SUNG KANG

Sung Kang plays Han, the tough guy in Better Luck Tomorrow. At the film festivals, he's swarmed with male and female fans, in real life, he's a down to Earth guy, who's struggling to get the mainstream acting jobs. Whether it's a small part in Pearl Harbor or Antwone Fisher, he's learning and welcomes any acting challenge. You won't see him selling Tide, since he was told by a casting director, "would you buy Tide from Sung?" But you will see him act in BLT. If you're a fan, you might see him eating lunch at the Hare Krishna temple once a week. Sung Kang plays Han, the tough guy in Better Luck Tomorrow. At the film festivals, he's swarmed with male and female fans, in real life, he's a down to Earth guy, who's struggling to get the mainstream acting jobs. Whether it's a small part in Pearl Harbor or Antoine Fisher, he's learning and welcomes any acting challenge. You won't see him selling Tide, since he was told by a casting director, "would you buy Tide from Sung?" But you will see him act in BLT. If you're a fan, you might see him eating lunch at the Hare Krishna temple once a week. GR: How's life been after BLT? SK: Very interesting, a lot of excitement, it's really scary, because everyone has done everything we can do as actors and filmmakers, it's now out of our control.

GR: How's working?

SK: Work has been the same, nothing front page news, people still have to see the film, then the decision makers will decide if it's okay to put Asian Americans in roles.

GR: Do you think they should put Asians in every other show?

SK: Speaking for myself that would be great. But it's one step at a time. If it was up to me, sure.

GR: Let's say you watching TV, all of a sudden you see Asian Americans in every showŠ

SK: It's weird if they are there for an Asian reason. Now it's taking it to the next level and taking a risk with casting. The romantic lead would never be Asian, but MTV says it's cool, because they picked up the film and they're really pushing it. They're allowing change. The demographic is hard to target, and MTV has so much power, so they're taking a chance. They're thinking progressively. If people say it's cool, it'll open more doors for us in the industry. The industry might think there's a possibility in making money off of us.

GR: Do you think you have the most angst?

SK: I dunno, my character does... I think we all have the same frustrations, we're all doing things the same amount of time.

GR: Have you ever wanted to stop?

SK: Especially right before we started shooting this thing. I was definitely thinking about moving on, I didn't know where. Even after Sundance, I realize there's a lot of hype, and you come back and it's really quiet in LA. So I thought what's the point of continuing? As we get older we have adult needs. To this day I still question it. To tell you the truth after the opening, then what?

GR: Do you have an ounce of expectation?

SK: My expectations were higher, but I think it's lucky to get work. You have to ground yourself. What do I expect? What are the realistic possibilities out there? The conclusion I have is that I don't care about the hype. Wouldn't it be nice to do consistently good work, something that I would be proud of? Doing good work, to be taken seriously as an actor, that's it.

GR: I know you do documentaries.

SK: My passion projects, it has nothing to do with money, or people watching it. I'm curious about the subject matter, there's a story to tell, hopefully one day, if things work out and the stars align correctly, and I get respected as an actor, I can get this out there. If it goes to film festivals or gets anything, that's great.

GR: What's your next role?

SK: Working on a film with Chris Chan Lee, Undoing. It's the lead, flawed character, coming back to a tie up loose ends. Because he's flawed, he ruined a lot of people's lives. It's film noir. It's all drama. I'm excited to work again, but we'll have the same problems as BLT. But this will be easier if BLT does better, we'll have hope that there's an Asian American film that crossed over. This has to match the standard of BLT, and it has to be better than BLT. That's exciting. If BLT doesn't do well, and it proves that there's no market for this film, then what's the point for us? There has to be a demand.

GR: What do you think about the review on Ebert and Roepert?

SK: It's a blessing. It legitimizes the movie to the mainstream. I think Roger Ebert has been a help to us to support the film. On a personal level, it gives you hope that there's progressive thinkers out there.

GR: You get involved in these films and I see you get tons of credits.

SK: It's a lesson I learned early. You wish that you can just come on board and be the actor and go home. At the indie level, it's important to collaborate with different hats, do whatever it takes to get the film made. Even if that means pulling connections to get it made. If you call yourself an actor and that's it, you're doing the bare minimum. Everyone has to come on board and do what it takes, and put on whatever hats necessary, especially on an indie level. Because money is not on there, it eliminates the ego problems right away. And you can't let these people down, they worked so hard and did so much, and when you see obstacles get in the way, I have to do whatever I can do. And it makes you a smarter actor. The more you know the better.

GR: Was the role of Han easy for you?

SK: I had to do research, because I didn't grow up in OC. But tapping into angst wasn't hard for me. There's angst I have that I can tap into. Han had similar type of angst. Getting the feel of a masculine self confident manŠ it was difficult. My whole life, I was a second class citizen. Han is like a guys guy. I think for us, as Asian AmericansŠ I don't know speaking personally, it's been tough to understand to know what it means to be a sexual male, where's there's self-esteem. I grew up insecure. I had my Asian actor friends, and I stole a lot from them.

GR: You're nothing like Han?

SK: I don't think so, I'm more like Virgil (the comedic character in BLT). That's the trap of being an actor, once you're recognized, you get associated as the character. Most of the time they don't really care. It's the whole fascination with actors in Hollywood.

GR: What's up with your hair in the film, it's like greaser style?

SK: I don't know dude, it gets longer and longer in the film. Justin wanted to shave my head, I was fighting for corn rows, and we talked about it. It's more like 50s, muscle cars, and at first, we thought gangster. We thought corn rows would work since it's part of hip hop culture. Han embodies the rebel with James Dean qualities. The first shot we did was the opening scene, and that evolved into that. I wasn't thinking greaser.

GR: How are you into the Hare Krishnas?

SK: I had a friend who was a Hare Krishna. He did construction and we decided to go to lunch. He took me to this place, the Krishna temple. It was all vegetarian food. It's a great alternative to fast food, and that's how I'm related to it.

GR: Is the film automatically going to go to more markets after the first couple of weeks?

SK: If we don't sell the certain amount of money the fist two weeks, which every sunday, they tally it up, on the second sunday, they will decide if they're making any more prints. If we're doing horrible, then really there's no point to continue. If we do excellent by the second week, we get more cities. The wider we go, the less we have to make in each venue. Indie films are designed to fail. Its going to be interesting , MTV is doing what they can to promote us. Really it's a grass roots campaign.