw you as MILF guy number two. And I actually love this story. No, I love this because for a character who didn't have a name in the beginning, it says a lot that he endured for three more sequels and popularized the term MILF. I mean do people still shout that at you today? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they do. Yeah, they do. I was recently thinking that I had difficulty with that role and the popularity of that movie. And I realized looking back, literally I was walking around this week and thinking about that role and thinking – because this was 90 – I mean it was before the turn – it was in the other millennium. Yeah. And I think it was – I should say that I walked around and it was – I was hiding. I was freaked out by dudes shouting at me on the street. And I realized what I was experiencing in retrospect was the precursor to what we now understand as like a viral sensation. And I was like, what is this? And I was like, you don't even know if I'm good or not. You're just sort of pointing at me. And it created a bizarre relationship to being known that – sometimes I want to go to young people and say, you want to protect yourself against this thing. It's tough being known. Because once you become – once you give up your anonymity, it's permanent. There's no takebacks with that. And so I guess that's to the point of you should really believe in – if possible, believe in everything that you're doing and do it for the right reasons because, again, you can't take that back. And you can't take back what people know you for. That's out of your control. Well, it's in your control as your choices. Yeah, you can shift that perception over the years. You're not MILF guy number two anymore. Well, I beg to differ. I'm actually – I'm very fond of that movie, and I have worked with the Weitz brothers, the filmmakers, many times. I think American Dreams with a Z is one of the most underrated movies I've ever seen. That is a great movie, and I love all their work. You did seem to be working right out of the gate. I mean in addition to Wag the Dog, I think you're in American Beauty and Bowfinger. You must have been good at auditioning. I must have been good at auditioning. Why was I good at auditioning? I think I probably had – contrary to logic, I was like – it's a little bit of I'm going to die young, so I might as well live hard kind of thinking because I was – I was like my career is going to go nowhere. You have to understand, this is the 90s. There was – if you turn on the TV, if you flip through the calendar section, there just were no Asian faces. And I was like it's pretty clear I'm on a suicide mission. So who cares if they reject me or not? It just didn't seem possible anyway. So I didn't sweat the auditions that much. I think I didn't freak out. That's what they say the secret is, is to not want it. But like of course you have to want it to some degree. Yeah. I mean I did want it, but I – maybe I convinced myself. Maybe that was a mental trick that I played on myself. But the stakes – I mean the same kind of thinking went into my probably ill-advised decision to not go on roles that I thought were stereotypical. Really? And my thinking was it's not that much money. The minimum is at that time been just under $600. And I go $600 is a good chunk of change, but I could work for $600 and not feel shitty about myself. And so I – and again, I didn't think my career was very long in the making. So I just found it not that hard to say no to those things. I also had an experience working on a show and I had a feeling that I can still kind of smell the air from that day. And I said I never want to feel that again. And that was on a show. God bless these people because I think their intentions were not mean. But it was a sitcom called The Jeff Foxworthy Show. I'll just do – he's a southern comedian. Oh, he had a sitcom? Might be a redneck. Yeah, might be a redneck. So the premise was in that scene, I was a Chinese delivery boy who had a southern accent and that was a big laugh line, right? So I walk in and say my line in southern accent and then everyone's like, what? And then – and I remember doing my line, doing the scene. This is in rehearsal on the stage and I suddenly became aware as everybody laughed that every single face was a white man. And they were all laughing. And I thought why is this funny? Why is this funny? Why should I be – why is it funny that I speak this way? Because I'm supposed to speak this other way. And I said I don't like that joke and I felt icky about it. And I said I don't want to do that again. I don't want to be in this situation anymore and it's not worth that money. And I know they're not going to hire me anyway. I would. Anyway. By the way, I would love for the people in that audience to see Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother where you have a cowboy hat and a mouth grill. What? But are you saying that in some ways you sort of regret not compromising those values or it was just – it wasn't helpful? Oh, no. Okay, good, good. I – no, I don't regret that. But there was a little bit of not – how do I phrase this? Not being too concerned about the length of the journey that was useful to me. It was probably youthful ignorance that aided me in that time. It's weird because it sounds like you're saying you might have been short-sighted, but actually it's the complete opposite. You kind of didn't know you were thinking long term because of the chaos. Right. I accidentally thought long term. Right. Do you – when was the last time you had to audition? Is it something that – I mean it's amazing. I hear about Academy Award winners who still audition. So I know this – I auditioned for Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother. Did you really? Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah. I mean everyone knows you from one thing. I mean the hustle never, ever, ever stops. And on the one hand that's deflating because I also thought one day I'll be on Easy Street, man. And there are moments where you think you're on Easy Street and you're quickly humbled. But once you accept that it's never going to be Easy Street, then it becomes possible to actually enjoy it a little bit and enjoy the – with the instability comes surprises too. So if you choose to see it that way, it can be beautiful and I have gone – let me use it. I'm so sorry. The jet lag is still like – You just sound very thoughtful and – like it's working for you, right? I'm like everyone's like – I moved around a lot as a kid and I was the new kid all the time and that was like the thing that defined my youth was my discomfort at being in new situations. And often I thought, oh, this is maybe why I was attracted to acting was because I was trying to conquer this trauma by going into new situations all the time. I was a new kid in school every single job and meeting a hundred new people and having to shake it off and perform. And so I think I've moved beyond kind of the cold plunge of that to actually just walking into new situations and being curious and wondering who am I going to meet today and where am I going to be today? And now the most wonderful part, the most wonderful part of being around as long as I have, which is just about every set I'm on in whatever part of the world I'm in. person will come up to me and say, hey, we worked together 17 years ago on Blankety Blank. I was in props, I was just an assistant at the time, but anyway. And man, do I feel cool, you know, to be a veteran, to still be here. And then to shake hands with an old friend. And yes, we, you know, we're not intimate, but it is the best feeling about this job to connect with a person. Sometimes in a scene, you're connecting with your scene partner in a very intense way, in an extremely intimate way. But you can connect with your driver in a casual way that's almost as rich, you know. And there are kindnesses, small kindnesses on set that you see all the time. A person who will, you know, dust the dandruff off your shoulder, you know, or people in the hair and makeup trailer who are covering up your insecurities. And often that's just a kindness thing and not a job thing. So anyway, the human connections is where I'm trying to go, is what maybe the only thing that I really appreciate about this now. Well, again, it's community, it's people are looking out for each other. Yes, correct. Yeah. I absolutely love that. I do want to jump to 2004 because that was a big year for you, thanks to your performance in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. When you, you know, got that script or got that audition, whatever it was, could you ever have imagined it would become, one, a franchise, but blow up the way that it did? Oh, no, no, no, no. You know, there was a part of me that I always say that I didn't even tell anyone about it because it felt like it could get shelved. You know, there was a part of me that I was like, is there going to be a set here when we arrive? Like, what is this? There's no way that they're making this movie. There's no way that they're letting a Korean guy and an Indian guy lead a movie. It's a problem of mine that I kind of, what do you call it? Have to pre-self-soothe the failure, you know what I mean? But yeah, I was like, there's no way this is real. And of course not. I'll tell you the most humbling, I'm telling only humbling stories. I should tell you some glamorous stories. The opening night of Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. The producers said, yo, let's enjoy opening night. Let's get dinner, steaks and martinis, get in a limo, stretch limo, and go down opening night to theaters and see how everyone's loving our movie. Steak, martini, limo, show up at the first theater, empty. All right, theater number two, that'll be the one, show up at the first theater, empty. And so, I've never done that again, I've never done that again. Not even Star Trek? That's a safe bet. Never did that, never did it again. We never did that and why do I mention it? People hadn't developed even a muscle to, because it was such an unusual piece of product, you know, but my lesson was it found its way through home video and DVD and stuck around and it became a favorite and it's a thing most people know me for and I do think that what was perceived to be the reason for our initial box office failure, which is the color of the leads, was actually what people loved about it and it is, you know, kind of the takeaway for me is if you make something for audiences of color, when they get something that is a tip of the hat to them, the loyalty is, they show up eventually and the loyalty is unmatched. I think I'd kind of forgotten that it was sort of a retroactive hit, that it was really when it came to video that it became, because it was just, it was everywhere, you know, when I was growing up, so you must have thought like that's something that nobody will remember, nobody will ever bring up and then to find out, you know, they're bringing you back for a sequel, it's such a weird thing. It was weird. It was just not the career path that I thought was going to happen because even the genre was unfamiliar to me, you know, like weed movies. Of course, you knew nothing about that. I really didn't watch any. I didn't watch Cheech and Chong when I was growing up, so yeah, life is strange, but that led to a lot of bounty in my life. I do, I think one of the reasons the movie works so well is the chemistry you have with Cal Penn. I don't know if you met during the audition, again, I'm assuming there was an audition, but I don't know. I don't know if you met during the process or if that chemistry was kind of instantaneous. We auditioned. The chemistry was not apparent to either of us initially and we thought there were other people that seemed better matches for both of us, but we ended up getting cast and then I remember we shot the film in Toronto and I just knocked on his hotel room that first night and said, better start hanging out. Sounds like a threat. So we started hanging out and it blended in a good way, in a very strong way as we went. I'll tell you an acting lesson I learned from Harold and Kumar, three, Harold and Kumar, a very Harold and Kumar Christmas 3D, which you wouldn't think that there were any acting lessons to be learned from that, but one I've taken that I still employ from time to time is that movie was shot in 3D as a gimmick and that the rig, I think it was essentially two cameras in one rig and it had a very wide matte box, I'm going to say about this wide, and as a result, you couldn't look at your scene partner for over the shoulders shots. So anytime we were talking, they could come in this way and get the both of us, but when they were getting our close-ups, I would have to speak to a piece of tape and this was driving me insane and I was like, how are we going to do this? We have this whole movie where I have to speak to a piece of tape and so I said, Cal, let's try this and we would just look at each other and do our lines and look at each other in the eyeballs and keep looking, keep looking, keep looking, they would say rolling and then action and I would go to the tape and it was just like this remnant of human connection that I would try and like drag into the shot. Somehow we got through that and that seemed to work okay and later on I would just think, I miss that, even off the 3D movie, sometimes if I'm having trouble in a scene, I will ask the actor, can we just look at each other, this is going to sound weird, but do you mind if we look at each other in the eyes for a while and see if something happens and then do the scene and now blocking, staging the scene, I'm always trying to speak to a person to their face, so sometimes there will be a shot, I'll try and resist shots where I'm looking out and my scene partner is behind me because it's very, I just think the most interesting things happen when you're looking at someone in the face and you're forced to be present and so anyway, it is a thing that came from Harold and Kumar, a very Harold and Kumar Christmas in 3D, it's like one of the most important tools of my life, strangely from that movie. Actually, you do something in those films that I think is really underappreciated in acting because you have to play largely the straight man to a chaotic character and I think that can be the hardest thing to do and people don't always appreciate it and just perfecting you and getting your own laughs just off of this deadpan reaction, I mean how hard was it not to laugh sometimes? Yeah, I mean that was hard for me and my ego probably, like you want to be the funny guy and Bob Hope, strangely, was a little bit of a North Star for me because he's very funny reacting, but yeah, I actually think I could be better, I could be even flatter, I want to see how straight I could go, I think I could go even straighter. If I could do it one more time, I'd be so dry. Harold and Kumar 4. If we do a 4, I'm going to dry it up so much, I'm going to put it in the dehydrating thing. We mentioned two of your franchises, American Pie and Harold and Kumar, but of course you got to be a part of another great one, starting, I think, in 2009 with the reboot of Star Trek, yes, where you got to play Lieutenant Sulu, what did it mean to get this role and follow in the footsteps of a groundbreaker like George Takei and actually did you know him through East West Players? I believe we had met socially, but we hadn't spoken very much, and that was the last time that I felt if I didn't get this role, I might die, I wanted it so bad, I didn't even like how much I wanted it. I was like, I don't like this part of myself. Well, you're not used to it either, because usually... Yeah, but I wanted it, and why did it mean so much to me? I guess George was, I would say the three Asians in media that I knew were George Takei and Pat Morita and Yoda. I was going to guess James Bond, but it's basically the same. Oh, Yoda's definitely Asian, yeah. Let's face it. But like George was on this show that I would watch, and it was important to me. I was also, I think Star Trek was important to me as an immigrant, because it was a kind of doppelganger for a 60s vision of America, this hopeful... And granted, it was kind of the white man at the helm or in the captain's chair and people of color surrounding him. However, it was offering a vision of America that I, as an immigrant, really wanted to believe in, this progressive idea about our humanity, that we would be peaceful when we went out there. So for a lot of reasons, some that I'm not even aware of, but I wanted in. So yeah, to my great relief, I got cast. I remember writing George a letter because I wasn't sure how he would feel. The character was not particularly... That name is not really Japanese, but he's Japanese. I was like, I wonder how he's going to feel about it. I wanted his blessing, so I wrote him a letter, hand wrote a letter, mailed it to him, got his mailing address and asked him for his blessing. He was very gracious and met with me and told me, I have all the confidence in you. It basically brought out the sword and touched both of my shoulders. It was really sweet, and I'm very grateful to him. I got very nervous because you've been telling so many self-effacing stories that I really thought that might go in another direction. I never heard back. I was like holding my breath, so I'm so happy. I can't believe they didn't make more Star Trek movies. They were so good. Yeah. Yeah. Me too. I'd like to... Somebody was telling me that they had read the treatment for, briefly there was a Tarantino version. That was real. Okay. That was real. I wondered if it was real too, but that was really on the table for a minute. Wow. Yeah. That's so weird. You're learning things about like projects you might be in. I'm not in these rooms, you know? I'm not in these rooms, so yeah, there's a lot of... I'm not the best person to ask, but as it turns out, I'm 54 now and I feel like I've been through a few economic eras in Hollywood already. I guess I was in the Bronze Age and I don't even know what the ages are, but I feel like we've had three or four ages, economic ages, and I don't know with that budget what that franchise means globally and all this stuff, so yeah, but boy, I wish I could make another one of those. Boy, I still believe in that, in what Star Trek represents globally. I still believe in its optimism, as naive as it can be sometimes, I feel like it's the best kind of naive and yeah, I wish we had one more to do and it's a really tremendous group of actors that I really love. Yeah. That was so well cast, honestly. We actually have a lot of questions about a series you did in 2014, Selfie, with the wonderful Karen Gillan. This show is so ahead of its time in so many ways. The way it looks at the... They didn't even have the word influencer back then, I think. She was just trying to be famous and you were the first Asian actor cast as a romantic lead in a US series. Did you know that at the time? Did they... No. Yeah, I just remember reading that script and I have a soft spot for sitcoms because I grew up with them and I just remember thinking this is a very quirky, odd idea for network television and it's still how I make most of my decisions is just reading and I don't know how other people do it necessarily, but it's just the words and how I feel after I close the script and I just remember thinking, this is odd and this feels fun and I liked that character was wordy in a way that I hadn't gotten a chance to do. I'm always looking for word challenges. I think that's where I started as an English major maybe and I actually, if there was a start... I'll go back to your first question. If there was a start to my dramatic career, my love of acting, it would have been if that was prior to me taking the flyer, would have been ninth grade English. I remember my friend, we were studying Hamlet and my English teacher said, I need a volunteer to read the to be or not to be soliloquy out loud and my friend James Kim said, John should do it. He's a good reader and I don't know why he thought that. Yeah, I'm trying to figure out if he was helping you or throwing you under the bus. Maybe both, but I read it out loud and was quite thrilled to say the words out loud and there's something about Shakespeare in particular that... Not that I'm comparing selfie to Shakespeare, but where the utterance, not the reading, but the utterance leads you to the meaning. You don't know what you're saying until you actually say it for me and that's very exciting. That means performing it, you can find a lot of meaning as you're doing it rather than seeing the meaning on the page, thinking about it. That's an intellectual activity, but as you're physically saying these words, things come to you, levels of understanding come to you. But anyway, I just do remember actually being very excited as I was reading that monologue out loud, but that was the charm of selfie was, oh, this is an interesting... He speaks in an interesting way. Anyway, that was really fun and Emily Kaepnick was our showrunner who was endlessly interesting and Karen Gillan was a master, yeah. I mean, it is very clever and you say it's not Shakespeare, but it is George Bernard Shaw. I mean, it's Pygmalion essentially, yeah, and so I do think that the language is very specific in it. I absolutely love that. When you hear though that you were the first Asian actor cast as a romantic lead in a US series and you think that this was not that long ago, this was 12 years ago. I mean, on one hand, are you proud to hear that and on the other hand, is there a part of you that's sort of angry because I experienced both emotions at once? I would say I'm in your boat. I would say, you know, there's a little bit of a thrill being the first, whatever first, whatever subdivision of first there is. There's a little bit of melancholy attached to it as well. There's fear that there won't be a second. There's a little bit of the air thickening with responsibility, which is sometimes can be the enemy of creativity, you know. You want to convince yourself when you work that there are no consequences. You know, you pretend. You have to pretend that nobody's watching and, you know, so yeah, all those things, a lot of things at the same time. Speaking of like first Asians, did you ever see that Saturday Night Live sketch with Simu Liu and Bowen Yang where they keep winning awards for being the first Asian blank? It starts to get really ridiculous, like, first Asian to deadpan on Splash Mountain. Oh, that's funny. You know, and so they start competing with each other, and one of them gets an award at one point that just says, best Asian. But it is really funny. That hits close to the bone. Right, exactly. I was laughing so hard, but I was also like, you know, one of them is the first Asian to pick two at Panera Bread. And he's like, there's no way this is true, but I accept this award. Well, you know, sometimes I'm asked about this, there was this, like, internet campaign. Yes. Starring John Cho. Starring John Cho. And it was like, this guy, his name's Will You, was this content creator, and decided he wanted to have this conversation about representation, and basically chose me as his muse, and kind of created all these movie posters of me and different things, and said, you know, why isn't there John Cho in this, or John Cho in that? And you know, I felt that it was an overall very healthy discussion to have about representation, and on the other hand, it was like, I'm not, I didn't feel like I was in this to check boxes either, or to be on posters, that it was more about my, how good is the work? You know, how good is the work? And that's what you want to get recognized for. This is why, like, I personally, you know, 95% of the pleasure of watching a movie is me watching actors, and if the actors aren't really engaging me, then I'm out, no matter how good everything else is. That's why I can re-watch actors all the time, re-watch movies all the time, because if you're watching the acting, it's fresh. If it's great acting, it's always fresh. You know the plot. You know, the good guy wins, you know, evil is defeated. We know this, you know, mystery is solved, they fall in love, boy does get girl. We know where the plot goes. I don't need to know, I don't need to be surprised by that, but the moments, the actors are the ones that carry me. Where was I going with this? Story John Cho. Oh, right, well, it was just, you know, I guess my weirdness about that campaign was, it wasn't, I really don't, I really don't care about being the first. You know, I don't care, it's, I really want, I just want to be good. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it began with the Avengers poster, you were photoshopped into that, and then there was some, the one that I remember that I just was like, that's the one I really want to see, was you as the lead in the Martian, and they have you in the helmet, and I was like, oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, that one I would have been really dumped. But that's also, it's like, I actually don't think Matt Damon is that concerned with being number one. I think he also just wants to do really good work. So it's, I think, you know, that's, that movie is a great example. But that also had to be a little bit surreal. I mean, it's your name in your face, and, you know, it's a good cause, but they're part of you that's just like, you know, I don't like to look at photos of myself, let alone seeing people photoshopped. Well, it was a little weird. I think a lot of people thought that I was part of that, you know. I can't blame them. I mean, my name was in there. So I was like, no, that's, that's not, I don't have anything to do with that. I'm not campaigning for anything. I'm not, you know, I'm just over here trying to work. So that was, that was weird for me. But the discussion, it did seem to spark a lot of authentic discussion. And I was like, this is good. This is good. And, you know, John Chu told me, I know he's gone public with this story, but we had lunch before Crazy Rich Asians. And he was telling me this, this is, this led me, that campaign led me to direct Crazy Rich Asians. Wow. Yeah. So if that was like the one good thing that happened out of it, you know, I'm so thrilled, you know. So we have you to thank for Crazy Rich Asians. I guess. Let's see some profit sharing. Not long after that campaign, though, you did do a lead role in the 2018 film Searching, which is, yeah, it's one of the first, I guess they call them screen life movies, where everything sort of takes place on entirely on a computer. How did you know, or maybe you didn't, that this would work? Because it's a first time filmmaker. It's a new concept. And it's largely just your face. I mean, was this was this a leap of faith? Or? It was definitely a leap of faith. You know, I have to say that I have, I would not be anywhere without first time filmmakers, a first time feature filmmakers, like, they've taken risks on me. And that was certainly a chance there. And he, his work was really interesting, his commercials, he had done commercials. And they were really inventive, I could tell, I read the script, and I was like this. It wasn't even written in a traditional, you know, final draft form. I think it was because I can't remember exactly what the format was. But it was because it was a screen life movie. It was formatted differently. So it was, it seemed half professional, you know, and might not have even been in Courier. Which that's a real red flag for me. You ain't using Courier, get out. Was it Comic Sans? Because that's a... It wasn't Comic Sans. It might have been Helvetica. Which is amongst my least favorite fonts. It's not Papyrus, though. No. But I remember reading this script and going, this is a great story. Why does it have to be on screen? I didn't get the central gimmick. But and I met with Anish, and he did not communicate well with me. And I was like, yeah, I went away from that meeting and I went, I don't know. There's too many weird things here. And I said, no. And said, I don't think so. But he, I had called him to arrange the meeting. So he had my phone number. And he called me, which is a big no-no. And he called me and he said, let me get my shit together and present this to you. And we met for a second time. And he brought his computer and showed me what his vision was. And I said, yes. And partially it was just, this guy, I love his energy. I love that he came back at me. Let's go for it. And it turned out to be a really great experience and real, an unexpected acting challenge. Because it was essentially a movie, again, it was having to act to tape and having to deal with acting to a screen, which is very unnatural for me. I don't even like doing phone videos. I find that very disorienting. So that was a challenge to do the story. And it was basically an extreme close-up movie, which was, that's, this is, it's hard. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, you're in every scene and every moment, it's just on your face. Were there other times that you sort of took leaps of faith like that, that really paid off? Or maybe some that didn't? Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother was a film, I wasn't taking a leap of faith on Bassam necessarily, because I had seen Mogul Mowgli. Love that movie. But I had no take on the character when I closed the script. But the script was completely interesting to me. And I knew it was Mahershala Ali. So the first scene is Mahershala Ali as a devout Muslim hitman. He kills a man. And I was imagining this fight and said, I'm in. And then his wife dies. And then the third sequence is him looking for breast milk, because his wife has passed. And I was in. Yeah. I said, I'm saying yes, I'm going to try and do this movie. Then I got to my character. And I was like, what? What am I going to do? I didn't know what this guy would look like, sound like, believed, what he believed in. And so I had to take a leap of faith going. And I was scared shitless. Well, it's a wild character. It's a wild character. And I was very frightened to work with Mahershala Ali. Sure. Because I admire him as an actor so much. And I also got the sense that I would love him as a person. And those are the situations where you get in your head. And I have had situations where I've admired a person so much that I can't focus on a set. It is very distracting to work with someone who may be your hero. And so I was very nervous and not having a take on the character. I just sort of said, OK, let's do it. And so we had to work it out once we got there. I mean, your character is basically a fanatical, is it safe to say cult leader? He's a religious leader. Yes, that would be safe. Yeah. Cult leader. I don't think he. Yeah. Yeah. He wouldn't see it that way. No. Yeah. But you don't just share seats with Mahershala Ali. Your character is constantly intimidating him. Yeah. Which can't be an easy task. And I am curious because it's a very specific look. I mentioned the cowboy hat and the mouth grill. And I just assumed that was all in the script. But is that something you came up with? It was a process with our costume designer and Bassam and myself. So the process of creating that character, it started with getting in a room with Bassam and Mahershala. And the first thing we did was talk about our faiths, our backgrounds, and shared our own experiences. They were really kind of, in retrospect, what I understand them as doing was displaying vulnerability so that I could be vulnerable. Because sometimes I think, being an actor, you have to be very good at quickly putting on a suit of armor and then taking it off in front of camera. So you have to come in to set like full metal jacket and get through that AD, that second AD who's like telling you not to park there. You got to fucking have your armor on. And you got the casting off, you got to fucking have that suit of armor on. And then you get in to read your scene, you got to take it off real fast and be vulnerable and be soft skinned. And it's wild. It's not easy. And I think I've gone through periods where I was better at it, and I've learned just kind of being conscious of it to get better at it, to know that that's what you're doing, that's what the job entails. But I think that that's what they did. Herschel in particular was, now in retrospect, I understand he was being very intentional to bring me in and create a relationship where we were going to trust one another. And that really paid dividends because all that fear melted away. And once that was gone, what we had on set was mutual concentration. And that's very special when you have a real great scene partner and you're in a relationship of intimate concentration for an extended period of time. And that feels like you've taken a hot air balloon across the world together. It's a whole thing when you come out of a situation like that. But anyway, yeah, that's where it started with them in a room talking about where this character started in life and how we need him to get there to the events of this film. And that's not typically how I work. Typically I kind of lean into the words and let the words suggest things to me. And I'm making myself sound smarter than I am, but we really mapped this out. And he wanted to make him very Asian American specific. And so we were talking about people we'd grown up with and people in the media and kind of psychological tropes of these Asian American kids that we knew. And I had this exercise because we immigrated from Korea to Houston when I was six years old. And the movie takes place in Houston. I went to church, the character went to church, and I thought, okay, so now I'm trying to figure out how could six-year-old John Cho have become this AK-47 toting pastor? And one of my pet thoughts over the last decade has been how has America become this dogmatic and polarized and trying to understand that emotionally. And so this was like an exercise where I just went, oh, it's not implausible that I could be that guy. It's like six or seven things different, six or seven different emotional turning points. So that was what that was. We were just mapping that out. And it got rough sometimes because we're trying things out. So it was in the room that these things happened. And then Dear Jar Costume Designer was, I think, trying to push me in a more theatrical direction, which I was hesitant to embrace. But it really became my release. So it was reinforcing something that I knew that I have to relearn all the time, which is your performance is a collective effort. And on the most basic level, if you don't have an actor that you're connected with in the scenes, you're going to suck. You can't. You can't do it. And if you have a great scene partner, then that window is open. And so that extends to everyone. And so I'll give you an example of how we were working. The grills were suggested by Bassam to me, and I was like, what's this going to do? I didn't know why we needed it exactly. But at that point, I was like, let's just go. Let's try it. Let's see what it does. And it turned out to be a real release. And when the guy who came in, I wish I could remember his name, who was fitting me for my grills, came into the hair and makeup trailer, and I had to get a dental impression done. And he was wearing grills. And he had this T-shirt that had this airbrushed design on it. And he looked awesome. Man, he was so put together. I loved his look. And then it made me think of all these R.I.P. T-shirts that you see. And I thought about driving around in L.A., you sometimes see those trucks, like they got the airbrushed on the back window, R.I.P., the name of their loved one. And I was like, I need an R.I.P., because his mother, it was such an important figure in his life, and she's passed. And so I just had an idea, and I was like, can we do this? And they put it on the back of this cowboy shirt with my mother airbrushed on the back. And then these things became like my Superman costume, you know? And there's a scene in, oh God, I'm yammering. There's a scene that I think about all the time in Wings of Desire, the Wim Wenders movie. And in the opening scene, these angels are walking up and down the aisle of this transatlantic flight. And Peter Falk, who's playing an actor, I think he's playing Peter Falk. Yeah, yeah. It's very meta. And you can hear Peter Falk's inner monologue, because they're angels. And he's going to a gig, and you can hear him saying, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing for this movie. I have no idea. Which is like, I relate. And he goes, nah, I'll just, I'll get a hat. I'll be okay if I can get a hat. And I think for me, the process is like finding hats. You know, if you can find a few, great. Sometimes you can make it through with one. You know, sometimes it's a costume thing. Sometimes it's a speech thing. Sometimes it's a hair thing. But just look for your hats. Or in this case, the hat could be a literal cowboy. Sometimes it's a literal hat. But also a goatee, a grill, and an airbrushed shirt. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. What was it like the first time you saw yourself in that outfit? Because I think you have to carry yourself a certain way, and it probably helps really lock in the character. Yeah. I mean, it was a little like, I mean, process wise, it was really cool to just be convinced that I was, you know, I looked in the mirror and I went, okay, I guess that's not Harold. You know? Because I was a little concerned that like, you know, there's the guy from, you know, I don't want that. I don't want, not for myself, for the movie, I don't want people to kind of bring that other smell in from the other room, you know? You want to enter the room clean. And so that really made me feel better and allowed me to walk onto set confidently. But by that point, I was feeling, little by little, I was feeling more and more connected to the people and more and more connected to the decisions we were making. So this was very unique for me. It was such a slow build up to the character. Bassam Tariq, who directed this movie, he's such a singular filmmaker, and he not only has like one of the best movies of the year, but he also did the series Bait with Riz Ahmed, which is just fantastic. And I can't believe they both basically came out within a year of each other. He's so fascinating. Yeah, Bassam is, he's an interesting filmmaker too, because he feels like an actor, because he's, I've never worked with a director who quite, kind of, his emotional building blocks seem very actor-y to me. One is, he's very affected by things in a way that I haven't seen many directors be affected like him. He will... You'll say things, ideas, and he'll go, and he'll literally inhale, and it's very peculiar, but it feels like you're being really appreciated, and then he starts really, and he's so curious about what the actor's instincts are. By the way, sometimes that can be a bad thing. You can be overly reliant on actors, and actors can smell, I don't know whether this person knows what they're doing, and then I've seen it happen, and then you have multiple actors suggesting things, and now we're in a bad place, because time's a-tickin'. But he's right there where he's, I'll give you an example, there's a scene towards the end of the film that I think is sort of the end of the movie thematically, and no, I'll say that, it's our final scene, me and Mahershala, we have this scene that is very critical to the closing of that narrative, and anyway, he had written it that we were face-to-face, and we rehearsed it that way, and it didn't feel good, and he was curious why, and I said, I'm not sure why, but, and this contradicts the other thing I said earlier, but I said, I think we have to be, maybe it was me, maybe it was Mahershala, I can't remember, but it was, it started with Bassam noticing that it wasn't going exactly right, and we said, I think it has to be shoulder-to-shoulder instead of face-to-face, because men have a hard time resolving things face-to-face, it's easier shoulder-to-shoulder, and that blocking change, and him being open to that blocking change, to me just unlocked it, the whole movie for me. We actually have a question, and I apologize if I mispronounce anyone's name, but I believe it's my Ishia, has a question for Pastor Juan about the movie, and you've addressed some of this, but working on Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother required such intense physical and emotional proximity in high-stakes scenes with Mahershala Ali, how do you approach building that level of raw claustrophobic intensity and deep psychological friction on sets? And it sounds like there's no actual friction, you got along very well, but. Yeah, I'm not sure what everyone else is doing, and I try, everyone has to, whatever my, I'm down for any method that anyone's employing, except for the method that interferes with my method, so everyone do your own thing, I want you to do your thing, it's just, but when we worked, it was, all I can say was, it was a time of high focus, it was not a chitty chat kind of a thing, but it was very warm, because again, I think Mahershala as our leader was, laid the foundation to make sure that we all understood that he wanted us all to do our best work, and hopefully that's true, it's true most of the time, you know what I mean, but it's not true all of the time, that someone's really, that every actor's really invested in the performance of every other actor, but yeah, I'm not really sure, it would depend on the scenes, but like, it was, I think I approached those days, every day on that set, like, wanting to be good for everyone else, which I'm ashamed to say is not always the case for myself, you know, but it's probably the best way to work, yeah. Well, you also want to be safe, because you two are doing some intense action scenes there too. Yeah, the way that those action scenes were shot, it was, most of it was on steadicam going around us, therefore, you know, there were stunts that we obviously had to use stunt performers for. There was a lot, though, that was actor-on-actor, because there's a certain amount of safe, there's one set of protocol when it's actor-on-stuntman, and there's a second set of protocol when it's actor-on-actor, and there's a lot of stuff that we had to do actor-on-actor because of the steadicam, and so that's just, it's just like running lines, like, don't drop a line, because dropping a line in a fight means a broken nose, you know, so don't drop a line. Don't enter from the wrong place. Do not bring harm to America, sweetheart Mahershala Ali. Oh, man. Right? You don't want to be that guy. We have a question from Boris London, wants to know, you've worked in comedy, science fiction, thrillers, drama, was there ever a moment when Hollywood had already decided what kind of actor you were, and you had to prove that its imagination was smaller than your abilities? I know, right? Wow. What a thoughtful person. Don't let him fool you, he's 45. You know, I still, I don't think, I think about, I try not to think about the entity of Hollywood, and to the extent that it exists, you know, it's like, you have very little say-so in what they think about you. And what you can do is, from the day you get the job to the minute you wrap, that's your zone of control. Preparing, performing, and then after that, you may get cut out. You've been cut out of movies you produced, even. I've been cut out. Yes. What didn't, weren't you an EP on Tiger Tail? Yeah. Yeah. And how'd you break the news to yourself that you were? It was rough. We did it in a public place. But yeah, you know, it just turned out it was better to focus on this one other storyline, but that work was very, that was a tough one because I was so proud of the work. And it was a special film, it was a special filmmaker. But yeah, so that's what you can control. Sometimes you get cut out. It's hard to control all the things that factor into your performance, you know. And people of color have even weirder sets of things, like if you're black, you can't get someone who can do your hair. And then you're like, why do I look weird? You know, and the lighting and the wardrobe, like those are all things that you can only control to a certain extent. But from the day you get the job to the day you wrap, that's your zone of control. And so it's difficult to think about changing the opinion of an entity that is just out there. So I try not to think about that, you know, and just try and go, I don't even, now I'm trying to think, I don't even want better parts necessarily. My thing now is I want to be better in the next part. And I want to be deeper. I want to go deeper and deeper and deeper. Can I do that? Maybe I can do that. Because I can't control what the next part is going to be. I don't, I'm not there yet. You know what I mean? I can't say I want to do a Western next, or a war picture next, or a rom-com next. I can't do that. But maybe I can be better. And what is next? I think you just did it. Was it a miniseries with Ben Stiller and Jessica Chastain, The Odd Weeks? Yeah, I did an Apple show with those two actors. And Richard Gere's in it too. Oh, wow. Yeah. Richard Gere, as my mom still calls him. Yes. My wife's grandmother, I think, voted for Bill Clinton because she's like, he looks a little bit like Richard Gere. There are worse reasons. But yeah, he's pretty dreamy. Yeah, right? I was like, I think I'm falling in love. I think it's happening right now. I didn't realize he was in it too. Yeah, yeah. That was special. And most of my work was with Jessica, who's also a heavyweight. You know, I'll say I've worked with a lot of different kinds of actors over the years. And each one of them seems to have a slightly different working method. And sometimes wildly different. And sometimes people have strong takes coming in. And some people warm up to the take and have to feel their way out. And I've gone through different iterations of how to work. And I'm just fumbling through here. But the common thing of all of them, all the good ones, is incredible focus. Incredible focus. And those three, as an example, very different working methods. But man, they were very focused in their own way. So, is it appropriate for me to dole out advice? Of course. That's what we love. Yeah. Yeah, I would just say like, yeah, I would just say like, know your method. I think I spent a lot of time like, adjusting my working method, depending on the set I was on or the actors I was with. But like, you've done the work. Just do your thing. Do what's going to get you through. Because you have to live with your performance. Just do your thing. And it's okay that you don't share the same method as another actor. Yeah. Whatever works for people, I'm a big fan of. Yeah. It's like it's not hurting anyone else. Well, and also, always enter from where you're supposed to. Yeah. I do want to remind everyone, Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother is still in theaters. It is such, I can't remember the last time I saw a movie where I'm like, I don't think I've seen anything like that before. You're so great in it. Please check it out. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Thank you for being a great audience. Thank you.