“Wilmer, the beast does have some lines. And of course he speaks English.”
This did not deter me.
“I can do it! I know I can do it!”
She could see how bad I wanted it and couldn’t say no to me. Plus, no one else wanted to wear that terrible costume, which was a giant mascot-type head. I was willing, and she was probably the most generous casting director in the history of time. She offered to let me play the beast if I would allow her to be the voice. Meaning, I wore the beast’s giant costume head and did all the dancing and movements onstage, but she would yell all my lines from the side of the stage. That’s right. I was lip-synching the role of the beast, who was actually voiced by a very kind woman. But I didn’t care at all. I was just happy to get some stage time. You might expect there was some sort of calamity around this—her voice not synching with my movements, the head falling off to reveal the truth. But it went off without a hitch. I delivered the role perfectly, if I do say so myself. I didn’t even care that they had to sub in a white kid for me at the very end of the show when the beast turns into a prince. When the costume head came off, I went offstage too. I literally had to step aside to let this other actor deliver the lines and pretend like it had been him inside the beast costume the whole time. It was the opposite of having a body double. I had a voice double. But I wasn’t bothered. I made my exit with absolutely no shame. No one in the audience was even aware of the swap-out. And I didn’t need the glory, I just wanted to be a part of the show. Looking back, it’s pretty amazing to me that I didn’t have an ego about this. I knew I was just as good as that white kid who played the prince. All that mattered is that I was up there with all the other kids, doing my best.
Maybe I was fearless, or maybe I was just young enough to be able to disregard the kind of negative perceptions and assumptions people start having once they get a little more experienced in life. I didn’t care how people perceived my accent or my skin color. I had big shoes to fill—my parents deserved to see their kids do their best in everything. So from that point on, my intensity only grew. I took every theater and performance class I could and tried out for every play. Just like in Venezuela, I had a bad habit of paying less attention to the classes I disliked (math) so I could focus more on the ones I loved. Not only would I ditch geometry class to go sit in on drama classes I wasn’t even enrolled in, I would also ditch school altogether to attend special workshops or drama classes outside of school. That’s right. I ditched school for school. What a rebel!
I also spent time studying American TV to find people who looked like me and sounded like me. Watching old reruns of I Love Lucy, I remember seeing Desi Arnaz with his handsome good looks and his real Cuban accent. I got this, I thought. I can do it too. And I learned a lot of English by watching that show. There were other Latino men on TV who inspired me—like Antonio Banderas, Jimmy Smits, Edward James Olmos, and Anthony Quinn. It’s true that up until pretty recently, Hollywood featured exactly one Latino male star per decade, but I wasn’t deterred. I just looked for the inspiration I needed until I found it.
Pretty soon, my English was getting much better—at least passable enough that the theater directors would let me say my own lines onstage. No more lip-dubbing for me. The beast was coming out of the shadows! There was a great group of drama kids, and we put on some funny plays that were really well attended at school. Suddenly people were starting to notice me. I remember getting lots of laughs onstage and feeling so proud, only to find out that the audience was only laughing at the way I had mispronounced a word. When I delivered a line about eggs being “hatched” everyone thought I said the eggs were “hash,” and I guess this was pretty funny to them. Sometimes after a show, kids would come backstage to meet the actors. They’d tell me how funny I was in the play, and when I would respond to tell them thanks for coming, they’d say, “Oh, wow! That’s your real accent! I thought you were just doing it to be funny for the show!” I didn’t know whether to take this as the best compliment or the worst diss.
Either way, I decided not to get too discouraged or embarrassed. I couldn’t be too bothered by it because I was getting parts and making people laugh. I even got to have my first kiss with a girl, onstage of course, because it was part of the script. But I was proud I was good enough to play the love interest. And when my high school did A Midsummer Night’s Dream I actually came out sounding better than all the native English speakers. When you’re trying to speak in Shakespearean iambic pentameter—which might as well be a foreign language—it doesn’t hurt to have a nice rhythmic Latin accent to make it sound better.
Sometimes my parents’ other immigrant friends would make comments to them suggesting that immigrant kids should work harder in academics if they wanted to get anywhere. More than once my parents were made to feel like I might be going down the wrong path by doing theater. It’s not like I was joining a gang. I was playing Peter Quince in one of the world’s greatest Renaissance plays. Pretty sure my parents didn’t understand a word of that show, by the way. Even the white kids’ parents didn’t understand what was going on, the way we butchered that flowery incomprehensible Elizabethan English. But anyway, no matter what kind of criticism my parents received or how unlikely it may have seemed that I would become a working actor one day, they always held their heads high and supported my dreams. And while I was dancing around in tights onstage, they were working very hard, and struggling to pay the bills.
One night when I was about sixteen years old, I woke up in the middle of the night, hearing a commotion in the living room. I could hear my parents talking. My mother was crying and my dad was trying to comfort her. I figured out by what my mother was saying that someone had stolen our car. In Los Angeles, you need a car to do everything, especially if you are in the working class, doing several jobs every day like my parents did. We only had one car and we barely made ends meet. We would never be able to afford getting a new vehicle. My dad would be lucky to keep his job if he could figure out how to get to work every day. My mother was fretting over specific details like the fact that my sister and I were now going to have to walk to school, and she was going to have to walk to get groceries, and my father would miss out on work or would have to find something that was within walking distance.
When I asked what was going on, my father did what he always does and put on a happy face. He is strong and fearless and always finds the humor in everything.
“Well, mijo, the bad news is someone stole the car. The good news is, we’re all going to get new shoes.”
We all laughed in the moment, realizing that we could get through whatever hurdle or disaster came our way. My dad taught me in moments like these that life is only as complicated as you want it to be. And it can also be as beautiful and simple as you want it to be.
It was a big moment for me, seeing my parents struggling and my dad handling it so well. I wanted to be like him in that way. And I wanted to help out the family and be the best actor I could be. So after that night, I went for it as hard as I could. I studied harder in my academic classes, I worked on improving my accent, I exercised more, I ate healthier and stayed focused on my goal to become a real actor. I performed my heart out onstage. My teachers noticed how driven I was, and pretty soon one of my acting teachers told me that I should really consider trying to make acting a real career for myself. I took more acting classes outside of school and had an acting coach who took me on for free and got me auditions for small parts in commercials and TV shows. My parents were cool with it as long as I kept my grades up.
So I kept my grades up and kept auditioning for professional paying roles. I got a lot of good feedback and a few small roles in commercials. My first commercial was an all-Spanish commercial for Pacific Bell Smart Yellow Pages. Ironically my only line was the one English phrase in the whole thing. I said “Pacific Bell Smart Yellow Pages.” But it worked out because I made just enough money to become a Screen Actors Guild member so I could audition for the good roles. But the
money just wasn’t rolling in at this point. Usually I was told by the casting directors that they loved my “ethnic” look but not my “ethnic” accent. I would walk in a room and see that all the other actors auditioning were white guys. It started to become a thing: “If we don’t go white, we’ll go Wilmer,” they would say. But they pretty much always went white. And I’m pretty far from white, in case you haven’t noticed. Nonetheless, I saw it as a great compliment that I was even in the running. At some point, they were gonna “go Wilmer,” and I just had to be ready for it.
One day around this time, my mother and I were walking home from the supermarket and I looked down at her hands. They were so red from gripping the bags of groceries that my parents could barely afford. I knew we were having a hard time even paying for things, and we were several months late on rent. My mom stopped and put the grocery bags down to take a break. I could see how down she was, and I started telling her about another audition I had coming up as a way to try to cheer her up. It was for a pilot TV show and I was going to get to read for a pretty good part. I was seventeen years old and was constantly being told my accent was “too ethnic.” I still struggled with speaking English the way you’d expect an American actor to speak it, but somewhere I had it in me to tell my mother anyway: “Don’t worry, Mom. I’m going to get this part, and I’m going to make enough money to take care of everything.”
A week later, I was sitting in the audition room for the pilot TV show with my dad. We both knew that if I got this part, I would make $15,000 just to film the pilot. And if the show got picked up, I would make a real salary that was more than my dad had ever made. We both knew we could really use the money. But my dad never wanted me to feel pressure to support the family. “Remember, mijo, if you get this part, great. If you don’t get the part, that’s great too. You’ll still learn something, and we will be okay.” With that advice, I walked into the room completely stress-free and fearless. I was doing this for me, for my love of acting. This wasn’t about winning the part. It was about going in there and doing my best.
With all his hard work and bravery, my dad showed me what fearlessness really looked like. So I walked into that room with my “ethnic accent,” and nailed the part of a guy who was supposed to have an entirely different “ethnic accent.” And that’s how I became Fez on That ’70s Show.
And maybe the craziest part of all? I came face-to-face with my favorite childhood villain. That’s right. Clarence Boddicker himself! Well, actually it was Kurtwood Smith, the actor who had been cast to play Red Forman on That ’70s Show. How crazy is life? Just five years earlier, I was in a dark movie theater watching him throw Bobby from a moving vehicle, and now he was walking up to shake my hand. I pretty much flipped out. I told him all about the movie theater in Acarigua and was obnoxious about constantly quoting my favorite line to him: “Can you fly, Bobby?” It was a dream come true: he had been a part of my childhood imagination in Venezuela. And now he was my real-life coworker in America.
The pilot got picked up and stayed on the air for eight years and two hundred episodes. My life completely changed. It was my confirmation that I was living in a land of opportunity where hard work really does pay off. I helped my parents get their own house so they’d never have to worry about rent again, and thanks to the fun I had with Fez’s accent, people were finally laughing at me for all the right reasons. I’ve been working and doing what I love ever since. Not only did I get to help support my family, I also got to bring more Latin characters—like Handy Manny—to life on the screen so kids like me watching might feel a little more visible. And beyond playing these parts, I also get to create them. I just finished producing and starring in an animated movie about Prince Charming, who will be the first Latino fairy-tale prince. And unlike that first role in Beauty and the Beast, this time I get to be the voice of the prince too.
Anna Akana is an actress, producer, director, and comedian. She is the proud daughter of Japanese and Filipino immigrants.
Anna Akana
THOUGH MY MOTHER IS Filipino, she refused to raise my siblings and me with any semblance of her heritage. She thought that her own culture was too crass and low-class, opting instead to enforce my father’s Japanese values: shoes off in the house, rice cooker always full, bowing to elders, and a deep respect for the collective group’s well-being. Though my father encouraged her to teach us Tagalog so we could grow up bilingual, she refused. “Tagalog is a poor man’s language,” she said. So the only words we ever learned of her native tongue were by accident. We picked up that ainakoyabatantouya was a sign of exasperation and that kikilinakikai was a stern warning when we were in trouble. If we heard my mother start to mutter that under her breath, we ran. We knew the slipper was soon to follow on our heads if we didn’t.
We knew nothing of customs of the Philippines, but we did realize the extent of its poverty by how our mother could consume an entire fish (eyes and brain and all, down to the bones) and how quickly she could patch up a hole in our jackets. She was an excellent thrifter, always somehow managing to find the best brand-name pieces on any given rack. She haggled with people at flea markets with reckless abandon and ruthlessness, drilling into us that you should always be willing to walk away, because that’s when you’ll seal the deal at the price you want.
I used to be embarrassed by my mother’s shamelessness. Her poor upbringing made her rambunctious and loud. When she walked into a room, you knew she was there. She was the life of parties, the loudest laugh in the room, and the drunkest karaoke singer. She would drop us off at school and scream yahoo! out the window as she drove off. She’d tell our friends embarrassing stories of our childhood and show them pictures of us as naked babies. She knew how to crack a dirty joke, and she did it often, loving the adolescent shocked faces that she could evoke.
My father, despite a similarly poor upbringing, was a stark contrast to Mom. Being the eldest of six and raised by a single mother, he valued hard work, responsibility, and rigid routine. He was pulled out of poverty and into the middle class through the military, so he tried to instill a similar work ethic in us. Whenever mom would visit the Pacific Islands, we would cry and beg her to take us with her. Being left alone with Dad meant 5:00 a.m. wake-up calls, an extensive chores list, required reading, and physical training. The few weeks where we’d be under his care felt like being in the Japanese militia: expected uniformity, respect, and a complete lack of individuality.
Despite his regimented way of raising us, Dad was also unbelievably generous. Growing up in poverty had the opposite effect on him. Where Mom was frugal and wanted us to learn the best way to save a buck, Dad wanted us to have everything (as long as we were willing to work for it). He’d take us on spontaneous trips to Disneyland, sightseeing at Yellowstone National Park, and enrolled us in local schools when we were overseas so we could be fully entrenched in various cultures.
Growing up with a wild animal of a mother and a robot of a father was entertaining, to say the least. Where Mom would often gross us out with the creatures she was willing to eat (frogs, dog, insects), Dad would try to train us to become prodigies. There were no limits to the skills he tried to make me excel in: golf (the only reason he stopped is because I crashed the cart into a ditch), tennis (I had no knack for it), and math (I will never understand math).
Mom, however, would push us into artistic talents. She tried teaching us crochet, cross-stitching, and painting. She would shove clay into our hands and pens and paper under our noses. They put their dreams upon us. We were a clean slate, a fresh start, in the land of freedom and opportunity. If only their kids knew how good they had it! The somebodies we could become with this middle-class income and security! Though both had exact opposite ideas of what being well-rounded meant, my parents agreed on one thing: success was defined by accomplishments. Whether academic, artistic, or physical, they wanted their kids to be the best at whatever they did.
Growing up, we were required at all times to be on a sports team and learn
ing an instrument. We were allowed to quit and hop to another if we wanted (diversity was highly encouraged, because you never know what your kid will be a genius at), but we had to always be learning something.
They knew how to motivate us as well: money. We got a penny per page of books we read, ten dollars for every A grade earned, and a weekly allowance so long as we completed our chores. Any extracurriculars were always verbally encouraged. My parents would compare our accomplishments to each other to breed “healthy” competition. An emphasis on our college educations and the need to prepare for that was relayed as early as elementary school. My parents believed that we could be anything we wanted to be. As long as it was a respectable, successful occupation, of course.
Being the child of poverty-stricken immigrants has given me a work ethic, ambition, and many causes for eye rolls over the years. I have heard every tale there is: that the people back in the Pacific Islands are starving, that I am lucky to have unrestricted internet access unlike communists, that I am in a land of privilege and should be proud. And all of this is true, but only because I have my parents’ upbringing to highlight it for me. I am able to appreciate being an American from a middle-class family because the stories from their childhoods demonstrate it. My mother had to watch cartoons through a neighbor’s screen door. My father was never quite sure if he was going to eat each evening. They were both children in families of seven or more, often had holes in their hand-me-down clothing, and dreamed of days when they didn’t have to worry about money.
Because of my mother, I am artistic, vulnerable, honest, and always up for exploration. I owe my need to express myself artistically completely to her. She taught me that when something hurts, I can make something beautiful. And my entire career has been built on expressing my pain: the loss of my sister, the disappointments of love and friendship, the struggles of being an Asian woman in the entertainment industry. It was she who taught me to not only find my voice but to also use it freely.
American Like Me Page 19