Page 68 - Sharp Spring 2021
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“They’re not looking at me like an Asian person,” he explains. “It’s just a person. So I was just dialed in.” At the same time, he worried about his ability, as an expatriate speaker, to speak Korean to a level demanded by the role. And of course, there’s the pressure he feels to always represent whole demographics, both at home and abroad. “The fear was less with the Korean audience and more with the Korean–American audience,” he says. “There’s such a lack of being seen, in general, and espe- cially in that way; the only films and television shows we see that have Korean language are from Korea. The war for me was inadvertently representing Korean America, or Korea.”
Yeun is understandably sensitive to these questions of his Koreanness, or his Korean–Americanness. And he’s deeply thoughtful when considering the role he plays as one Holly-
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