Jimmy Yang - How to American

That hit me. What would I do if I thought I’d never see my family and friends ever again? I felt honored that Danny would share these emotional details with me. Then he told me one detail that deeply affected me:

“When the terrorist jumped into the car and pointed his gun at me, he asked me, ‘Is there anyone who cared about you here?’ And I said, ‘No.’”

“Why did you say no?” I asked. “Didn’t you want to plead for his empathy?”

“No, he wasn’t asking me because he cared. He was asking me to see if there will be anyone who’ll call the police if I’m gone. So I said no, nobody care about me here.”

Each answer he gave to the terrorists that night could mean life or death. Even with a gun pointed to his head, Danny kept his smarts and composure.

Danny continued, “And really, that was the truth. Nobody really cared about me here. I was new to America, most of my friends were in China.”

That gave me the chills. Every immigrant has felt that way: “Nobody cares about me here.” I know I definitely felt that way when I first came to America. I might not have been able to relate to being carjacked at gunpoint by terrorists, but I could surely relate to the loneliness of being an immigrant.

I took that part of the story to Peter Berg the next morning. “We have to put that in the movie,” I said. Pete, being one of the best directors I’ve ever worked with, said, “Let’s try it.” He was the ultimate actor’s director. He started his career as an actor and he understood how actors work. He didn’t give us any technical notes and he just let us play out the scenes. There were no marks and he never said to open up to camera; he let us stay in the moment and play it real.

I was nervous about filming the carjacking scene; it was a tough experience to re-create what happened that night in the car and I needed to do right by Danny. With Pete’s directing style and the great actors Themo Melikidze and Alex Wolff who portrayed the terrorist brothers, everything felt so real. I completely broke down during one take. I thought about my own family and how I’d never see them again. Those weren’t tears that I learned to conjure from acting classes; they were real. The scene felt so real that I had nightmares for a week after the shoot. I would wake up in the middle of the night and think someone was standing on the foot of my bed. I could only imagine what Danny had gone through after the real carjacking.

Patriots Day wasn’t nominated for any awards, but it was the proudest thing that I’d ever done in my career, to portray a Chinese immigrant hero in such a quintessential American story. Everyone who knows Danny’s story thinks he’s a hero, except for Danny. Danny said, “I don’t think I’m a hero. A hero is somebody who is willing to sacrifice himself to save somebody else. I was just trying to save myself that night.” To me, his humbleness makes him even more of a hero. Danny makes me proud to be an immigrant.

Danny called me after he saw an early screening of the movie. “You were very good.” That meant more to me than winning any award.

I take pride in playing immigrant characters. I’ve come across people who had a negative opinion about playing Asian characters that have an accent. I’ve even met Asian actors who won’t audition for a role that has an Asian accent. They believe these accented characters reinforce the stereotype of an Asian being the constant foreigner. Frankly, I can’t relate. I was an immigrant. And no matter how Americanized I become, no matter how much Jay-Z I listen to, I’ll always be an immigrant. Just because I don’t speak English with an accent anymore doesn’t mean that I’m better than the people who do. My job as an actor is not to judge anyone and portray a character with humanity. There are real people with real Asian accents in the real world. I used to be one of them. And I’m damn proud of it.

To me, the issue is not the people who speak with an Asian accent; it’s the perception of the accent itself. Sofía Vergara’s Spanish accent is considered sexy, and it helped her become an international sex symbol. Peter Sellers’s Inspector Clouseau French accent in the Pink Panther movies was praised in the comedy world, and it earned him a Golden Globe nomination for best actor. But why is the Chinese accent considered foreign and nerdy? Jian Yang is more than a fresh-off-the-boat immigrant; he’s also a funny, devious little asshole. Danny Meng is not just a foreign Chinese student; he’s a real-life American hero who helped capture the Boston Marathon bombing terrorists. I want people to see these guys and say, “Wow, that Chinese dude is awesome.” And I want girls to watch these roles and say, “I need to find myself a Jian Yang or Danny Meng. These guys are fucking sexy.” My mission is not to avoid playing an immigrant; my mission is to make Asian immigrants as sexy as Ryan Gosling.

Mark Wahlberg, me and Danny Meng. Two Chinese immigrants, three Americans.

HOW TO BE SEXY

My sexiness was finally noticed when I was cast in the film Life of the Party. It’s a Melissa McCarthy — Ben Falcone comedy about a mom who goes back to college and joins her daughter’s sorority. The description for my character is “Maddie’s perfect boyfriend.” And as this small world would have it, Molly Gordon, who played my girlfriend Maddie in the film, is the daughter of Bryan Gordon, the director who wanted to cast me for Sin City Saints, which led me to being a series regular on Silicon Valley. Playing a boyfriend might not seem like a big deal, but playing a white girl’s boyfriend is like the Holy Grail for Asian actors. It has always been rare for an Asian male to go out with a white female in mainstream media. Jackie Chan never had a white girl; Bruce Lee married a white girl in real life but he never had a white girl in the movies. But on the flip side, Lucy Liu had plenty of white beaus. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy; we don’t see a lot of Asian men with white women on-screen, so we don’t risk putting a lot of Asian men with white women on-screen. I was happy to help change that.

I was actually a bit uncomfortable being the “perfect boyfriend.” I was used to being a funny character actor on-screen and I have never been the perfect boyfriend in real life. My whole life, I’ve always felt like I had to be funny to compensate for my lack of aesthetics. I felt insecure about playing the straight-man boyfriend. What do I bring to the table? Looks? Charm? How could I be the perfect boyfriend when I couldn’t even navigate through a Tinder date? I could hear my dad saying, “You? Ha-ha-ha-ha, come on.” Melissa and Ben believed that I could be the perfect boyfriend before I ever did. They never thought for a second that it was unusual to have an Asian boyfriend and a white girl on the big screen. They saw me beyond my ethnicity. I had to put my insecurity aside and put the Asian nation on my back. This was not just about me; this was about making all my Asian brothers look sexy. So I decided to do some research on how to be sexy.

The movie shot in Atlanta. On a Saturday night, I went out to a dance club by myself, for research for the role, obviously. I’m not usually a dance club type of guy, but when in Atlanta, I was supposed to be sexy. The club was a cool underground spot playing the latest dirty south hip-hop joints. I threw back a couple drinks, and I was ready to cut a rug. Then a cute girl approached me and asked, “Do you want some Molly?” I’m usually not a Molly type of guy, but when in Atlanta, I was supposed to be sexy. So she dabbed her finger in a small plastic bag of white powder and stuffed that finger right into my mouth. I’d never done Molly before. Ten minutes later, everything felt like Disneyland. I was in love with everything and everyone. I had the confidence to go up to every girl in the club; I finally felt sexy. I’m sure in reality, I was probably dancing like somebody’s drunk aunt at a quinceañera. Three hours later, I was still feeling great, the club was closing but I wanted to keep dancing. Six hours later, I was still ready to party but everything was already closed. Twelve hours later, I was pacing around in my hotel room with my heart beating out of my chest. My body was dead tired but my mind was wide awake. I drank a couple glasses of red wine and I took some NyQuil, to no avail. The next thing I knew, I hadn’t slept for forty hours and I was on the brink of cardiac arrest. That definitely wasn’t just Molly; pretty sure that finger was laced with meth. I had to be back on set in eight hours. I lay on my bed with my eyes wide open.