People love to say that hes evil and terrible, and that hurts my heart.
I was in the third grade whenJurassic Parkwas released in 1993.
Wong had already won a Tony for his starring role in BroadwaysM.
Butterflywhen he appeared inJurassic Park, and in the years since he has become a face everyone knows.
If you didnt see him inAll-American Girl, youve heard him inMulanor seen him inOzorLaw & Order: SVUorMr.
Robotor, most recently, inAwkwafina Is Nora From Queens.
InJurassic Park,youre in the most important scene: the one that explains how this world works.
Theres an audible reaction to him.
And I dont think its me.
Its what he represents in this equation: Hes the hope of actually fixing the bad things that happened.
People characterize him as a villain, but I disagree.
Its not his fault that hes good at this.Right.
And thats not fair to him.
Its kind of a mirror to the way that we feel about Hollywood and movies and culture.
Masses of people demand certain things to happen and then those things happen.
The human desire to scratch certain itches is what makes cultural things happen.
The Kardashians are the first thing that comes to mind.
Its not their fault that people are fascinated with them.
And this is one of those opportunities.
I did have to audition for the movie, reading only parts from the book.
And I was thrilled that Spielberg was so wonderful to me.
And then I was booked for just one day.
And I thought,Somethings not right about this.
It was clear I needed to read the script.
At that time, diversity was not a big thing that we were talking about.
Representation was certainly not anything we were talking about.
And so I accepted it.
I took the job, and I was thrilled to do it.
But I did not have a lot of experience with big movies.
Even today, I walk onto a big movie set and its super-exciting.
Movies are amazing things; theres a reason why we romanticize them.
Theyre just make-believe come to life, and its incredible.
All of that was practical and real.
And Spielberg was very specific about how he wanted it to move.
And that was after the actual practicalness of the breaking of the eggs all puppets and puppetry.
It wasnt like all of a sudden the phone was ringing off the hook.
Its often for specific projects, and very specific moments of those projects.
I didnt really understand box-office success, what that meant.
You really have no idea if its gonna turn out to be some big thing or not.
Youre certainly not thinking that its gonna be the foundation for six movies.
They didnt resolve him.
They didnt really finish the story at all the way they did in the book.
And I said, Thats just because they didnt care about him.
I was really sad about it.
I was frustrated that they just let him disappear.
And that same friend said, Thats gonna come back to you, because its all unresolved.
The strings are untied.
But I never thought that would happen.
I thought he was just kind of being a fan.
My friend was exactly right.
The very thing that I bemoaned in the original movie is what made further exploration of the character possible.
You are the person that you are.
At first, Michael Crichton wrote this wonderful book, and he included everything he could about that character.
It made him somebody else.
So he started out in the first film as a very idealistic, forward-thinking, very proud guy.
Hes almost smug about what hes done.
And then fast-forward toJurassic World,Fallen Kingdom, andDominion, and he evolves further.
He gets beaten down by the system.
He finds himself incredibly trapped by the mechanism of commerciality and greed that surrounds him.
People love to say that hes evil and terrible, and that hurts my heart.
Then it went terribly wrong and just got worse and worse.
Its rather emotional for me, his whole journey.
Its a wonderful moment of,This is what you asked for.
They are not dealing well with the consequences.
I think the whole franchise is actually about consequences.
BetweenJurassic ParkandJurassic World, Dr. Wu has quite a glow up.
Hes got a cooler jacket and hair.
Like,Oh my gosh, what was I thinking?
Thats because Ive played so many doctors.
Representation for actors like me is really limited, and so I played a lot of doctors.
The way you express yourself as a person and as a character is often through your clothes.
Daniel Orlandi, the costume designer forJurassic World, was really friendly and wonderful to me and supportive.
Theyre kind of, like, steel gray.
And in certain scenes, I was allowed to not wear the lab coat at all.
Ive never been able to explain this, but that was a big deal, actually.
What I wear is always a big deal to me.
I care a great deal about it.
He has a kind of, like, an almost James Bondy kind of vibe to him.
And that lab coat looks
Expensive.[Laughs.]
It is actually superexpensive.
One last question: Do you have a favorite dinosaur?Oh, wow.
Theyre all my babies, right, so I cant favor one over the other.
But Im very fond of Blue fromJurassic World.
And I find myself talking about Blue a lot.
Is somebody gonna protect them?Im getting kind of emotional thinking about it.
I find myself rooting for the dinosaurs in these newer films because they represent justice to me.
They eat the people who want to exploit them.
Because theyre not monsters.
Theyre not likeGodzillaorJaws, where the whole agenda of the movie is to eradicate the predator.
The dinosaur is an innocent bystander in the human equation.
And the dinosaurs are just doing what dinosaurs do.
They are completely innocent.
Theres something rather environmentally conscious about the way that we feel about these dinosaurs.
We dont want them to be harmed; we just want to enjoy them.
He doesnt always put the dinosaurs first.
But he really does respect them, and he takes great pride in his role in creating them.
He never, never, ever, ever gives them short shrift of their magnificence.
Even if you dont see it in every frame of the movie, thats how I see him.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
