Gedde Watanabe has enjoyed a lengthy career in Hollywood. The actor’s big break was the 1984 film “Sixteen Candles,” in which he played foreign exchange student “Long Duk Dong.” While Watanabe’s line “What’s happenin’, hot stuff?” is still often quoted, the character himself relied on a lot of racist stereotypes, including his name — something Watanabe now says he didn’t see at the time.
“Frankly I was like, this is a good job, and I’m going to get paid more doing one week in this movie that I did [than] for all the years I was in the theater,” the actor told People.