Why everyone loves Korean-American actor John Cho
The 44-year-old who plays Sulu in Star Trek, having catapulted to fame following a memorable bit part in American Pie, talks about defying stereotypes in Hollywood and America’s obsession with race
The last time John Cho went to the South Korean capital, Seoul, from which his family emigrated when he was six, he was described with a word he had never heard before.
“I didn’t know whether to be flattered or not,” Cho says. “But I had to admit that maybe I have this quality. The word is um-ah-chin.”
“Um-chin-ah,” I correct him. It’s an abbreviated phrase that roughly translates to “your mother’s friend’s son”. That is, the kid you’re exhaustively compared with growing up: the one who gets perfect scores on the SAT school tests, plays soccer and the violin, volunteers at the hospital and is elected prom king. He’s the ideal Korean kid, and “he is a ghost”, Cho says. “He doesn’t exist.” And yet, looking at Cho on a bench in New York’s Brooklyn Bridge Park with his sunglasses in his hair, I can’t help thinking it’s exactly the right word.
He looks good at 44, tall and lean in slate-grey jeans, a marled grey T-shirt and a black denim jacket when I meet him for a walk around the Brooklyn neighbourhood of Dumbo. Cho has an easy gait and, when he’s considering something you say, he folds his arms across his chest and bobs his head, taking it all in. He’s likeable on-screen, but that likeability is way more obvious in person, in part because it’s tempered with jokey assessments of himself.
“I don’t know what this means or why it’s so, but people like me,” he says. “It’s been a surprise, because people who know me are split, man. It’s a hot topic; 50-50 at best.”