An actor who had a guest role in two episodes of the beloved sitcom Friends has spoken out about the toxic environment on set and the alleged incident that inspired him to take action against how Asian-Americans were treated in Hollywood.
In 1997, actor and comedian Stephen Park landed a guest role Friends. It was the biggest show on television, and when he’d landed a role across two episodes — season two’s “The One with the Chicken Pox” and season three’s “The One with the Ultimate Fighting Champion” — he was stoked.
However, he says that when he was on set, he overheard a crew member racially call out fellow Asian-American actor James Hong, who also had a guest role in the sitcom. Park claims that he overheard a crew member call Hong to set without using his name.
“He was calling him to the set and essentially saying ‘where is the oriental guy? Get the oriental guy,” Park said to former Boy Meets World stars Danielle Fishel, Will Friedle and Rider Strong on their podcast Pod Meets World.
For Park, it was the final straw, and the incident prompted him to call the Screen Actors Guild about the way Asian-American actors were being treated on set in Hollywood.
“When I called the Screen Actors Guild after that happened, the person I spoke to recommended I write an article to the LA Times,” he explained.
“I started writing this mission statement and I sent it to the LA Times. They sent a couple of reporters and interviewed me, and then they never printed it. This was at the beginning of the internet and I had my email list and I sent my mission statement out to who was on my email list.”
Park encouraged anyone who felt moved by his mission statement to forward it along. His mission statement went viral — which is super impressive given that this was during the very beginning stages of the internet’s existence. Within a week, Park had multiple news publications wanting to interview him.
At the time, the viral mission statement shed light on not just Park’s experience on Friends but the treatment of Asian-Americans within the industry as a whole.
“If this was an isolated incident, I would not have felt compelled to write this mission statement. Unfortunately, I find this attitude and behaviour commonplace in Hollywood,” Park wrote at the time.
“I know many people who have experienced this kind of indignity on a movie or television show set, and you can be sure this kind of thing is going on in the corporate culture as well. Hate crimes against Asian-Americans are on the rise in this country, and negative portrayals of Asians in the media only encourage this trend.”
Despite writing this statement 26 years ago, Park’s statement is still relevant today.
Following his viral statement, Park says he took a step back from acting.
“I had become so race-conscious and so angry that I was looking at everything through the lens of race,” he told the podcast.
“I felt like there is no freedom. I didn’t feel any freedom. So I didn’t have any idea what I was going to do, but I just decided to drop out. I told everybody, ‘I’m not acting anymore.’”
However, in recent years, Park has appeared in films such as Wes Anderson‘s Asteroid City and The French Dispatch and has a role in the upcoming film Mickey 17.
