Call it good karma. Just a few days before ABC announced it would put Fresh off the Boat on its fall TV schedule, co-star Randall Park was featured by CAPE, the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment, in its IAm Campaign — a celebration of Asian American artists and role models.
Park has appeared in Larry Crowne, Dinner for Schmucks and The Five-Year Engagement.
Fresh off the Boat will be his first opportunity to star in a movie or television show. He will play a Eddie’s father, while Hudson Yang will play Eddie as a child.
Park graduated from UCLA with an undergraduate degree in English and a masters in Asian American Studies. His stated goal was to be a university professor.
“I think it was a goal to appease my parents,” said Park. “Beyond this path of academia and on my own time I was doing theater. It was like acting and doing improv and stuff like that. But I never tell my parents. They weren’t telling me not to do things. But they wouldn’t be encouraging. They kind of downplay it and say that’s just a hobby. But then things just started happening.”
Park founded the LLC Theater Company, an Asian American theater group at UCLA.
(a previous version of this story misstated the part to be played by Park)
He both acted and wrote. You can learn more about his career in the clip below from CAPE.
