Starting off, I just wanted
to talk to you a little bit
about how the Oscars went.
I heard it was your first
time ever going well.
You know, it was too much work then away.
Well worth it though.
The final ending of stepping on
the stage and accepting that award,
you know the whole thing was almost too
much to tell you how crowded it was.
About half a mile away there was
already a line of cars trying to get
into the entrance to the theater.
And so when we finally got up there,
there's another couple hundred of
people waiting to get into the event.
So this lady who met me from the Academy,
she was smart, she got me a wheelchair,
although I don't really need it,
but I got in the wheelchair and
went right past the probably 200
people and got into the front.
Lot of little parts to this whole thing,
you know, it's totally amazing.
Bigger than anything I've ever been to.
How come you had never gone
before? You know, that's
a very question.
I just hesitated and.
Hesitate and, you know,
just procrastinated.
And I knew there would be a lot of walking.
And and so if I said to myself,
I'm going to wait until I
get in the Lord and then
I'll make myself available.
And that's what happened.
What was it like when you
heard Everything Everywhere,
all at once, had won best picture?
You just sit there and you
don't know what's happening.
They move me around during the last
five minutes into the position.
The first role instead of the third role,
you know, then I knew something was up,
so when they announced that.
I jumped up and and I and the other,
the other cast members were to my right.
They all started to their younger.
So they yell Whoopi and so forth, you know?
And they came out with the award
for the best picture of the year.
Somebody handed it to me.
So I just said, well, Gee, I'm doing that.
This must belong to me.
I hung on to it.
Later on they, uh,
came and got it from me when I was in
the after party because I hung on to it.
I wasn't going to give it up.
So they said they well they
got to engrave it.
So I guess the cast members don't,
don't get an award an Oscar to say that
it belongs to the people who made the
film because it's the best film of the year.
So I I the first time they asked me and
and the governor's ball for that award,
I says no, I'm not going to give it up.
So, so they went and I I don't know,
a second person came and said
you got to give it up there,
they gotta gotta engrave the name, you know?
I said, well, all right, you know,
so I gave it up and I continue eating.
There were a lot of horderves and I
didn't go to the after after party.
I just went to the governor,
governor's ball, they call it.
What is it about the movie that you
think has resonated with so many people?
I think it's the love and forgiveness,
you know, and the sense
is like seemingly Curtis.
Uh, even before the award,
after the filming,
sometime she gave me a plot, a plaque,
or some kind of A-frame piece,
and it all says three things.
Be kind, be kind, be kind.
So I guess that's resonates
the theme of the movie.
I know the Oscars, everyone
still talking about the Oscars,
but it was a big moment at the
SAG Awards for you as well.
Your speech, I know,
resonated with a lot of people. Well,
I really didn't intend to to say anything.
Uh, outstanding to say.
In fact, I was going to say
something totally different.
But once I got in there and faced the
audience at the Screen Actors Guild.
I I thought well, you know what what
have I experienced in my whole career?
So I started from the very beginning
when I was in Hollywood and as I said
the the main roles were played by white
actors trying to be yellow actors.
You know they they somehow had that cliche
thing of picking up the eyes with the
eyepiece over their eyes and it with the.
That people would look like this.
Although I myself have round eyes.
I don't even know why they
would slant the other ones so.
That was the way it was in my
early career that, you know,
I and other Asian actors never got any
roles because they took white actors
and put the eyepieces and little funny
mustaches and goatees to make them look
like what they thought was Chinese or Asian.
And that did not resonate well,
well with me because,
you know, I am what I am.
I I don't have something have
somebody put on some funny makeup
and make themselves look like.
Leading man,
a Chinese or Asian leading man.
They just use white actors because they
didn't trust our box office value.
But as I said on stage I said look
at all these people and I said,
I said you know Michelle,
yo and and key and all these people
are they're they're wonderful at what
they're doing and now the film has a
growth you know way over 100 million so
and was only made for about 1520 million.
So you can see that they got
their value out of that film.
It was in a sense a low budget
film that just magnified into a.
Big box office film,
and I hope everybody goes go and see it.
You know, you can't describe the film.
You have to see it.
I know we've come a long way as far
as Asian representation in Hollywood,
but what would you still like to see?
Well, I like to see the writers
write more characters that could
be played by any nationality,
whether it's Asian or Caucasian or
black and and so forth, you know,
but you're talking about, I've waited,
you know, 70 years for this.
And everything still seems to
crawl along the leading man,
good looking young actors and young
ladies and are not getting the roles.
I'd like to see that move
forward much faster.
I have to ask you about Minnesota,
because you grew up in Minneapolis.
What was your experience
like growing up here?
I was only a child.
I was born. Near 713 3rd Ave.
South where? That street,
we call it Chinatown because there were two,
two Chinese stores there and and that was it.
You know, there wasn't a town
but we called it Chinatown. Why?
Because and the weekends the laundryman
and the restaurant restaurant tiers and
any any other Chinese locations, they,
they came to that store on my father's and
that's why it's trying to count you know.
So I grew up there and
on the 2nd floor of 713.
And, you know,
I heard all this jabber and the Chinese that
they brought in Chinese opera and so forth.
So I I was totally Chinese for a while
and my mother spoke only Chinese at
that time until I went to school, you know.
Uh, I didn't know what to do.
Um, Washington grade school.
And then uh to Brian Junior
High and then to central.
I by the time I graduated from Central,
I was the Treasurer of the class.
So you can see how I went from.
Nothing as far as an American culture
person to treasure of the class.
So I was accepted in that sense,
but I was not accepted as.
A real one of them in the sense of dating.
I couldn't date girls because they wouldn't
accept me or the parents didn't accept me,
so it was a hard time.
And then I went to University
of Minnesota and the Viking.
National Guards got activated.
So I became a soldier and and then I came
out and decided to come to Hollywood.
Then everything changed.
You know,
I auditioned for and I didn't audition.
I just got put into the Groucho Marx.
You bet your life, you know, that show.
And I did my impersonations,
which I was good at and I I I
became the the performer or.
Uh, contestant that got the second
biggest fan mail ever on Groucho Marx show.
So I decided to stay in Hollywood.
It was to be a vacation,
but that I stayed and the rest is history.
I try to be in the class plays and whatever,
but even then they're prejudice,
prejudice showed up.
Miss Gross, the drama teachers
was doing wimples of Wimpole St.
Barretts of Wimpole St.
The name of the class play,
and there was,
it's a British play, so she said,
well now where would I put James?
So she she just did not even
use me in the class play.
She just substitute a white
actor to play the doctor.
So the you know experience that
so-called hidden prejudice all through
my whole life and came to Hollywood
and still the problem persisted
and and I try my best to get out
of that rut and form the East West
players in Los Angeles and that
they became a big theatrical group
performing plays and now it's probably
the biggest and even beyond that.
For Asian activism,
and they're expanding into
another huge building.
So my efforts of trying to equalize
the situation in a sense worked,
starting with East West players until now.
The Asians are winning awards
all over the place, you know,
so now there's Everything Everywhere,
all at once typifies what is going to happen.
Well, I still appreciate you
taking the time to talk to me.
My last question is just do you
ever make it back to Minnesota?
I've been back once only we had a class
reunion and was very different by that time.
I was semi famous and everybody.
It's like I I said because in the
in that two things once the class
person and Tom said to me James I
came I never come to these class
reunions but I came because of you.
You know he was the President
of the high school and so.
So in that little speech I
I made before the reunion,
I said well I I guess I could
have been president.
You know and everybody applaud.
So in a sense it was very gratifying
to see that the class has had grown
up and and accepted people more or
less equal as equals or you know
and that I had the recognition
of being a semi famous person
from their class which was very.
Ground trying to me and to them.
And then growing up in Minneapolis,
did you have a favorite
theater or place to visit.
Yeah, that we live on inbound three
place a block from that downtown.
Downtown where you're where where
Dayton was and Donaldson that corner,
you know, and the dime store was there.
So my favorite thing was
to go for that dime store.
And for a nickel, you can get a
whole bag of fresh potato chips.
Isn't that wonderful?
And so there, of course there was.
White Castle I visited once in a while.
Those things that stayed in my memory
and the State Fair was wonderful but
that was the only
so-called recreation I had in those days.
Uncle, uncle say Singpost took left his
laundry on that day and then took little
James Hong and took him to the to visit all
those animals and wonderful championship.
Events that the Minnesota Fair and
so my memories of the fair is very,
very vivid because there was no other
entertainment for little James Hall so.
Uh, thank you, Uncle. Simple soccer.
He's listening anywhere.
Thank him for his kindness.
So, in a sense, we all should be.
Kind to other people where wherever they are,
as as it if it touches your heart
in some way, please do something
for people all over the world.