On the Pod Meets World podcast, Mickey 17 actor Stephen Park appeared for an interview where he discussed his time on Friends. Park appeared on the series twice, once in Season 2’s “The One with the Chicken Pox,” and again in Season 3’s “The One with the Ultimate Fighting Champion.” The guest actor noted how beloved acting legend James Hong (Chinatown, Big Trouble in Little China, Everything Everywhere All at Once) also appeared in the latter episode. On the set, Park says he heard the crew casually referring to Hong in an offensive way, lamenting how it seemed to have just been normal behavior.
“It was at the time, I felt it was kind of a toxic environment,” Park said. “James Hong was the actor who was also on the episode with me, and [a crewmember] was calling him to the set and you know, essentially saying, you know, ‘Where the f**k is the Oriental guy? Get the Oriental guy.’”’
Park added, “This is bigger than this show… this isn’t the first time that this happened, but this is the environment where this is business as usual in Hollywood; in 1997, I guess it was. And nobody felt the need to correct this or say anything about it. So this is normal behavior.”
“When I called the Screen Actors Guild after that happened, the person I spoke with recommended I write an article to the L.A. Times,” Park went on to share, pointing out how he attempted to bring the situation to light. “I started writing this mission statement and I sent it to the L.A. Times. They sent a couple of reporters and interviewed me, and then they never printed it.”
Park Shared His Grievances Online
Frustrated with getting no help from the press, Park wrote about the incident in a post shared on the internet in 1997. Park also remembers how he felt so upset at the time that he wound up stepping away from acting entirely. It was only after taking a break for a year when he slowly started to get back into show business.
“I had become so race-conscious and so angry that I was looking at everything through the lens of race,” he said. “I felt like there was 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.’”
