‘Nope’ star Steven Yeun on touching ‘the unknown’ when it comes to picking roles in Hollywood

‘It’s great to invest, but invest smartly’: Jimmy O. Yang explains why he turned down crypto promotion offers

“Almost half of all Asian roles serve as a punchline, study finds.”

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🏆 The Headlines

‘Nope’ star Steven Yeun on touching ‘the unknown’ when it comes to picking roles in Hollywood — Actor Steven Yeun sat down with NextShark in an exclusive interview to talk about his latest role as showman Ricky “Jupe” Park in the film “Nope,” as well as breaking the limits of what it means to be an Asian American in Hollywood.

• While discussing the recently released film, Yeun tells fans to “expect a really fun ride. It’s going to be thrilling, it’s going to be scary, it’s going to be fun.”

• The Korean American actor first gained widespread popularity for playing Glenn Rhee in AMC’s hit zombie show “The Walking Dead” from 2010 to 2016. He then took on several other memorable roles, including an animal activist in “Parasite” director Bong Joon-ho’s 2017 film “Okja” and a revenge-driven employee in the 2017 film “Mayhem.”

• In 2020, he starred in and executive produced “Minari,” which led to him becoming the first Asian American to receive a Best Actor nomination at the Oscars.

• He states that Oscar-winning screenwriter and director Jordan Peele (2017’s “Get Out” and 2019’s “Us”) was the “catalyst” that influenced him to jump aboard his latest project.

  “I gravitate toward people with original voices,” Yeun says.

  

• “[Peele is] to me a really wonderful artist. He has a really specific point of view, and for me as an actor, the best directors in my opinion are those that are wonderful leaders. People who can direct you in the direction they want you to go.”

• Yeun adds that he likes choosing roles that “touch new things” and “the unknown."

‘It’s great to invest, but invest smartly’: Jimmy O. Yang explains why he turned down crypto promotion offers — Jimmy O. Yang revealed that he has turned down multiple paid cryptocurrency promotion offers in the past, fearing that his endorsements might influence his fans to pursue unsafe investments.

• Speaking to Vice’s Motherboard, the 35-year-old comedian and actor admitted he and his partner, venture capitalist Brianne Kimmel, have always been careful about getting into endorsement deals, particularly when it involves cryptocurrencies.

• “Especially with something like crypto, it’s important to [ask] ‘Is it going to hurt the financial well-being of my fans and people who follow me?’” Yang told Motherboard. “For me as an actor, looking at endorsement deals, it’s like, ‘Is it gonna make me look like an asshole?’”

• While they themselves have invested in crypto, Yang and Kimmel revealed that they have turned down nearly a dozen “lucrative” endorsement deals, including one from an unverified trading platform that focuses on altcoins — alternative digital currencies that are not Bitcoin.

• “These are very hardworking American people who don’t earn a high income and who are less versed in technology,” Kimmel, the founder of Worklife Ventures, was quoted as saying. “To promote a cryptocurrency where they could lose everything is really not a position either of us want to be in.”

See below for more entertainment headlines, casting calls, and entertainment-related job opportunities from Netflix, Twitter, and more ⬇️