A TALE OF T UM UL T FOR KIDS
Actor John Cho wanted to explain 2020 to his children. `Troublemaker' was the result.
When actor John Cho considered the role of a real-life middle-grade author, the idea appealed to him instantly. “We moved around a lot as a kid,” says Cho, a star of both the “Star Trek” and “Harold & Kumar” film franchises. “They were kind of lonely years for me, and books — I don't say this lightly — I kind of feel like they saved my life.”
Cho says he was a big reader throughout his childhood and adolescence. After majoring in English at UC Berkeley, he taught the subject for a year in West Hollywood before his acting career took off.
“I thought it would be great to put something on a shelf,” Cho says. “What excited me was thinking about myself at that age, walking into a library and seeing someone that looked like me on the cover, which never happened to me.
“I thought, `Well, that's a reason to spend some time at a computer.'”
Then, right as he was set to begin a mystery novel for middle-grade readers, everything changed in the pandemic of 2020.
George Floyd died at the hands of police in Minneapolis. Black Lives Matter protests surged. Asian immigrants and Asian Americans became targets of hate crimes.
“The kids were at home, not going to school,” Cho says of his son and daughter, now 13 and 9. “There was no hiding it from them, and I was thinking about what they were watching.”
At some point, Cho says, the racial turmoil of 2020 triggered memories of the Los Angeles riots of 1992 that erupted after four police officers were acquitted in the beating of Black motorist Rodney King.
“I couldn't stop thinking about it, and I couldn't see myself focusing on anything else,” Cho says of his growing conviction that he should write a story about an immigrant boy like himself set against the backdrop of the riots.
“Troublemaker,” the novel that Cho wrote instead of the mystery he'd planned, arrives Tuesday. (Cho will appear at a virtual event at Long Beach's Bel Canto Books on Thursday.)
It almost feels like destiny, Cho says.
“I kind of felt I didn't have much of a choice. It was either going to be writing this or nothing.”
Subject and age
In the book, 12-year-old Jordan Park sees the riots on television and decides, partly to get back in his father's good graces, that he'll take his dad's gun from their Glendale home to the family's liquor store in Koreatown.
Guns, racism and the violence of that time are challenging material for a middlegrade novel, and Cho decided he needed a collaborator.
“I wanted to be honest, but I wanted to be responsible about it,” he says of his work with young adult fiction author Sarah Suk. “At that age, you have a really sharp BS meter. You know when the adults are BS-ing and it's very offensive.”
Suk served as his sounding board and adviser; he sent her drafts and got feedback on what worked or did not.
Because Cho was on location in New Zealand for most of that time, they never met in person, and still haven't.
“I don't know how we did it, honestly,” he says. “I was FaceTiming on the drive to set and at lunchtime. It's a little miracle.”
Family feedback
Cho says he often talked about his work on the book with his wife, and his children were often listening and contributing to the discussion, too.
“I think we had all the discussions that I hope people have with their children through the book,” he says. “Our discussions were spread out through the writing rather than the reading.”
When the early copies of the book arrived, both children read it and expressed their approval.
“`Good job, Daddy' and a thumbs up,” Cho says of their response. “Which they don't say unless they mean it.”
In the book, the relationship between Jordan and his father is a fraught one. They've had a falling-out just before the narrative begins, and Jordan's idea to bring the gun to his father is intended to return him to his father's good graces.
“My father called me a couple of weeks ago and said, `John, I read the book,' and I said, `What did you think?' ” Cho says. “I was surprised by this particular answer.
“He said, `I really liked it. It really made me think about a lot of things. Made me think about what kind of a father I was.' ”
Cho says he asked his father what he meant by that.
“He said, `I don't think I'm ready to talk to you about it yet,' ” Cho says, and laughs. “So I don't know if I should be scared or happy about it. But it definitely stirred up some things for him.”
Future fun
Cho says he has an idea in mind for his next book, though he's not ready to commit to it just yet.
“The thing I was surprised about in the writing of the book was how much I enjoyed hanging out with the characters,” he says. “I thought, `Oh, I hate to leave them.'
“I wish I could maybe put them in another situation because I just enjoy thinking about them,” Cho says. “So maybe that's the next move.”
The friendship between the characters Jordan and his friend Mike is a fun one, and supporting characters like Jordan's grandfather are appealing too.
“Maybe they go get burgers. Sound familiar?” he says, referencing, of course, “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. “A road trip to get burgers.”
One of his next films actually is a road trip movie: “Don't Make Me Go,” a father-daughter dramedy from director Hannah Marks, which should be out this year from Amazon.
And just last month, director and producer J.J. Abrams announced he's working to reunite his “Star Trek” cast, in which Cho plays Hikaru Sulu, for a fourth film.
“I would love to do another one for multiple reasons,” Cho says. “Mostly, it's the cast. We have a great time any time we're together and it's very special.
“And I would like to do another one for Anton,” he says of the late Anton Yelchin, who played Pavel Chekov before his accidental death in 2016. “I think he would like that, and I'd like to say goodbye to his character as well through the story.
“So, yeah, I would love to do another one.”
“I wanted to be honest, but I wanted to be responsible about it. At that age, you have a really sharp BS meter. You know when the adults are BSing and it's very offensive.”
— John Cho, actor