Asian Rom-Com Producers Reject Hollywood Pressure to Cast White Actors

Straits Times

2 days ago

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In Worth The Wait, Lana Condor and Ross Butler play a couple in a long-distance relationship.
SINGAPORE – Producers on the US-Canada romantic comedy-drama Worth The Wait wanted their movie to showcase Asians falling in love, navigating awkward encounters with former lovers and coping with loss.
But they faced pressure from Hollywood financiers, who suggested a change they thought was minor, but was anything but to Rachel Tan.
The Malaysia-born, Los Angeles-based producer says they wanted to add a white male to the cast rather than letting the film be an all-Asian ensemble.
'They gave me a list of white guys we could cast. If we could give one of the roles to them, we could get funded. It was so tempting,' the 43-year-old recalls.
She was in town with her producing partner and husband, Chinese-American Dan Mark, for a screening of their film – which the couple also co-wrote – at Tanglin Club on July 10.
The investors held the belief that, except for genres such as martial arts, Asian male characters are not bankable, with little appeal for Western audiences, she says.
Tan and her team ignored the suggestion, completing Worth The Wait without watering down their goal of an all-Asian cast in stereotype-breaking stories.
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For years, Asian Americans have been viewed by the majority as the 'model minority', the ethnic group to be the most well educated, well adjusted and upwardly mobile, but the film seeks to show a more complete picture, she says.
Slated to open in Singapore cinemas in August, Worth The Wait is directed by Taiwanese film-maker Tom Shu-Yu Lin, known for his Golden Horse-nominated drama The Garden Of Evening Mists (2019), adapted from the 2011 Booker Prize-shortlisted novel of the same name by Malaysian author Tan Twan Eng.
Set in Seattle and Kuala Lumpur, it revolves around a group of singles and couples of different ages, and features actors of Asian or mixed descent from North America and Europe, including Ross Butler, Lana Condor, Andrew Koji, Sung Kang and Elodie Yung, as well as Singapore actors Tan Kheng Hua and Lim Yu-Beng.
(From left) Lim Yu-Beng, Ross Butler, Tan Kheng Hua and Osric Chau at the red carpet event for Worth The Wait on July 10 at Tanglin Club.
PHOTO: LIANHE ZAOBAO
Producer Mark, 43, says audiences will see that Butler (Shazam!, 2019: 13 Reasons Why, 2017 to 2020) fits the profile of the romantic lead, while also being Asian.
'He's a masculine Asian man. He's stereotype-breaking, and we love that – we need to have that in our culture,' he says.
Singapore-born American actor Butler plays Kai, the son of a corporate bigwig (Lim). On why on-screen white male-Asian female couples are the more common representation, Butler feels it has to do with Asian men being seen as not desirable.
'It's a deep topic to talk about. In the West, for a hundred years, the Asian man has been emasculated,' the 35-year-old tells The Straits Times at the same event.
Butler drew on his personal experience to play Kai, who is under pressure to live up to his father's goals for him.
The performer took chemical and biomolecular engineering at Ohio State University, but left his studies to pursue acting as a career.
'A lot of this was generational legacy pressure from my mum. She is from Malaysia, and she took me to the US for the opportunities. We all know about the immigrants' dream,' he adds.
(From left) Osric Chau and Karena Lam play a couple dealing with the trauma of a miscarriage in Worth The Wait.
PHOTO: WORTH THE WAIT MOVIE LLC
In another of the film's intertwining story threads, a couple played by Chinese-Canadian actors Osric Chau and Karena Lam find their marriage becoming strained after a miscarriage, while a young man, Blake (Chinese-Canadian actor Ricky He), has priorities other than school.
Tan says: 'Osric's character is vulnerable and Blake failed maths. There are so many layers to the characters. We are so much more than what's usually shown.'
Worth The Wait opens in Singapore cinemas in August.