Aw, you can tell it’s the holiday season when you are gifted an excuse to speak about John Cho. The funny thing is I consider myself a big John Cho fan but when reading through his IMDb, I’ve only really seen a handful of his work in his 20 (!) year career. He hooked me mostly with his interviews as he is always insightful and witty. One of his latest interviews is with the Daily Beast. He spoke about film and its landscape today. Last August, John’s film, Columbus, was released and widely raved about, although very few actually saw it. The film’s title refers to Columbus, Indiana, by the way, not the marauding explorer. I didn’t see the film and in reading the article, I’m sorry I didn’t, not only for John Cho but because much of the story includes admiring architecture, which I also love.
John explained that the character Jin in Columbus is Korean-American but that the story does not revolve around that one fact. It is merely a part of a larger narrative. You can read the whole interview here but below are some highlights:
On being defined by race: This character [Jin], who’s Korean-American—obviously his culture affects who he is. However, it’s maybe not one of the top five adjectives that describe him. I think that’s how I feel. I know I’m Asian, and Korean, and I know that these things are an important part of me. And yet I don’t go around feeling it. It’s just a fact about me. If anything, I would say I’m a father first. I’m a husband second. I’m a man, third. Maybe I’m an actor, fourth. All these things kind of rank above race, and yet our national hang-ups about race always vault race to the top. That’s always felt false to me.
On cinema’s landscape: I’m not really happy with the landscape of current cinema. What we’ve got are a whole bunch of superhero movies, and not a whole lot else happening. What used to be the rest of cinema has moved to television. Which is great, for television. On the other hand, I do worry about this experience that I grew up with and treasure, which is going into a dark place with a bunch of strangers and watching a story that begins and ends in one sitting. That experience is slipping away from us, I’m afraid. The scope of film is pretty narrow at the moment.
On getting past stereotypes in roles: It’s really about seeing Asian-Americans as full-fledged human beings, rather than some function in a narrative, or the sidekick, or the extraneous character in another person’s story. That we have agency, and souls, and desires.
On the #StarringJohnCho campaign: I was heartened by the fact that there seemed to be a general consensus that this wasn’t a dumb idea. It’s not like it’s provided a huge boon to my career or anything. But the fact that it wasn’t ridiculous is a marked difference from say, 10 or 20 years ago. Sometimes I feel like Moses, watching his tribe walk into Canaan, and he is prevented from going in. It’s all going to happen after I’m too old to take any of these roles. But one day, there will be an Asian James Bond, or Batman, or whatever.”
I am in a bit of a quandary on how to respond to his comments on superhero films. I agree with him, it would be nice to have more than just superhero and franchise machines to choose from but at the same time, I really enjoy superhero films so I think I’m part of the problem – I pay to see them in the theater. However, one of the best things about living in LA is having access to so many films so superhero films are not my only option. I realize that there is a winnowing of storylines being produced and I do agree with John. He’s not saying get rid of superhero films, he’s just saying have some other stories out there.
John has recently joined the cast of the Fox series, The Exorcist. For John, this was once again an opportunity to expand the playing field for Asian-Americans, “I had not seen Asian faces in American horror, and it kind of tickled me to want to change that visual vocabulary a bit. I thought it would be, I don’t know, intrusive to have my face in it.” I’m excited to have access to John in a weekly series not just because I can watch him, but because it sounds like we might be getting more interviews from him as a result. Moar John Cho, y’all!
Photo credit: WENN Photos
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