Actress speaks about race in Hollywood
Constance Wu, the actress best known for playing the matriarch of the Huang family in ABC’s television series Fresh Off the Boat, spoke about what being Asian American means, her role in the sitcom and her opinions about Hollywood typecasting Tuesday night in Bovard Auditorium.
The Asian Pacific American Student Association hosted the event, which was part of the signature speaker event for its 2016 Asian Pacific American Heritage Festival.
Fresh Off the Boat, a show run by School of Cinematic Arts alumna Nahnatchka Khan, is one of the few television series on a broadcast network to feature a predominantly Asian cast. The series is based on the memoir of the same name by Eddie Huang.
In 2014, Wu was cast as Jessica Huang, Eddie’s pragmatic mother who wants her children to be successful and also keep in touch with their Chinese heritage.
The conversation began with Wu talking about how she got involved in acting from a young age and how her upbringing in Richmond, Virginia, influenced her to pursue a degree in acting at the State University of New York-Purchase.
“My friends started doing plays … and when I became a teenager, I started to think more about it as a career,” Wu said. “Theater people are like open-minded family people, where people are encouraging creativity, art and all these other things. It was a safe thing to try out as a kid.”
Wu also talked about how her childhood contrasted with the upbringing Eddie Huang portrays in his novel.
“I had a different experience than he did,” Wu said. “Racism was not a thing in Richmond … our neighbors were really open and inviting — baking muffins and inviting us to parties.”
When asked why there aren’t many Asian Americans on television or in movies, Wu explained that there was racism in casting studios.
“We have our ideas of what romantic ladies look like,” Wu said. “Why can’t an acne-ridden girl or a fat girl be cast in the role for The Notebook?”
Wu emphasized that this institutionalized racism unfairly stigmatized minorities, correlating this to the portrayal of foreign accents.
“Hollywood has made the French accent a sexual thing and the Chinese accent a clowny thing,” Wu said. “There’s nothing shameful about your heritage, but Hollywood has made it shameful.”
Despite all the racism placed upon Asian-American actors, Wu said that she has not always been typecast throughout her career.
“Some of my roles before Fresh Off The Boat were not stereotypically written for Asians,” Wu said. “I was a futuristic space traveler in one, and I was a pothead stoner in another!”
As for the future of Fresh Off The Boat, Wu told the audience that she has no control over what the screenwriters write.
“I just hope that they keep writing great stuff!” Wu said.
Correction: A previous version of this article stated that Fresh Off the Boat was the first television series on a broadcast network to feature a predominantly Asian cast. The show was preceded by ABC’s All-American Girl, among others. The Daily Trojan regrets the error.