You Are the First Asian American Movie Star
You spend your evenings and weekends bagging bottles of Jim, Jack, and Jameson. Cramped between a counter top and shelves of escapist juice is your own Carnegie Hall. Your fingers move across the register like a classical pianist, never a missed note or need to look down.
The door chime rings as your trained eye scans the aisles for drunks and down and outs. By now you know names, stories, and the choice of poison of nearly every customer within a 12-block radius.
You’ve worked here since you could walk, stock, and log inventory. You know the odds of buying a winning lottery ticket, the cost of a pack of Dunhill’s, and how to spot a fake I.D. from a mile away.
Everyone prefers you to your humorless father, a man whose temperament was shaped by poverty, war, and being made to feel like a permanent alien.
This little liquor store perched on a corner where drug dealers and prostitutes cross paths is all your parents have. It is their only foothold in a community as foreign as the country.
It is their ticket to the American dream.
You’re a good boy, the son of Korean immigrants. You do as you’re told, anything to loosen the burden of two people whose existence is devoted to you having a better one. You work long hours, keep up good grades, and stay mum on the demons you see taking hold of your folks.
But you are also an ambassador, a light, a bridge between cultural divides.
You refuse to subscribe to your father’s cynicism, your mother’s prejudice.
You’re friendly with the heavily tattooed, beanie wearing Mexican guy who pops in for Twinkies and Red Vines.
You don’t think rap music is mindless noise or assume someone sporting a hoodie is going to steal a bag of Funyuns.
You have compassion for those who can’t seem to get a leg up, appreciating hard work and integrity are not always enough to navigate a broken system.
And you don’t dare tell a soul, namely your parents, how the black girl who picks up groceries for her ailing mother makes your heart skip, your brain stop working— that she is the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen.
Still, you feel your youth begin to slip away. School dances and house parties are swapped for stocking Pringles and mopping up broken 40s. You start to wonder if there’s life beyond barred windows and lottery tickets.
Your only escape is a hand-me-down 13-inch portable TV perched in the corner beside a cutout for Powerball. You lower the volume when your old man makes the rounds but otherwise you’re glued to the screen.
You binge on a few shows some kids at school claim to be “epic,” or “amazing,” or both. But most turn out to just be, eh. You’re looking for something more — the kind of stories that stir something within, that remind you you’re still alive.
Then one day, a little movie about petty criminals and unhinged punks takes hold of the screen. You can’t turn away as Johnny Boy, Charlie, and Tony navigate the mean streets of New York.
The line at the counter starts to grow. People pivot from one restless foot to the next, threatening to unleash their waning patience. But for the first time, you don’t care.
You need to know who these guys are!
You do your homework, pouring over IMDb pages like an anthropologist over Aztec ruins. You uncover timeless artifacts like Taxi Driver, Deer Hunter, The Godfather, On the Waterfront, Rebel Without a Cause, Raging Bull, and Serpico. You learn the names of royalty, heads of state like Queen Streep and King DeNiro.
Then, as you gaze beyond the flashing lights of a passing squad car it hits you! You need to do what they do.
You must tell stories.
At first you keep this revelation to yourself. You know the stakes of not becoming a doctor, lawyer, or dubiously successful businessman are high.
You don’t have the stomach to tell two people who survived on cabbage and roots in the throes of the Korean War leaving their country, their family — all they’d ever known was so you could play make-believe.
You start slow, dipping a toe in unfamiliar waters. You sign-up for drama class at school and begin to learn about given circumstances, obstacles, and how in life and on stage we always want something.
You throw yourself into the work, reading every play you can get your hands on. You take every class exercise, however silly, as serious as the plague.
Eventually people begin to notice.
Then one afternoon, your teacher asks you to audition for the fall play. Me?! you think before coolly accepting the invitation. Finally, someone sees you.
You return to work, memorizing monologues and mumbling lines as you sweep aisles and empty dirty bins. “What are you saying?” your mother asks.
“Nothing” you tell her. “Just something for school.”
But you know they’re on to you. You ask for time off work so you can “study.” They agree, reluctant to stand in the way of your education, or worse, discover the truth.
The audition leaves much to be desired. You drop lines, don’t know what to do with your hands, and are barely audible past the second row. You start to wonder what the hell you were thinking, why you thought your voice mattered. You hang your head, the weight as heavy as your heart as you retreat into the dark wings of the stage.
It was over before it started.
But then a few days pass and something inexplicable happens. One evening while holding a wobbly ladder as your father restocks amber bottles of tequila your phone rings. You reach for it, taking your hand off the side rails. The old man teeters like a fishing boat before regaining his balance.
“Pay attention!” he screams.
“Sorry,” you tell him.
You glance down at your touchscreen as the call from your friend goes to voicemail.
You run to the bathroom and flush the toilet for good measure before listening to the message. The voice sounds winded, as though its recipient were chased by a pack of crazed wolves. “Get down here now!” he screams. “The cast has been posted. You’re going to want to see this.”
You bolt from the restroom nearly tearing the door from its rusty hinge. Before your father can say a word the door chime rings. You’re long gone.
You barrel down the street like a bull in Pamplona. Half way there you realize you’ve never walked to school, the mile always feeling as far as the moon.
You arrive in record time, half wishing someone timed you. You race across campus and enter the drama room, a place far from the main campus where misfits, outcasts, weirdos, and all with a more delicate relationship with the world can safely hang their hats without judgment or jeer.
A group stands huddled around a list posted on a corkboard. They watch you inch closer afraid to say word. They clear a path, parting like ex-lovers.
You survey the cast list but don’t see your name. You’re so nervous you can barely remember it. You begin to plan your escape, envisioning your hands around your friend’s neck. What this some kind of joke?! you want to scream.
Just as you turn on your heels to go, you take one last look. It dawns on you you’ve only looked at the names under ENSEMBLE. On stage and off, it’s never occurred to you you could be more.
But there it is.
YOU are the lead, the captain of this ship.
But how? you wonder.
Because someone somewhere saw something in you.
Now that the hard work is over, the harder work begins. You clash with your parents for the first time in your young life. For years, insults, hurtful ones, are hurled back and forth. They call you selfish, stupid, and crazy. The worst is when they scoff before asking, “Who do you think you are?”
But their go-to name for their now trader son is “dreamer,” which actually amuses you. Maybe I am you think.
With each new play, the chasm between you and your parents widens. You still work at the store when you can but now you clock cold shoulders instead of hours.
The tension is killing the three of you, but the bonds of love are only strained not frayed. They still love you. Always will. You are their only son. They just want what’s best for you.
Only now they’ve stopped trying to coax or convince. They know what you know — there’s no turning back. This is what you’re going to do.
THIS is who you are.
A few years later, you land a spot in a theater program at a nearby college. You arrive at school each morning at 5:30 am come rain, sleet, or snow. While classmates nurse hangovers and wipe the sleep from their eyes, you’ve already spent hours working on your voice, diction, and character. For three years, you’re the first to arrive, the last to leave. Nobody wants to be your scene partner because they know what it demands.
Then a semester before you’re set to graduate you decide to drop out. You’ve had enough, you want to give this acting as a career thing a go. Your parents plead with you to just get your degree. “At least you can teach,” they say. “You owe us this much.” Their appeals are considered, then ignored.
“It’s my time,” you tell them.
Over the next several years, you land, change, or drop one agent after the next. Your career starts to feel like a subway turnstile.
You’re sent from one cattle call to the next. It all becomes a haze. You can’t remember the last time a casting director looked you in the eye or correctly pronounced your name.
On the rare occasion your three hours of prep lead to three minutes in the room, you’re met with blank stares but nary a word. You just want to know where you stand, if you’ve got the goods.
Eventually, the faces of desperation in those cramped waiting rooms start to change. Everyone else has taken the hint, come to their senses, smelled the roses, stopped fooling themselves, and returned to a life more ordinary.
Maybe it’s time I do the same, you start to think.
You wonder how much longer you can play the doctor, techie, or be the butt of a predictable one-liner.
You try, but still can’t wrap your head around how a twenty-four year old cover girl can play a neurosurgeon but you can’t play a D.A., superhero, the lead, or anyone three-dimensional. You don’t understand how the shape of your eyes or surname means you feel fear, anger, sadness, shame, friendship, envy, surprise, joy, courage, love — the HUMAN CONDITION any less.
Just when you’re about to hang it all up, you take out a pen. You start to scribble on a napkin after a bartender cuts you off for the night. “You’ve had enough,” he says.
God is he right, you think.
Still, you go home and continue to write as if your life depends on it because maybe it does. At first, your words are a jumble of hard to follow thoughts. You jump from one cliche to the next, stealing storylines, dialogue, and character names from your heroes. It’s awful.
Even your friends tell you so.
But slowly, something starts to shift. The same tempest that stirred within during your youth of youths, the vigor, enthusiasm — the faith that you had a story to tell is reawakened. You pour every minute you have into becoming more than an actor, but a storyteller.
You write draft after draft of a screenplay after maxing out your credit card to buy the software. Over time, it’s not that it becomes more good, just less bad.
Still, it’s a start.
Meanwhile, back home six decades without rest is taking its toll. Your old man doesn’t look well. Your mother pleads for him to slow down, but he won’t listen. He doesn’t know how.
Then one day, you get a call saying he’s collapsed. He fell off the same rickety ladder you used to hold. You rush home and plant yourself by his side. You bring him meals in bed, read to him in Korean, and keep an eye on the store. And gradually, your hardened father starts to soften. He starts to surrender, ever so slightly, to his flaws and fate. Even a smile breaks the plain of his weathered lips.
One afternoon while working the register, you look for your script before realizing you left it on your dad’s nightstand. You jot story notes on the back of an old receipt as another long day winds down.
You get home and tip-toe into your father’s bedroom. You find him asleep as a Korean drama plays on a dated Samsung flat screen. You switch it off then reach for the lamp before you notice him clutching a manuscript.
Your father was reading your story.
You reach for it, careful not to wake him. You head for the door when you hear his frail voice call for you. He musters some strength and motions for you to sit beside him. You brace yourself for a lecture, but for the first time in ages do as you’re told.
“I liked your story,” he tells you. “It was well written.”
You can’t believe your ears. For a moment you think he’s taken one too many painkillers. Still, something is different about your old man. There’s a vulnerability — an honesty you’ve never quite seen emanating from his every pore.
“Only I don’t see you in it,” he continues.
“What do you mean?” you ask.
“I don’t see you. Your journey. Your pain. YOUR STORY. That’s what you need to write about.”
And just like that, it all comes together. That’s what’s been missing. You didn’t believe your voice, your experiences, your human condition — your LIFE were worth a two-dollar Bic Pen.
It took a dying man whose heart you broke to illuminate what everyone else already knew.
You go home.
And write.
And write.
And write some more.
Gradually, you start to build a story.
You find a director.
A producer.
A cast.
You plead, beg, and barter for money before finally making your film. As the camera rolls you hold nothing back. You know something they don’t — you’ve got nothing to lose.
Eventually, the film gets into a few little festivals but passed on all the big ones. But you don’t care. For the first time in your life you finally understand it’s not the attainment of your goal that matters but who you become in its pursuit.
Just when you decide it’s time to hang it up for good, that you’re completely at peace now that you’ve told your story, you get a call. You don’t recognize the number, but decide to pick it up anyway.
The man on the other end claims to be a producer, which is a bright red flag. You’ve lived in this town long enough to be leery of similar monikers and claims. He says he saw your “little film” at a festival he was dragged to but that he loved what he saw. He asks if you’ll consider reading for his bigger little film.
You tell him thanks but no thanks, that it’s time to move on. “My father isn’t well and I’ve had enough,” is all you say. Only he won’t take no for an answer. There’s a conviction in his voice, a bulletproof optimism that only reminds you of you.
Eventually he wears you down and you agree. What the hell, you think.
Your audition knocks the producers on their asses. They stop scribbling notes, side bar conversations come to a halt, and by some miracle, they pull their eyes away from their touchscreens.
They are engaged.
You thank them for their time leaving everything in the room — your inhibitions, your blood, your sweat, and your unrealized dreams. For the first time in your life, you are at peace.
You have no regrets.
You gave everything.
Only your grand plans do not coincide with theirs. They want you to play a supporting role in their movie. They tell you it’ll only be a seventeen-day shoot and they’ll even give you a producing credit. You don’t care about the latter and the former seems harmless enough.
You’re in.
Your performance garners accolades and buzz from a handful of small publications. You don’t buy into the hype, it’s time to go home.
But then something strange happens.
People start to see the film in droves. “Who was that guy?” they ask. “Where did he come from?”
You start getting calls from bigger producers, directors, and filmmakers. They want YOU for their projects. Some of the parts are hokey, but you sift through enough scripts to see there’s a trend. For the first time you’re offered stories that are compelling, writing that’s nuanced, and characters that aren’t walking stereotypes.
You don’t need to shoot a gun, program code, or land a roundhouse kick. In some stories you even get the girl.
You tread lightly, picking roles with care. In time, one part leads to another and then another until you’re working with your heroes — the same guys on that 13-inch portable TV.
Then it happens — the role of a lifetime.
You collect award after award, but couldn’t care less. It’s not about you. It’s what you represent. Because of you, there’s a kid somewhere who can also dream of telling stories, taking solace in the knowing there are no monopolies on the human condition — that EVERYONE has a story worth telling.
That’s gotta be worth something you think.
This is what happens when you become the first Asian American movie star.
