The producers wanted Steve McQueen-grade movie charm. Australian-born actor Hoa Xuande delivered it.
, the gig was his, writer/producer Don McKellar says. The 36-year-old Sydney-born actor was a natural in front of the camera, even more so in the role of a Vietnamese double agent who comes to America coated in Steve McQueen-grade movie star charm.
Once in America, he continues his mission, spying on the Vietnamese community and reporting back to his superiors, but begins to struggle between the loyalties formed in the old country and the opportunities offered by the new. “I felt that as long as we could capture that inventiveness and translate the style and the voice of the book, then we’d be faithful enough. Viet agreed right away there was a distinct voice in the book and that he didn’t want to be one of the writers.“A room full of writers tearing apart your book, it would be very hard for anyone to take,” adds McKellar. “Writers don’t have that kind of perspective. But I kept him in the loop. And I will say, to his credit, he was never afraid of that process.
The reason for such a long process, McKellar says, is the project, by its nature, was complicated. “We wanted it to be complicated, it’s our fault,” he says. “We wanted it to have that sort of complexity and richness, and it’s also a pretty big budget project. The day itself, McKellar says, looms large in the history of both countries for different reasons. “It’s seen from both sides as either a day of victory or a day of shame, but certainly for America, it’s represented this humiliation they’d never seen on the television before,” McKellar says.
“It feels like we should learn that wars aren’t products that you should go out and buy. That was one of the main points of the series, the people who suffer, the majority of whom were Vietnamese, are never branded as the owners for this war, even though they bear the brunt of it.”
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