George Cheung from ‘Rush Hour’ recounts 50 years in Hollywood

Hong Kong-born US actor has high hopes for future generation after ‘Oscars earthquake’

Asian representation in Hollywood has come a long way since Hong Kong-born American actor George Cheung was cast in roles such as “First Japanese Soldier,” “Guard #1,” “Lorry driver” and “Ice Cream Attendant” in the 1970s.

At this year’s Academy Awards, “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” which features a predominantly Asian cast, won seven out of 11 categories it was nominated in, including best supporting actor for Ke Huy Quan and best actress for Michelle Yeoh — a first for an Asian actor.

“I just saw a bunch of Chinese people on stage. I didn’t see anybody else. I was just so proud because I’ve never seen so many Asians winning up there,” said Cheung shortly after the awards ceremony.

“You know, once in a while you have a couple of Asians in the back but tonight, they were the leading ladies, there was a leading man, best picture and best original screenplay.

“I’ve been in Hollywood for over 50 years and we’re just supporting most of the time. I hope it’s just the beginning of a bright future.”

Known mostly for all the Chinatown gangster parts he’s played through the decades, Cheung appeared in box office hits such as “Rush Hour” (1998), “Austin Powers: The Spy who Shagged Me” (1999) and “Starsky & Hutch” (2004).

The 74-year-old actor says he has developed a friendly rivalry with James Hong, who plays the father of Yeoh’s character in “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” because of the scarcity of roles for Asian-American actors.

Scarcity of roles

“There was a point where, if I saw James at an audition, I would basically turn around and leave because I would never get it. James is what Hollywood perceives a Chinese man to be. I would get all the bad guy parts,” he recalls.

“One day James said to me, ‘OK, you don’t get the parts, why don’t you be my double and do the stunts?’ Of course, I said yes. It’s a job. So we’d both get cast, James gets to speak the lines and I get to do all the falls.”

Cheung counts himself lucky. The best supporting actor winner in this year’s Academy Awards, Ke Huy Quan, who famously played Short Round in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” (1984), had to step away from acting because there were so few opportunities — a struggle Cheung witnessed first-hand.

“Huy Quan was out of work for 25 years. I worked with him when we filmed the first ‘X-Men’ (2000). He was the assistant to another stunt coordinator,” Cheung says.

“He was a child actor. If you look at his type he was too small to be a bad guy, his face was too kind, too.

Can he be a boy next door? He’s not handsome enough, he was too short to be a leading man at a time when there were not many Asian roles. He couldn’t get a job.”

East Asians are not the largest minority group in the United States, but even so, they make up 7.2 per cent of the population. Surely there had to be more jobs in acting?

“This is show business after all,” Cheung says. “If we go back further, Jackie Chan made ‘Rush Hour’ with Chris Tucker and that worked because of Chris, but when Jackie came back and made movies by himself there was no box office.”

Will this earthquake at the Oscars make any difference? Cheung is already feeling the aftershocks.

“I just did a cameo in a Brad Pitt and George Clooney movie. My agent was telling me it’s a very small role as a singer at a nightclub but the best part of that is that they let me choose the song.”

“I really look forward to producers putting Asians in all movies. If we keep doing Asian stories, so to speak, it’s going to dry up. If they keep doing martial arts stories, the immigrant stories and railroad stories, it’s going to dry up because you do not have the audience.”