Exclusive Interview: Pop Culturalist Chats with Life-Size 2’s Hank Chen

Landing a role in Life-Size 2 is a childhood dream come true for comedian-actor Hank Chen. The self-professed Disney fanatic plays Brendan Butler, the best friend and colleague to the film’s protagonist, Grace. It’s a character that Hank made his own, having learned throughout his career that embracing his true, authentic self and voice creates opportunities in the industry. Pop Culturalist spoke with Hank about starring in the highly anticipated sequel, his experience as a gay Asian actor, and his journey as an artist.

PC: Tell us about Life-Size 2, your character, and what drew you to this project.
Hank: Life-Size 2 is the sequel to the 2000 film starring Tyra Banks and Lindsay Lohan. Can you believe it’s been eighteen years? The audience that grew up with the movie still remembers and loves it. A lot of them have kids now and they show the movie to their kids. We wanted to create a sequel that thanked everyone for their two decades of loyalty.

Disney decided to age-up the film to honor the original fans, so this time, we’re all in our mid-20s as the core cast. It’s led by the fantastic Francia Raisa, who plays Grace. She has so much depth and is all kinds of perfect for the lead role opposite Tyra Banks.

I play a character named Brendan Butler. His name is actually a play on words because not only am I Grace’s best friend, but I also work with her. You can imagine whenever that dynamic enters a friendship, there can always be a little bit of tension. There’s a fine line between when it’s right to be her best friend and when it’s appropriate to be professional.

Grace is going through a quarter life crisis. She has a lot of responsibilities on her shoulders. She’s the CEO of a large toy company, the one that produced the original Eve doll, and the company is going through a period of transition. A lot of the characters, including Tyra Banks and myself, enter to help support and guide Grace through this tumultuous period in her life, but we also have a lot of fun doing it. Let’s not forget, this is still a comedy!

PC: What initially attracted you to this project?
Hank: I’m a Disney fanatic. My very first email address was DisneyFreak4@juno.com, which I had until high school! I was a self-professed Disney freak and I still claim that title. Also, I should get a lot of street credit for this because being a Disney freak back then was very difficult, especially if you were closeted and trying to be cool in school. People did not take too kindly to that, but I just owned it.

I was at the opening weekends of The Lion King, Mulan, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. It was my passion. I would always buy the soundtrack to those movies before they even came out. I would learn all the songs and I would sing them during opening night and drive everyone around me crazy. I’m also someone who used to collect McDonald’s happy meal toys. I would scour them at garage sales and ended up with a huge collection. Being in a Disney movie is really a childhood dream come true.

Photo Credit: Disney Channel/Guy D’Alema

PC: How much of yourself would you say is in Brendan?
Hank: That’s a funny question. I would say a lot, but also, my approach to acting, in my position as a racial and sexual minority, has always been to just be me as fully as I can. When I was trying to be someone else or what I thought someone else’s idea of me should be, it never worked in my personal or professional lives. It wasn’t until I came out fully and embraced all of my Hankisms, and put them into every single character that I auditioned for, that I started working.

The gay Asian character isn’t a trope that’s as visible as the blond girl-next-door or the muscle jock. So, what I had to do, what I continue to have to do, is at every audition that I go in for, I have to accept the fact that the writers probably didn’t have someone like me in mind when they were creating this character on paper. There’s nothing for me to do except make it fully my own, and quite more often than not, if I’m authentic to my voice and to how Hank is, that will ring true for people in the room. Then, they might be willing to take a second look and go, “Hm, if we hired Hank Chen that would make this very interesting.” That’s how I get most of my jobs.

So, to go back to your original question, I put a lot of myself in Brendan Butler. I don’t always agree with the choices that he makes because I think there are some points where he’s enabling his boss’ bad behavior. In those moments, however, what I really connected to was the love. Why does Brendan continue to save and enable Grace even when she’s not being kind? Well, for me to be able to do that, all I have to do is look at my own life and go back to those times when I did the same for people that I used to try to save and enable even when they were not kind, or I look at my mother who’s a very selfless, giving woman. Also, I have friends who have been there for me at times when I didn’t feel like I deserved it. I tapped into all of those experiences and memories and took that into the film. I hope that relationship and that complexity translates when everyone watches it.

PC: How did you and Francia approach the dynamic between your characters?
Hank: You know what’s funny? Francia and I knew each other before we worked together. We met a couple of years ago because I had a role in Home Again, produced by Nancy Meyers, directed by Hallie Meyers-Shyer. Nancy actually gave Lindsay Lohan her big break on Parent Trap. On Home Again, I became good friends with an actor named Alex Alcheh, who went on to recur on Dear White People, where he met and worked closely with Francia. Alex and I went to the wrap party for Home Again, and he brought Francia along as a friend. We all hung out that night and I actually gave them both rides, so when we were on set in Atlanta, there’s a car scene between Francia and me, and I said, “Does this feel familiar?” She leaned back, laughed, and said, “Yes!”

We’ve crossed paths a lot since then. When I saw her at the table read, it felt like we had this natural connection and it didn’t take long before we became best friends. We still hang out now! She and I actually went rock climbing with our co-star Gavin Stenhouse. The cast all got really close and we’ve all stayed in touch with each other. Tyra also really became a big sister and mentor to us all.

Photo Credit: Disney Channel/Guy D’Alema

PC: Can you share a juicy teaser about the film?
Hank: Fans will be very satisfied with Lindsay Lohan’s involvement in the sequel. I know that there are a lot of rumors going around and she’s a pop culture icon. We all grew up with her and we all love her. Tyra was not going to have it any other way than to have her involved.

Career Questions

PC: How did you get started in the industry? When did you discover your passion for acting and comedy?
Hank: I became a comedian as a mechanism of survival. I was trying not to get beat up as a kid because I started to have an outside personality and kids started looking at me a little sideways once we all became self-conscious tweens.

When I was in elementary school, I was the class clown. People loved it. I had a third grade teacher named Ms. Matthews, who was really someone special because she allowed me to incorporate performances in a lot of my class work. I was always an ace at book reports and I just loved making people laugh.

Then, in middle school when it became clear that being a feminine boy was not the way to gain popularity, my sense of humor became a self-defense mechanism. I had to learn how to speak up for myself, how to advocate for myself, to fight back, and to voice my opinion.

When you’re growing up as a minority in this country as well as a closeted gay boy, there are a lot of things that you stuff down and you hold onto. What I’m trying to undo as an adult is a lot of that inner rage and anger that I had to suppress because I didn’t have a healthy outlet. Hollywood, television, and Disney became a huge escape for me during the harder years growing up as a teenager because I got to jump into the lives of other people. I got to go visit other worlds. I got to connect with the problems of these fictional characters on screen and somehow, someway try to find a way to relate them to myself.

In high school, I discovered the DC Improv and that started my passion. I hadn’t started performing yet, but I remember watching standup and being mesmerized that this was an art form and that these people had our attention for a solid 45 minutes. That’s when I started to realize that I could make a career out of doing this. I started pursuing stand-up in Chicago when I was in college, as well as dabbling in the acting community there. I worked for a casting director and I got representation for the first time.

I started doing background work just to familiarize myself with a set. Then, I was accepted into the Actors Studio at Pace University in New York City. I did two years there and learned so much. It was during my time in New York when I finally came out of the closet and fully embraced who I was as an artist, but not yet as a human being because I was still afraid to break the news publicly and have my parents find out. But then I realized that for the sake of my class work and not failing out—because we get graded on our ability to connect, and emote, and be authentic to the task that we’re given—I had to embrace who I am, all of it, or as much as I was able to at that time.

So, yeah I trained with Elizabeth Kemp who I remember actually gently one day after class pulling me to the side and holding my face in both of her hands and saying to me, “I know you’re gay and it’s okay.” I remember just weeping. She could see that I was having blocks in her class and she was going to do everything she could to puncture that veneer so that I could do work, so I could access a part of myself that had been shut off. She ultimately gave me my training because she knew I wanted nothing more than to be an actor. I had to learn how to tell the truth because that’s what actors do: we tell the truth.

PC: There’s been a lot of conversation about diversity and representation in Hollywood. As an Asian actor, what has your experience been like? Have you felt or seen the slow progress that’s being made?
Hank: As an Asian actor, this is our year baby. 2018, holler, we have arrived. However, we are still not at our destination. I want to get to a point where we have too many Asian TV shows, too many Asian movies. I want to get to a point where it’s okay to have a bad Asian TV show and to have a bad Asian movie, where our failures don’t penalize the next generation for two decades. I want to get to a place where there is an abundance of Asian faces.

I think Hollywood, for a very long time, has been comfortable with having just one to make it seem like they are progressive. I’ve done several projects where I was excited to see on the call sheet that there was another Asian actor, but then, I’ll come to find out that we have no scenes together, or one of us has to wear glasses so that the audience doesn’t get confused with two Asians in a scene together.

We’ve seen with Crazy Rich Asians, where pretty much every single person you saw on that was Asian, that it’s possible to differentiate. Every single one of those characters had complex lives, unique personalities, and great story arcs. That’s what Hollywood could do a little better.

Pop Culturalist Speed Round

PC: Guilty pleasure TV show?
Hank: Ally McBeal. Growing up, my family watched the CBS evening news because of Connie Chung. Then, we watched Ally McBeal because of Lucy Liu. There were so few Asians on TV. Every time, whichever shows that they popped up on, were the ones that we were committed to and my parents, my whole family loved Ally McBeal as soon as Lucy Liu joined. I don’t even know if they realized just how inappropriate and sexualized it was. I certainly remember them cocking their heads when Lucy Liu and Calista Flockhart made out in the lesbian episode, but they still loved it. The whole family went and saw Lucy Liu on Broadway a couple of years ago in God of Carnage and they were just absolutely star-struck. It goes to show you the power of art, the power of representation, and what it means to members of every generation when they can see themselves in pop culture.


PC: Guilty pleasure movie(s)?
Hank: Memento and Devil Wears Prada

PC: Favorite book(s)?
Hank: The Velvet Rage and Robin

PC: Favorite play or musical?
Hank: Les Misérables

PC: A band or artist that fans would be surprised to learn is on your playlist?
Hank: I love old school R&B like Jackson 5 or Diana Ross.

PC: Last show you binge-watched?
Hank: Killing Eve

PC: Hidden talent?
Hank: I’m pretty flexible. I was really into gymnastics as a kid.

Make sure to follow Hank on Twitter and Instagram, and catch Life-Size 2 on Freeform on December 2 at 9/8c.

Photo Credit: Benny Haddad