TV Insider | ‘The Sympathizer’: Robert Downey Jr.’s Characters & Why He Took Them On (PHOTOS)
[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for The Sympathizer Season 1 Episodes 1 and 2.] Kelli Boyle breaks down the characters Robert Downey Jr. plays in ‘The Sympathizer’ for TV Insider The Sympathizer has a lot going for it. For starters, it’s based on Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, plus it has the coveted Sunday […]
Arizona PBS | Authors Hernan Diaz and Viet Thanh Nguyen in Conversation
What can a novel about wealth in America tell us about America? In this podcast episode, 2023 Fiction winner Hernan Diaz is in conversation with Pulitzer Board member and 2016 Fiction winner Viet Thanh Nguyen in New York City. Together, the authors discuss Diaz’s “Trust” and “In the Distance” (a Fiction finalist in 2018), as well as Nguyen’s “The Sympathizer” for Arizona PBS Listen […]
Entertainment Weekly | The Sympathizer director wanted to depict the fall of Saigon in ‘a serious, grave manner’
Park Chan-wook, novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen, and star Hoa Xuande discuss the premiere episode’s harrowing climax for Entertainment Weekly Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Sympathizer episode 1, “Death Wish.” The Sympathizer begins at the end of the Vietnam War. In the HBO show adapted from Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel of the same name, viewers first meet Hoa Xuande’s […]
Esquire | Is HBO’s Rollicking Vietnam War Epic The Sympathizer a True Story? Sort Of
The short answer is no, but also kind of yes. Matt Spriggs writes about ‘The Sympathizer’ and how fictional Viet Thanh Nguyen’s work really is for Esquire A work of fiction may be entirely made up, but the best of it always tells the truth. That’s precisely the case in The Sympathizer, HBO’s rollicking new Vietnam […]
Variety | How ‘The Sympathizer’s’ Depiction of the Vietnam War Helped Its Cast Make Sense of Their Heritage
About a month ago, “The Sympathizer” star Fred Nguyen Khan lost his grandmother. She was a Vietnamese refugee who sought asylum in Canada, enduring a “staggered escape” that left her and her siblings terrified they wouldn’t survive or see each other again. But were it not for the show, in which Khan now plays a […]
HBO | Portraits from the Cast of ‘The Sympathizer’
What fun! Portrait mode with Viet, director Park Chan-wook, and the cast of THE SYMPATHIZER from HBO.
Irish Independent | Viet Thanh Nguyen talks to Rick O’Shea: ‘My wife was right — there’s deeply something wrong with me’
The Pulitzer-winning author of The Sympathiser why he had to write about growing up as a refugee and how it feels to see one of his novels made into a TV series for Irish Independent Vietnam is one of the most incredible places I have ever visited, and I came away with a different appreciation […]
New York Times | This ‘Sympathizer’ Star Wasn’t Sure He Was Right for the Job
Hoa Xuande had only one Hollywood credit when he was chosen to lead this starry HBO adaptation of a prize-winning novel. He needed all the encouragement he could get—Brandon Yu writes for New York Times Some three months into shooting “The Sympathizer,” Robert Downey Jr. sat Hoa Xuande down. He had something to show him. […]
Los Angeles Times | How the Creators of HBO’s ‘The Sympathizer’ Explore the ‘American War’ through a Vietnamese Lens
Laura Zornosa interviews the creators ‘The Sympathizer’ on their journey to recreating Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-Winning novel for the Los Angeles Times When Park Chan-wook read “The Sympathizer” for the first time, maybe six or seven years ago, he felt like he was watching fireworks explode in the night. “Which is to say,” Park said, “it […]
Los Angeles Daily News | How HBO transformed Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel ‘The Sympathizer’ into a series
Along with the author, actors Kieu Chinh and Ky Duyen and producers Susan Downey and Don McKellar discuss the limited series ahead of its April 14 premiere for the Los Angeles Daily News Listen to the article here and/or read below Writer Viet Thanh Nguyen spent five years bringing “The Sympathizer” to the screen, but it wasn’t until a […]
Variety | ‘The Sympathizer’ Star Sandra Oh on How the HBO Series Shows the Vietnam War Through the Vietnamese Lens: ‘This Perspective Has Been Missing for 50 Years’
The upcoming HBO series “The Sympathizer” is bringing an unsung voice to a story that has been told and retold from the American point of view, providing actors like Sandra Oh a chance to finally be involved in a project that puts the Vietnamese refugee experience into focus for Variety “This perspective has been missing for 50 […]
TIME Magazine | How The Sympathizer Counters 50 Years of Hollywood Vietnam War Narratives
Andrew R. Chow writes about Viet Thanh Nguyen and how his novel and forthcoming HBO series, The Sympathizer, pushes back against the hegemonic Hollywood narratives of the Vietnam War for TIME Magazine When the author Viet Thanh Nguyen was growing up in California as a refugee from the Vietnam War, depictions of that conflict were omnipresent in American culture. Platoon, Apocalypse Now, Full Metal […]
The Smithsonian | Book to Screen: Viet Thanh Nguyen on Adapting The Sympathizer
Join author Viet Thanh Nguyen for a discussion about adapting his Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, The Sympathizer, for the screen. Through clips from the series and readings from the novel, Nguyen will talk about the difficulties and rewards of adapting his work for the screen, among other topics. Like the novel, the HBO series is an espionage […]
HBO Max | Watch the Official Trailer for The Sympathizer
The Atlantic | The Atlantic Publishes “The Great American Novels,” a New List of the Most Consequential Novels of the Past 100 Years
The list launches with events at the New Orleans Book Festival and on April 3 at the Strand, in New York—with The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen as one of the selected novel for 2015 for The Atlantic Today The Atlantic launches “The Great American Novels,” an ambitious new project that brings together the most consequential novels […]
