You'll be seeing and hearing a lot of the John Cho soon. The busy actor recently wrapped up work on the Star Trek sequel, reprising his role as Sulu, and he has a role in NBC's new comedy, Go On, with Matthew Perry. In addition, Cho and Kal Penn are continuing on with their Harold & Kumar characters, via an in-the-works Adult Swim animated series.
I recently spoke to Cho about his role in Go On, as the boss to Perry's recently widowed lead character, Ryan - who forces Ryan to join a support group. In addition, we chatted about what it's like taking Harold and Kumar into animation.
John Cho in Go On
IGN TV: Your character on this show is obviously not in the group with everyone else, but are you hoping they can find you some ways to interact with those guys eventually?
John Cho: Sure, yeah. I think that will be fun. I think that whatever maximizes the funny… The setup is pretty simple, and I think now we’ve opened it up. Matthew can combine, mix and match and go wherever he needs to go to make it the most funny.
IGN: The show has an interesting setup for a comedy in that it’s not afraid to have some emotion and pathos there. Was it interesting for you to delve into that? Most of your half-hour comedies wouldn’t.
Cho: It was the most attractive thing about the show. It deals with a heavy subject, and that’s where the laughs come from. In my own behavior I’ve seen that I deal with serious things by using humor as a defense mechanism. I use it as an excuse to dodge things. I found it really resonated with me, and that’s why -- aside from the fact that I’d be working with Matthew Perry, who I admire so much and have stolen so much from over the years -- that was really the reason I did the show. I just thought it was about something, and it was funny at the same.
IGN: What’s your experience like working with Matthew so far?
Cho: It’s been great. We’re getting to know one another. I feel like I have a little bit of the stars-in-the-eyes syndrome right now. He’s so generous. I have really been learning watching him navigate this thing. He’s very good at knowing what makes something funny. He’s also good at exposing himself and being raw. It’s a very odd combination, and I’ve been enjoying it.
IGN: I wanted to also ask you about the Harold & Kumar animated series at Adult Swim. You’re going to be involved in that, right?
Cho: Yes, I’ll be voicing it, and I’m a producer. I’m waiting for a script right now.
John Cho and Kap Penn in A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas
IGN: It seems like with animation, the sky’s the limit. You can pretty much do whatever you want.
Cho: Yeah. I was saying when we were pitching it, I was telling [Harold and Kumar creators] John and Hayden, our pitch should just be “Harold and Kumar Go to Space,” “Harold and Kumar Go to Hell,” “Harold and Kumar Go to the American Revolution.” I mean, that could be the whole pitch. Anything’s possible. I think 90 percent of the appeal of our series is “Harold and Kumar Go to...” It’s just something that is familiar and promises entertainment.
IGN: Has it been amazing for you to see how resilient this series has been? When you made that first movie, you couldn’t know...
Cho: Who the hell knew? It actually doesn’t make any sense at all. Let me go further and say Americans are stupid for watching them! No, but it doesn’t make any sense that this movie worked, but it has. I’m so grateful. But yeah, it doesn’t make any sense -- a Korean and Indian guy getting burgers in the middle of the night, and then we make three movies out of that? It doesn’t make any sense.
The Go On pilot re-airs Monday, September 10th at 10:30pm on NBC before the series debuts in its regular timeslot on Tuesday, September 11th at 9pm.
Eric Goldman is Executive Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN.
Source : feeds[dot]ign[dot]com
