There’s a scene early on in Ryan Murphy’s new Netflix period drama “Hollywood,” in which an aspiring director, played by Darren Criss, meets with Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong, played by Michelle Krusiec, to try to convince her to be in his movie. Midway through their conversation he casually mentions that he’s half-Filipino, which seems to catch her off guard. She stops, takes off her glasses to see him better, and then says, “You’re Asian?”
What follows is a conversation not only about what it means to be an Asian-American person in Hollywood, but the further consequences that come with looking like one.