‘Friends’ actor recalls racist incident on set: “It was kind of a toxic environment”

An actor who appeared on two episodes of ’90s hit comedy Friends recalls being shocked by a racist remarks on set.

Stephen Park spoke as part of the Pod Meets World Podcast, a rewatch series for ’90s teen show Boy Meets World. As well as talking about his appearance on that show, he looked back at his time working on the American sitcom.

Park featured in two episodes of Friends – season two episode 23 “The One with the Chicken Pox”, and in season three Episode 23, “The One with the Ultimate Fighting Champion”. The episodes aired in 1996 and ’97 respectively.

“It was at the time, I felt it was kind of a toxic environment,” Park said about the show. “James Hong was the actor who was also on the episode with me, and (the AD) was calling him to the set and you know, essentially saying, you know, ‘Where the fuck is the Oriental guy? Get the Oriental guy’”.

James Hong is a veteran actor considered a groundbreaking figure for Asian representation in Hollywood. Acting since the 1950s, he is known for his work in the animated films Mulan and Kung Fu Panda, as well as cinematic classics like Chinatown, Blade Runner, and Everything Everywhere All At Once.

“This is bigger than this show” Park continued. “This isn’t the first time that this happened, you know, but this is the environment where this is business as usual in Hollywood in 1997, I guess it was. And nobody felt the need to correct this or say anything about it. So this is normal behaviour”.

Enraged by the experience, the actor wanted to speak out. “When I called the Screen Actors Guild after that happened, the person I spoke to recommended I write an article to the LA Times,” he explained. “I started writing this mission statement and I sent it to the LA Times. They sent a couple of reporters and interviewed me, and then they never printed it”.

“This was at the beginning of the internet and I had my email list and I sent my mission statement out to who was on my email list”. The open letter is still found online and, according to Park: “It went viral before ‘viral’ was even a word”.

Despite the attention, Park admitted being disillusioned by the industry. “I had become so race-conscious and so angry that I was looking at everything through the lens of race,” he said. “I felt like there is no freedom. I didn’t feel any freedom. So, I didn’t have any idea what I was going to do, but I just decided to drop out. I told everybody, ‘I’m not acting anymore’”.

Park would continue to act, however, appearing steadily in TV and Film. Most recently, he was seen in Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City and in the forthcoming sci-fi comedy Mickey 17 with Robert Pattinson.

Despite its prolonged success, Friends has come under fire in recent years for jokes and attitudes that are deemed outdated by modern viewers. Issues of racism, sexism, homophobia, and body shaming were brought up by new viewers when the show came to Netflix in 2018.

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