Friends Guest star Stephen Park He called the show to create an allegedly toxic environment where he and others supported the racist and more.
During Monday, March 3, episode of “Pod Meets World” Danielle Fishel asked the park about an open letter he published in 1999 after a “disappointing” time on the set of a “very massive” sitcom.
“You wrote ahead of your time an incredibly courageous mission statement in Hollywood about Hollywood’s state, power and racism about the difficulties you faced with finding a job as an Asian actor, and especially the work you think you could be proud of,” said Fishel. “Can you tell us what the effects of this letter were at that time?”
Park immediately called Friends As a showAdding: “It was at that time, I felt that it was a kind of toxic environment. James Hong The actor who was also in the episode with me, and (the Deputy Director) called him to the set and you know, essentially saying, “Where is the Eastern type? Get the Eastern Boy. ‘”
On September 22, 1994, the television audience won six new friends with the distribution of the success of the NBC Friends series. Now, decades later, we have seen Jennifer Aniston (Rachel Green), Courteney Cox (Monica Geller), Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe Buffay), Matt Leblanc (Joey Tribbiani), Matthew Perry (Chandler Bing) and David Schwimmer (Ross Geller) play many other roles. The group of friends spent 20 years without an end to adults with (…)
He continued: “This is not the first time this happened, you know, but this is the environment where this is the business as usual in Hollywood in 1997, I suppose it was. And no one felt the need to correct this or say -so, this is a normal behavior.”
Park, who appeared in two episodes of Friends In 1997, he tried to contact Guild actors on the screen, which led him to write a “mission statement” he sent to a publication. Park conducted several interviews, but none of them was published at that time.
Stephen Park
Stephane Cardinale – Corbis/Corbis through Getty Images“I had become so aware of the race and so angry that I was looking at everything through the race lens,” he said. “I felt like there was no freedom. I didn’t feel freedom. So I had no idea what I was going to do, but I only decided to leave -I said to everyone,” I no longer act. “
The incident led Park to take a step back to act. He finally made a “slow climb to the business”. Since his return, Park has appeared in The boy meets World, Law & Order, The Venture Bros. and Crazy about you.
Park Is not the only guest star Talk about the lack of diversity of the show. Adam Goldberg previously addressed criticism of Friends«Mostly white cast.
“In terms of diversity, looking back, it looks crazy,” he said The independent In September 2024: “I have heard that black people talk about this and it is how, you never expect to see -you, so when I did not, it was not a surprise and you ended up identifying -the characters, regardless of their race.”
Goldberg said that the lack of diversity on television was “the standard” at that time, adding: “I spent a lot of my complaining career -how the Italians can play Jews. See (Robert) of Niro play Jews, but you rarely see someone who is a well -known Jewish actor who plays Italian. So it is where my head was.”
He added: “Either he would get comments on not being American enough, which you know, if you had to say that someone now will probably be fired. Or maybe not, because all American has become such a derived term. But yes, the whole culture was like that, and television was just an amplification of this culture. “”
David Schwimmer, In the meantime it was revealed to The tutor In January 2020, he “campaigned for years for Ross to women of (color)” before Aisha TylerThe character introduced himself, but faced the reaction to launch himself to “friends all black or friends of all Asians”.
Actress Erika Alexander He called Schwimmer’s comments, writing through X at that time: “Hey @davidschwimmer @fldendstv – Ru me saying seriously that you have never heard of #Livingsingle? We invented the template! Welcome, brother.”
In response, Schwimmer issued a long apologysaying, “If my appointment was taken out of the context, it is almost not my control. I assure you that I did not mean any contempt.”