Steven Yeun Recalls Being Asked to Do a 'S-tty Accent' in an Audition

Steven Yeun is speaking out about his experience as an Asian American in the entertainment industry.

In a recent episode of Variety‘s Award Circuit podcast, The Walking Dead alum discussed micro-aggressions he faced in the entertainment industry.

Steven recalled an early audition for a show in Chicago called Awesome 80s Prom where he was asked to recite Ferris Bueller’s opening monologue in an Asian accent.

“I knew that I didn’t want to do that,” he said. “The system had no clue that’s not what I wanted. We were just in a different time. And so I remember I did a s-tty accent and phoned it, and they still wanted me anyway because that’s how far and few between Asian actors were.” The actor ultimately declined the role he was offered.

In December, fans expressed their support for Steven‘s film Minari after it was nominated in the 2021 Golden Globes‘ Best Foreign Language Film category rather than Best Picture.

Lulu Wang, Daniel Dae Kim, and Simu Liu criticized the decision to exclude Minari from the Best Picture category on Twitter – read what they had to say here.