“I think we’ve broken that glass ceiling, we’ve ninja-kicked it to hell,” said Michelle Yeoh on a panel for the Television Critics Association on Friday. “And hopefully it will never come back, broken like Humpty Dumpty pieces.”
Michelle was born in Malaysia and was a major Hong Kong action movie star before moving to America to a vastly different Hollywood landscape. She said that there were no roles out there that represented Asians before, the Hollywood situation has been improving for Asian actors and directors.
Yeoh reunites with her “Everything Everywhere” co-star and fellow Globe winner and Oscar favorite Ke Huy Quan in “American Born Chinese.”
Quan broke out as a child actor but eventually dropped out of acting because the roles were so scarce. He said that it was challenging to be an Asian actor as there were not many opportunities. It didn’t work out for him for two decades, but the landscape has changed.
According to Quan, the audience may react to the show with various emotions. Some are going to be upset, while others might find it humorous. He claimed that he experienced a vast range of feelings while portraying his character.
American Born Chinese was based on the 2006 graphic novel of the same name by Gene Luen Yang, follows struggling student Jin Wang (Ben Wang), who meets a Chinese-born student and is pulled into a supernatural world that includes Yeoh as the undercover Goddess of Mercy and Daniel Wu as the Monkey King. The series is set to premiere on Disney+ in 2023.
