BD Wong

B.D. Wong: (on how he sees his life) [It's like] a train that for a long time has not always made its destination clear.

B.D. Wong: (on being gay) I've always had tremendous support from my parents. I think there's a myth that gay people have lousy relationships with their parents. Maybe there are logical reasons for a gay person not to have a great relationship with their parents -- not because there's a parent who made him gay, but just because it may be difficult to understand everything. But there are gay people who have great relationships with their parents, and [I] just happen to be one of them.

B.D. Wong: (on the death of his son) I thought I was doing all the right things as a parent by taking care of everything, but guess what? Shit is going to happen. Ironically enough you have to love it, you kind of have to say, Come at me, show me what you're going to show me. Things like this show me as a human being what human beings are capable of. What is heroism without tragedy? Do we want life without heroism?

B.D. Wong: (on 'Fighting Foo') I wasn't used to expressing myself so openly. Usually, I'd stop myself from that, but this time, I didn't.

B.D. Wong: (on TV) Television shows and movies that are all white, I can't watch them. They totally alienate me.

B.D. Wong: (on racism) Every portrayal of an Asian that I was watching as a kid was something that embarrassed me.

B.D. Wong: (on training for his role in "Executive Decision") We were sent down to Fort Bragg in North Carolina for about a week, primarily for weapons handling. There was a lot of target practice. They gave us a crash course as to what a team of people might do on such a mission.

B.D. Wong: (on landing the role in "Executive Decision") It was a big surprise for me that they were actually going to hire me. Creatively, I have been robbed of the opportunity. The community [Asian American] has been robbed of the opportunity to be represented in this facet of humanity, and I also felt it was important for me, careerwise, to round out some of the things that I have done in the past with something like this.

B.D. Wong: (on becoming an actor) When I first decided to become an actor, I went through that whole thing with my folks, because my folks were so sure that they wanted me to be a doctor, which couldn't be a more wrong thing for me, really. But they had their natural kind of parental tendencies, and I had an older brother who was a doctor. So, it was very difficult for them to make the adjustment that I would become an actor, even though it was so clear throughout my whole childhood that I was so not anything but a kind of creative, hammy kind of person. To answer your question, the road that I've been on, which is a huge part of my success, comes from their support. That road that I'm on now is of great satisfaction to them. They feel a great deal of pride, I think, and a great deal of satisfaction in knowing that they played a huge part in my becoming an actor, and that the fear that they swallowed was a big part of what brought me to kind of get here. So, I think they are really enjoying this part of it immensely.

B.D. Wong: (on how he discovered his passion for acting) As soon as I got on the stage, I knew. Not only do I love it, but it loves me. I knew then that I wanted to be an actor.

B.D. Wong: (on his parents) My dad has a childlike, yet wise, philosophy, a simple wisdom. He can cut right to the truth of something, in an emotional way.

B.D. Wong: (on playing Linus in 'You're a Good Man Charlie Brown') With 'Miss Saigon' we wanted to make the point that Asians were under-represented on Broadway. But I don't think I'm taking a job away from a white actor. Besides, I think I'm more like Linus than most white people. I really fit the part.

B.D. Wong: (on his own writing) What I'm most interested in right now is the kind of pop music that has theatricality poetry and drama songs that lend themselves to storytelling and character.

B.D. Wong: I love musical theater. And my experiences with Charlie Brown and As Thousands Cheer were great for me, because I got to do these things I hadn't done before.

B.D. Wong: (on race and individuality) Why can't we have our own individuality, and you have your own individuality? And what's really wrong with that?

B.D. Wong: (on how he views being an actor) An actor, to me, is that person who wants to be part of that equation where they are a messenger, are able to use their talent and their passion for their craft to enrich someone's life by their witnessing what it is that you do. And that can be done in a lot of different ways. When I was a kid, nobody ever said that I should do it. They were all very negative about it, and yet, I know that there are a lot of negative things about it, and I would never tell somebody not to do it. It's so rewarding and so incredibly full of adventure that how can you tell a kid not to do that because of that? Now, they should understand more about life, is what I think kids should do. And the thing about life is that life is full of ups and downs, and a lot of lousy stuff and a lot of great stuff, and if you choose the right thing in your life, those rare moments of greatness and wonder and magic are so worth the price that you pay when the lousy stuff comes by, that you have to do it. You just have to.

B.D. Wong: (on handling rejection) I'm just getting to a point now in my life where rejection is not taken personally. Although every once in a while, that one thing catches you where you have put so much of your heart into something and so much of a knowledge in your mind that it is the right thing for you, and when it doesn't happen, it can be really, really sad. That's the one thing that I really want to get out of my life, the feeling of sadness that happens, because I'm becoming more and more aware now that it's not personal, it's not a personal thing. And a lot of times, I used to have to do a lot of tricky justification to kind of get past it, and I don't have to do that so much anymore. I don't have to say, "Oh, they're jerks," or, "Who needs them, anyway?" I just have to kind of accept that life is what it is, and that my life that I've chosen, which I love and which is noble, has these things in it. And I kind of like that now. I kind of wear it like the red badge of courage, I guess.

B.D. Wong: (on barriers he's faced as an Asian American actor) There's no question that race really plays a huge part in my being picked or not being picked every day of my life. It comes up. We're not yet at a point in this country -- or, I'm not even sure if in any country -- where actors are totally, where we can be completely blind to color. That is something that, if things keep going the way they're going, it's very possible it could happen. But there will always, there is at this time always a really keen, a very palpable awareness of someone's race. So, it's very hard to put your finger on why you don't get picked for something sometimes. You aren't always aware; you aren't always sure whether it is any number of things that could be the reason why you've been rejected. You sense, a lot of times, that rejection comes from the color of your skin, and that's very, very demoralizing. But most of all, rejection [itself] is pretty demoralizing. That particular thing is, of course, a very sensitive issue for me. I'm not sure if I can tell you how large a part it plays, but it definitely plays a large part on a day-to-day basis.

B.D. Wong: (on working on the movie 'Stay') I loved, loved, loved, working on this movie, even though the part was small. Dr. Ren is a Psychiatric Mobile Unit physician, the guy they send you with a crew when you call 911 and tell them somebody is going to jump off the roof across the street from your apartment. Marc Forster was visionary, fascinating, impeccably tasteful, and very very easygoing. He let me make something out of it, and I had a great time. I can't wait till this movie comes out. Ewan MacGregor and Naomi Watts were consummate and warm.