Tamlyn Tomita is having a moment
Californian Tamlyn Tomita has been spending most of her year in Vancouver recently with roles in ABC’s The Good
Doctor and Amazon Prime Video’s The Man in the High Castle.
But a generation of viewers remember her as Waverly, the ambitious, driven daughter in the movie version of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, which debuted 25 years ago this year. And there have been countless shows in between, including How to Get Away With Murder, Law & Order: LA, Heroes and 24. But it all started with The Karate Kid Part II in her role as Kumiko, as she became one of the first Asian stars in modern mainstream cinema. The Karate Kid has had a revival on YouTube with Cobra Kai, and The Joy Luck Club celebrated its quarter-century with a special screening at the To- ronto International Film Festival.
Both movies have seen a resurgence of interest this year, putting the Okinawaborn Tomita in the thick of popular culture.
The Star talked to Tomita, 52, about her work playing hospital administrator Allegra Aoki in The Good Doctor and Tamiko in The Man in the High Castle, and how Joy Luck Club led to Crazy Rich Asians. The interview has been edited and condensed.
You’re practically Canadian now spending all that time in Vancouver. You’re splitting your time between two very different projects; one is this optimistic medical show, the other a very dystopian fantasy drama.
I absolutely adore Vancouver, it’s really been my second home. And I feel pretty lucky and grateful at this point in my life that I can be involved with two really great shows. The Good Doctor, I think, has been kind of a panacea to this disquieting moment in our country politically and I think audiences want to see a place of hope. With The Man in
the High Castle, I think people are responding because it has some big ideas that are really relevant today. One of those ideas is that we should really examine and question authority.
You were in Toronto recently to host a screening of The Joy Luck Club. You got to watch the movie again after a quarter-century. What was that experience like?
It was amazing to be in Toronto and see so many people still respond to the film. It’s really been a generation who were probably watching this show on VHS. They said things would be different with Joy Luck Club. But it took
another film with 25 an years all-Asian before cast, another Crazy Rich Asians, came along. Is this perhaps another false start or the real deal this time around?
Realistically, even with the success of the show, I think there is a 50-50 chance. If the doors really were open, the actors should be going from one big studio movie to the next.
When I last talked to Daniel Dae Kim, the creator of The Good Doctor, it was about why he didn’t get equal pay to other actors in Hawaii Five-0. Yet, after leaving that show, he carved his own path and ended up having a huge hit. Is there some kind of ironic justice in all this?
Daniel, to his credit, took a closing of the door and opened his own door. CBS closed the door on him. Let’s face it. They said he wasn’t worth the same as white actors. But he took the opportunity to open his own door over at ABC. He built the door. He put in the lock and holds the key. And now we have three Asian-American cast members, including myself, who are regulars on
The Good Doctor. How fantastic is that? … So absolutely, it’s a lesson in how important it is to have representation behind and in front of the camera. The Karate Kid was your first movie. Now it’s having a comeback moment with Cobra Kai and it’s the biggest hit on YouTube Red.
Isn’t that amazing? It all started at the Nisei Week Japanese festival, which is the oldest such festival in the United States. I participated in the queen contest. And the following year, I got a call for Asian-American actresses to play a role in this film. It changed my life. I was scared s--tless at the time. Even when I saw Pat (Morita) at a festival before the filming, I was scared to go up to introduce myself to Mr. Miyagi. But really, I had no idea what it all meant; I was so young at the time. You’ve been an outspoken Democrat. The midterm elections were a real focal point for many Americans, including you, but what I find interesting is that you come from a diehard Republican family.
You have to remember that it was a Democratic president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, that signed Executive Order 9066 (allowing internment of Americans of Japanese ancestry), and it was a Republican president, Ronald Reagan, that apologized and gave redress. But I’m proud to come from a family of Republicans and, yes, we have some spirited discussions in our family. But these elections were just incredibly important. But, oh my God, it’s depressingly sad what’s been happening on the Supreme Court, for example. As long as I think the public keeps voicing their opinions, Brett Kavanaugh will be under a microscope. So where do you go from here, not just politically, but in terms of telling stories as a culture?
The hope is that we go higher and farther and wider. And that it is about all colours and palettes. I’m interested in Native American and African-American stories, and LGBTQ stories and stories of persons of mixed heritage. These are the stories I want to see on screen and on the pages. I just hope it continues for all of us. But right now, I’m so glad we are all in this golden kind of moment where people are noticing.