In this season 4 finale episode, actors from The Sympathizer television show, Hoa Xuande, Fred Nguyen Khan, Duy Nguyen, Kayli Tran, PhanXine, VyVy Nguyen, and Tom Dang, converse with hosts Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Sympathizer, and Philip Nguyen, a Vietnamese-American Studies scholar for DVAN, the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network
Read below for transcript.
Philip Nguyen:
My name is Philip Nguyen and I am the co-host for Accented Dialogues in Diaspora presented by the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network. Welcome to you all who have joined us throughout this season, throughout the spring, as we’ve hosted Accented, and are very, very excited to announce that Accented will be coming to Spotify and Apple Podcasts and wherever it is that you get your podcasts very, very soon.
We’ve started to release episodes of our show that we’ve recorded before so that you can listen and re-experience what it’s like to be here on an Accented show with us. I’m going to keep the blurb tonight really quickly because we’ve got plenty of guests that I’m sure y’all would want to hear from, and I’ll also say that there may be some spoilers, so if you haven’t finished the sympathizer series yet [foreign language 00:00:52].
Tonight’s show is presented by the The Diasporic Vietnamese Artist Network. We champion our complex and diverse stories for future generations as refugees, immigrants, survivors, and their descendants, and know that our stories must be heard. And to hear more of our stories and to stay plugged in into what DVAN is up to and doing at any given point in time, you can follow us at we are underscore DVAN on Instagram and all social media channels.
Accented dialogues in Diaspora, this show, this virtual show that’s now becoming a podcast, this is our fourth year. This is our 38th show. This is the season finale for, I believe, our fourth season, and it’s really been a way for us to cultivate this intimate space to bring cultural producers, stars from the Vietnamese and Southeast Asian diasporas. I am really, really fortunate and honored to be a co-host alongside my host/co-host, Viet Thanh Nguyen, whose novel The Sympathizer, I’m sure many of you all have read at this point, and I assure you that I’m not going to go down the list of accolades for tonight.
Just know that without him, we would not be here today as an organization, as he’s one of the co-founders for the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network, and he’s the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Sympathizer, which has become this incredible HBO Limited series. If y’all could please give your virtual hands, put them up. Give them … Oh my goodness, I’m nervous, Viet. It’s the finale. Put them together, give him a round of applause for our host, Mr. Viet Thanh Nguyen.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Thank you so much. V, are you nervous or did you do a pre-drink?
Philip Nguyen:
It’s ready.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
This is my third cocktail and we haven’t even started the show yet, okay?
Philip Nguyen:
I feel like you’ve been drinking since the season finale.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
This is a Negroni Sbagliato. I finally learned how to pronounce this. It’s a Negroni with Prosecco, and as you can see, it has red and yellow colors. It’s not a political statement, it just simply echoes some of our conflicted heritage, which is what The Sympathizer also deals with. I’m delighted to be here with you, also with DJ Puzzle, who just put the playlist in the chat window for those of you who wanted to know the amazing music that he’s been playing. And we’re just so lucky to have DJ Puzzle with us almost every time we do this show.
And it’s a momentous show because here, we get to have several of the cast members from The Sympathizer TV show with us tonight. And of course, The Sympathizer just wrapped up. Its American broadcast on Sunday night. In other parts of the world, it’s just been released all seven episodes. In most parts of the world, I think you can now watch the entirety of The Sympathizer, and I’ve been seeing people online saying they’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting for seven weeks until all episodes were available before they could binge the seven hours of The Sympathizer.
We will be talking possibly about plot spoilers all the way into the final really moving shot of the seventh episode. Now, Philip, we have several guests with us, and you’re going to be doing the introductions, I believe.
Philip Nguyen:
Oh. Yes, I will. And I’ll keep them very, very short so that we’ll have … And I think they’re keep them pretty short. Each guest has the character that they play in the sympathizer series next to their name in the Zoom screen just in case y’all forget. I’d like to first introduce Mr. Hoa Xuande who plays the captain in The Sympathizer. Welcome Hoa to the show. How are you feeling tonight?
Hoa Xuande:
I am good. I’ve been looking forward to having this little brief chat with you all.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
It’s really weird hearing you speak in your natural voice.
Hoa Xuande:
Yeah.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Because from the first time I met you, you were only using your American accent, which you do so well as an Australian.
Hoa Xuande:
Yeah. I’m still conflicted in that way, so the character’s rubbed off on me. Even here, I’m like, hang on, what should I be what? And on a day-to-Day basis, especially in the States, I just use my American accent because I feel like it’s easier for me to get by. But especially when we’re talking like this in interviews and stuff, I’m like, well actually, be yourself, but who am I?
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Yeah. I personally find the Australian accent to be one of the sexiest of the Vietnamese Diaspora, so you be you. All right, next?
Philip Nguyen:
Next.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Next.
Philip Nguyen:
We’ve got … Go for it, Viet.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Oh yeah, Tom Dang, who plays the skinny RTO, which means, I believe, the radio operator. This is all part of wartime lingo from the Vietnam War. Hey Tom, thanks for being with us tonight.
Tom Dang:
Hi, everyone. Thanks for having me. Super excited.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Yeah. We’re going to talk about your role and what it meant to carry all that weaponry and gear in the jungles of Southeast Asia.
Tom Dang:
Oh, absolutely.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
All right. Next is Fred Nguyen Khan, who plays the character of Bon, one of the three blood brothers, and just a character that I feel so deeply for because Bon is so conflicted and so tragic of a character. Welcome.
Fred Nguyen Khan:
Thank you. Thank you. Nice to see everyone again.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
You’re from Montreal, right?
Fred Nguyen Khan:
That’s correct.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Do you have a Canadian accent or is it just not an accent that I’m hearing?
Fred Nguyen Khan:
You know what? I have what think is a mix of a Vietnamese, English, and French accent when I speak English.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Oh, okay. So you can actually speak French?
Fred Nguyen Khan:
Yeah, I’m fluent. I went to school in French.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Oh, awesome. I didn’t know that. If we get season two, it’s set in Paris.
Fred Nguyen Khan:
Yep.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Unfortunately, you’re supposed to speak not perfect French, so you’ll have to tone it down for that.
Fred Nguyen Khan:
It’s fine. I was actually helping a lot of the lines for Cao Ky Duyen when she was speaking French. I was somewhat coaching her on her R’s and her sentences, and it was fun for me to be able to use that for once.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Right. And you all get to say [foreign language 00:06:44] in the course of it.
Fred Nguyen Khan:
Yeah.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Next is our third blood brother, Duy Nguyen, who was also coming to us from Montreal. Hi, Duy.
Duy Nguyen:
Hi. So happy to be here.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Yeah, you look 10 years younger without your goatee.
Fred Nguyen Khan:
The goatee and the mask and the scars, yes.
Duy Nguyen:
Thank you. Thank you.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
I believe you’re 18 years old. Is that the rumor that I heard?
Duy Nguyen:
No. Well, I wish. I was 18 at some point, but no longer.
Hoa Xuande:
Yes.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
You’re also calling from Montreal, I believe?
Duy Nguyen:
I’m from Montreal. Yeah, Canada represent. Tim Hortons.
Fred Nguyen Khan:
Did you go and get that for this show?
Duy Nguyen:
I might. I don’t know. Maybe.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
We’re not yet sponsored by Tim Hortons, but Tim Hortons, if you’re watching.
Duy Nguyen:
No.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
By the way, for those of you who are wondering, we’re introducing everybody alphabetically by their surname except for Hoa, because Hoa is actually calling us to us from Austin, Texas where he has somewhere to go in about 30 minutes. All right.
Hoa Xuande:
Awesome. I’ll around for a next on our list is VyVy Nguyen who plays the Crapulent Major’s wife, except that in the TD adaptation, the Crapulent Major actually gets a name that. We’ll find out in just a moment. Hi, VyVy.
VyVy Nguyen:
Hello. Thank you for having me.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Now, in fact, there’s a little bit of a backstory between you and the actor who plays the Crapulent Major. Can you tell us that backstory?
VyVy Nguyen:
Oh, I feel … Well, he’s on the call too. He should join in.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
We’ll get to him in just a moment.
VyVy Nguyen:
Should I tell it now during the intro?
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
VyVy Nguyen:
Okay. So I went to USC and so did Linh. Linh was in the cinema program, I was in the drama program, and he did this thing where he brought a bunch of Vietnamese filmmakers from Vietnam for the summer to do this crash course in American filmmaking techniques. I was an actor in it, because they wanted people who understood and could speak Vietnamese to be part of it.
I met him through that. And my partner in the short we ultimately did was Scott Ly who’s also on the show. And then, I had a wedding in Vietnam two years later that I was attending, and Linh was like, “Come hang out and I’ll show you around.” He was my one person I knew in Vietnam. Cut to when I auditioned for this show, I was asking, I was like, “Who’s playing my husband? I am really curious.” And everyone’s telling me, “You won’t know who he is. He’s this guy from Vietnam. First time acting.” I was like, “Okay.” And then, our first day on set, he shows up and I was like, “What? You’re my husband? That’s crazy.” It was fate.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
It was fate. By the way, those of you in the audience, if you roll over everybody’s window screen, you’ll see their actual name and the name of the character they play in The Sympathizer as well, which leads us to the next person, Linh Phan, whose screen name is Phanxinê. And he plays the Crapulent Major who was actually given a name and a nickname in the TV adaptation. Major Oanh or The Dumpling.
Linh Phan (Phanxine):
Ha banh bao, hi everyone. Hello from Vietnam.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
The durian loving dumpling. Hey, we actually know each other from a long, long time ago talking about coincidences.
Linh Phan (Phanxine):
Yes. Yeah. Do you remember, actually, I know you through your wife. It’s like I went to USC and then she went to Vietnam and had the seminar and how I get to know her and get to know you. Yeah.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
I remember though, when you were a graduate student in cinema at the cinematic art school, actually, I gave you a ride one night … This was about 20 years ago … to a student even. I can’t remember what it was. But I remember very distinctly talking to you, the Vietnamese graduate student filmmaker, about Apocalypse Now. And you liked it.
Linh Phan (Phanxine):
Yeah.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
That’s not [inaudible 00:10:31]. I won’t hold it against you. I like it too. But okay. But why did you choose the screen name Phanxinê when you were cast in the TV series?
Linh Phan (Phanxine):
Well, actually a lot of people in Vietnam know me as Phanxinê. I think that’s easier for the American audience, the international audience to spell my name. Because if I spell my full name in Vietnamese, it’s hard for them to remember. I think it’s cool to have a nickname.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Yeah. And I think out of all of the actors here, you are actually the only non-professional actor because you were a director who just became … You decided to take a real actor’s job basically in this TV series.
Okay. All right. Next is Kayli Tran, who plays the Communist Spy in the TV series. And I don’t believe the communist spy is actually given a name in the actual TV series itself. Hi, there.
Kayli Tran:
Hi. Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Awesome. You did such a good job as the communist spy in the TV series. Was it hard for you to play that role because it was all trauma? All trauma with you.
Kayli Tran:
I think we hired a lot of great actors who really want to torture me. I don’t know. It helped. I didn’t have to do much acting, it was real.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
No method acting for you. Got it. Okay. All right. So we’re all here to have some fun and talk as candidly as anybody wants to about the making of The Sympathizer, the roles that you all had, the thoughts about everything, basically. But let’s start off with the fact that now all seven episodes are out there. Everybody can watch them.
And it’s been a very long time in the making, because I think we started shooting in late 2022. And for most of you, the actual physical part of finishing shooting the TV series wrapped up around May 2023. And after that, there was a lot of post-production and things. You came back and you did what’s called ADR, which you dubbed the various lines in the aftermath. But for the audiences who are watching it now, you’re getting it over the last seven weeks or maybe you just watched it all last night. But for these actors, they’ve been at it since at least 2022.
Hoa is shaking his head because he was traumatized by the fact that he had to audition for nine months for this role. But this is the question we have all of you. How do you feel now that it’s all over? And presumably this has been a momentous event in your life, the auditioning for, the making of, the rolling out, the parties, the reception, whatever private conversations you’ve had with fans and family and friends and all of that. Let’s start with you, Hoa. How do you feel after all?
Hoa Xuande:
Yeah. Well, like you said, it was an eight, nine month audition process and that’s when I really started to get myself into this. And then, it was like another six, seven months to shoot the thing. And then, when you’re in it, you just lose all concept of time and you don’t even know where you’re at and you’re just literally looking at the day and the week as it comes, until apparently it’s all over.
By May 2023, it was all over. And then you’ve spent a year and a half doing this thing really intensely and then it was all ripped away from you. And then, I think it took me a while … And I’ve spoken to most of you guys … It took us a while to really come get over it, so to speak, because we were just doing it so intensely. And then obviously, that’s not even when it’s fully done because post-production is a whole nother thing in itself.
And then having to fix things, re-shoot things, additionally shoot things, fix dialogue and stuff like that, that was a whole nother six months or so. So when it finally premiered and it was finally out for people to see, when they brought a cake in was like, “We’re done with post-production.” It was like, oh my God, it’s over. It’s finally over. And then, seeing people watch it and then giving their feedback and stuff like that, it’s really funny how people can just acutely surmise everything that happened to two years of your life. It’s been surreal though.
But yeah, apart from that, I guess I should say, it has been a dream come true. Honestly, I never have imagined I’d be able to do something like this, so yeah.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
I had you over for dinner at my house before all the shooting started, and back then, you didn’t say a word. You were just quiet and shy.
Hoa Xuande:
Yeah.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
You were under probably a lot of pressure and stress at that time.
Hoa Xuande:
I definitely felt pressure.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
And then, we had you over to my house two nights ago when you’re like, “Oh!” You’re like, “I’m Hoa Xuande the movie star now.” Do you feel there’s been a big transformation for you the last year and a half?
Hoa Xuande:
A little bit, for sure, in the way that I think doing so something like this gave me the confidence to accept that I can do something like this. Because when I came onto it and when I started doing this, I was really unsure of myself, I was self-doubting, and I think as actors do. You’ve probably heard a lot of actors talk about this, and I’m sure a lot of people on this panel can relate to, you have this imposter syndrome.
And regardless of how much people wanted you to do something, or they thought that you were right for something, or that they’re trusting you with your choices, there’s a deep part of you that is always unsure that if you could really pull this through, that if you’re really doing what you think you can do, until you really see it reflected back to you, you’re always in that gray area of like, can I do this? Is it going to be right?
And I am not saying I’m leaning into what other people think of what I’ve done, but it’s nice to have other people’s recognition and praise and critique of what your work is, and that everything that you put forward is what people have wanted from you, or at least from the show. That’s been really nice. Hearing that allows you to have some confidence and appreciation for the fact that you can do what you can do. I guess I came over to your house the other night and was just like, “Ah. I guess I was able to do something right.”
Philip Nguyen:
It feels so weird to be able to hear you speak in your native accent, but also to hear our native tongue being spoken in a TV show that is as big as The Sympathizer too. And I’m sure for our audience, I don’t even know if they can even … The depth of how much work it actually takes to make sure that what’s said on screen and the subtitles and the language and the conversations are happening at the right time in the right place.
Tom, I know that you’re not only our Skinny RTO, but also part of the ADF looping squad. So what is being a part of those squads? What’s it meant to you now that the series is gone and, in a lot of ways, you’ve become a ghost?
Tom Dang:
Oh, spoiler. Yeah. ADR for people in the audience that don’t know, is additional recording. And basically, it’s when us actors come in and either dub over ourselves correct audio mistakes or add in lines that originally weren’t there in the show, but because of directing and editing, they want to insert this line maybe off camera to make the story go. Looping is the other half of that. And looping is also what I do.
I think I’m the only person on this panel that represents the Vietnamese loop group. Yes, I am. Whoo! Shout out to [inaudible 00:18:15], shout out to Joseph Hieu. Loopers, we do background voicing. All the crowd scenes that you see, especially the ones in Saigon and all of that, it’s all done by a group of eight of us. We all go in and we say things like, [foreign language 00:18:37]. We just keep layering that on top of each other to make this wall of sounds.
And to answer your question, how does that feel now that everything’s wrapped? It feels like I get to celebrate with two different families. I have this one, I have the principal cast, and then I also have my looping family. And we’re all still trying to figure out how to all get together, because we’re all based in the same city. And yeah, it’s just a lot of … It’s like double the happy, double the farewells. I don’t know if that answers that question.
Philip Nguyen:
Shout-out to the ADR loop crew that I’ve seen the post on Subtle Viet Traits. I’m sure a lot of our audience members are also part of that group. Well, I want to refrain from using the word authenticity, but how real the Vietnamese felt really spoke to me. And I think Fred, when we had you for the companion podcast, which I’m going to subtly plug. If y’all haven’t listened to the podcast yet, you can listen to it on the Max app or on YouTube, also wherever you listen to podcasts.
You were in there dropping a lot of Vietnamese, Vietnamese-American, Vietnamese-Canadian colloquialisms, Fred, I got that [foreign language 00:19:55] from you. You could talk a little bit more about bringing a character like Bon who represents this faction of our community that we don’t always get a chance to talk to, to life. And then, what’s life been like for you after the end of the show?
Fred Nguyen Khan:
I’m just glad everyone here can learn that I actually speak English.
Hoa Xuande:
Wait, you do? What?
Fred Nguyen Khan:
Vaguely, yeah. But to come back to the Vietnamese slang, I think it’s just something that came naturally with the whole ensemble cast. When we were all together, it felt like a huge [foreign language 00:20:29] and we were all just throwing ideas to everyone. Not to throw anyone under the bus, but Duy being the most [foreign language 00:20:38] person in the world, I had to use that word a lot just to tone him down a little bit. You know what I’m saying?
Duy Nguyen:
That’s fake news, by the way.
Philip Nguyen:
Being the most [foreign language 00:20:53] person in the world has … And then, how’s life changed for you, Fred? Because we don’t know yet, and fingers crossed that there will be a sequel. But I know you read the sequel to The Sympathizer even before being casted, right?
Fred Nguyen Khan:
Yeah. I don’t know if it actually helped my audition process, but I thought it would give more information on my character that I could use in the auditions. But I don’t know if that actually worked or not. I got the role, so I guess somehow, it a little bit worked. I’m just excited to, if we get a chance to do the committed, it takes place in Paris and I can speak French fluently, so it’s pretty cool for me to be able to just throw that out randomly. Mixing Vietnamese and French and English at the same time is what means we do in Montreal. We’re just multilingual shit talkers.
Kayli Tran:
Is Fred auditioning right now?
Fred Nguyen Khan:
I am. I’m just pitching. You stay out of this Kayli.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Kayli, everybody. We’re all pitching. Okay, everybody say, “Robin, there’s a second book, there’s a second season and all of that.”
Hoa Xuande:
We need everybody out there listening right now to ring up their local HBO representative and pitch that. Forget about the elections. This is more important.
Tom Dang:
Yeah, we are very happy to give you their direct contact.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Right, fan letters, fan campaigns. People actually do this to HBO. They fan bomb the social media comments about whatever canceled show they’re angry about. I’ve seen it, okay? You work it out there. Hey Fred, you actually brought up Duy. And in fact, both of you are in the same city in Montreal. And Duy, just tell us a little bit, before we get to how this show has changed your life-
Duy Nguyen:
Oh, God.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Tell us about this bosom buddies friendship that you have with Fred.
Duy Nguyen:
Yeah. How this show has changed my life. I found a whole new family that I didn’t know was out there. There’s a whole new community of Vietnamese artists, of Vietnamese people. That’s really changed my life. Now I have people to talk to, besides Fred. And me and Fred, we’ve been friends way before and then we read for each other’s. He got the role and then he introduced me to his agent who’s now my agent. And that agent, the agent got me the role of Man. So it just all going crazy. How to Montreal [inaudible 00:23:46] just be together in one HBO show. I can’t explain how crazy that is.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
But also, we have a very diverse cast of Vietnamese actors who come from different parts of the world. And you’re one of the few who were actually were born … Not just born in Vietnam, but you grew up in Vietnam as well, right?
Duy Nguyen:
Yeah.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
You have a very complicated role, because you are Man, who is … Okay, well I don’t know how much of a plot spoiler to give, but you play a very important role in the hierarchy. I’m really curious about what that meant for you to play that role, given the education you must have received about the revolution and its aftermath and everything like that and family’s reactions to your role as Man.
Duy Nguyen:
Yeah, it’s complicated. It’s very complicated. Because I grew up in Vietnam. I grew up in Hanoi, Vietnam, decades after the war. I moved to Montreal 10 years ago. I actually had little to no knowledge of the war. And then also, history is taught differently, it depends on where you’re from. The reeducation camp was never mentioned in the history book in Vietnam or anyone. When I read your book, The Sympathizer, for the first time, I thought that section of the book was fiction.
I was like, “This is not real. This is not real, this can be real.” And then, I worked on this show and then doing research on the character and the time period, reading articles, journals of the people that lived through it. And then I realized, holy crap, there’s a part of history I never knew about. In Vietnam. I’ve been taught that don’t ever be a sympathizer, “Don’t look at the other side. The other side are not human. There’s something else you should not get an understanding of.”
But then I read your book and I work on the show and just like Man at the end of the season he became the sympathizer and so am I. Now knowing this part of history, knowing this part of trauma and pain that I’d never been taught of, so yeah, so meta.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Wow, that’s moving to me, that I hope to ruin your life. But anyway. VyVy, interestingly, I was watching TV randomly with my son and we were watching an episode of Young Sheldon, very popular TV series, and it featured a Vietnamese American family in it. And I was like, wait a minute, that’s VyVy playing this Vietnamese American mother. You had a whole life obviously before The sympathizer, but I was just so struck that a Vietnamese American mom and her kids appeared in Young Sheldon. Can you just tell us a little bit about that?
VyVy Nguyen:
Well now, I like to think it’s the Crapulent Major’s wife’s other life after she loses her husband. She moves to Texas, new Life. Sorry, what was the question?
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Yeah. How did you end up on Young Sheldon? That was so random?
VyVy Nguyen:
Oh, yeah. On the show, they’re in Texas and it was really nice because it’s set in the early 90s and his best friend in high school is this little Vietnamese boy that continued to have more of a storyline. And then, they ended up bringing in his family. It was really nice just to have this representation, because we are in Texas, we exist. Kayli’s from Texas.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Yeah, Texas.
VyVy Nguyen:
Oh no, wait, no, you’re from Nashville. I’m so sorry. Someone else is from Texas. Anyway.
Hoa Xuande:
I’m sitting in Texas.
VyVy Nguyen:
There you go. Hoa’s in Texas.
Tom Dang:
Scott, Scott, Scott. Scott Ly.
VyVy Nguyen:
Scott’s from Texas. I’m so sorry. But we have southern Viets in South USA.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Scott Ly, the heavy machine gunner. All right, so VyVy, how did this TV theories change your life?
VyVy Nguyen:
Oh. My parents are finally proud of me. I got to speak a lot of Vietnamese, they liked that. And actually, this is something that is very-
VyVy Nguyen:
…the Vietnamese, they liked that. It’s actually, this is something that is very spoken about in the Vietnamese community, and it was really cool, because obviously we have [inaudible 00:28:08] in the show [inaudible 00:28:11]. These are big names in our community, and when they saw that they were attached and I was working on the same thing, they were just like, “Yes, you’ve made it.” They didn’t care about Young Sheldon.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Right. But also you actually got to play a very patriotic role, unlike some of the other actors in the TV series, right? You actually got to endorse some things that I think some people in the Vietnamese American community would actually support.
VyVy Nguyen:
Yes. Yeah. So it was nice to… There’s so many different voices on this show and so many different perspectives that it was really beautiful to kind of cover all of that range, all of us here.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Yeah. For those of you who did not watch that moment in the TV series, it’s when VyVy, playing the Crapulent Major’s wife, really endorses strongly the efforts of the general and his men to take back Vietnam. So much so that she gives up, I think $10,000, which is a gigantic amount of money in 1976, 1977. And a Vietnamese person who gives up $10,000 of ill gotten money, that means there’s real dedication to the patriotic cause.
VyVy Nguyen:
Yeah, I have people online yelling at me being like, “Your character is insane. Why did she do that? She’s got children to look out for.”
Philip Nguyen:
Oh my gosh. It’s funny how they would say your character is insane more so than some of the characters that may not have necessarily been on their side growing up. And that your parents were able to watch it. That must’ve been such a cool experience too. And Linh, you are one of the most successful Vietnamese filmmakers out there. You’re also nominated for one of the most prestigious awards in Vietnam. You’re now… Can you talk a little bit about that transition from being a filmmaker into acting and The Sympathizer as well as just how you see The Sympathizer fitting into this larger body of perhaps diasporic Vietnamese art and cinema too. Having also been one of the co-founders… And I’ve just got a shout out to East Films because we’ve got some folks in the audience with us today of which you’re a part of. So Ann Linh.
Hoa Xuande:
Uh-oh. I just got it.
Linh Phan (Phanxine):
Yeah, actually, I told this story on Hollywood Reporter Roundtable. When I applied for playing the role, actually, I’m not really serious to get the role at all because I’m not an actor. I really hate looking at my self on screen, even after now I finished the show, I still cannot get used to look at my self whenever I watch the show. Whenever my face show up, I’m just, it looks weird to me. But I’m really glad that I got the role. And I see this, it is a good chance for me to know how a Hollywood production really process and then get to know a lot people and get to know Hoa and Fred and Youi, and VyVy, Kayli, Tom, Kieu Chinh. I’m so glad that she played my mom. So we spend a lot of time and then we talk about what should I do for my next movie with her, stuff like that. But I think this show, so I’m growing up watching movies American movie about Vietnam World, and then we also have movies in Vietnam about the Vietnam world too.
And then you can see it’s very different point of view, and I think it’s through time we have more and more movies that either from American but more sympathy for the Vietnamese characters. For this one, it’s kind of telling the story through the Vietnamese characters. And then now we have a chance to show the whole cast from Vietnamese around the world. And we play Vietnamese characters in the show too. And I hope that this is something that I learned, so I can do my own movie either from Vietnam or with American production with East, so we can tell more story and then we can have more creative people behind the camera to tell our story. So I think this is a good first step. And then to me, it’s so amazing experience to know everyone during the production, before the production, during the production, and even after the production. And even now, after the film released, people reach out and talk about when will you come to America to do movies, stuff like that. So I think, yeah, it’s good.
Philip Nguyen:
And since finishing The Sympathizer, you haven’t been banned from going back to Vietnam evidently, right? That’s something that’s an up in the air question right now for some of the cast and for Viet too himself, so.
Linh Phan (Phanxine):
No, we learn and you should come to Vietnam actually right after the production. All this guy go to Vietnam and hang out and have good time. So yeah.
Philip Nguyen:
Thanks Linh. And then Kayli, you kind of bookend the series. You’re at the beginning, and then for those of you all that haven’t seen it yet, you’re at the end as the Better Spy than is. What was that… I mean, you give some of the most intense performances that I think you and John Cho give some of the most intense performances that we see throughout the series. I mean, what was it like for you in those scenes? And then was how far have you come from being a national born Vietnamese American to now thrust into onto the Hollywood stage both in the show and in real life?
Kayli Tran:
I mean, I don’t think my life has changed that much. I’ve been working for a few years, so it’s always been a slow, steady climb. What did Miley Cyrus say, what’s her phrase?
Philip Nguyen:
It’s the climb.
Kayli Tran:
It’s the climb, yeah. Yeah. So it hasn’t been too crazy where your life is turned upside down. And so it’s not like that, but it’s filming the scenes definitely intense. So I had to pace myself and compartmentalize because at the end of the day, we go eat dinner with each other, and here I am still feeling pissed off that they were tossing me around and punching me and whatever. But yeah, I wish I got to meet John Cho and take notes from him. His scenes were great. I wish I was there too.
Philip Nguyen:
I mean, you also have some of the most intense scenes with Robert Downey Jr. who is five characters, and he’s not here now, but I mean, what was it like to be in scenes with him? I think on your social media, you posted that was one of the first times you had met him too, and he was in character, right?
Kayli Tran:
Yeah. So when I had booked this, I was super excited. Oh my God, you get to work with Robert Downey Jr. You get to meet Ironman, and then here I am, seeing the schedule, day one, you’re going to do the bucket scene, and they’ve already been shooting in the morning. So by the time I show up to set, everybody’s already in character. I hadn’t even gotten to shake hands or say hi to anyone. So that’s my first time meeting Hoa as well. And Robert Downey Jr. is in full costume, so I didn’t even recognize him until we were in the cell. And then I was like, oh shoot. And then while I think he might’ve given me a nod or like, hey, it’s going to be okay, a whisper in my ear or something while I’m about to drop my pants. And I was mortified. I was, I cannot believe that this is how I’m meeting everybody and they’re all staring at me. I am mortified, but whatever I can use for my acting, I guess, because these are not fake tears.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Wow, that’s amazing. I mean, that is method acting. I did not realize that was your introduction to everyone.
Hoa Xuande:
I felt so bad for you because yeah, it was your first day on set doing this thing, and then you’re literally being humiliated as the character, but then doing something humiliating as an act in front of other actors.
Kayli Tran:
Yeah, I mean, it’s meta. I was, wow, way to ease me into this. They literally just throw me in and then called action.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Well, I mean, humiliation is certainly a part of the method that was true for quite a few people in this show. Now, Hoa has to leave. So we’re going to spend a couple of minutes with you before you have to take off.
Hoa Xuande:
Yeah, all good.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
The next awesome thing with your pleather pants people to see that he’s wearing so super tight and a shiny right now.
VyVy Nguyen:
Show it off, Hoa.
Hoa Xuande:
It’s just leather. They’ve got me dressed for this thing that I have to attend. I could potentially, yeah, sorry. Yep.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
No, but I mean, you have some obviously very intense scenes throughout the seven hours of the series. And in fact, I think you’re in almost every scene of the series, more than anybody else, more than anybody else. Such an intense role for you all around. But very particularly some very specific scenes. And I’m not giving anything away. I mean, hopefully people have read the novel and if you haven’t read the novel, that’s your problem okay, because I’m going to tell you that at the end of the novel, the character of the captain is tortured, right? And that’s your role, hoa. So what was it like to undergo these torture scenes that I devised for you?
Hoa Xuande:
Yeah. Well, when I got the role, I knew I was going to have to do it. And weirdly, maybe sadistically, I was kind of looking forward to it because I just want to see if this was going to be the way that I kind of imagined. And obviously there have been things that have been slightly adapted, but for the most part it was torture. There’s things that we had to do to get around doing things actually for real. Obviously it wasn’t a live battery and it wasn’t hooked up and it wasn’t, that was all the acting part. But then there’s things like having to tape my eyes open, which we couldn’t really cheat. So we actually had to tape my eyes open for real, with a special tape. And then we were only allowed to shoot for 30 minutes at a time while my eyes were taped. And then they had people on standby to make sure that I’d be okay, because apparently that stuff can really be permanently damaging, so yeah.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
I didn’t realize, so when they taped your eyes open, you actually cannot blink your eyes?
Hoa Xuande:
No, because the thing is they wanted to have the tape on my eyes and then be, just leave your eyes open and make it look like your eyes are taped open. But I was like, it’s actually really hard to do that and then speak and then act, because naturally you’re just going to want to close your eyes. The only way you’re going to keep my eyes open is to actually force it open, so they did that. But the thing is, obviously within the rules and regulations, they were only allowed to do that within 30 minutes of each shot. So we had to just do all of that within 30 minutes. And yeah, I was basically yelling and not acting.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
You should actually claim the reverse that you were acting.
Hoa Xuande:
I mean, sorry, full disclaimer. It was really fun and I was acting.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Yeah. Well, another way that you had to act is that as far as I know, you’re not actually a mixed race person, whereas the character of the captain has a French father and a Vietnamese mother. Now, there was a global talent search done, and for your role, there are so many things that had to be checked off, and we, as far as I know, just could not find anybody who had every single category. And so in your case, you were not actually mixed race. One of the things that I’m really proud of about The Sympathizer is that so many of the novel is that so many mixed race people have come up to me or messaged me and said, they actually felt validated by this novel because it did for them capture some element of being mixed race. And I’m not mixed race either, so I had to make all this stuff up and basis on conversations I’ve had with mixed race friends. But what did you have to do to and have it?
Hoa Xuande:
Yeah, no, I’m glad you actually asked that. And I think I’ve really tried to be sensitive when I’ve answered these sort of questions because for a long time, especially when I was auditioning for this project, part of me felt really, I felt a little bit of guilt that I was up and running for this particular role because it was such a sensitive topic when we’re dealing with race and representation of certain groups of people, and Vietnamese people are underrepresented as they are, but then you’ve got mixed race Vietnamese people who are even more so underrepresented. And I didn’t want to take that opportunity away from anybody that could fit that mold better than I could. But what I tried to do is, especially with what I was given, I wanted to represent this person as a human being. I didn’t want to focus on the fact that he was of mixed race. I wanted to focus on the fact that we’re human beings and that at the end of the day, there are certain things that are more pertinent to us than other people.
And for me, growing up in Australia, I was guess essentially growing up in a culture where my own culture being Vietnamese was not really prevalent. I had very few Asian friends, let alone Vietnamese friends. As a person, I felt really attached to my Australian culture. I always did things that I thought would assimilate me in that way, but on the surface of it all, I’m clearly not your white Australian. And I’m also… But then I’d never felt really Vietnamese, although I looked that way. And so for me, that’s what I tapped into in terms of trying to play duality. And for me, that was the closest way that I could get to playing a character of mixed race heritage because I understood that duality, although not in the way that mixed race people do, but it was a common thread of humanity that I felt I could relate to. And so I focused on that in order to play this character as a human being.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Absolutely. And you know what? I’m not a spy, and I’m not raised, but my own experience of being a refugee growing up in white America and…
Hoa Xuande:
Lying to your parents and saying that you did the homework when you didn’t, and that’s things that I also drew on. Yes. That’s a spike.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
All right, I know Hoa you have to go to something better. Okay.
Hoa Xuande:
It’s not better…
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
We have one last audience question, and that is, what is Hoa’s relationship status?
Philip Nguyen:
Shout out to anonymous attendee, whoever you are.
Hoa Xuande:
Yeah. Well, I’ll put it this way. I was given a plus one and that plus one is not fulfilled.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Oh, nice. Interesting. There’s going to be an empty seat by Hoa, wherever he’s going to be.
Hoa Xuande:
I’ll drag anyone that I see along the way to come with me.
Fred Nguyen Khan:
I already told you I couldn’t make it, okay. It’s cool. Don’t worry about it.
Hoa Xuande:
Man, I really love the love that you’re giving me right now with your background. I really…
Tom Dang:
Hoa I can hop on a plane right now.
Hoa Xuande:
Oh yeah, oh come on over. Let’s do this.
Philip Nguyen:
Hoa, you say you don’t have to go just quite yet. Should everyone on the cast, do you all want to do a quick one to two minute Hoa hot seat right now? Any roast questions that you may have for Hoa that might not have been answered?
Fred Nguyen Khan:
I have no questions for Hoa. I know all the roast shit already.
Hoa Xuande:
Why was I so awesome, aw thanks guys honestly. Now that’s…
Tom Dang:
We should just take turns roasting him.
Philip Nguyen:
Oh yeah. One Hoa roast because he has to leave early and I [inaudible 00:44:15].
Hoa Xuande:
Yeah, well I be hold it on this day. If you did it yesterday day after, I’d be fine.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Question. Okay. That very last question for Hoa and then this will also be everybody else. What is your favorite Vietnamese food?
Hoa Xuande:
My favorite oh, okay. I got a few, and I’m trying to narrow it down. I went to Vietnam last year with most of these guys, and actually I’ve always loved [foreign language 00:44:41] long. I ate that since I was a kid. And that was… Someone wrote squid. That’s also true, but it’s not squid. But something that I discovered when I was in Hanoi was [foreign language 00:44:57] and man, I will break in. I will cross the border from Thailand into Vietnam.
Duy:
Look, I’ll take credits for introducing you to that.
Hoa Xuande:
That’s the only thing…
Duy:
I heard you talk crap about Hanoi, but Chelsea and Hanoi is the shit, okay.
Fred Nguyen Khan:
It’s okay.
Duy:
You weren’t there.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
As we bid Hoa goodbye, I do want people to know that when I had him over for dinner a couple of nights ago, squid was definitely on the menu.
Hoa Xuande:
It was on the menu and well everyone else enjoyed it and maybe me a little bit more, but that’s fine. Day we relate to things that are part of our character, whatever.
VyVy Nguyen:
We enjoyed it in a normal way.
Hoa Xuande:
Yes. Yeah. Well, that’s what you think but anyway.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Thanks so much Hoa.
Philip Nguyen:
Thank you Hoa.
Hoa Xuande:
Guys, thank you so much. I’m so sorry. All right.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
All right. Now that…
Fred Nguyen Khan:
Good riddance.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Before Hoa left, say all kinds of terrible things about him after he left, but okay.
VyVy Nguyen:
Hate that guy.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
We have a whole bunch of audience questions, and we’re going to get to that in just a moment, but final round before we go to the audience questions, what is your favorite Vietnamese food Tom?
Tom Dang:
[foreign language 00:46:11], anything from [foreign language 00:46:14].
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Oh wow. Nice. Yeah, absolutely. Love [foreign language 00:46:17] too. Okay, Tom. Fred, what is your favorite Vietnamese food?
Fred Nguyen Khan:
[foreign language 00:46:22].
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Oh nice. And Duy?
Duy:
[foreign language 00:46:28].
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Oh wow, okay. Oh, that’s intense.
Fred Nguyen Khan:
You would like that.
Duy:
It’s addictive.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
For all of you who don’t speak Vietnamese, we’re not going to translate these things, okay? You have to know what we’re talking about here. Okay VyVy, what’s your favorite Vietnamese food?
VyVy Nguyen:
Bún bò Huế.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Not bad.
Linh Phan (Phanxine):
That makes sense. We are husband and wife.
Linh Phan (Phanxine):
Yeah, me too.
Linh Phan (Phanxine):
[foreign language 00:47:00] is my favorite one.
Fred Nguyen Khan:
It’s not spinach and broccoli.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Okay, Linh, what’s your favorite Vietnamese food?
Linh Phan (Phanxine):
Yeah, I said, it’s [foreign language 00:47:13], right?
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Oh, I didn’t hear. It’s [foreign language 00:47:14] too. Okay, got it.
Kayli Tran:
That’s mine too.
Linh Phan (Phanxine):
And sầu riêng too. Actually, I really love it [foreign language 00:47:20].
Fred Nguyen Khan:
Yeah you would like [foreign language 00:47:22].
Linh Phan (Phanxine):
Director Park didn’t like the ring at all, so he didn’t let me to eat the wheel ring on set. I ordered can I have real of ring? And he said, no. Director Park really hate the smell of the ring, so that’s why. [inaudible 00:47:35] the ring.
Fred Nguyen Khan:
It’s not just him.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
That’s a good oral history detail. I had no idea.
Kayli Tran:
What if you told them it helps with your acting or it gets everyone in the scene.
Linh Phan (Phanxine):
Yeah.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Wow. So for those of you who you must have watched in the first episode, but in the first episode, obviously, sầu riêng or durian plays an important role in that first scene and the character, the Crapulent Major or Major Hoa eats. So in the middle of Kayli’s torture scene. Yes. And so what was it that you were eating but was, what was, I’m just kind of curious.
Linh Phan (Phanxine):
It is rubber sầu riêng. It’s a prop. Yeah. And I had to fake eat it. And then we shooting in Thailand and Thailand had one of the best sầu riêng in the world too. And I’m so excited. I said, oh man, I’m going to eat a lot of the sầu riêng today. I’m so excited for the day I come up and then I see the picture ring. I ask the prop guys, do you have a real sầu riêng, the real durian? And he said, well, I can ask. And then he come back and say, oh yeah, director Park didn’t like the smell of durian, so that’s why they don’t allow to bring the durian on set. Oh man.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
I find that offensive from an authenticity point of view. Kayli, you said [foreign language 00:49:09] , but you’re the third person. What’s your second favorite?
Kayli Tran:
Oh, it’s [foreign language 00:49:13]. I got to go to Hanoi summer or last summer and bún chả is [inaudible 00:49:19]. Yeah.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Okay.
Kayli Tran:
I was hooked. It was so yummy.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Yep. All right Philip, audience questions?
Philip Nguyen:
Audience questions. I think we’ve got a couple that are, thank you all for the audience questions. You can drop more questions in the Q&A function down below for anyone or everyone. We got a question from Sebastian John Reyes, did everyone on the cast speak Vietnamese fluently? So if you all want to rate how your own personal rating, no judgment at all. How well do you feel you speak Vietnamese from one to 10 and then also from Jenny Jeng Le, the Vietnamese consultant on the show contextually enough for anyone? For you all, how was it acting in Vietnamese, especially since there aren’t a lot of Viet roles out there.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Let’s start with Tom on the question one to 10, how fluent is your Vietnamese and how would it look?
Tom Dang:
Out of 10? [foreign language 00:50:17], but
Philip Nguyen:
That’s a cap. That’s a cap via ADR man.
Tom Dang:
But that’s taught from somebody that moved to the U.S. as a baby and then maintained the language through school and at home and community. So that’s pretty good. I don’t know, maybe people back home might think, oh, maybe he’s a solid four, but I think I’m a solid six or seven. And how was it to speak the language on the show? Is that the second question?
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Was it?
Tom Dang:
Is it a double question?
Philip Nguyen:
Yes. What was it like to play a Vietnamese role knowing that there are not that many Vietnamese roles out there?
Tom Dang:
Oh, I thought it was about to learn the language. I mean,
Philip Nguyen:
Well both. Yeah, you can answer the question about learning the language too on the Vietnamese language. That’s where we’re at.
Tom Dang:
Okay. Okay. On the Vietnamese language specifically for this show, the Vietnamese language was, it’s period. So we had this, well, I don’t know, I had to speak words that were not normal, like everyday conversational words. And I think the cast can also second what I’m saying too. It was mostly learning what these words were and then the tone and then the rhythm of it all. Not so much as the ability to fact and say the words correctly, but it was just, are these four words connected into one piece or is this a two piece word, or what is this? It took me asking my dad and then my uncle who was a soldier in the war to tell me what do these mean and how it’s pronounced. And actually I have a story. So on the episode that we shot the longevity party, the banquet to celebrate Linh’s mom’s mother, AKA [inaudible 00:52:11] Jen, we had some extras that day that volunteered all the way from OC to come and play extras for that party.
And some of them were, from what I was told. They were either of the time or they were also ARVN themselves and they were very nice to us. We had a scene where we were kind of just drunk and it was a very fast blink and you miss it scene. But we were drunk and we were, oh yeah, do we go, hi, bye. Is it like that? And some of those men, they actually offered us, they were like, well, actually, so back in the day, they drink very lit. It’s very classy and there’s a lot of manners to it. So it’s this rager thing that we think it is today.
Philip Nguyen:
Wait, who’s that we? Who’s that we, Tom?
Tom Dang:
We being me, my generation that throws parties every other weekend. Yeah, it was very enlightening. So it was, I guess to get off of this tangent, it was a learning process. It was constantly figuring out what we’re saying, why we’re saying it, how we say it, and then being supported by the people around us to say it correctly. Yeah.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
So Fred, almost all your lines are in Vietnamese except for a few English lines. What was it like for you, one to 10 in Vietnamese? And then what was it like for you to play this role with such a Vietnamese emphasis?
Fred Nguyen Khan:
I mean, if Tom thinks he’s a six or seven, then I’m probably like a three from a scale of yeah [foreign language 00:53:51] I’m in the middle of those two things, I guess. But it’s gotten a lot better over the time I’ve spent with these guys. And I remember I didn’t know how to read in Vietnamese when I got cast, and I was terrified that there was going to be a table read and that I would be exposed and fired. So I had to ask Duy to help me. He gave me a crash course on how to read. And to this day, it’s still hard for me to read at a normal speed, but it’s a lot better than it used to be.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
That actually never occurred to me that you have to read Vietnamese in order to actually be able to say the dialogue from the script. So anyway, the script was written in English and then parts of it were translated into Vietnamese, the relevant parts. It was written in English, and then it said this part is in Vietnamese, and then it had to be translated into Vietnamese. And there was various consultants including Jenny Jang who was in the audience and my writer who’s in the audience. So then you would get the actual part and then translated into Vietnamese, written in Vietnamese. Is that how all the actors saw their lines, or were you coached first in the Vietnamese pronunciation Without actually seeing the words?
Fred Nguyen Khan:
We just get the script that’s translated and sometimes a lot of the times it was not translated yet when we got the script. So we were just getting familiar with the scene and the acting involved. And then once the lines come in, the translated lines come in, then we get to really start rehearsing it. And one thing… This is the first time I get to act in Vietnamese, but speaking Vietnamese and acting is such a different thing also even in English, in any language really. So it’s something that we had to figure out. I don’t know about everyone else, but I had to figure out the musicality of it when it comes to my character and also the intention that I have to put out for the scenes.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Yeah, because you have some very emotional scenes in there. Obviously I’m not going to give anything away because in the first episode, your wife and child die on the airport strip and you have to emote in Vietnamese while you’re seeing this. Was that hard to do?
Fred Nguyen Khan:
Well, I mean, being sad is universal in any language, so it kind of worked well in that end. But yeah, it’s a lot of the…
Fred Nguyen Khan:
In that end. But yeah, it’s a lot of the… Also, I had some scenes where I had to sing, and I think, actually, singing is easier than speaking, because you’re just following the melody, and so the tone fits in itself. But for me, it was just like, “What else are they going to add to my things to do?” Fighting, singing, running around, just pretending to sleep, which is actually harder than you think as an actor.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
You’re obviously fluent in Vietnamese, because you grew up there into your teenage years, but I’ve heard that even you had some challenges, because… Now, this is the thing. Vietnamese has regional accents and then there’s sub-regional accents and then [inaudible 00:56:49] in the language over the years. And Vietnamese people are very judgmental. I’ve seen comments online where people are like, “They would never say this and this.” And I’m like, “How do we know for sure?” Because there’s all these variations. Even you found some challenges, being a fluent-
Duy Nguyen:
Oh, my God. Yeah. It’s like learning a new language, really, for me, because I grew up in Vietnam for 17 years. It’s a completely different accent. We use different words and also the character, Man, he lives in the south for many, many years. He grew up with the captain and grew up with Bones, so it’s not just the period accent of the time, but also the influence of the environments and the people he grew up with. So I have to craft this new accent that he has, taking from Fred’s, from Bon’s accent, and then the Captain accent, because when you grow up with your friends, you pick up the accents, and also, he’s a spy handler, so he has to cover himself somehow.
So it’s tricky. And even though I’m fluent in Vietnamese, as an actor in Montreal, as a Vietnamese actor in Montreal, unfortunately, there’s not a lot of roles for us to go around. There’s minimal. So I actually dropped out of college, because one of the professor told me that, with my accent, I would never make it as an actor. I should maybe move back to Vietnam. And then I got my first agent and then they were like, “You have to lose the accent, lose the accent. Lose your name, too. Change your name, lose your accent.” So I spent so many… Two, three years stopped speaking Vietnamese just so I can perfect my English, so I can fit in. But then I realized that I would never be able to fit in, that I’m never going to be able to compete with people who was born here, who speak perfect English.
So I decided to pick up my Vietnamese back up and that was going to be unique. So if you hire me, you’ll get me. And then The Sympathizer came out and then it turns out they were looking for exactly me, who speaks both languages from the north, which is pretty crazy.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
But you also… Unlike some of the other actors, you had actually the potential, because you were so fluent in Vietnamese, you actually go to Vietnam and work in the Vietnamese industry. Is that something that you’ve thought about doing?
Duy Nguyen:
I thought about it, but then The Sympathizer was my first time acting in Vietnamese, so I would definitely need small classes of how to act in Vietnamese better to be able to compete in that industry, because I’m going to be able… It’s in between two worlds. I’m not English enough to be able to compete with the English speaker, but not Vietnamese enough to be able to compete with a Vietnamese actor who has been doing it for many years, so I haven’t thought about it like that.
Philip Nguyen:
In between two worlds is definitely one of those salient themes throughout the entire series and in the book. Shout-out to Viet and your memoir and Man of Two Faces, too, which will be about you at the end. VyVy, I want to pitch this question to you for the question on, “How would you rate your Vietnamese one to 10?” But also, I know that you’re, I think, based in the OC and there’s a couple of questions from the audience about the reception from the community that you’ve seen or if you’ve seen anything. I think you were also on Vietnamese TV recently, too. If you could speak to that. Well, both to being on Vietnamese TV and then I believe you’re also at one of the early community screenings that was hosted in the OC. So what was that like being for you and how did you read the Vietnamese American reception, particularly in a place like Little Saigon?
VyVy Nguyen:
My Vietnamese, I would say, Fred level as well. Three, four, somewhere in there. I can understand, but speaking, there’s a loss there, but I think with scripted Vietnamese and just working on shows like this, I’ve definitely improved my Vietnamese a lot more, and my mom has been a very good tutor for me. But yeah, they live in Orange County, they’re down in Anaheim, and they got to go to the screen that was in Irvine, and that was really nice, that this Vietnamese community could show up for that in Southern California. My parents were refugees from 1975, and so my mom was crying during the end of the first episode, because it was just very close to home for her, what she experienced leaving the country. But yeah, the entire community that was at that screening, they were very supportive and happy to see these people… Our face is up there and our language being spoken, and it was really exciting, and there’s obviously discussion as well, but it’s so nice that they could tell that there was this larger platform for Vietnamese voices to be heard, so that really meant a lot.
Philip Nguyen:
And still… The reviews are still coming out, right? Because I think a lot of people are waiting to watch until the entire season’s out and people are… Bits and pieces of it. I know their email chains for folks that haven’t even read the book at all or thinking about watching it, that they were talking a lot of shit about it beforehand. And now, off the record, there’s like versions where there’s Vietnamese subtitles that are circulating, that we’ll also talk about. And Linh, for you, I’ll flip the question, how would you rate your English skills from one to 10? Because you’re a fluent and native Vietnamese speaker. And then I think… I’m not sure, I mean, if you’ve heard in your circles, what the reception has been like from Vietnam, if they’ve been able to watch the show.
Linh Phan (Phanxine):
I think my English, I think… Let’s say six, around that at least. Oh, man. Thinking about… I still… During the production, there’s a scene that I had to speak in English. It’s a very simple scene, but I have a nightmare after that shooting day, because I was like, “Oh, man, why I cannot say it right?” The scene where I show up about my scheme, how to… Serving the candy, bring it back to Vietnam. Oh, man, that scene is tough for me. It looks like a simple scene, but actually, it’s drive me crazy.
But then for people here, I think it’s very interesting, even though the show actually are not allowed to show, not officially say it anywhere, but you cannot find it on HBO Vietnam, right? But I think if anyone wants to see it, they find a way to see it. And then people who have watched it, either they say, “The Vietnamese is not good,” so they don’t understand the Vietnamese in the show. A lot of people complain about that, which I know from the very beginning. But if you get over that, then you can enjoy the show differently. And then people who… A lot of people, like young people, I read on the comments, very interesting as well. Back and forth, like I said about the show, I said, it’s like [foreign language 01:04:41], you either really love it or you hate it, because what the subject matter of the show, you have to think about that. So that’s why I like it.
Like I said, I, love [foreign language 01:04:58], so I love this type subject matter. Make people have to talk about it. You have to really talk about it, dig into the story, and then some people have to start learning about the history to know what’s going on, what happened. And even though… This one, also, kept a fiction or a fantasy in a way, but there’s some facts into that, so I think it’s very interesting. But like I said, I wish that we can have more creative people from Vietnam, from Vietnam origin, to join in in more important role to have… The show can be more authentic in a way. Production design, even though the production design is amazing, but if you look at the authentic of the Vietnamese culture, there’s certain thing that I was, “Oh.” For example, we don’t put the [foreign language 01:06:09] in the bedroom. Whenever I watch that scene, I was like, “Why… There’s an [foreign language 01:06:15] in the bedroom.” Vietnamese culture, we put the anti in the living room, because in the bedroom, you own all the things that you don’t-
Philip Nguyen:
All things that you have to flip the picture for your.
Linh Phan (Phanxine):
[inaudible 01:06:26] to watch that. Yeah, so that’s little things about Vietnamese culture that, if they know, that it can make it better, but it’s not so important to the general audience. But sometimes it’s important for people from Vietnam. Yeah.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Yeah, I do remember that that Fred, at one point, I think said that he was walking into the set and he took his shoes off on the set of the apartment, and then the film crew was like, “What’s taking you so long?” He’s like, “Well, I took my shoes off,” as you’re supposed to be walking into your apartment house. And they kept that, because that was actually authentic. But Linh, I have a more specific question for you, since the Vietnamese film industry very well. But one of the big challenges in making the TV series was the question of Vietnamese talent. So it was definitely the case, we had to have Vietnamese actors play the Vietnamese roles, but we don’t have Vietnamese directors, we don’t have Vietnamese showrunners. What do you think? I mean, could we… This thing, this show cost like $100 million, okay? Roughly, something like that. Do you think we could have made $100 million TV series with Vietnamese directors and showrunners? Did you have people in mind who you thought could have pulled this off?
Linh Phan (Phanxine):
Oh, yeah. I think we have a lot of very talented Vietnamese director, showrunner. I can name some like Bao Nguyen, he directs three feature documentaries, are amazing. And Han Cheung, [foreign language 01:07:58] Nguyen, or someone… What’s his name? Kim? He’s from Canadian, he’s Canadian. He did a movie, I think, Wild Witch. We have so many talented Vietnamese film director. Me, myself too. I can do it.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Man, you got shot there.
Philip Nguyen:
We’re looking for someone for the sequel.
Linh Phan (Phanxine):
We have people, and then also… Not just as a director, but also we have Bao Chan Chi, he’s amazing custom designer. I think we have a lot of representatives. Even like Spring Rider, we had Wan Li, and then Quinn Wing, I think he wrote and directed for Disney animation. So I think that there are several talented Vietnamese film directors that can do it and make it great.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Yeah. Let me just point out that we tried to get Quinn Wing to write for this TV show, and Disney, who he was working for, would not let him go, so we couldn’t get Quinn to write for the show. Wan Li had a similar situation. So there was so many obstacles behind the scenes that people don’t know about, including the fact that we couldn’t get a lot of Vietnamese actors from Vietnam to audition, because they were afraid, I heard, of the consequences with the cast for this. So there are so many other worldly and political constraints on the making of the TV series that people may not be aware of, but I also think about how this is all strategy. We made this TV series, whether or not there’s a second season, hopefully there will be more opportunities for Vietnamese creatives in front of the camera, behind the camera to do different things to do better than what we did.
So this is all part of the larger project. Kayli, I believe every single line you had was in Vietnamese. I don’t think you had any English lines from what I remember. Rate yourself one to 10, and what was it like to do this role in Vietnamese?
Kayli Tran:
I mean, just like Fred, I think [foreign language 01:10:14].
Fred Nguyen Khan:
No, no, no.
Kayli Tran:
She speaks well,
Fred Nguyen Khan:
Kayleigh is at least a seven or eight. Come on.
Kayli Tran:
[foreign language 01:10:22].
Fred Nguyen Khan:
There’s no way you’re my new level, okay?
Kayli Tran:
No, but again, the dialogue, it’s a period piece, so these are not words that you would be saying every day, so I really had to study it and memorize it. And then even on set, I think right before they call action and Joseph would come over, or Jenny would come over and be like, “They changed the lines for this,” or, “They changed a word for that.” So here I am just being tied up and I’m like, “Wait, there’s a new word? There’s a new line right now?” So yeah, it was a challenge, but I think we all rose to the occasion and we did pretty well for this challenge, so yeah.
Duy Nguyen:
I’m going to chime in on that. Not pretty well, freaking excellent. Because I know from behind the scenes, being there, watching you guys work and Fred, Kayli, VyVy, everybody, everybody, we had no rehearsal. Zero rehearsal. With two weeks, we know… I do, I had two weeks of prepping in my own hotel room with myself. Hwang also has two weeks of cross-course on Vietnamese and then also Fred. And then to see where they started, how much they work on it, Hwang it’s like seven days a week for eight months straight, it’s insane. He’s in every single scenes and not just the acting with the Vietnamese and… It’s mindblowing, watching it and then see the product and be like, “Holy crap, you guys go from very little time and no prep, you guys be able to talk and speak like that and act like that.”
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
I think part of the acting, though, if there’s a meta scene in the Hamlet sequence where Vien, [foreign language 01:12:26], I think has one of the great lines in the TV series. He plays a refugee from communist Vietnam, he’s an ARVN veteran, and now he’s playing a Viet Cong guerilla carrying an AK-47 and he’s told he has to say a pro-communist line. And he just uses, and he says in Vietnamese, “I’m not going to say your shitty communist line,” he spits on the ground. And of course, Robert Downey Jr’s character of the O Tour thinks this is a great line in Vietnamese that’s going to make it into the TV series. So all these actors in the Hamlet have to play against their own nature and say things that are absolutely repulsive to them. And likewise, Kayli, I don’t know what your family’s politics are, but here you are…
I’m assuming they are not from a background of communist spies, and here you are playing a communist spy, a really devoted communist spy. You are so tough, you are tougher than the captain. You play your role all the way from beginning to end. What was your… I don’t know if we got to this, but what was your family… How was it for you to play that role? And I’m assuming your family was not of a communist background, and then how did they react to seeing you be so intensely in your character as the communist spy?
Kayli Tran:
Well, first of all, I was scared we were going to get canceled, banned from Vietnam. Second of all, to go to your dad and be like, “Hey, I’m not going to get a regular job, I’m going to be an actor.” Years later, “I’m going to play a communist,” it was scary, but I had to make short conversations and just drop breadcrumbs instead of having a big, heavy conversation. And each time, I think my dad… He’s still in Nashville, so it’s just phone conversation, so each time on the phone, he’s like, “Okay.” And I’m like, “Do you get what I’m saying?”
“Yeah, I mean, as long as you can pay rent.”
“Okay.” So to be honest, I really don’t know what their true thoughts are, and I think they’ve only seen the clips that I’ve posted online, but I don’t think they’ve seen the full show yet. So I’m not too sure what… Or if they’ll ever share their honest feelings with me.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
That is so Vietnamese, yeah. It’s awkward. Like you said, your first moment on screen is you… Yeah.
Kayli Tran:
Yeah. I don’t think they’ve seen all of it, just whatever HBO has advertised, so they don’t know the full extent of all the scenes. So to even see your daughter being put through that, I think that’s another thing for my parents to be like, “Oh, my God. My baby girl. Why can’t you just get a regular desk job?”
Philip Nguyen:
Oh, my gosh. In the audience Q&A, we’ve also got a couple of questions for you too, Viet. I mean, there’s one about your cameo, you have a cameo. I believe it’s in episode three with a mirror ball.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
I cannot believe I put in two days of work and I got half a second. I mean, that is such an insult.
Kayli Tran:
Welcome to an actor’s life.
Philip Nguyen:
So there is a cameo for Viet. Shout-out to Amy who put in that question. And there’s also a question from Heather about, was there anything you didn’t like about this adaptation of your book? And that’s a sentiment that is-
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Yeah, I can’t believe it was seven episodes. What? I mean, I get paid per episode as executive producer, by the way. So if it was 10 or 12, I’d be in a different situation. So obviously, we all want the show to be longer for various reasons, but I think Don and I, Don McKellar, the co-show runner and head writer, and I did talk about the episode breakdown at the very beginning, and it was a real struggle to try to figure out whether it would be six, seven, eight, and so on. And so Don has many, many decades of experience Park Chan-Wook has many decades of experience doing TV and movies, and I just trusted their instinct that, I think, they wanted to make the series as and as fast-paced as possible. Especially given, obviously, how difficult and heavy the material could sometimes be. So other than that, I don’t think I had any other worries about the adaptation.
Some of the issues, as we were talking about, the complexities of the Vietnamese language, the very judgmental quality of Vietnamese people who were never happy with anything, that was just out of our control. So I don’t think there was anything we could have done that would’ve prevented Vietnamese audiences all over the world from just saying what they had to say. And I’m proud of the TV series, I’m proud of what everybody has done, and I just think we’ve made something of a landmark TV series whose consequences we won’t really fully know for quite a while.
Philip Nguyen:
Did you have any non-negotiables or negotiables as the series was being adapted?
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Well, the non-negotiables were, obviously, that we had to have Vietnamese actors of whatever nationality playing these roles, and that we had to have as much Vietnamese as we could in the TV series. Now, to be honest, we thought we were going to get more Vietnamese language in the TV series than actually what happened. I mean, the original voiceover for the TV series was all in Vietnamese, and then I don’t know exactly how high up in the hierarchy it went, but people just felt that was a little bit too much Vietnamese. And so they switched Hoa, or the Captain’s voiceover narration, to English, and there’s a justification for that in the seventh episode. But I thought it would’ve been great if the voiceover would’ve been in Vietnamese.
Philip Nguyen:
I mean, cast members, y’all have any hot seat questions for Viet while he’s here. I know y’all were a little bit nervous coming into the show tonight, being to hear so candidly from the author himself.
Kayli Tran:
Are we going to get-
Philip Nguyen:
Yeah.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
I’m sorry.
Philip Nguyen:
Say that again, Kayli.
Linh Phan (Phanxine):
Do you feel disappointed that they cut the scene with Lana and Captain in the end?
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Oh, boy. Okay, so for those of you who don’t know. In The Sympathizer, in the novel, Lana and the Captain do get together, but in the TV series, they do not, which is fine by me. But of course, if you’ve read The Committed, you will know that that getting together of Lana and the Captain has some very serious ramifications that become manifest at the end of the sequel, The Committed. So if we have a second season, I don’t know how the writers will deal with this. It’s not my problem. But what was really interesting about that was that I didn’t have time to participate in the writing of the TV series, it’s a whole other art to write scripts and screenplays versus writing a novel. And so Don McKellar did a very good thing, the head writer, that he pulled together a writer’s room that was actually majority Asian women, so three Asian women writers on the show of various nationalities, all of whom were actually of mixed race background as well.
And so I don’t know exactly what the negotiations were in the writer’s room, but in the end, the writers decided that it would be better not to have Captain and Lana consummate their relationship. So I don’t know how much of that had to do with the casting of Vy Le as Lana, because Vy, when she was cast, was actually underage. Whereas Lana, in the novel, is actually 22 or 23 years of age. So various shifts happened in the adaptation process.
Linh Phan (Phanxine):
But I think it’s… If we do season two, that is easy to fix, because it’s on confection, right? It’s in his flashback, his memory.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
That is such a good point. Yeah.
VyVy Nguyen:
He’s an unreliable narrator.
Linh Phan (Phanxine):
Yeah.
Philip Nguyen:
That’s not bad. [foreign language 01:20:39]. I mean, back to… For the cast, after having seen the series in its entirety, I guess, what was it like for you to watch yourself on screen like that? And were there any scenes that were cut out that we might not know about that maybe you remember filming and were anticipating to see?
Kayli Tran:
When I saw the tarmac scene, I’m not a part of that, but when I saw it on the big screen at the red carpet, oh, my God. No, that’s the end of episode one, right? Yeah.
Philip Nguyen:
Yes, yes, yes. The tarmac scene. Yeah, we got a couple questions about that tarmac scene, too, so go for it, Kayli.
Kayli Tran:
And Fred, everybody did a great job. And then I watched it again, we had a little casting crew gathering. It was just like… Fred did such a great job, he’s hiding right now. Yeah, it was-
Fred Nguyen Khan:
Totally.
Philip Nguyen:
I know. How many takes did that scene take, Fred? How many times did you have to run down the tarmac carrying your…
Fred Nguyen Khan:
The one thing I’ll say about the tarmac is that I was so nervous, because I knew it was coming up. I remember reading the script, because it’s episode one, and I knew that… We shot episode one towards the end of the production in Thailand, and I remember on my calendar, it was like, “Tarmac is coming up,” and I was really nervous about it. And I didn’t really know what to expect, really. I just knew it was going to be hella exhausting, no matter what it is. Jet lag, physical, emotional, whatever it was, it was going to be tiring. I guess what was lucky is that we shot everything in order leading up to it, and I had only met Tan, who plays my wife, a few days prior to shooting the scenes with her. So shooting in order really gave us the time to connect and to build that emotional bond before, ultimately, we had to leave each other.
But shooting in order helped, because if I shot all this emotional stuff first, I would’ve been drained and unable to shoot the rest of the tarmac scene. So the physical stuff was easy, because I come from a stunts background, so all the running stuff, that was my comfort zone, but all the emotional stuff, it was really tough. And Director Park was very specific in what he wanted, and it’s not something that’s intuitive, really, because when you’re reading, “Your wife is dead,” your intuition is maybe you should probably cry, but he didn’t want me to cry, so it was trying to figuring out what Bon was going through and it was more shock than grief, and it took a lot of takes to figure that out. But I’m glad of the result.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
I just want to interject here by saying, when I first saw the first edits of episode one, I was like, “What is going on?” Because the actors are running on a green screen and there’s no airport and there’s no airplane. There’s like a reconstruction of a part of an airplane, there are film crews that are shooting, there are no helicopters. There’s nothing like… There are no explosions, so you are literally acting. And if you watch the final product, there is explosions, there’s helicopters, there’s an airport, but most of that is not actually there. So the actors are actually really acting.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
… so that is not actually there. So the actors are actually really acting, and pretending that all this stuff is happening around them as they’re doing that. And I think most of the actors here were involved in that. But I’m just wondering, from those who haven’t yet spoken, like Tom, and Lin, and VyVy, who were there as well, what was it like act, to pretend, that all this stuff was happening as you were running for the airplane?
Linh Phan (Phanxine):
I don’t know other people, I just talk about myself. I don’t think it’s acting. It’s like the night is crazy. We really literally running and I run for life. I carry my threatened wife and my own Mother. And, so, yeah. And all the yelling, calling captain.
Actually, we were really shooting at the airport. And then, even though it’s a part of the airplane, but it still, it’s moving. I’m in the character, I’m in the situation. The whole environment is real. Yeah.
Tom Dang:
I can share a little bit. I know everyone will speak about how they personally felt. So I’ll contribute, technically what happened. The tarmac was incredibly exhausting. Really, really exhausting. Because, literally, you had half a football field’s worth of space to run. And there were multiple shots of it.
And one of them that comes to mind is we’re literally trying to catch up and then outrun a car that has a crane that has a camera attached to it because they wanted it to pan across that and catch us as we’re running. But then we have to accelerate our running to go faster than the car. And then they just keep going.
We’re wearing period clothes. So real polyester ’70s disco pants and leather sandals that are like this thick with a sole. And so we’re just running and there was a point where I was running on take four or five and I was just thinking, excuse my French, but, “Is this motherfucker going to call cut? Why am I still running?”
On top of that, we have extras. And some people decide to improvise. Suitcases started flying out. And so, I’m personally dodging things in between takes that weren’t there in the previous takes. And it’s like, what, 102 degrees and 110% humidity. Those are just the technicals, right? I’m trying my best not to get personal with it, but it was a crazy scene.
Fred:
It was also four nights in a row of shooting, by the way.
VyVy Nguyen:
Night shoots. Yeah.
Fred:
Night shoots. And it was a lot of mosquitoes.
Tom Dang:
Yeah.
VyVy Nguyen:
And they put fake sweat on us, but they didn’t need to put fake sweat on us because we were so hot and warm.
Fred:
But it was great to have people who weren’t around, like Alan and Dui, they came to support and they came to hang out. It was cool for us, I guess, to see them just chilling at craft.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
For those of you in the audience who don’t know, the tarmac sequence and the re-education camp sequence were all shot in Thailand, not in Vietnam, because we could not get permission from the Vietnamese government to shoot there. But I don’t think it made any difference in terms of climate. It was probably equally hot and human no matter what country we would’ve chosen.
Before we wrap up, I want to make sure we talk about the re-education camp sequence with Dui and with Kayli, because you were both there for the filming of that. And for those of you who haven’t seen it, there’s a really terrific short video on the HBO site that talks about the whole construction of the re-education camp that the Sympathizer production crew undertook. And it’s really, really interesting, because they did their homework, they read what was available in terms of the research, and there’s very little visual evidence about the re-education camp, but they built their version of the re-education camp. And I want to hear, since I wasn’t there myself, from Dui, and Kayli, and Fred, as well, what it was like to be on that particular set.
Fred:
It was really hot.
Kayli Tran:
Yeah.
Fred:
God, it was, yeah.
Kayli Tran:
It was massive. I don’t know how they built it in short amount of time, but it was, it’s real. It’s real life. It’s not CGI. And it was definitely hot because they just use metal sheets, so it was like a hot box. Fred is literally trapped in a hot box.
Fred:
Yeah. That was horrible, by the way.
Duy Nguyen:
Yeah, it’s incredibly hot. And then on top of that, I have to have all that thing on me.
Fred:
The prosthetics.
Duy Nguyen:
Yeah. Then two, three layers of a trench coat, also, because why not, Director Park.
Kayli Tran:
They’re fashionable again.
Duy Nguyen:
Yeah. Yeah. It was one scene where I have the prosthetic, and the mask, and three layers. And it was an intense scenes, also. And I fainted a little bit.
Fred:
A little bit?
Duy Nguyen:
Yeah, a little bit. Just a little bit.
Yeah, but it’s crazy. And also, I did my research on the reeducation camp, intensively, because I knew I had to get into that mindset of being there for the character and then see it in real life, their interpretation of it in real life was surreal. And then, it’s like another reality check that things like this actually happened and I’m here in it. And then you see hundreds of extras staying there, like props to the extras, also, they just sit there for 12 hours, do it under of the sun. And yeah, it didn’t take much to get into character from the heat, from the environment, from the prosthetic. It was, yeah.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
That’s intense. For those who have never been to Southeast Asia, it’s actually, I think, very, very difficult to replicate through words what the atmosphere, and the humidity, and the heat, and the sweat are actually like. And so, these poor actors had to live under those conditions, which, of course, the education camp prisoners and the prison guards had to do that for years and years on end.
Well, that was a heavy note. We’re not going to end with that.
Philip Nguyen:
We’re not going to end with that.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Couple of lighter questions to wrap up our interview with the characters.
Philip Nguyen:
Yeah, of course. Tonight, I just want thank you all for being able to join tonight for Accented for our season finale here with the Diasporic Vietnamese Artist Network and with Viet, himself. I think there are so many folks that we don’t have here that were also so integral to the making of the series.
So my last question, I’m going to merge two questions together. There’s two prongs.
On the camaraderie and the companionship between the cast and crew, and we’re very fortunate, and I feel like it’s once-in-a-lifetime that we’re able to bring Vietnamese like Diaspora Vietnamese actors all in one place like this. So just a shout-out to that. But also any other shout-outs that y’all might want to give to the folks that you had worked with, as the show was being produced. And then any of your favorite moments or memories from the show that, if we did do a re-watch of the show, if the audience re-watched the show, they could pay closer attention to for any Easter eggs.
Hey, Dui, I’m going to start with you.
Duy Nguyen:
I have my mic open. God dammit.
Fred:
I do.
Duy Nguyen:
Okay. Wait, I forgot all the questions.
Philip Nguyen:
On your comrades in the making of the show.
Duy Nguyen:
Yes. I’m having a really hard time getting over the show, actually. It felt like a breakup for me. Like you said, this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance. When else are we going to get all these Vietnamese actors and creatives together in one place to create, to make arts? And the last year-and-a-half of my life has been a dream come true, more than a dream. I never thought the Sympathizer would exist, ever. And yet, we’re here.
So now the show is over. The last few days has been rough for me emotionally. I just want to do it again. I just want to, for us to be together again. But hopefully, one day. So I am very grateful for it. Grateful for Viet [inaudible 01:33:13] we’re in.
It’s the Yolo Book changed my life twice when I read it, and then when I was cast the Sympathizer, it’s really incredible.
And shout out to Jenny Chang Le, Joseph Heel, who worked with us every single day, making sure that we speaking the language correctly. And making sure that the environments was correct and everything that they went above and beyond. All the Vietnamese assistant, all the assistant showrunner, assistant, [foreign language 01:33:48], the writers [inaudible 01:33:53] everybody. It’s just a dream come true.
And this show, this Sympathizer, I goddamn love it so much. I call up my friend every single week to be like, “Okay, let’s talk about this show.”
I re-watched the show many, many times. I skipped my part because I cannot stand watching myself. But this show, the more you put into it, the more you get out of it.
There’s so many Easter egg. Just now, just the last time watching the last episode, I realized when the captain, my question is, when do you think the captain realize that man is the commissar? When? And I just realized it now is the last time I watch it. I was like, “That’s the moment.”
And I did a few interview and they asked that, and I’ve been giving out wrong answers because I didn’t know until last episode. And I’m like, “That’s a moment.”
And so many other Easter egg, like when did the general know that the captain is a spy? Why did the general send all the soldiers away? The soldier that was selected by the captain to be on the plane? Why did he send them away to die? So many things.
And yeah, I can talk about it forever. So that’s it for me.
Philip Nguyen:
Thanks, Dui. And Linh, your mic is unmuted, so I’m going to pass it over to you.
Linh Phan (Phanxine):
Okay. Like [inaudible 01:35:21] said, I’m really glad that I did this projects and then get to know, to be honest, not so many production that people get along, because filmmaking is so depressed, so stressful. But for this, we are like family. We call the Sympathizer families, all the cast and crew. We really love each other.
And then for last, is it, no, it’s like two months ago, it’s crazy. When we do the premiere, I have a great time to meet up with everyone, the cast and the crew. So I really love it. Thanks for everyone being there from LA, to Thailand, to Vietnam, back to LA.
So yeah, I hope I have a chance to work with you guys in the future, as maybe we have a project. I don’t know if they do season two, I hope that I can do something more, not just an actor. I don’t know. If we don’t do series, I think the Committee can be a feature film, it has everything to make an amazing gangster action film a musical, based in Paris.
So I hope that’s going to happen, so we can go to Paris to have fun, there, too. So yeah, that’s why I cross finger for that.
Philip Nguyen:
And then the Easter egg. Easter egg of the Durians are not real Durians. So you have to really-
Linh Phan (Phanxine):
Yeah, the Durian is not Durian.
Actually, for the scene where Bon and Captain tried to kill me, a long time fighting, there’s like a couple of shot that when I run out, I said, “Okay, I got shot. Maybe I should do something.”
So actually, I fell for real in one take. And it’s amazing. I think it’s like people love it. They look on the camera. It’s amazing.
The problem is I dropped the Durian in the wrong place, because I fell for real. But the Durian had to be in certain place for later, so they had to redo it.
And then Justin, our action choreography, he come to me and he said, “Hey, Linh, don’t fall for real. You’re not really a stunt man, so do your normal acting.”
Yeah. But for that one, I was like, “Oh, man.”
When I watched the tech, the bloopers, I was like, “Man, I wish that if I can drop that Durian in the right spot, it look like really good.”
Philip Nguyen:
Is there going to be a blooper reel? That might be a question for Executive Producer Viet, but we would definitely love to see a blooper reel. Thank you [inaudible 01:38:42] Linh. I’m going to pass it over to your on-screen wife VyVy. And also while I’m passing it over to you, I’m going to reshare the link to the survey for D-Bands Accented. We use it to get [foreign language 01:38:55] or to get funding and sponsorship for the show so that we can continue to have conversations like this. And it really helps us every survey that we get to show our funders that we need these types of spaces for conversation.
VyVy?
VyVy Nguyen:
But yeah, speaking of blooper reel, when we were shooting the tarmac scene, and there was one point, because I’m pregnant, and I’ve got this fake belly on, and my pants were, depending on how you’re running, they slip a little, they’re a little loose. But we had this big wide shot that we kept shooting. And I could feel my pants starting to slip. But I was like, “It’s okay, it’s okay.”
And then there was, as Tom said, there was one take where we just kept going and going, and then my pants are falling, full-on falling. And I was like, “Please don’t let this be the take.”
But the way that director Park works is it’s going to be the take if he says, “Moving on.”
And my pants fell and then I hear, “Cut, moving on.”
And I was like, “No, please, my pants fell off.”
That did not, that take made it my pants falling, did not make it on the show. But I have some footage of it we took from the camera that is on my Instagram if anyone wants to look at that.
Philip Nguyen:
So behind the scenes do exist, and if y’all want to drop your handles into the chat for our audience to take a look, that might be helpful. And maybe the production team can help with that, too. VyVy, I’m going to pass it on to the Compatriot, whose money, who you were raising money for, Tom, Skinny RTO? Moments, memories?
Tom Dang:
Okay, moments. Memories. First of all, shout-outs. Okay. They’re not here right now. The ARVN team, that’s what we call all of our soldiers. Happy to represent them. Shout-out specifically to Scott Lee who played the hefty gunner. Not only did he just play his part and be a generally positive influence on us, especially when things got a little tough. He went out of his way to train us, because he’s a PT, himself. He went out of his way to train us as often as we wanted, as many times as we wanted. At 3:00 in the morning, at 9:00 in the evening, one hour before getting on set to anyone who wanted to do it. And I was 155 pounds back then. And when I heard Skinny RT was like, that’s not 155 pounds. So thanks to Scott, I dropped 15 pounds. So shout out to Scott for putting in extra, extra effort for all of us, the Thai team.
And honestly our DP cameraman, Jiune. Whenever I felt like, “I can’t do this anymore.”
I was like, “I can’t do this. I’m not going to get into this water. What do you mean?”
And then I see this man with a camera that’s heavier than probably my head, be like, “Just give me the water lens. Just forget it, I’m going to jump in the water!”
And he just jumped in the water and then manhandles the camera.
And I’m like, “If this man can do that, there’s nothing I can’t do.”
So shout out to Jiune.
Blooper. I was actually injured on set. So that scene where, at the end, spoiler, I die, where I’m getting shot, that’s real pain, because I had an injury that occurred on set. And so they took me to the hospital and they did a surgery on me. And in that surgery, they were like, “Okay, cool. The wound’s not that deep. You can still go back on set. We just have to clean you out every two hours of activity,” which is, by the way, painful.
And I didn’t tell anyone about this. And so, Scott Lee, who I just shouted out, slaps me on the back, in the middle of the shoot, while we’re being gunned down. And I’m screaming, I’m like, “Ahhh!”
Everyone calls cut. The director comes down, he’s like, “What’s wrong?”
And I’m like, then it all comes out. I am injured and my wound is open. And they’re like, “Okay, cool. Your death scene, we’re not going to shoot it. We’re just going to imply that you died.”
And I’m like, “Wait, no. Please let me do it.”
And they let me get shot. And then they’re like, “Okay, yeah, yeah, just now more. Now more, more pain.”
And so, I think it was Fred that was holding, Fred, you were the one that held me, right? I got shot back? I didn’t tell you, or him, or anyone, but I intentionally threw myself, injury, open wound, into your shoulder, just so I can scream for real.
Fred:
I made sure not to touch that wound. I knew so well where it was.
Tom Dang:
But yes, if you go back to that scene, that moment where Skinny dies, that was real pain for you guys.
Philip Nguyen:
Oh my goodness. And then, thank you, Tom. I’m like, we’ll, that’ll definitely, definitely warrant a rewatch. I’m going to pass it over to another ARVN Compatriot. Oh, Fred, you already had it. You had it muted.
Fred:
Oh, okay.
Philip Nguyen:
We come back to you Fred, because you may be one of the main characters for the sequel. I’ll pass it to someone on the other side, Kayli for shout-outs, bloopers, and Easter eggs.
Kayli Tran:
I have a fun TMI story. I think episode seven towards the end, all the ending scenes between me, [foreign language 01:44:20], I think we had gone to dinner on one of those nights. And somebody on this screen here set us up and ordered a fermented crab dish. And we’ve gone to this restaurant many times, but somebody ordered a new dish that we’ve never tried, and we all got food poisoning. We all got food poisoning. I don’t know if [foreign language 01:44:44] Linh got it, too. But like, “Oh, my God, we were bedridden.”
And then [foreign language 01:44:49] had to go to set the next day. I, luckily, had one day off. And they were just so struggling to get through their scenes. So whenever you watch the end of episode seven, and anytime the camera moved in, that’s them struggling for real, because they were waiting for the director to say cut so that they could have a [inaudible 01:45:10].
Duy Nguyen:
Actually, while I was suffering the whole day, for me it was the projection scene with man, with his normal face. After that, that was the last thing we did. And after that, I run, I like teleported to the bathroom.
To clarify, I ordered that. Didn’t know it was raw. I told them, “Don’t eat it. It’s not good.”
They ate it, so it’s your fault, Kayli. That’s it. That’s all I’m going to say about that.
Kayli Tran:
The true villain here, he orders it, tells us not to eat it, while slurp the juice because he was so hungry. He’s on set for more than 12, 14 hours, so he’s stARVNg. He’s drinking the plate. So he got hit hard. I had a bite or two. I was like, “This is too authentic for me. This is a really local Thai food.”
[foreign language 01:46:12] I’m like, “I don’t know. I’m scared.”
But yeah, it was a tough couple of days.
Linh Phan (Phanxine):
But I’m so surprised that you guys took that one. I eat a lot of weird stuff, but even that one, I look at that and say, “Oh no, this is not for me.”
And I saw you guys keep eating it. I say, “Wow, this guy.”
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Wow, that really was too much TMI. That just took all the romance out of a TV series for me.
Fred, we’re going to end with you. If we make it to season two of the Committed, the character of Bon has a really big role to play, so I hope that happens. He’s certainly one of the most tragic characters in the story, but we’re not going to end with that. We’re going to end with, you’re shout-outs, bloopers. [inaudible 01:47:07] tell us about.
Fred:
Shout out to the rest of the ensemble cast that aren’t here today. Vy Le, who plays Lana. Alan Trong, who plays Sonny, [foreign language 01:47:18] who plays the General. Scott [inaudible 01:47:24], wow, that rhymes. That’s cool. And the stunt team, as well because they did a really good job.
Usually when I’m on set, there’s a lot of bloopers, only because I like to mess around a lot. But on this set, I was so nervous not to play around at all. So I tried to be as serious as possible.
But there one blooper where I actually fell on the tarmac scene when I’m running, while I’m holding my wife, by the way. So we both just fell over. And I remember I was trying to stay in character because in case I was able to save myself. And I was yelling at Hua, who’s running next to me, and I was yelling in Vietnamese, “[foreign language 01:48:07].”
He couldn’t hear it. He’s like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, let’s go.”
And we just fell. And I was just so scared because I was holding an actual human being. Not the actress, her stunt double, but still. I was just trying to not to hit her head. And so, I fell to the side. And I don’t know. I haven’t seen that footage, but I don’t want to see it. So whoever has that footage, just don’t send it to me. No, I knew you would have that.
Viet Thanh Nguyen:
Hey everybody, it’s been so great talking to you. I was on set several of the days in the Los Angeles shoot. I didn’t make it to Thailand, but it was so much fun for me to be a tourist on the set. Whereas, you were all, actually, professionals. This was your life for many, many months. And from early in the morning to late at night, I just got to come in, and have fun, and not get food poisoning, or anything like that. But I’m very grateful to all of you for all of your dedication that you put into all of these roles.
The challenge for me as a writer is that I wrote the Sympathizer purely in my own mind, making everything up. And now, I have to contend with the fact that I can never forget any of your faces as I’m writing the third and final novel of the Sympathizer Trilogy.
So you have branded yourselves in my minds as your respective characters, which is a tribute to your charisma and your acting.
Thank you to Philip for being my co-host for this. Thank you to Annika for producing this show. Thank you to DJ Puzzle for taking us out on this final episode of season four of Accented. And thanks to all of you out there for your questions.
