No Crazy Rich Asians without The Joy Luck Club – Russell Wong on how 1993 film opened door for Asian actors
- Wong is known for Hong Kong martial arts and action films, Chinese blockbusters and TV and film in America
- He talks about breaking down barriers in Hollywood, his success in Asia and the new film he’s written – a crime thriller that’s ‘like Taken meets Her’
Russell Wong has a Hollywood face: preternaturally youthful, symmetrical, attention-demanding in its handsomeness. Wong isn’t just famous, he looks famous – within minutes of sitting down at the Jewish deli on the outskirts of Los Angeles where we conducted this interview, a fan approached him begging for an autograph.
Wong has managed the tricky and enviable job of attaining celebrity in three separate markets: he has appeared in Hong Kong action and martial arts films, he is an increasingly dependable star in blockbusters being made in China, and a well known presence on screens big and small in America, a country he calls – albeit sometimes reluctantly – home.
Now 56, Wong was one of the boundary-busting Asian-American actors of modern Hollywood. Appearing in trailblazing Asian-American roles, Wong and his peers were instrumental in breaking down barriers and setting the foundation for what today is being hailed as a tipping point in representation of Asians in American film and television.
As anyone working in either film would attest: without The Joy Luck Club, there could never have been a Crazy Rich Asians, the 2018 summer box office hit that earned two Golden Globe nominations.
“The Joy Luck Club was the big breakthrough, but no, there was no category that film was nominated for in the Academy Awards and none of us even went to the Academy Awards at that time and that was 25 years ago,” the actor recalls.