‘Friends’ actor claims it was a “toxic environment”
Actor Stephen Park, who appeared in episodes ‘The One with the Chicken Pox’ and ‘The One with the Ultimate Fighting Champion’ in Friends, has revealed that he does not have positive memories about his time on the show, which he labelled a “toxic environment”.
During a recent podcast interview on Pod Meets World, Park said, “It was at the time, I felt it was kind of a toxic environment, James Hong was the actor who was also on the episode with me, and [the assistant director] was calling him to the set and you know, essentially saying, ‘Where the fuck is the Oriental guy? Get the Oriental guy.’”
Park continued, saying, “This isn’t the first time that this happened, you know, but this is the environment where this is business as usual in Hollywood in 1997, I guess it was. And nobody felt the need to correct this or say anything about it. So this is normal behaviour.”
The actor recalled how he tried to contact the Screen Actors Guild about the incident, with a representative encouraging him to write an article to the LA Times.
Park wrote a “mission statement” in response and sent it to the publication. Eventually, a reporter was sent to interview Park about the alleged incident, but it was never published.
The actor eventually released his letter to many people via an email list, with the Mickey-17 actor describing how it “went viral before ‘viral’ was even a word”.
“I had become so race-conscious and so angry that I was looking at everything through the lens of race,” Park said. “I felt like there was no freedom. I didn’t feel any freedom. So, I didn’t have any idea what I was going to do, but I just decided to drop out. I told everybody, ‘I’m not acting anymore.’”
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