How Berkeley changed everything — from landing his first role to discovering what it means to be Asian American.
I remember being floored by John Cho (BA ‘96, English) in Justin Lin’s 2002 indie thriller Better Luck Tomorrow, which was based on a true story near where I grew up in southern California. The film was groundbreaking, shattering the model minority myth by depicting Asian American teenagers as complex, flawed, and beautifully human — not the usual nerdy, one-dimensional Hollywood tropes. I recognized my friends, my parents and my life onscreen for the first time. Minus the motorcycle and murder bits.
Nearly 30 years after graduating from UC Berkeley with an English major and breaking out as “MILF Guy #2” in American Pie, John hasn’t stopped being deliberate about authentic storytelling and how he brings characters to life. (Though he might say that’s a bit “high falutin’.”) During our conversation, we learned that consciousness started at Berkeley.
After a eureka moment while visiting friends on campus, John immediately started work on transferring to Berkeley. What followed was a chain of events he calls both strange and inevitable: landing his first professional stage role in Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, learning from “tremendous towering figures” like Ethnic Studies Professors Elaine Kim and Ron Takaki, and discovering what he calls a “third identity” — Asian American. In the first installment of our “Then / Now / Next”#CalAlumStory series, we explore how Berkeley shaped the actor, writer, and producer’s past — and what stories matter to him today and tomorrow.
Then: Finding independence and identity at Berkeley
How did you end up at Berkeley?
I was at another four-year college and went to visit friends at Cal. I said, “My god, I need to go here.” So I dropped out, moved up, went to Diablo Valley College for my sophomore year and transferred in successfully. Getting into Berkeley was the first independent, proactive thing that I did for myself. It was the first thing I really wanted as a young person.
What made Berkeley the right place for you?
Berkeley was the perfect place for me to figure out who I was and what I liked. It’s a big university, which was great for me in that there’s just so many different kinds of people and ideas floating around. You could put on any t-shirt you wanted, and I mean that in the identity sense. You could try anything you wanted. For that age in particular — as an undergraduate, those tender years — that was really important for me looking back.
How did you first get into acting at Berkeley?
One day my roommate brought home a flyer — you know, like an Instagram post, but made of trees. I just wandered into this student production and that’s how I got interested. It seemed fun more than anything else. That was my first play.
Does this photo bring back any memories? The team was wondering if that’s you.
Oh my god, I’m so young. Oh yeah, that’s me. Right in the middle. How’d I get in the middle? Down the street was this world-class regional theater company called East West Players, and they were putting on a production of this great Asian American book. They needed a bigger space and had to reach out to the university to accommodate their needs. The school said, well, if you’re going to use our facilities, you need to use some of our students. So you see two of us in there. We ended up going on the road, delaying my graduation a bit.
What was it like working alongside professional Asian American actors?
In any other situation, I would not have met these Asian American actors, without whom I would never have considered the possibility of doing it for a living. Not only were they doing it, they really held the art in such high regard and carried themselves with such professionalism, even in the face of daunting professional odds. I was just really struck by these people, one of whom, Emily Kuroda, became my sort of Sherpa in LA.
All kinds of firsts, all kinds of brain matter being melted in a very short amount of time. If you just want to try stuff, it’s tough to imagine a better place than Berkeley.
Did you get to meet Maxine Hong Kingston?
Yes. Maxine Hong Kingston was an author that I read in school — and then there she was, sitting in an armchair while I sat at her feet and asked her questions. That just doesn’t happen as a kid.
I was an English major, and here I was reading texts. I wasn’t a theater kid growing up. That was not something I considered. There seemed to be this tremendous intellectual activity to adapt a book to the stage, and then it became a living thing — and fun. It was this bridge from reading books to dramatizing a story with people.
I don’t know that I would have thought of acting if it wasn’t for this particular situation, this adapting of this famous Asian American memoir that I had read. And when I did the professional show, it was like, “This is a thing you can do?” I did not know that.
Were there other professors who left a lasting mark on you?
I have to shout out Celeste Langan, who I did my thesis for, and I believe I took the romantic poets with her. And then of course Elaine Kim, who was just a tremendous towering figure in my life. Ron Takaki gave a lot of people a set of vocabulary that was really useful moving forward. And I mean that in terms of ideas and actual words.
Professor Takaki founded our Ethnic Studies department and taught concepts like “the model minority,” right?
Yes. I’m still having to talk about that particular myth when discussing screenplays. It still dogs us. It’s really quite dangerous, so it’s still something I think about and talk about.
Berkeley was the place I needed for myself, for my life. It is one of the birthplaces of the Asian American movement.
Can you talk about discovering your Asian American identity during this time?
In my youth, I would have thought of myself as Korean. My parents would have called us Korean. As a teenager, I was like, “Am I American? Am I Korean?” And those felt like limiting ideas. Korean didn’t feel on the money, right? Of course I was Korean. And of course we were American, but they seemed exclusive somehow.
It was at Berkeley that I started to think of this third identity, which was being Asian American. It seemed to describe better what I was living.
Berkeley was the flowering of that consciousness for me. It was a very useful step on the ladder to figuring out who I was. And it remains so.
Do you think your Berkeley experience could have happened anywhere else?
It’s pretty unlikely. Down the street was this world-class regional theater company and they were putting on a production of this great Asian American book and they needed a bigger space. That chain of events — could it have happened in New York? I don’t know. It was a strange series of events that led to Berkeley, but it also seems inevitable looking back.
Now: On the need for authenticity, humanities, and stories that matter today
It’s been 26 years since many of us met you in American Pie. How do you approach choosing projects now vs. then?
The most exciting question now is: Do we need the story right now? Do we need it today? That’s what gets me going the most now. Whereas when I started, it would have been, “Would that be a fun character to play?” It was more focused on me. But that’s a high bar to clear. I can’t clear them all. Sometimes you gotta take a check.
After learning from Berkeley luminaries like Maxine Hong Kingston, Elaine Kim, and Ron Takaki, how do you think about representation in your work today?
Identity is a very complicated Rubik’s cube. It is still important to me, and it is how the world sees you, unfortunately. That’s just reality. As it relates to my career, I do keep that in mind. I want to be on the lookout to do things that seem human, that seem authentic. I guess I’ve just tried to make sure I’m in when I’m in. It’s a variety of factors that lead you.
We just had our highest humanities enrollment in 15 years. Students are looking for critical-thinking skills. What’s the value of a humanities education in this AI era?
We need more critical thinking. I’m very disheartened when I see a lot of people thinking about education as a trade school. We are not algorithms. We are people.
Next: What’s ahead, on going back to school, and advice for the next generation
Do you ever think about returning to Berkeley?
Sometimes I fantasize about returning. I never got a theater degree; I didn’t study it formally. Now I think it might be fun to go back. To just enjoy myself and see if something interesting happens. See if I can be better. Just purely to learn about this thing that I’ve been doing that I don’t know much about. There’s a number of things that might be fun to study, but I guess mostly in the humanities.
You gave our English Department commencement speech a couple of years ago. What advice would you give to future college grads worldwide?
The one bit of practical advice I would give any college graduate entering the real world is the following: Don’t hesitate. Just jump in and help. Give somebody a hand without waiting for anyone to ask.
I’ve seen in the work environment, people who have to be asked to pitch in don’t go very far. People who pitch in without being asked go very far. People with much less talent can go further because they pitch in.