East West - The Asian American Lifestyle Magazine

by Sona Charaipotra

A fixture on shows like “The Division” and in flicks like The Fast And The Furious, Reggie Lee stole the spotlight on the second season of “Prison Break” as the devious secret agent Bill Kim. “It was my favorite show before I got on it—and it still is,” says the Filipino-Chinese American actor. “I still watch and am like, ‘Wow.’ I’m still addicted! And this was a role that could have been played by any ethnicity whatsoever. Kudos to the producers for that. No accent, no gimmick, nothing but a really complex, devious human. He’s an asshole, for lack of a better term. But he’s so much fun to play.”

BEING A DOCTOR…ON TV: For Lee, born in Quezon City in the Philippines, but raised in Cleveland, the acting bug bit early—and hard. “I was watching this TV movie and I saw this actor named Timothy Bottoms—he was a runner paralyzed, but instead of giving up he decided to coach this track team to the state championship. And it just moved me to tears,” he says, laughing. “The whole world became filled with possibility to express myself, and I’d never had that before. And at 12, I told my mom and dad that I wanted to be an actor. They wanted me to be a doctor. They said, ‘You can do that as a hobby, but you need to do something more stable.’ My family hoped it was just a phase, but I was determined.” Lee immersed himself in acting and dance classes, did productions at The Cleveland Play House, and at 18, packed his bags and moved to Los Angeles. “I knew that my parents would support me in the long run, but acting to them was something they really didn’t understand,” says the 30-something, who quickly landed gigs backup dancing for Prince and playing doctors on TV shows like “Judging Amy” and “Strong Medicine.” “But when I got my first big job—the national tour of ‘Miss Saigon’—they saw that I could do it and make a decent amount of money doing it.”

COLOR-BLINDED: Growing up in Ohio, Lee became accustomed to being the only ethnic face in the crowd—which he says came in handy in Hollywood. “That’s one thing that growing up in the Midwest prepared me for. I was used to being the only Asian American in a cast, and I would just do it,” says the now Los Angeles-based actor. “I thought nothing of it. But when I got to L.A., it suddenly got very specific. I wasn’t being seen for the guy next door. I was only being seen for the funny Asian guy next door. Or the gang guy next door. Yet I never really thought about falling into the stereotypical message that sends out. I never thought about the agenda, that this is going to portray Asians as this, or this is going to portray Asians as that. I never considered that in the beginning. Then roles started coming up where they would say, ‘If you say this with an accent, it will be really funny.’ And I started thinking, ‘Oh god! I can’t do that.’ So I’d say, ‘You know, I’ll say it with an accent if it’s true to the character—has he just come from China? But if you’re writing it just because it’s going to sound funny, I’m not going to play into that.’”

CULTURAL AWAKENING: Before landing “Miss Saigon,” Lee admits he was pretty white washed. “It was an odd job for me because I was looking around thinking, ‘Why are all these Asian people in this show with me?’ I was so used to being the only one,” he says. “That was kind of when I discovered the beauty of Asian American culture. I started exploring my roots and making Asian American friends. It was odd, but it was this wonderful connection—I finally felt at home. And when I got back to L.A., I hooked up with East West Players, which is the oldest Asian American playhouse in the United States. It was just amazing. Now I have the happy medium of being able to know other cultures and my own culture. You can be all Yellow Power or you can be apathetic. But I’ve found a happy medium.”

EVIL TREASURES: A balance between cultures perhaps, but is there also a balance in roles? Lee, who plays Tai Huang, sidekick to Chow Yun-Fat’s Captain Sao Feng in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, admits to a penchant for playing the villain. “Believe me, I’d rather play a bad guy than play a good guy any day,” he confesses. “They’re so much more complex, they’re so much more fun to play. I revel in those roles. Pirates 3 was just an unbelievable experience. When we’re fighting, we’re fighting. We’ll choreograph the whole thing, then we’ll do it half speed, then we’ll do it full speed. It is a blast. If you really buy into the craft and start playing pretend, boy is it fun.”

IDOL CHATTER: He may have more than a decade in Hollywood under his belt, but Lee admits he still gets star struck. “My first couple of scenes on Pirates 3 were with Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush,” he says, gushing. “And I remember the ride home to L.A. with Geoffrey, sitting next to him on the plane. The whole time I’m just sitting there thinking, ‘I’m sitting here asking Geoffrey Rush, one of the greatest actors of our time, which Oscar nomination he enjoyed the most and getting to work with him and play pretend with him on a beach in St. Vincent in the Caribbean.’ It can’t get any better than that.”

THE GOOD LIFE: Whether he’s meditating at home in Los Angeles, hitting the tennis court with pals or hard at work, Lee is cherishing the life he’s made for himself. “I’m doing a Ben Stiller-Jack Black comedy called Tropic Thunder in August, so I’ll be in Kaui this summer,” he says. “I’m not complaining! It’s really wonderful to be at that stage in my career where people recognize me from ‘Prison Break,’ and say, ‘I’d like to bring that guy in.’ And there are no other actors in the room vying for the part. I got to do an independent film last year that was a Western. I was doing Pirates of the Caribbean at the same time, and then suddenly I got ‘Prison Break.’ I was like, ‘This is my job?’ I got to be a pirate, I got to play in the Old West and I got to be a secret agent. So yeah, this is a dream come true.”

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