September 25th, 2020
Asian REPRESENTATION IN HOLLYWOOD: PART 2
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Credits
Author: Athena Shao
Editor: Aparna Sivaraman
Layout: Grace Qiu
Illustrator: Andie Bray
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Credits
Author: Athena Shao
Editor: Aparna Sivaraman
Layout: Grace Qiu
Illustrator: Andie Bray
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(Source: Variety Magazine)
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Dev Patel is an English actor of Indian ethnicity. He made his debut in Skins, a well-known English TV show. He received critical recognition after starring in Slumdog Millionaire in 2009, which was nominated for 10 Oscars and won 8. In 2016, he starred in the biographical film Lion, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He is the second actor of Indian descent to receive an Oscar nomination. He stars in the highly-anticipated medieval epic, The Green Knight, which is set to be released in 2021
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(Source: Variety Magazine
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Ang Lee is a well-known Taiwanese-American director, producer, and screenwriter. Spanning across a large range of genres and subjects, his films have received popular and critical acclaim throughout his career. Lee is known for being highly versatile, and for the well-written exploration of characters’ repressed emotions in his films. Some of his most famous works include Sense and Sensibility (1995), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Hulk (2003), Brokeback Mountain (2005), and Life of Pi (2012). He has been nominated for 8 Academy Awards and has won 3. He also has 5 Golden Globes and 4 BAFTAs.
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(Source: Variety Magazine)
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Constance Wu is an American actress of Taiwanese background. Her breakthrough role was as Jessica Huang in the TV comedy series Fresh Off the Boat, which was the first network TV sitcom featuring an Asian American family as main characters in over 20 years. In 2018, she starred in the film Crazy Rich Asians, the first major Hollywood studio film with a primarily Asian cast since The Joy Luck Club (1993). For her role as Rachel Chu in Crazy Rich Asians, Wu received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical, becoming the 4th Asian actress to be nominated.
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(Source: Chris Pizzello)
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Awkwafina is an American actress of Chinese and Korean background. She first became known when her music video, “My Vag”, became popular on YouTube. Her big break came when she played the supporting role of Peik Lin in the film Crazy Rich Asians, in which she was praised for her hilarious and refreshing performance. Awkwafina received international recognition when she starred in Lulu Wang’s The Farewell in 2019, for which she won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Comedy or Musical. She is the first person of Asian descent to ever win a Golden Globe in the Leading Actress category.
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(Source: Entertainment Weekly)
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Kumail Nanjiani is a Pakistani-American actor and comedian. He is well known for his role as Dinesh on HBO’s sitcom Silicon Valley. In 2017, he starred in and co-wrote the romantic comedy The Big Sick, for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. The movie was mostly based on his own experiences with his family, their values, and their gradual acceptance of his non-Pakistani wife. His next work is the highly-anticipated MCU film The Eternals (which also stars Gemma Chan!!), set to be released in 2021.
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(Source: Getty Images for MTV)
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Lana Condor is a Vietnamese-American actress. She gained international recognition with her role as Lara-Jean Covey in the teen coming-of-age/romance film To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, which is based off a book series of the same name by Jenny Han. This rom-com is led by an Asian woman, but has little to do with the character’s racial identity. It is fun and refreshing to see, and Condor breaks stereotypes of what Asian actors are “supposed to look like” on screen.
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(Source: Character Media)
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Simu Liu is a Chinese-Canadian actor and writer. He is best known for his role as Jung in the CBC sitcom Kim’s Convenience, which centers on the lives of a Korean-Canadian family running a convenience store in Toronto. He is set to star in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first film starring an Asian hero and cast, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. This movie will inspire a new generation of Asian-Americans, who will get to see a superhero who looks like them on the big screen!
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(Source: Cinema of Change)
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Bong Joon Ho is a South Korean filmmaker whose work is known for its social critiques, tone shifts, and black humor. Though he doesn’t operate primarily in the American film industry, a few of his films are in English and feature American actors. Someone his most well-known works have cult followings, and they include Memories of Murder (2003), The Host (2006), Snowpiercer (2013), Okja (2017), and Parasite (2019). Parasite, a black comedy thriller, was groundbreaking, being the first South Korean film to earn the Palme d’Or and be nominated for Academy Awards (being nominated for 6 and winning 4 of those). Parasite became the first non-English language film to win Best Picture at the Oscars.
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