November 16, 2005
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Forever Young
On this show, “Thief“, I play what is described as a “baby-faced 17-year old” kid. Although that won’t actually be stated on the show; it’s basically implied throughout that I’m a young kid — no older than college aged.
And for some reason, that just made me chuckle over a situation that happened 9 years ago at a talent agency.
I was meeting with the head of an agency that specialized in youth actors for potential representation. During the middle of our chat, it came out that I was actually 23 years old at the time.
Once that happened, the agent quickly and politely wrapped up the meeting by saying, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were 23.” And despite my numerous protests, she firmly stated, “You’ll be going through some physical changes in
the next few years and won’t be able to fit within our clients’ demographic.”
Flash forward about a decade and I’m so tempted to walk into that same agency (ala Julia Roberts’ revenge shopping scene in “Pretty Woman“) with a demo tape of clips from: “Party of 5″, “The New Guy“, “BLT“, “Thief”, “The Hazing“, “Cousin Skeeter”, “First Daughter“, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Tru Calling” to have the following scene play out:
Agent: “Hi, may I help you?”
Me: “Yeah, I came in here 9 years ago and you wouldn’t represent me.
Agent: “Oh.”
Me: “Now… you work on commission don’t you?”
Agent: “… why, yes.”
Me: (drops demo on desk): “Big mistake. Huge. Oh well, I have to go and shoot my TV Show now.”
(However, I’d be careful not to proudly yell: “Ha! You see? I never went through puberty afterall!”)
And for those nay-sayers who can’t unwrap my actual D.O.B. from their minds, here are two incidents that just happened a few weeks ago:
1) While pulling out of my driveway, a landscape contractor peddling his services walked up to me and said, “Hey there. Is your dad home?”
2) After striking a favorable deal for a Mexican Woman at our yardsale, the lady turned to my wife, pointed to me and said, “He’s a good boy. Tu hijo?” (Translation: “Your son?”) My wife was in a very bad mood the rest of the day.
And I don’t even get me started how much of a pain it is living at a Casino/Hotel while shooting here in Louisiana — I get carded everyday I come “home”.
But, I do know that one day — it’ll be all over. Because boy, did Comedian Bobby Lee hit it on the head when he said during a set:
“Asian people age overnight. For 55 years, my mom and dad looked like Lucy Liu and Chow Yun Fat.
Then one morning, they woke up and looked like Yoda and Gollum.”
Comments (46)
i love this post! love it. thanks, man.
ooh – i’ve always wanted to pull that Pretty Woman stunt. but where. where. :T
Hahaha, props for quoting Bobby Lee.
I look like I’m 12 when I’m out of uniform.
wow…. i’d be in a bad mood too if someone said that to me about my husband.
What a punchline! LOL. Gollum. haha.
hehe…is your dad home….
PWHAHAHA!!! so true so true! ‘swhy i like them asian ladies….stay young lookin for long as hell, then by the time they look bad, you do too, so it don’t matter! =P joke joke
It’s not such a bad thing. I thought you were the only guy in “BLT” that could pull off being a believable high school character. Your co-stars looked real old (maybe with the exception of John Cho). Anyway bro, keep it real.
i’m asian and i work at a bank and ppl always ask me which local high school i am attending when i’m actually 22. it’s funni how asians can’t tell the ages of other asians. i don’t think u have it as bad as other ppl though when it comes to looking younger than your age. my friend went w/ his mom to a store and someone asked him if she was his daughter. it really ruined his day. i still think u can pull off a good 17 year old haha
what bobby lee said is so priceless! i’m going to link that from my blog right away!! =D i’ve been blogging sometimes about getting old and it’s heartening that sometimes, with the right lighting, people will still mistake us for younger… though i’m not sure they would if they really stopped to think about it. i’m a little resigned that as a firmly late-twentysomething that i look mid-twentysomething. =S
hahahah, thats so funny!!!
its a good advantage that you’re looking young while sooo many ppl your age are dying to be young and get all that stuff done to themselves!
hahaha! great post! i can’t imagine still being carded. must be fun to play younger characters though.
haha yoda and gollum. good thing i don’t look THAT young for my age. i met these two sisters yesterday, one was 12 & one was 16.. you couldn’t even tell that one was older than the other when looking at them!
Love your post.
I always get carded at bars. Suppsedly I look 15, when in fact i am close to being 22.
awesome post! haha* my postman told me i look like i’m 13… and i’m actually 20.
HAHAHAHhahahahhah thats so true though.. asians look young forever and then all of sudden its like BAM!! You’re old!
I like that most people guess I’m younger than I am really am.. but not much younger.. I get 21 once in a while even though I’m 26.
Well, I’d like to look at it as having a longer ‘shelf life’ in the industry. Plus, it seems you skip the ‘we can’t quite place you because you’re not quite middle aged and not quite old’ phase of (what I hear) a lot of male actor’s careers. But I guess you’d just be going from young high schooler to old man overnight…
Considering my first gig in Hollywood was to play a high schooler, I think that’s already telling me something…
HAHAHA if I were your wife, I’d kill that Mexican Woman at the yardsale
No kidding, when Faye Dunaway was acting in the scene where ‘Jackie – Kid’ was being operated on, I went up to her and said ‘Hey Faye, can you not wave at the kid, he’s supposed to be half dead, he ain’t waving back at you nor do I want the audience to think he’s in a spa on that operating table’ She looked at me and went ‘and who are you?’ I was like ‘Ummm…pearry?’ and she was like ‘My god! You are just a kid!’ apparently for the first day of shooting, she thought Keith was me….that’s Asian genes for you there….
The day on set that I decided to shave, Alec Newman turned to me and said ‘I know everyone says you look 12, but I’ll say you’re 13 because I think my director needs to hit puberty at least…’
And yes, revenge if always sweet…you know…like putting bangs back on your hair…that’s for calling me and bugging me while I was having a sexual moment with my cigarettes and diet coke.
funny…
Be happy that you get mistaken for being younger, it usually works in your favor, and you’ll appreciate it later in life. When I was in high school, if I dressed up, I was mistaken for a substitute teacher! Although on the flipside, I was never carded to get into clubs!….lol =)
Yoda and Gollum!!! lol
hahahahaha, that is TOO funny. it’s totally true though! asians look like they’re in their teens or twenties until they’re about 60 – 70, then they look like they’re 100. too funny! and you have a great baby face ^_^ take care!
hahaha. but yeah, it is true. :]
hahhhaha that last line is hilarious
how would you like it if you were a new teacher and your co-workers kept asking to see your hall pass? *not that that’s ever happened to me or anything!* ;)
lol that bobby lee joke is pretty funny but soo true
i feel so un-asian! i’ve never been mistaken for being younger than my age… when i was 12 i had a women ask me what college i was attending… and i never got carded when i was underage… =] opposite of every one of my friends… haha
puberty at 23??? a little old don’t you think?
bwahhahahhaha…I know man. I was your age and I was carded too. I think I’m still carded but I don’t care anymore. I just prepped myself with my ID card before someone ask sort of telling them “I’m used to it”
I believe that was you I saw in The Poseidon Adventure commercial clip.
tu hijo!?! lmao
hahaha, “tu hijo?” … the misunderstandings of youth.
Funny that I stumbled upon your Xanga page. I’m currently at UB, and I was assigned in my Asian Americans & Visual Media class to write a journal about “Better Luck Tomorrow”, which was shown to our class last week. Trying to do some online research and this is where I ended up.
And yeah, someone in my class also pointed out she saw you in a commercial for “The Poseidon Adventure”
Forever young !
Good ole’ Asian genes…but yeah, the thing the comedian said? So true — very scary -_-
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You looked really young in Better Luck Tomorrow. I thought you were in your early twenties!.. It must be good having a wide range of characters to choose from.. age wise.
Yoda and Gollum?! Haha, I wouldn’t take it that far… But that’s hilarious!
Talk about Yoda- that’s how old I’m feeling! I’m 28 but feel & sometimes look 50!
Your wife should be happy she’s married to you & have your baby!
HOLY SHIT! I just saw you on TV. I was like, that looks like Parry and rushed off to your shit.
OMFG, you are so the shit!!! Hahaha.
LOL. LOL!
I would always get annoyed when people would guess my age incorrectly, so now when I guess ages, I add 2-3 years. It only works for the under 25s! Seems like everyone wants to get to the late 20s and then stay there
random props…fucked up bout the gollum thing …haha
….stay sweet…
I know exactly how you feel, here are a couple examples, both happened within the last couple months.
I was a concert and wanted to buy one of those overpriced tshirts, anywyas, they were out of L, which is my perfect size, so I asked for a M, the vendor looks at me and goes, “nah, you should get an XL, you’re a big boy and still growing, trust me”, I go, “uh, I’m done with the growing, I’m a bit older than you think I am..” he goes, “what are you? 19? 20?” (I’m 29, and he sold me the Medium tshirt
I just started a new job, and throughout the first 3 weeks, my coworkers kept introducing themselves and then would comment on how it was odd that we were hiring co-op temps so early in the year. (we hire college kids as temps for their co-op programs, but that’s usually around april) I’ve had to tell at least 6 or 7 coworkers that I’m just a regular employee and I haven’t been in college for MANY years.
but, you’re right, one day it’s gonna be gollum…or yoda =P
lol