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    Asian American Actors Are Finally Getting Romantic Lead Roles

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    It was not long ago that the actor and writer Joel Kim Booster first began going to auditions only to quickly realize that the roles available to him as an Asian American man were severely limited.“It does not get better from here, no matter how many Chinese-food delivery boys you play,” he recalled being told by other Asian American actors.But Booster kept at it. And eventually, in 2022, he got to portray a gay Asian American man in “Fire Island,” a groundbreaking rom-com that he also wrote. “So much of that movie,” Booster said, “is just a literal transcript from my life.”As it turned out, things did get a little better for Asian American men in Hollywood during the decade that Booster spent toiling. And he senses that the momentum has continued in the two years since “Fire Island” debuted.Many of the newest Asian and Asian American stories seem unconcerned with “the white gaze,” he said. And so “the conversation has sort of moved on for a lot of people,” he said, adding that his movie “almost feels a little retrograde now.”Indeed, since the 2018 blockbuster “Crazy Rich Asians” became a box office hit, Asian and Asian American stories and characters have proliferated in American pop culture. And after decades of degrading, often emasculating portrayals, Asian and Asian American men like Booster have been at the center of the new work, often playing the sort of hunky hero parts that Hollywood long kept out of reach.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Television

      Manny Jacinto Turns to the Dark Side in ‘The Acolyte’

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      The actor discusses his complex role in the latest “Star Wars” series, which wrapped up its first season on Tuesday.This interview includes spoilers for the first season of “The Acolyte.”As it turns out, Manny Jacinto brought some relevant experience to “The Acolyte”: He understands how to change characters.Jacinto is best known for “The Good Place,” the hit NBC sitcom on which he played an unspeaking Buddhist monk before being unmasked as Jason Mendoza, a lovable, Jacksonville Jaguars-obsessed dummy who is anything but mute. “I had no idea what I was stepping into,” Jacinto said in an interview. “It was my first job in the States. I didn’t even have a green card yet.”He has since worked alongside some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, including Nicole Kidman, in the television series “Nine Perfect Strangers” — a series in which he showed a more stoic side, playing a character who essentially served as Kidman’s acolyte. He then appeared with Tom Cruise in “Top Gun: Maverick.” And this summer he added arguably the biggest franchise of all to his résumé, taking a role in the latest big-budget “Star Wars” series on Disney+. Created by Leslye Headland, “The Acolyte” wrapped up its first season on Tuesday.As was the case in “The Good Place,” Jacinto’s character was not who he seemed.Jacinto, who is Filipino and Canadian, starred as Qimir, a pharmacist who began the show as a kind of accomplice to a young woman named Mae (Amandla Stenberg), who is on her mission to hunt and kill Jedi. In the fifth episode of the season, he was revealed to actually be a Sith Lord known as “the Stranger,” elevating Jacinto from an afterthought apothecary to a top-line “Star Wars” villain. In Tuesday’s season finale, he fought another lightsaber battle and got the acolyte his character always wanted.In two different interviews — one early in the season and another after the finale premiered on Tuesday — Jacinto discussed how he entered the “Star Wars” universe, his shift to the dark side and the possibility of more seasons of “The Acolyte.” Here are excerpts from the conversations.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      ‘I Want You Back’ Review: Scheming Hearts

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      Jenny Slate and Charlie Day play strangers who team up to win back their exes in this pleasantly run-of-the-mill rom-com.Directed by Jason Orley, “I Want You Back” is a throwback rom-com about the love lives of straight people, and its jokes hit about as much as they miss. The story is mediocre and formulaic, yes, but pleasantly so. And it shows not only ladies dealing in blubbering heartbreak, but guys going through it as well.Peter (Charlie Day), a manager at a nursing home company, is dumped by Anne (Gina Rodriguez), his English-teacher girlfriend of six years. In the throes of a quarter-life crisis, Anne finds him complacent and shacks up with the alluringly bohemian Logan (Manny Jacinto), who dreams of Off Broadway fame but settles for directing school plays.Meanwhile Emma (Jenny Slate), a flighty receptionist living with college students, is given the boot by Noah (Scott Eastwood), a personal trainer who has fallen for a more emotionally mature pie shop owner.Commence the weepy despairing and Instagram stalking.A commiseration-and-karaoke-filled friendship unfolds between Emma and Peter, prompting some mutually beneficial scheming to break up their exes’ new relationships: Peter will pull Noah back into bachelorhood and Emma will seduce Logan. It sort of works, though primarily as a conduit for self-discovery. High jinks also ensue, as when Emma, endearingly delusional (Slate’s forte), volunteers for Logan’s new production and takes the stage for a bizarrely sincere rendition of “Suddenly, Seymour.” Or when the paternal Peter, high on MDMA, goes diving into a hot tub off a rooftop with girls half his age.Orley and the screenwriters Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger (the duo behind “Love, Simon”) build out a not entirely shallow ensemble story, even if they rely on new archetypes for their modern lovers, like the late-blooming messy woman or the sensitive guy with baby fever. “I Want You Back” isn’t particularly clever or emotionally stirring, but it does briskly deliver on the corny promises of the genre, navigating relatable relationship issues by the least relatable means.I Want You BackRated R for some rear-end nudity, brief sex scenes, drug use and language. Running time: 1 hour 51 minutes. Watch on Amazon. More