Leading Man: Chris Tashima
He’s one of only a handful of Asian Americans to earn the honor of being nominated for an Academy Award – “ and win. He’s got the salt and pepper hair, and the chiseled leading man features. But if you haven’t heard from Americanese star Chris Tashima before, it’s not because he doesn’t have anything to say. He’s one of only a handful of Asian Americans to earn the honor of being nominated for an Academy Award – “ and win. He’s got the salt and pepper hair, and the chiseled leading man features. But if you haven’t heard from Americanese star Chris Tashima before, it’s not because he doesn’t have anything to say.
The 46-year-old actor and filmmaker is best known for his Academy Award winning short film, Visas and Virtue (1997), a 26-minute dramatic portrait of Holocaust rescuer Chiune “Sempo” Sugihara, which he directed, co-wrote (adapting the play by Tim Toyama) and starred as the heroic diplomat. He also co-founded Cedar Grove Productions to produce the film (with playwright/executive producer Toyama and producer Chris Donahue), which remains active developing and producing projects that “boldly defy mainstream Hollywood by giving Asian Americans the spotlight on stage or the close-up on screen.”
Tashima also entered the DGA (Directors Guild of America) after directing, co-writing and acting in Day of Independence (2003), a tribute to Japanese Americans who endured America’s World War II concentration camps. The half-hour PBS drama received an Emmy nomination in the category of Historical/Cultural – ” Program/Special.
More recently, Tashima stars as Raymond Ding, the romantic lead opposite Joan Chen and Allison Sie, in Eric Byler’s Americanese (2006), recently acquired by IFC First Take for release in theaters in Summer 2007. Based on Shawn Wong’s provocative novel, “American Knees,” the Asian American love story, produced by Lisa Onodera, won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature plus a Special Jury Prize for Outstanding Ensemble Cast following its world premiere at the South by Southwest Film Festival (SXSW). At the Seattle International Film Festival, his performance garnered a Best Actor nomination (2nd Runner-Up) at the festival’s Golden Space Needle Audience Awards.
In addition to his film work, Tashima’s also a master carpenter and set builder, musician and stage actor. At East West Players, which has been called “the nation’s pre-eminent Asian American theater troupe,” he spent his early years learning the craft of acting and theater from the legendary actor Mako, who recently passed away at the age of 72.
During a holiday break from stage and theater work, Tashima took time out to speak with Asiance about being an Asian American actor in Hollywood, the Directors Guild of America’s Asian American Committee, and his work with Mako and East West Players.
ASIANCE: Tell us about your acting career and how you got started.
Chris Tashima: Well, I call myself an actor and a filmmaker. Initially, I had interest – “ going back to High School – “ in strictly working behind the camera. But things didn’t work out… I didn’t get into film schools… and kind of by accident, because of that, discovered I liked to act.
Even just as a person, I kind of grew thinking I was white, then realized around junior high that I wasn’t, but didn’t know what I could do with that, or what that meant, or the fact that filmmaking could be a great way to address a lot of the issues that I found myself dealing with as an adult.
Originally, I started doing some extra work just to hang out on movie sets and stuff… started enjoying the little bits of business they would get you to do and found I liked acting. So I started setting up my headshot and trying to get more work. Eventually, that led me to actually auditioning for theater. The first exposure I got to theater was East West Players here in L.A. Actually, not on stage. I was backstage playing violin in a band that was accompanying a musical. But I got to meet a whole bunch of actors… I got to meet Mako… I got exposed to theater and what acting was all about – “ and discovered that I enjoyed it, so I stuck with that for several years.
And then through some people I met at East West, for instance Tim Toyama, and Tom Donaldson, who was an actor and director, I was asked to be in the Visas and Virtue play, when it was performed in a little theater in North Hollywood. While we were doing the play, the idea came up of making a film out of Tim’s little one-act play. After I thought about it, I realized it was my chance to go back to filmmaking, but incorporate everything I had learned as an actor and really tell a good story. So that’s sort of how I got back into filmmaking.
Of course, it won an Academy Award and I’ve since formed a very good partnership with Tim, and we’ve continued to work together.
I think another really important thing that happened to me at East West was a sort of discovering – “ not so much discovering but really understanding what it means to be Asian American, especially in the entertainment industry.
Even just as a person, I kind of grew thinking I was white, then realized around junior high that I wasn’t, but didn’t know what I could do with that, or what that meant, or the fact that filmmaking could be a great way to address a lot of the issues that I found myself dealing with as an adult. So it sort of changed my course in terms of studying acting and respecting acting, but it also changed it in terms of wanting to tell stories about Asian Americans and learning about our history here in this country.
That’s basically how I got to be where I am right now, which is continuing to make films about our experience here. Now we’re just sort of starting to get back into some theater and producing Asian American theater and having a consciousness about being a minority actor in the business.
ASIANCE: Tell us about your work with the Director’s Guild of America and your work with the Asian American Committee.
Chris Tashima: As a filmmaker, I’ve always wanted to join the guild. I mean, it’s just what you to do if you want to be a professional filmmaker. It’s like joining the Screen Actors Guild if you want to be an actor.
The opportunity actually came up with Day of Independence, which we produced about three years ago. The budget was too big to go under what they called, at that time, “an experimental contract”. I think it was 70 thousand dollars and our budget was beyond that, so we had to use a low budget agreement, and the reason I wanted to do that was I needed to go with the guild.
I wanted a first assistant director from the guild because they’re just the main person that runs your set, and considering how large a task it was to produce that film, I needed a professional to be in that position. I had a guild person for Visas and Virtue, which was produced in “96, but it was a smaller budget so we went with an experimental contract and it didn’t mean that the director had to be a member, but it allowed us to use guild members. It’s sort of a waiver. But using the low budget agreement meant I would need to join the guild. So it was a great opportunity. I mean it worked out both ways; I got what I needed, and I also got to join.
I was aware of the Asian American committee and so I just started going to meetings. It’s open to all members. You don’t have to put in a certain number of hours or be on an official list. They just schedule the meetings and you show up. I knew a couple of people that were at the meetings, but I got to know a lot more people. It’s just another group that’s good to be a part of and we kind of keep an eye on films that are being shot or about to be released and help find ways of promoting Asian American directors in the guild. The Asian American committee is something I’ve been pretty closely involved with for about two years now. And the guild is also very interested in supporting and nurturing relationships with Independent filmmakers so they have events say with the VC film fest when its in town and other film festivals.
The guild is actually really good about understanding the need to diversify. They have a lot of minority programs. There’s an African Americans committee, Latinos committee and Womens committee. They’re all very well supported by the whole guild so it’s been a really good experience for me.
ASIANCE: It was reported recently the Top 40 television programs in Prime Time lacked diversity in directors. Tell us about what the guild is doing right now to diversify television.
Chris Tashima: Television is sort of a unique field. It’s really run by producers in terms of the content and hiring. It’s kind of hard to break that wall. Some of the things the guild is doing is talking with the networks – “ and they’ve worked with ABC and NBC – “ to establish sort of fellowships, or minority paid shadowing programs, where minority and women filmmakers apply for the program and they get assigned to shows.
Basically, they get paid to just observe and meet people. It’s because you need to meet the producers and you need to understand how the shows are run in order to get a job. It’s no guarantee of a job, but there’s incentive for hiring someone out of the program. And it’s not the guild that’s doing it, but the guild has been highly involved in sort of organizing these programs and bringing their members in and encouraging them to apply. So it’s a proactive effort. I mean just in general all of the committees have events that are sponsored by the guild where they have receptions and they have Q&A’s. They also have sort of a networking cocktail hours where you just come and show up. It’s almost like business socializing. You meet show runners, you meet people from the networks. It’s just a chance for them to meet.
There are some that are interested in diversifying, in terms of producers, but it’s just not so easy to do because they’re so involved with just getting their show up, they don’t have a chance to go outside of that. And just like anything else, you hire who you know and who you trust… so its just a matter of introducing people.
The guild has student filmmaker awards specifically for Women, Latino, African American and Asian American filmmakers. Each of the sub-committees of the guild select their nominees, so its just another way to promote the work of up and coming minority filmmakers, introduce them to other members and expose their work.
And they themselves are very open about making public their hiring records. They’re not involved with hiring people so there’s nothing they can do, but what they can do is show records of which shows are hiring women and minority filmmakers on their shows and which aren’t. Those get published in the trades by the guild every year.
They kind of say, “Here’s the new statistics… they’re not improving, in fact, this group is dropping.” From the president on down, I would say the leadership is very aware and wanting to change this monochromatic industry. The president Michael Apted came to our committee meeting just to introduce himself and to reiterate that he is behind us. I just truly believe it is an honest effort. But there’s just so much they can do. They need to represent the whole guild, so there’s limitations as to how much they can do.
But I think it’s really not about the union so much as the people that hire us from the unions. So it’s about the sponsors, it’s about the producers and the networks. It’s much harder in film because there’s not really anyone accountable except those who have just total creative license and artistic license – “ and all they can do is say this is what I wanted to do, so I do it. Even then I think it’s a matter of continuing to educate people. At least with the networks they have their sponsors and they have those that do select shows. The studios are not in charge. It’s all the people that have deals with them. That’s why I think it’s slower to change except on the independent level.
ASIANCE: A recent report from the Asian Pacific American Media Coalition stated that there are fewer Asian Pacific American and minority writers and producers. What are your feelings about this? Do you think something needs to be done?
Chris Tashima: First of all, if you look at the writers… for a long time I felt that was the biggest need because that’s where everything starts, with the writers. I personally do not know a lot of good Asian American writers and the few that I do know are out there working.
So I always encourage people to write and to pursue that if they are interested. I mean not everyone can be a writer and it’s not easy to be a good writer. But what I found is because there is an Asian American committee at the writers guild, they’re over there saying, “We’re here, we’re here, but no one’s buying our scripts, no one is hiring us.” That really opened my eyes. I mean that was another bonus of being part of the committee. We have meetings with other committees and other guilds which exposed us to more people. It changed my attitude in terms of us needing the writers. It may be a question of how good the content is, but still it’s not so much that we don’t have the writers.
And then you get into the producers… because it’s the producers that really decide in both film and television. It’s kind of an endless cycle. All the producers are interested in is making money. Until some of our stories breakout and make money they’ll continue to want to copy and make what had made money in the past. Which has kind of excluded us.
I mean in all the groups, it’s really important for us as a community to continue to support our artists, our filmmakers, and our actors and our writers. I think culturally we’re as diverse as all the Asian American cultures are. Almost none of them has supported the arts the way say the Black community has or even the Latino community. And its different because they’ve had people break through. They’ve had role models. It’s hard for parents of kids who’ve shown an interest in the arts now to think that they have a future in it, to want to become an actor, to want to become a writer or filmmaker. So it’s just important for our community to remind ourselves that we do need to support our organizations and our theaters and our filmmakers, and our independent projects – “ and to kind of break out of the mold that our parents had.
I’ve met so many college students that are pre-med or pre-law or whatever because their parents want them to do that, which is fine because you can always go to school and pursue your dreams. But I just wonder how many artists we may have lost because they never were given the support or encouragement, or had the role model or career or whatever? So I think there’s a lot involved in it.
ASIANCE: Since we’re on the subject of Asian Americans on TV. What are your thoughts on My Life Disoriented and your work with Eric Byler?
Chris Tashima: I think it’s a great little pilot. It really has a lot of potential. You have to really remember, when you see it, how low the budget was and how much they sort of are on the fringe. It cannot be compared to your average episode of the O.C. or something, just in terms of production value because it makes a huge difference to have money to spend.
So much is dependent upon time. How much time you have to rehearse, how much time you have to shoot, whether you can take 20 takes of an important shot or you only can do two. So it’s not the slickest show. It may not appear to be as professionally done as what you may see on network TV, but what you have to look at is the effort, what their resources were and the potential of it.
It’s a great opportunity and the writing is good. I really hope that people respond to it positively, including those outside our community, and that it might get some interest beyond PBS, or even as a PBS series.
I had a really great experience working with Eric on Americanese. I had actually known him for a few years before we did Americanese, but hadn’t worked for him as an actor. I worked on a theater show that he directed and I helped design the set for it, that Lodestone Theater ensemble produced. I was familiar with his film work, Charlotte Sometimes, and his student film. I had known him for a long time, but I hadn’t worked for him as an actor, so the chance to do Americanese was really a great experience.
He’s also just very good to work with as an actor. I was just really appreciative of the opportunity and I’d work with him again in a second.
I also met Claire Yorita Lee, who wrote My Life Disoriented, and I know a number of people in the cast. He shot My Life Disoriented just before we did Americanese, so he brought in some of that crew. I was able to see My Life Disoriented at the Hawaii Film Festival. I think it’s really encouraging that they got it on PBS and that they’re really trying to gather support. So I think it’s hopeful.
ASIANCE: You got your SAG (Screen Actors Guild) card on The Perfect Weapon. Tell us about your experience in Hollywood. What was it like early on?
Chris Tashima: It’s been a constant learning experience. Learning to adjust, learning to cope, and trying to figure out how to breakdown these walls becomes clear to you once you become an actor, and you start pursuing it.
Even before you do that you have your stack of headshots and you go through the casting breakdowns and you see where you can send your headshot. You’ll see how seldom they’re looking for a young Asian American male and the type they’re looking for. One of the things you have to do as an actor is immediately figure out what are your roles, what is your type, and how can you market yourself to that because everyone is categorized.
Basically, what I found was there was no market for my type because I considered my type to be a leading man, as opposed to acharacter. It’s very obvious how limited it is – “ and that was in a way very eye opening to me.
As a moviegoer, as a television viewer I wasn’t so much aware of it, especially when I was a kid, and even watching movies, you might not be aware of it because you get engrossed in the film. It’s only when it gets pointed out to you that you realize we weren’t anywhere in that film or we weren’t anywhere on TV or that film took place in San Francisco and we should have been all over the screen and things like that, from the obvious to the less obvious.
You have to figure out how to market yourself – “ and then you realize you don’t like what your opportunities are but you got to start somewhere. You go on these auditions and almost every audition you go on there’s something about it that makes you feel like you need to compromise on your values. What will they think that I’m saying about ourselves, or whether it’s commercial, or another stereotype?
It’s really frustrating, but you have to keep at it because every once in a while there’ll be a great role that comes along. They want to hire people with big resumes, or that are well known, or are recognizable at least, or have a reel of even stereotypical roles. So it’s certainly important not to judge the actors and blame them for doing the roles that they’re doing because they’re not creating it.
I think Daniel Dae Kim on Lost is a great example. I’m sure when he went in for that role, it was another stereotypical role. He doesn’t speak English; he makes a domineering sexist Korean male. We didn’t know Lost was going to be a huge hit. So even if it does look really great on paper, the movie could suck or nobody sees it. It’s just never in the actors hands.
An actor has to go in there, and if they’re not going to do it, they’re just going to hire the next person, and if every Asian guy didn’t do it, they’d hire a white guy and put him in yellow face. So it’s like you have to take the opportunity and try to bring some truth to it.
I wasn’t faced with so many of those tough questions because usually I wouldn’t get cast. There was always a guy that had more martial arts experience than me to play the villain or there was always a guy that was more of the sidekick type.
I just didn’t have as much opportunity so I didn’t have to face as many tough questions. There’s been a few projects that I’ve done that I haven’t felt really great about, but they never got sold. They were never seen or they were never completed so you do what you can with them.
Perfect Weapon is a good example. It was again the white hero who comes in to save Asians from our own community who’s using martial arts. Every Asian actor that you can think of was in that movie. They all did the roles and took the money and it wasn’t necessarily anything to be proud of but we know that’s how the industry is. I did get a SAG card from it and that’s just one step towards becoming a professional actor. you know it doesn’t really change anything in terms of you getting more jobs but it’s just part of you know the necessary things you do as an actor.
Actually, the more meaningful things I’ve done has been all as independent films on these no budget SAG agreements like Strawberry Fields where you’re paid 75 dollars a day.
You can’t make a living off it but it’s an important role; it’s an Asian American project about our history, so you love to do those parts. But you keep auditioning for the junk because it pays the bills and it’s a way to keep yourself exposed. You have to play the game, so you have to put up with what’s there.
Not every actor is a filmmaker, who can write their own roles, and we shouldn’t be required to do that, but that’s just where we are. So my start and my career has just been a very slow climb because I’ve been doing it for over 20 years now, and only with Americanese did I finally get to play the star of a film… and who’s to say that will ever happen again. I’ve looked at it as everything is a positive experience because you learn from it.
ASIANCE: You mention lack of leading roles for Asian males, but with the success of Jet Li, Jackie Chan and Chow Yun-Fat, who are Asian rather than Asian American, do you think that affects the way you’re perceived in Hollywood?
Chris Tashima: I think overall the positives outweigh the negatives. I do think it helps. It helps to get Asian faces out there in the public. Of course, they do have to speak another language or they do martial arts or they are relegated to just the foreign films. Or if they break into the American films like Jet Li, it’s just martial arts movies or whatever. I think generally its better that that happen than not happen. But the big distinction that we know is are we foreign or American. I think what’s more important is how we’re coming with people like John Cho, Sung Kang or Daniel Dae Kim or any of these guys that are American guys and their starting to get leading roles, starting to become names and beginning to get recognized. And there’s now a talent pool of people when they’re casting they can say, “it’s a John Cho-type,” or what about him and people will know who that is, but they won’t have to explain who it is. So that’s a huge barrier that’s been broken. It’s that we’re starting to become names and we’re starting to get starring roles. It’s all a process. And now that we have that we can move to the next level and more often. All of this kind of feeds on itself. It really amazes me when you look at 2006 the number if you went to any of the festivals how many independent films there were. In San Francisco 16 or 17 independent Asian American films and that wasn’t even all of them. They picked the best ones. I saw a number of them because I was following Americanese to these festivals and I got to see a lot of these films and a lot of them are good… a lot of them are great… and the other thing that I think is important is they are about us. It’s still interesting how many of our filmmakers are choosing to do mainstream things or are doing things with no Asians in them, or really not addressing who they are. And that’s fine. I think we still need to support those filmmakers because it will come to them at sometime who they are, or an opportunity will come to them at some point, and someone will say, “you’re Asian maybe you can do this project.” For instance, Wayne Wang when Joy Luck Club came along – “ and as many problems as I had with that film – “ I’m glad that one of our filmmakers made it, rather than it went into the hands of some idiot like Rob Marshall…and look what he did with Memoirs of a Geisha. So it’s important that we do support our own filmmakers even if they’re not doing our own stories they’re still Asian Americans and they’re establishing themselves as a filmmaker and hopefully they’ll come around a do projects about us. Ang Lee, he’s a brilliant director and he’s representing us great. Everyone respects him and he’s an “A-list” director now… It’s great to have him out there.
But it’s interesting… at the guild… we have student filmmaker awards… and basically we review submissions from Asian American filmmakers… and every year there’s quite a bit of Asian American filmmakers that are making films that are just… the cast is all white… and I doubt that the Black filmmakers and the Latino filmmakers are doing that, you know, they’re making films about themselves…. It’s something that I understand, you know, because I’ve lived and studied this whole thing my whole career… it’s just an interesting thing that we’re still struggling with that to within ourselves… to acknowledge who we are, to accept who we are, and be proud of who we are. But it’s changing, I mean like I said this year how many of the filmmakers there were and how many were making films about ourselves. So that’s been a big leap.
ASIANCE: Tell us about Americanese. How do you feel audience’s will respond to a leading Asian male in a romantic kind of role?
Chris Tashima: It’s all to be determined. But so far, from responses we’ve gotten at all of our screenings. The audiences really respond to the film. They really appreciate all of the subjects that it touches upon, which are very much racially based issues. Biracial issues. Asian American issues. And they accept it in terms of getting engrossed in the story and accepting it as a film. And so therefore, in the sense of just looking at the broad picture of presenting to America an Asian American leading man, it feels like it has a chance of working, which means that people will first of all come to see it , and then they will appreciate it, accept it and understand it. Thereby sort of really being exposed to something whether subconscious or not something we just rarely see… so they’ll se a leading man that is enough of a romantic lead that they’ll get engrossed in the film and they’ll care about that character and then on a different level they’ll be introduced to a new face and a new actor… and maybe it’ll just be one more person they can file into their head as to who’s out there. Just by putting it out there, I think it’ll not so much change their minds, but it’ll give them something new because I don’t feel like I would even say this about the producers. For the most part, I don’t think they are consciously excluding us and that they’re making a choice saying, “No, he can’t be Asian.” It just hasn’t entered their mind and they’re just copying what they’ve seen. Everyone knows Tom Cruise, or Ashton Kutcher, or Christian Bale, or whoever, and so they’re trying to copy that. And every kind of white guy that comes along they’ll see him as the new whatever. And until we give them an opportunity to even consider an Asian American guy will they be able to understand what that means. So now they’ll see John Cho… and they’ll go we’ll yeah a young leading Asian American guy… and whether or not they’re conscious of it, if it’s a breakthrough role or not… that doesn’t even matter…it’s just the fact that we’re out there as part of the palette of who those people are… You know Denzel always has sort of broken out and is accepted across the board as a leading guy… we’ve just had so few and the few that we had have had such little exposure, so it’s all just this process. Taking it back to Americanese, it’s very much an arty film – “ and honestly I think it has a very limited market. It’s not at all a mainstream film… and I don’t expect it to breakout and become a box office hit like My Big Fat Wedding or Borat or something like that. It is a well made film and it’s a very engrossing film and a very intelligent film, so it will hopefully reach that art house market. That’s all we can ask and hope that people will come out to see it. For me it’ll mean a huge difference in terms of casting directors being able to consider me as what I’ve always marketed myself as, but there have been so few examples they couldn’t quite see it. They’ll be able to watch a clip from this film and see that I’m in a scene with Joan Chen and it works so I’m hoping and it all depended upon if the film got released or not. Well, actually it still depends upon if anyone sees it. But with going out on cable… eventually people will see it.
And I may have to wait another year before I see any results. But at least there’s a work out there with me as a leading person and that makes a huge difference with any actor in terms or now they’ll be seen in this light… once people were able to see Daniel Dae Kim in a hit TV show a lot of people want him now. And so that was a big step for me personally in my career. First the fact that it was made and now it’s being released. Our film will help the other films out there. And hopefully next year there will be a bigger richer crop of independent films. Already people like Michael Kang and Justin Lin are doing Independent Asian American films that we’re looking forward to seeing and everyone can do a second, third and fourth film. So even if you look at Eric’s career, he would not have gotten a chance to do Americanese had he not taken the risk and done Charlotte Sometimes and had the success that he had. There’s a direct link there. So you know everything is sort of a step and Americanese will hopefully lead to other opportunities for him and me and everyone in the film. It’s a very encouraging time. I got to wait another four to six months before it actually starts happening when the film gets aired and released. And then I start to see some positive feedback in terms of opportunity. But it’s huge for me personally and our work getting out there. We all have very unique voices and Eric’s a very unique voice and it’s important that we not only get our films out there, but that people see how diverse our history is – “ and how unique each of us is as filmmakers.
ASIANCE: Can you tell us about your relationship with Mako and East West Players?
Chris Tashima: I was really lucky that the timing worked out the way it did in my career and I got to work very closely with him for a good three years when I was at East West Players. This was at the very tail end of his role as Artistic director in the old East West and by that I mean it as in the old space on Santa Monica Boulevard , which was just a little warehouse. He was the leader. And there were people working there .who had come through the ranks there and come in walked through the doors at East West as far back as the 60’s 70s and 80s It was all a very supportive tight family… it was big and we were always welcoming people in but we had a strong history and he was the leader.. He was the reason we all sort of congregated at East West Players… So I came through the doors there in 1985 and he left the very beginning of 1989… 85 86 87 88 I worked there on almost every show if I wasn’t performing I was helping to build the sets or I was running lights or just hanging out and helping with the shows. So I got to know him that’s why I say I was lucky. Experience him as a director because he directed several shows I was in and got to watch him as the leader of the group as the artistic director and got to know him as a person.. He just had a lot to offer in terms of first of all just as an actor. He was one of my primary teachers. But also in terms of developing Asian American works, supporting our writers, telling stories about us and the importance of that was sort of another whole thing that you know I got turned onto and is now part of what I want to do.. And then just the opportunity to grow as an artist, to meet the people and to do the work…. That cannot ever be copied what East West was. But there are new incarnations of it like Lodestone theater ensemble. With various Asian American theater groups that are out there now.. When he started, he was the only one back in 1965. Probably every major metropolitan area there is now an Asian American theater group or company or group of people that get together, or established ones like in New York and San Francisco. That is all just sort of something that’s fun to be a part of. It’s just so supportive and you meet so many important people. So many of the people I work with now and continue to work with came through East West, or I met at East West, or I met through people at East West. It’s such an important nurturing ground and networking place. So I feel like I owe all that to him because he was the reason East West’s doors were still open when I got into acting… 20 year after it was formed… he was the one keeping the doors open and was here everyday not only category_iding the group but mopping the floor and building the sets all of the everyday things you need to happen when you got your own nonprofit group you’re trying to run. So I just you know my whole attitude going into that and when I started acting was just to learn as much as I could by observing and by just being there so I consciously was just a sponge when I started working with him and really appreciate that now that I was able to do that for those few years… and then I continued to work with him every now and then since 1989. I produced a show for him in 1990 that he directed, and he asked me to help him produce, although he helped me get credit as producer, but really I was just sort of assisting him. So that was a huge learning experience. His wife, Shizuko Hoshi, also a really great director and has been a great teacher for me she did the voice over in Visas and Virtue and I’ve continued to work with her on different projects. So it’s been a while, but I still value greatly my history with both of them and their family and just feel lucky that I got to do what I did with him, and anyone who was at East West at that time knows how valuable he was in altering their career and altering their life and teaching them so much. It was a huge loss for everyone but all we can do is carry on. It’s been really great that I got to go through East West and I met the people that I did and I continue to work with them.
See www.cedargroveproductions.com
for more information about Cedar Grove Productions.
Chris also has several webpages for his acting/directing credits. Links are on his Myspace page at
www.myspace.com/christashima
Photos courtesy of Shane Sato