Interview: Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa Gives Us a Preview of His New Movie
June 12, 2007 admin 0 Comments
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(KHNL) – The long- awaited sequel to the 1999 Disney movie, “Johnny Tsunami,” premieres Friday. The film’s star, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, is here to give us a preview, and to tell us about his acting workshop.
ANGELA: Tell us about the premiere.
CARY: Well, it’s interesting in the history of sequels to change the format, it’s kind of unusual. In the last one, grandpa was the one who was always there for Johnny, Johnny had his problems and grandpa always had his local style to help him out. This time around, it’s sort of switched. Grandpa’s getting married. New grounds for grandpa.
ANGELA: New grounds and I hear she’s a beautiful woman. Which is unusual, as you say, for male Asian actors in Hollywood.
CARY: Yeah, I kind of think of her as a down-sized version of Jessica Rabbit. She’s pretty sexy for a Disney channel, I was kind of blown away.
ANGELA: Wow! What do you think the writers were doing when they came up with such a different plan for your character and your character’s new wife?
CARY: I think their idea was how to make it a little bit different. Especially for a Disney channel because they tend to be very conservative and very sort of straight forward kind of network. But I think they purposely wanted me to be the rebellious one. And they went for it, so really congratulations to the writers and Disney too. I think it’s important that we have images especially on Disney channel that represents all of us.
ANGELA: Positive images.
CARY: Yeah, and in Hawaii, it’s no big deal but to the mainland and now 80% households have Disney channel.
ANGELA: Tell us a little bit about the acting workshop that you’re planning for this weekend.
CARY: The workshop is something I’ve always like to do sort of stay home and share my 20 years of knowledge or experience. I think it’s really critical for kids to get a real view
ANGELA: So are you kind of targeting children and at what age would you like to see them come in?
CARY: Well generally, I like to do separate things for kids but usually at least high school and above.
ANGELA: High school and above, okay.
CARY: There are a couple of things I’m working on right now, new projects, like the Hawaiian Nature Center, getting involved. Very much interested in kids getting that. I’ts 5 minutes from Waikiki and you can be right up in the wood and really organized and really critically committed people. Also a health program for kids called “Obesity”.
ANGELA: Great, anything else that you’re working on that you want to talk about.
CARY: Internet. I’m focusing everything towards internet and I have a website called “Ninjah Sportz”. It’s to bring martial arts and sports training together. Some of the stuff I did at UH football.