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‘Crazy Rich Asians’ Producers Told Brenda Song She Wasn’t Asian Enough to Audition

There was a lot of buzz around Crazy Rich Asians when it hit theaters because never before had Asians gotten to headline a big-budget version of a Hallmark movie. It was a veritable who’s who of Asians in Hollywood, even Ken Jeong was in it, thankfully without getting his dick out.

Brenda Song wasn’t in it, though, despite being one of the more recognizable Asian actors working today. The former Disney Star has been all over the place, include the new Hulu series Dollface with Kat Dennings. Apparently, the reason that the producers of Crazy Rich Asians didn’t think Song was Asian enough.

Yeah, let that sink in. If she’s not Asian, why have I been fetishizing her, hunh? Answer that one, smart guy.

Here’s what Song told Teen Vogue:

“A lot of people don’t know this, but I never got to read for Crazy Rich Asians, ever,” she says. A fan of the books, she asked her managers if she could get a meeting or audition for any possible part. Her managers came back to her with the message from Crazy Rich Asians that she wasn’t right for a role in their eyes.

“Their reasoning behind that, what they said was that my image was basically not Asian enough, in not so many words. It broke my heart,” she says. “I said, ‘This character is in her late to mid-20s, an Asian American, and I can’t even audition for it? I’ve auditioned for Caucasian roles my entire career, but this specific role, you’re not going to let me do it? You’re going to fault me for having worked my whole life?’ I was like, ‘Where do I fit?’”

That’s pretty shitty, especially considering, as the Teen Vogue article mentions, Brenda Song’s big break was playing an Asian heiress. But I mean, it’s not like hiring Constance Wu instead made every single person on set miserable for the entire film, right? I guess Brenda should have just been sleeping in a bed full of rabbit s**t.

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