I'm Tzi Ma, and I was born in Hong Kong, raised in New York City.
I like to say mostly on Staten Island,
Which is kind of weird. And I'm the youngest of seven.
We ran a Chinese restaurant. Sorry,
let me clarify that, we rented Chinese American restaurant on Staten Island.
You run a Chinese restaurant you'll be out of business, because nobody eats Chinese food.
They love Chinese American food.
So there are certain norms about growing up,
at that time, and being Asian American and being discriminated against is a norm.
And then to cope with that stuff, I think what happened was,
subconsciously I felt that there's got to be a way to kind of overcome this thing,
Because they're gonna see me different anyway, so what can I do?
There was a math teacher, Mr. Goodman, and there was an art teacher,
Mrs. Harper, who were like Broadway enthusiasts.
So they were the one who ran the drama club. So I said: "Okay, I'm gonna join the drama club."
And I remember the first play they took us to on Broadway was "Annie Get Your Gun."
And the first role I had was, I played Buffalo Bill. In "Annie Get Your Gun."
I remember the first time when I got on the stage, I think there was a lot of snickering
and laughing, cuz that gray hair, like I grayed my hair, in that cowboy hat,
And they were like, people were laughing. It didn't bother me because it was -
I guess the music was so loud that it didn't
faze me. So I think I got the loudest applause at the end.
And the discrimination kind of slowed down. It's like they - all of a sudden -
They said: "Hey, he's kind of a regular guy, you know?"
I was like, one of two Chinese kids in the entire school.
So they finally kind of forgot this exterior. They forgot the color of my skin.
And it kind of worked out, so I say: "Hey man, there's some advantage to this, working on a play.
So those were the humble beginnings.
Once I got to be a professional actor, I started acting... what, '73?
I always believed that it takes a long time to be a good actor. Some people say ten years,
I think it's about right. Takes about ten years.
And then in 1976, I believe,
three years into my professional acting career doing all these experimental stuff,
Crazy out-of-the-box thinking stuff, as a play that came to Broadway...
Called "Pacific Overtures."
And we saw this guy on stage, who was the
storyteller that narrated the guy who set the table.
To let the audience know that this is what we're talking about.
We all went backstage just to kind of like... who is this guy? Was amazing.
And then that guy was Mako. Major influence in my life as an actor, and as a person.
Rush hour is a significant film. Because it's the first time
You're gonna have Asian and African-American as the lead. In a film. In Hollywood history.
Before was all salt & pepper. Black and white. Black white black white black white.
Never Asian and black. For the very first time you get two guys -
Wild crazy guys running around the screen.
And... breakout hit. 35 million dollars, it made 130. So that's significant.
"The Farewell" is an interesting film. It's about changing perceptions.
I mean you're talking about a voice, a different kind of voice. And that's what we want.
We want different voices. We don't want one voice.
It doesn't work with us, because it's a multi-ethnic multicultural
segment of the population, Asian-Americans.
We ain't just one group. We have many groups.
So hopefully these voices will come out, and represent us in such a way
where we're we're happy. "Oh yeah, this film speaks to us in this voice,
and this film speaks to us in this voice." So that's important.
And Mulan's an interesting project. International cast, right?
I mean you have like Gong Li, Jet Li, and Donnie Yen, and you know Liu Yifei,
and then you have pretty much everybody else's is pretty much Asian American.
A couple of New Zealanders mixed in.
So that's kind of exciting working with the kind of a predominant Asian American cast.
I think there's a sense of community that works in our favor. It's different,
because we become families, because we are.
One more thing that I think it's really important for young actors,
is really enjoy the audition process.
Because it's the only time that you're gonna do exactly what you want to do. All eyes on you.
You're the one guy sitting in front, and everybody's looking at you,
and you're gonna do this stuff the way you think that you should do it.
All they can say is bold choice but wrong. Fine.
That's okay. But at least one time you get to do exactly what you want to do.
When else you're gonna do that? If you get the job, you got another actor to deal with.
You got the director, you got the set, you got camera - you get everybody telling you that-
"Oh Todd don't look that way too much, because you know the light..."
Blah blah, you know - something's gonna happen.
But in an audition, it's one stock light, camera's rolling, you know,
doing your take, and everybody's looking at you.
Yeah. Hit it out of the park. Enjoy the process.
I hoped to Asian American parents out there, give it some thought that you know,
yes it's really nice for your son to be a brain surgeon.
But he can only save one brain at a time.
But give the kid a camera if he likes, give him a pen if he likes to write, you know.
Because ultimately he's able to shape perception of who we are, you know, in a single stroke.
Many millions of people in one screening.
We're not talking a day,
talking about one screening. And there are a lot of screenings in a day.