I rarely say this but honk for John Cho! Star Trek: Beyond is out this week! I probably won’t see it until next week as I will be traveling, but I bet a lot of people will and that it will do better on its opening weekend than Ghostbusters did. (Projections have it aroung $50-$60 million.) It already has an impressive 91% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and it’s likely to be propelled by word of mouth.

John Cho (Sulu) has an in-depth interview with the New York Times which I thoroughly enjoyed. He talks about the controversy over Sulu being made gay, after the original Sulu, George Takei, respectfully disagreed with that decision. Cho mentions the party line about how it’s an alternate timeline, but he opens with Takei’s perspective and I get the impression that he feels sorry for the way it happened. I wouldn’t be surprised if he took Takei’s side behind the scenes. He also talks about being a minority actor in Hollywood, and he has some very similar observations to Aziz Ansari. Cho discusses the way that minority actors are typecast and excluded based on arbitrary ceilings for the numbers of non-white actors on a show. Oh and he discussed #StarringJohnCho, the social media campaign to put him in all the movies. He thought it was a joke at first but was then flattered.

George Takei recently said he was glad there was a gay “Star Trek” character, but he didn’t think it should be Sulu. What did you think when you learned about the decision to write Sulu as gay?
It was my understanding that George Takei’s Sulu was heterosexual. We have an alternate timeline in our “Star Trek” universe, but it’s the same genetic Sulu. So I was concerned that people would think we were saying that sexual orientation was a choice and not predetermined. I was also concerned that since it was a bit of a homage to him, George would say, “I’m someone who has worked as a gay actor to craft a straight character, and now you’re seeing just my sexual orientation.”

The posture of the filmmakers was that this was normalized in the future and it was nothing, really. It was a big revelation yet handled in a way that communicated it wasn’t anything the crew didn’t already know about him.

In the film, his family was portrayed really nonchalantly, which I liked. He wasn’t coming out of the closet. Seeing George Takei on television was very meaningful to me, and I hope there’s a similar effect for gay kids watching

You mentioned that Mr. Takei was one of few Asian actors you saw growing up. Did the lack of representation affect you?
I wish I was strong enough for it not to matter. It does, I have to admit. It still affects me, and not just as an actor. [A] movie may be as close to a document of our national culture as there is; it’s supposed to represent what we believe ourselves to be. So when you don’t see yourself at all — or see yourself erased — that hurts.

The #StarringJohnCho campaign is drawing attention to a lack of diversity onscreen. How did you feel when you saw it?
My first reaction was, are they clowning me? I quickly realized it was sincere, and it was kind of amazing. Maybe [it caught on], because the posters made it seem possible. Instead of talking about it or demanding it, it was like, listen, it could be like this. For a minute, people were talking about it in a very serious way.

You’ve talked about facing racism in your professional life, not taking roles that rely on stereotypes. You’ve had to think about these issues in a way white actors don’t.
You might hear something along the lines of “They’re not going Asian on this role, because there’s another Asian in the cast,” which is something you’d never hear if you were white. At this stage of my career, it’s more oblique. It can be harder to maneuver your way into the discussion for bigger roles…

Though it’s logical and necessary to think and talk about all of this, it’s a bummer as an artist to have to do it all the time.

[From The New York Times]

Cho also said that he would love to do Shakespeare or Westerns or even an Asian character as he’s deliberately avoided those type of roles to date. He comes across as thoughtful and smart and I just want to see all the movies #StarringJohnCho. Also, I can’t believe he’s 44! He’s older than me. He’s like Keanu Reeves in that way, there’s a real ageless quality to him. This means John Cho can be a leading man for many years to come. That needs to happen.

I would gladly pay to see ALL of these, @JohnTheCho is the most underrated actor of our time #starringjohncho pic.twitter.com/wdQJi5cDAh

— aurora baerealis (@f_emasculata) May 6, 2016

photo credit: WENN.com and FameFlynet