Pioneers and Torchbearers for AAPI Leads in Dramatic Television
From Top Left to right: BD Wong - Law and Order special victims unit/NBC, Nancy Hsueh - CBS, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan - Never Have I Ever?netflix, sandra oh - Killing eve/BBC America, and Daniel Dae Kim - Hawaii Five-o/cbs.
When actress Sandra Oh received the script for the drama television series Killing Eve, she was confused as to what role she was being offered. The Korean Canadian actress did not see a doctor or receptionist role, as Asian actors such as herself were accustomed to seeing. Instead, in this show, Oh would be the lead actor playing the titular and main character herself. With a combination of excitement and gratitude, Oh shared that it felt like she had waited 30 years for this opportunity. For many Asian and Asian-American Pacific Islander (AAPI) actors, the leading role has often eluded them in drama television. The path to shows like Killing Eve for actors such as Sandra Oh has been in the works for decades, even before Oh had begun acting. The history of AAPI leads in drama television follows a group of people that worked towards diversity and representation as they persevered through challenges and resistance throughout the years.
One of the pioneers of AAPI actors in drama television came in 1967 from the groundbreaking show Love Is A Many Splendored Thing, which starred the Chinese-American Nancy Hsueh. At the time, soap operas were becoming more daring with their content, being more direct about matters such as sex than they had before. However, soaps of the time were still hesitant to push boundaries on interracial romance. So, when Hsueh was cast as the lead character of this soap opera, it was met with hesitant reactions. It went further, as her character Mia Elliot was the love interest of a white character.
The other notable AAPI actor in drama television at this time was the original Hawaii Five-O’s Kam Fong Chun. In 1968, Chun portrayed Ching Ho, a police detective on the show. The actor brought his own personal experiences to the role, having been a member of the Honolulu Police Department for several years prior to working on the show. Chun broke ground in many ways, just by being cast in this role. He had originally auditioned for the villain role, something that would have kept him from the starring spotlight at the time. By being cast as one of the leads of the show Chun helped make important steps for other AAPI actors.
Another pioneer for AAPI actors was Robert Ito, who played Dr. Sam Fujiyama on Quincy M.E. from 1976-1983. In this medical procedural drama, Ito played a prominent doctor who worked closely with the main character. Ito’s role as a doctor would be a foreshadowing of tropes to come for Asian actors, but for the time it was a step forward in diversity. Looking back, that step forward was not without its own setbacks. The show’s occasional comments on Fujiyama’s ethnicity were often tasteless and racially insensitive. Ito had carved out a role for himself in drama television, but the actual respect for AAPI actors was still to come.
In the following decades, many more AAPI actors were able to make names for themselves in various drama series. However, unlike the bold attempts of Hsueh and Chun, most Asian actors in leading drama roles starred in ensemble casts, sharing the limelight with a greater number of people than in previous types of shows.
While AAPI actors were getting more of an opportunity in these ensemble situations, it became evident that there was still only a select type of role that they were given. Following in Ito’s footsteps, the vast majority of AAPI actors that got prominent roles in drama television were often only cast as doctors or other medical professionals. Clyde Kusatsu would play Dr. Kenji Fushida in the 1989 medical procedural Island Son. Ming-Na Wen would play Dr. Jing-Mei Chan on the hit ER for a period in 1995, then again in the early 2000s. Sandra Oh would play the immensely popular Dr. Christina Yang in Grey’s Anatomy from 2005 to 2014. Even in shows that were not medical procedurals, AAPI actors found themselves as the sole doctor in their ensemble casts, as BD Wong did when he played Dr. George Huang in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit from 2001 to 2015.
Though these roles for AAPI actors lacked diversity, they were not in want of major success. ER and Grey’s Anatomy were some of the most popular shows during the years they aired. In the first year that Ming-Na Wen was on ER, the show had the highest viewership in America. In her 10 seasons on Grey’s Anatomy, Sandra Oh won a Golden Globe, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and received five straight Primetime Emmy nominations. AAPI actors were becoming a force all on their own, making names for themselves on juggernaut shows.
Over time, there was progress towards the overdue deviation from the doctor role, as AAPI actors started to get other roles. When Masi Oka played Hiro Nakamura in the hit show Heroes, he saw it as a chance to break past the oft one-dimensional stereotypes that AAPI actors were forced to play. His character Hiro was enthusiastic about being a hero, making him integral to the show’s plot and narrative. But beyond that, Hiro embraced what made him Japanese without losing depth and complexity as a character. Yes, he initially spoke little English and was a comedic nerd to his core but that was not the end of it. Oka portrayed Hiro with depth and complexity, ensuring that he was not just a stereotype of Asian peoples, but a character that was unique and human.
Ensemble casts themselves would see growth in the ratio of representation. Yunjin Kim, Daniel Dae Kim, and Naveen Andrews would star in Lost, one of the most successful shows of the decade that has cemented itself into television history. The co-starring AAPI actors were as integral to the series as any other actor. In the six years that the show aired, 8 actors tied for appearing in the greatest number of episodes at 119 apiece. Of those 8, 3 of them were AAPI actors.
AAPI actors were also able to portray legacy characters in a variety of mediums. In the 2010 revival of Hawaii Five-O, Daniel Dae Kim was the successor to Kam Fong’s character, playing Chin Ho Kelly. Kam Fong’s son, Dennis Chun, and Masi Oka were also able to play characters that appeared in the 7th and 8th most episodes of the show respectively.
Though not the singular leads of their own shows yet, AAPI actors were rising to prominence and proving their worth beyond previous availability. Grey’s Anatomy is not the same show without Sandra Oh’s Christina Yang. Lost and Heroes would not have captured the same fervent fanbase without their AAPI characters. Hawaii Five-O and Law and Order: SVU proves that AAPI actors have a position in legacy and long-running TV shows. The reception and love for AAPI characters have grown immensely since Hsueh first played a role that was controversial for her ethnicity. The spotlight was now being shared more and more with AAPI performers.
In the years following breakout performances from AAPI actors in ensemble shows, more and more AAPI actors were getting lead roles in their own drama television series. The success of these shows, however, had a slower start. Ming-Na Wen’s Inconceivable in 2005 and Russell Wong’s Black Sash in 2003 featured them as leading characters, but both shows were canceled before their first seasons even finished airing.
In 2012 CBS aired Elementary, a contemporary update of Sherlock Holmes in procedural drama format. This show would star Lucy Liu as Dr. Joan Watson, a gender-swapped character based on John Watson, Sherlock’s loyal friend. This casting and writing choice were met with a positive response, as many found Liu’s version of Holmes to elevate the character beyond just being an audience stand-in for Holmes to explain his genius. Through the 7 seasons of the show, Liu starred alongside her co-star playing a role just as important as Sherlock himself. By making a character as famous as Watson an Asian woman, Elementary took strides in improving diversity in drama television, proving that even established characters can be played by AAPI actors to resounding success.
Further progress was made in 2018 when Sandra Oh starred as the lead in her own show Killing Eve. With her resounding critical acclaim and popularity from her previous roles and stardom in Grey’s Anatomy, it seemed that Oh was long overdue for a leading position. However, even she did not initially realize that her time was now, as her initial reading of the script left her confused as to who she was being asked to play. Despite decades of the TV industry pushing AAPI actors to the side, there was now a stronger push for AAPI leads in roles that were not stereotypical or restricting. Oh’s portrayal of the main character, Eve, was a performance filled with intricacy and complexity that gave the entertainment world an opportunity to see the heights of success an AAPI lead could achieve. She simultaneously sidestepped the tropes of Asian and femme fatale characters in this role, continuing to prove her acting prowess and the flexibility that AAPI actors are capable of. In 2021, Sandra Oh would continue her success with The Chair on Netflix, where she continued to push boundaries both on and off-screen. As executive producer and leading actor, Oh’s pioneering in this generation has helped other AAPI actors achieve their own success.
The work for diversity that these many actors have done has seen positive success already: Andre Koji from Warrior, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan from Never Have I Ever, and Simone Ashley from Bridgerton have all continued the legacy of Asian actors working for greater representation.
Simone Ashley’s character of Kate on Bridgerton has built upon the legacy of Nancy Hsueh. Where Hsueh was met with confusion and resistance for being an Asian-American love interest to a white character, Ashley’s interracial romance with the main character was a profound success. In fact, Bridgerton’s second season is considered one of the most popular seasons of streaming television. The Netflix series accumulated the second most streaming hours in its first month than any other English show on the platform with a South Asian lead actress playing the love interest of a white character.
The history of AAPI lead actors in drama television is becoming a story of pioneers and torchbearers. From Nancy Hsueh and Robert Ito to Sandra Oh, Daniel Dae Kim, and countless others, AAPI actors have broken out of their mold as supporting side characters often shoehorned into doctors and similar roles. In today’s television drama, AAPI actors continue to carry the torch given to them by the previous generations as they solidify their place in media and popular culture as lead-worthy performers capable of portraying a diverse array of characters.
