John was born in Seoul, South Korea but his family
immigrated to the U.S. in 1978 when he was just 6 years old.
Growing up, he was very aware of the lack of Asian
representation on TV. This was reinforced by
his father’s suggestion that he pursue the only field
where they saw familiar faces...
"My dad, took a look at the television and said,
‘I don’t see people that look like you on the television.'
But he did see Asians on the news, so he suggested
that I go into reading the news on the air.'
John might not have ended up on TV
the way his father imagined,
from a college friend who asked him to be in a student play.
John’s first bit parts weren’t always kind to him.
Particularly one role where he played a Chinese delivery guy.
After that, John decided he was only going to take roles
that bucked Asian stereotypes, which led him straight to
MILF Guy #2 in ‘American Pie.’
'Dude, that chicks a MILF.'
'What the hell is that?'
'Mom I'd like to f*ck.'
'Aw yeah, dude.'
John’s description of Stiffler’s mom was so memorable,
they named the character after him in later installments.
After American Pie,
John kept on getting bigger and bigger roles, but he
stayed true to his ethos to never take on roles
that reinforce asian stereotypes. Even when
that led to the role of Dusty Wang in ‘Big Fat Liar.’
Sure, the character’s name doesn’t sound great,
but things could have gone way worse if director
Shawn Levy wasn’t willing to work with John.
The director initially wanted John to do an Asian accent
for the role of the Hong Kong director, but John refused, stating,
Luckily, the first-time director understood and worked with
John to bring the bizarre and energetic performance to life.
'Rock and roll, baby.'
That same year, John also starred in the Sundance darling
‘Better Luck Tomorrow,’ which follows a group of
overachieving high school kids’ escalation from
petty crime to murder.
John played Steve, Stephanie’s cool, rich boyfriend,
who tries to convince the group to rob his parents,
but things don’t go exactly as he planned.
'I'm serious, are you happy?'
'I don't know.'
'F*ck, that's the most truthful thing I've ever heard.'
In terms of representation,
It features a predominantly Asian American cast
and was the directorial debut of future ‘Star Trek’
and ‘Fast and Furious’ director Justin Lin.
Soon after that, his breakthrough roles
were right around the corner.
The laissez-faire charm that John brought to
the MILF guy ultimately caught the attention of Jon Hurwitz
and Hayden Schlossberg, inspiring them to write
the role of Harold Lee specifically for him.
Sure, he still had to audition, but c’mon.
However, there was a struggle to ensure that this
stoner comedy maintained its diversity through
the film’s early development. The writers wanted to
make sure that executives didn’t change the race of
the titular characters, so they incorporated
a lot of exposition about growing up Korean and
Indian in the early drafts of the script.
'Jesus Christ. When are they f*cking going to
develop button technology that will
understand urgency.'
'Dude, this is ridiculous, just walk across.
There's not a car in sight, just go 'head.'
'Fine you want me to cross?
You want me to cross, I will cross.'
It also revived Neil Patrick Harris’ career thanks to
his scene-stealing performance.
But 3 years later, John made sure to return the favor
by stealing the show in ‘How I Met You Mother’
as an evil lawyer.
and by 2009,
he was not only one of People magazine's ‘Sexiest Men Alive,’
♪If you want my body and you think I'm sexy♪
♪Come on, sugar, tell me so♪
'When I was a child, growing up in America,
there weren't many Asian Americans on television
that I could be proud of. My brother and I loved
seeing George Takei on television because
he was an Asian man who was doing the
typical stuff. It was a very proud representation.'
He was initially uncertain if he was going to take the
role of the Japanese- American character
due to his Korean heritage, but George Takei
personally encouraged him by saying
Two films later, ‘Star Trek: Beyond’ caused some
controversy when the movie changed Sulu’s
sexual orientation, but John was able to
handle it with his typical charm
'In fact, George Takei was like
'why did you guys do that?' He seemed like
he wasn't a fan of having that character, he said,
maybe add a new character who's gay
but don't change Sulu.
What did you think of all that?'
'You know, I totally respect where he's
coming from. Our movie is in an alternate timeline.
'Cause there really hasn't been an LGBT character in the
Star Trek universe and people have been very
great about it. I mean they really appreciated that move.'
In between the ‘Harold and Kumar’ films and
‘Star Trek,’ John tried his hand at TV acting,
but couldn’t seem to land a show
that lasted longer than one season.
'Oh, right, right because I’m Asian I also own my
own dojo and my pockets are full of firecrackers.'
and the unfortunately titled
were all cut off at the knees before they could even
get running. But, ‘Selfie’ did develop a low-key
cult following after the ‘Pygmalian’ reimagination
was canceled. Still, after more than 10 years
of gracing large and small screens alike,
leading movie roles seemed to elude John.
That is until #StarringJohnCho.
In 2016, William Yu wanted to start a
conversation about the lack of Asian
representation in film. So he started the
hashtag and tweeted these amazingly
edited movie posters.
and started a real conversation in the media
about Asian representation in leading roles.
Since then John has managed to headline
a couple feature films including the indie darling
‘Columbus,’ and ‘Searching’ where the audience
watches him try to find his missing daughter
from the perspective of a computer screen.
With more than 100 credits to his name,
John Cho has lived his ‘American Dream’
for all it’s worth
It took a while for Hollywood to recognize
his leading-man potential,