That’s right, George Takei, everyones favorite gay Asian-American actor from the original Star Trek series has recently been cast on NBC’s X-Men clone original science fiction drama Heroes as the father of one of the characters. But before you dismiss this blog post as just another “meh, Asian person on TV” blog posts, what I found interesting about the fact that George Takei’s character will be speaking exclusively in Japanese.
“My agent called and asked whether I speak Japanese. And I said, ‘Yes, of course,”‘ he said. But the producers were unconvinced and faxed over a scene for Takei to play.
“I got the pages, and they were in English! And I said, ‘I thought they wanted me to do it in Japanese?’ And my agent said, ‘They want you to translate this.’ They want me to translate this as well as play it … “So I went and auditioned, and they were blown away.”
I wonder if his Japanese has an American accent or not. (Hey, my Chinese does.) Since I have yet to see any clips on YouTube of his segments on the show, here’s a clip where George talks about his newest role and about depictions of Asians and Asian-Americans on television:
