As we gear up for next month’s release of Ping Pong Playa, here’s more of my conversation with Roger Fan. An interview is always about the artist’s thoughts. But we had such a great rapport, I couldn’t help but share a few of my own. Roger has a natural love for the human race that makes him an excellent listener. Here’s more on Asian film, American film, stereotypes, and Justin Lin.

Stevenson: A lot of people, both Asian-Americans and those of other backgrounds, really enjoy what I would call “ethnic Asian” film—stories that take place in China, Japan, or Vietnam, stories that feature the samurai, the geisha, kung fu, things like that. How do you feel about these movies personally, and what drives you to seek out roles that are different, that portray Asian-Americans as ordinary people outside of those stereotypes?

Fan:  It’s sort of a double-edged sword; it’s strange. You look at America today, the contemporary American cinema: if you’re Irish-American or Italian-American descent or different parts of Western Europe, you [can] talk about your classics, and go back in time. Basically…you can do Shakespeare, you can do the Greek tragedies, and there’s a whole wealth of things from the past. You can basically use…the English language to voice that experience, even though it’s set three or four hundred years ago.  The thing about the Asian-American experience—and this is where the double-edged sword comes out, this is the thing I’ve just run into the past couple of months—[you see] the very stereotypes that we run into, the Asian guy always doing kung fu, or the gangster, or the “ching-chongy” dude who has the fu manchu moustache. They [the filmmaker] took a very specific Eastern perspective, [and made] a perverted Western adaptation of what they think Eastern perspective is.

If I would go back into my history—kung fu, and the guy with the beard that wears the Chinese garb and all that stuff—[that’s] kind of laughed at in America cinema today.  That’s my history! There’s such a fine line between those two worlds. I want to honor my cultural history, and if it’s told from a perspective of understanding and respect, it can be beautifully done.  Ang Lee does it, Wong Kar-Wai does it, all those amazing filmmakers in Asia, they do it.

The problem is, that image in the American media is harnessed in much different ways. Instead of really working with actors, laughing with it, empathizing kind of, they’re laughing at it, and creating a caricatured version of it that’s not really authentic and may be offensive.

So how do I feel about it all?  I love Asian cinema, it’s some of the greatest cinema on Earth. But culturally speaking, it isn’t really my contemporary experience of the world. To be honest, if an Asian film director came up to me and wanted me to do a classic period piece…and it was done with respect, I would do it in a second.  That would be a dream come true.  The problem is working in Hollywood. They always come down to the very lowest common denominator caricature.

It’s sort of like African Americans and Latino Americans lots of times.  Their image on the screen is one of not something you see, like the kids in the ghetto or Boyz In the Hood, or even something more normal, like something you’d see with Don Cheadle. It’s more of a caricature, it’s just kind of frustrating and one-dimensional.  It’s there to serve a specific story-line, in which someone like myself could never be the hero.  I like the fact that Justin [is there], because I can’t expect Hollywood to make the changes for me.  It’s sort of like a community in and of itself, if you want to be a community. It’s really not just Asian-Americans, just people who are more forward-thinking who want to create it for themselves.

So…a lot of Americans don’t know how to differentiate the stereotypes in a very respectful film like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. That’s sort of the classic piece of a very beautiful culture.  Unfortunately, America has very specific patterns of thinking, that will take even the most respectful Asian cinema and it will interpret it in a very stereotypical way.  So, it’s a double/triple-edged sword, but at the end of the day it’s up to us to thwart these images, where we can actually change these popular beliefs and opinions.  So maybe twenty years from now, Asian-Americans in America will be personified as “cool”, kind of like the African Americans.

Stevenson:  I grew up in rural Kentucky, where there aren’t many minorities, period, but especially not Asian-Americans. I really feel passionately about this. I really think that people can say, “Oh, it’s just a movie, everybody knows it’s just a stereotype,” when a lot of people don’t know.  I was a waitress in a restaurant, and some of the white girls that I worked with were laughing about the Eddie Murphy movie The Nutty Professor. Nothing against Eddie Murphy, but they were laughing about this movie, and calling it “the movie about the black people,” and I remember thinking to myself, “Do they really think black people are all like that?!” That’s a caricature. I worked as a school teacher for years, and I’ve had to talk to kids about making “chinky eyes,” and all their cultural ideas about what being Asian means.  I was working to educate kids when they’re six or seven years old.  It’s scary how quickly those get engrained. It really is something.

What’s Justin like to work with as a director? You’ve been with him for a couple of different films—there must be something about Justin that keeps you coming back.

Fan: You know, it’s interesting, however anyone sees their spiritual angle on life, it’s something—my running into Justin. I’m not gonna say divine providence, but he certainly came at the exact right time. Starting off in Hollywood, I had these visions and dreams, but no one truly explained to me what the rules of the game really are. So here I am, this All-American kid…at the end of the day, if I was not Asian-American, I maybe would have had a legitimate shot at the mainstream cinema. But I didn’t know that. For six years, I hammered away at this acting thing professionally. I was in class with James Franco and Ashley Judd, a lot of people that you see on acting stuff all the time. Over the years, the conversation would always be, “Oh my gosh, I think I’ve gone to heaven, I think I got Spiderman, or I’m doing this movie with Frankenheimer” and they’d be like, “Hey, Roger, what did you get?” And I’d go, “I did an Albertson’s commercial.”

At the end of the day, the talent was all kind of there, but it was pretty apparent that the system isn’t designed to take my image and…build a career around it. Every time you see an Asian-American in a TV show or film, it isn’t because they’re necessarily investing in a lifelong career as an actor like Rock Hudson or Harrison Ford. They’re just one-off people. “This person looks exactly like what I saw on the page, just hire ‘em on, pay them as little as possible, and done.” And that’s kind of the cycle that I’ve seen over and over.

At about year six or seven, my spirit was breaking. I grew up in America; I felt like I had all these opportunities available to me. The ideals were all there, but the system was really not there in that regard, no matter how hard you work. Justin—I remember I met him, I was quitting acting, and with five Asian actors—Sung, Jason, Parry, and myself. Sung went to the restaurant [Saketini in Brentwood, California], Jason was going back to Hong Kong, Parry had just got a job at Red Robin, and I took off to Australia for two months backpacking. The day I got back, I got off the plane, and I went to a barbecue that same day, and then I went to audition for Better Luck Tomorrow. At that point, you know, it didn’t look like anything; I was at my total bottom.

I think the story that most people don’t know about Justin is that he had an offer to do Better Luck Tomorrow for seven figures. But the main request was—“We’ll give you that kind of money, as long as you don’t cast Asian-Americans. It’s just not economically viable. Cast Latino, Caucasian, African-American, and we can put stars in it.” At that time Justin was not successful. He didn’t have a car. He had nothing. And I don’t know anyone like that, with that kind of debt, with those financial worries, to be able to walk away and say, “I’m not gonna take several million bucks to make the movie that I wanna make. I’m gonna walk away and apply for 10 credit cards and get myself 100,000 dollars in debt, and make the movie that I wanna make.” Even to this day, I’ve never met people with that kind of personal morals.

And you ask me, “What is it about Justin?” He’s one of the only things that gives me hope to continue in this business. I’ve met so many filmmakers, and writers, and actors, and they all want to live, to take care of their families, but I really haven’t come across another one who walked the walk…that sense of big-picture caring, wanting to make a difference.

And…we’re really good friends. There’s something about someone who can bring a lot of people together, and make people work together, and make everyone feel important. In my darkest hour, this guy came in and made a choice that really validated my existence. I guarantee that without someone like him, I would have left acting years ago.

Stevenson: Everything you’re saying really resonates with all I’ve read and heard…I think Sung Kang said something to the effect of, “Other directors, you feel like you’re working for them, and Justin knows how to work with people.” It’s just that gift of leadership and mutual respect.

Roger and I exchanged a few pleasantries, and it was time to hang up and put my toddler to bed. But it was probably the most enjoyable interview I’d ever done, and made me look forward to the Finishing the Game premiere in New York all the more. Thanks, Roger, for your awesome candor and heart for Asians in film. So you wanted to make a difference? You have.