B.D. Wong

By definition, working parents are jugglers, but B.D. Wong's current schedule makes the typical dad look like a hopeless slacker. In addition to playing the central role of the Reciter in the Roundabout Theatre Company's Broadway revival of Pacific Overtures, he's the wise forensic psychiatrist Dr. George Huang on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and is in the final stages of post-production on Social Grace, an independent film he directed last summer. On top of all that, he's making the rounds of New York private schools to choose a kindergarten for his four-year-old son, Jackson Foo. Wong's devotion to fatherhood is understandable given Jackson's harrowing first year: The baby and a twin who died at birth were carried by a surrogate mother who went into labor 11 weeks early. Wong is Jackson's biological father; his biological mother is the sister of Wong's former partner Richie Jackson. The baby's touch-and-go first months were captured in Wong's well-received memoir, Following Foo. During Dad's Broadway.com phone interview, Jackson expressed his impatience by singing in the background and sweetly interrupting with requests to fix a toy and kiss a boo-boo. Patiently, Wong continued his juggling act.

The part of the Reciter has so many elements. What's the biggest challenge?
A couple of things. It's a bit of a disjointed part with a mercurial relationship to the audience and to the other characters, so I found it surprisingly hard to memorize. Normally you can learn your part through the other actors, but from the very beginning of rehearsals, I felt that I was on my own on the stage. Also, everything I experience in this play is intense. You go from incredible joy to sadness and outrage. That's part of what makes it fun, but it's also kind of exhausting.

You are bringing a much lighter touch to the role than I recall from the 1984 off-Broadway revival. Was that your choice?
It was the director's choice, and I was thrilled and relieved that he wanted that approach. It's still quite intense, but in general the presentation of it is not as formal or as removed. The goal was to try to engage the audience and keep them in the play as opposed to making them work hard to find clarity in the plot. I believe it was a good choice.

How is this production different from the one Japanese director Amon Miyamoto did in his native language?
For one thing, Japanese actors and American actors are very different, and I think he found the process eye-opening in that way. American actors have a different [work] process, so it follows that we would create a different production.

I'll bet American actors are more vocal and ask more questions.
Yes, but that's not a bad thing. It's about collaboration as opposed to dictation.

I love the fact that two members of the original 1976 Broadway cast, Alvin Ing and Sab Shimono, are in this production.
I can't tell you how powerful that is. On the first day of rehearsal, we were going around the room introducing ourselves, which is something I hate because I always feel self-conscious. But when we got to Alvin, he said rather proudly, "I'm Alvin Ing and I'm playing the Shogun's mother"-pause-"again." And the whole group, including actors and designers and Roundabout donors, just went crazy. It was so moving. I told a friend of mine, and he said, "Right there, in 10 words, he sang every verse of 'I'm Still Here.'"

I've read that Pacific Overtures meant a lot to you when you saw the original production as a teenager.
It is a beloved piece for all of us. I sense that everyone [in the cast] loves this play and believes in it and wants the best for it, including a production in which it can be fully realized, with the budget and sophistication it needs to be presented properly. I feel we've found that in this production.

Do you think Studio 54 is a good space for it?
I do, yes. I mean, I can't wait to see Studio 54 once it's been de-discoed. It's still got the safari print rug in the mezzanine, it's painted black in a lot of places, and it has a real decadent post-Kit Kat Club kind of look. But it is a grand space, a former opera house, and the modularity of the seating is wonderful for pieces like ours, in which so much occurs on the ramp down the center of the main aisle. And it makes sense that this decadent Western hall is juxtaposed by this pristine Shinto-style set, particularly in view of the fact that the designer and the director chose to allow the theater to represent America itself.

Did Stephen Sondheim have a lot of input in the production?
I don't think a first-class production of a Sondheim show can be done in this day and age without extensive input from him. You would be a boob not to utilize his insight and his perspective on the material he wrote, as well as [book writer] John Weidman. Both of them were extremely hands-on. Sondheim rewrote a fair amount of lyrics for some songs and John Weidman rewrote a fair amount of the book.

Do you know why Sondheim fiddled with it?
I believe it has something to do with having another chance to work on anything that bothered him or wasn't quite right in previous productions.

Is Sondheim intimidating to be around?
Only in theory--he's intimidating because we all bring an incredible sense of what he means to us as an artist, as a composer, and as a figure in the American theater. But he never trades on that. It's apparently not part of his persona or the way he chooses to work. He's very respectful of actors, and he treated me with great sense of collaboration.

I would enjoy seeing you as Bobby in Company.
Yes, that's a wonderful show that has never been done quite right.

Before we talk about all the casting barriers you've broken, I wonder if you can imagine an interview in which you won't be asked about being Asian-American.
It's okay. I've come to embrace it so fully that I think it's wonderful.

Has the business gotten better for Asian actors than it was when you started 20 years ago?
Twenty years is a long time, and things are definitely easier. Are they easy enough? No. Are they still kind of frustrating? Yes. But I've been able to claw my way up to the middle. I do think there's a certain amount of progress.

Sandra Oh had a juicy role in the movie Sideways, and the fact that she's Asian was never mentioned.
That's important, but the fact that we're even remarking on it is not good. We notice it now, and not necessarily the same way we would with Halle Berry or Denzel Washington. We don't have to discuss the fact that their African-American heritage is not necessarily a part of every role they play.

. Do you feel pressure in being the most successful Asian-American actor in America?
I don't think pressure is the right word. I feel like a very lucky person. The only pressure I have is the pressure I put on myself to stay creative and try not to do things twice. I do try to be responsible in the work I choose to do and take into consideration that people learn from what they see me do.

You won a Tony at 26 for playing the cross-dressing spy in M. Butterfly. Was that a hard act to follow?
Sure. For many years after that, I said, "I'm going with the flow; I don't have a plan of what I want to be or to do," and I think that was a healthy way to look at it. Because I really did have to negotiate through a lot of stigma and misperceptions about what kind of an actor I was and even what kind of person I was because of that role. The role itself was fantastic and changed my career for the better in many ways, but it was odd for a while.

You changed your name from Bradd to B.D. to maintain the surprise of M. Butterfly. What do friends call you?
B.D. If I'm going to use this name in my professional life, I prefer to use it all the time.

Was it weird to change such an essential part of your identity?
It was more weird to have two names. I didn't like certain people saying, "Well so-and-so calls you this, why can't I?" And it was irritating when strangers would come up to me and try to ingratiate themselves because they had found out my birth name from the Internet. So I said. "I'm going to have one name, B.D., and insist that everybody call me one thing." It's my dad's initials and my brother's initials so it's not completely out of left field.

I understand that your version of Law & Order has passed the original series in the ratings.
I don't follow the ratings, but apparently that's true. It's a wonderful show and a hilarious group of people to work with. At this point in my life it's the perfect thing for me. I was able to do Pacific Overtures simultaneously, which is unheard of. And it keeps my exposure at a place that is manageable but I have the ability to generate press for a Broadway show.

And on top of that, you've directed your first movie, Social Grace, with a cast of theater regulars [Christine Baranski, Laura Benanti, Jonathan Hadary, Randall Duk Kim, Roger Rees, Margaret Cho, and many others].
The cast was incredible, and it's a wonderful romantic comedy script. It is very important to me that a certain kind of storytelling become the norm, one that tells a story with three-dimensional Asian-American leading characters. Like we said before, that's a pretty rare thing. The main character has an obsession with wanting to be part of the affluent world of the Upper East Side with its charity junior committees. Fay Ann Lee, who is also the screenwriter, is the young woman and Gale Harold, from the Showtime series Queer As Folk, plays a JFK Jr. character. He represents this world that excludes her and that she aspires to be part of, and their romance shows her a little bit about the nature of love and who she is. I have a small part in it that I took mostly as a lark.

Has directing made you question your commitment to acting?
I have the blood of an actor. I love to act, and I don't think that will ever go away. Creatively, directing gave me access to so many parts of myself that I never even got close to using as an actor, so it was a more gratifying experience in some ways. It's not as much of a spiritual experience or a relationship to an audience, but it was highly creative.

But you still love acting on stage.
Oh yes, that's never going to go away. It's not just fun, it's truly meaningful for me. I feel like I'm myself when I'm doing it.

I hear your son singing. He's obviously doing well now.
He is, thank you. He's wonderful.

Following Foo, the book you wrote about his early months, will be a keepsake for him.
Yes, it will. I put it away, and I don't want him to know about it until later when he can appreciate it. I don't want it to change him until he is old enough to understand it.

Having gotten through the loss of one son and the medical crises of another, you must feel that you can live through anything.
Well, I'm a firm believer that there's always something worse than what's happening, even when you feel like a situation is as bad as it can be. I was greatly strengthened by that incredible experience, but I also have enough perspective to realize that it could be have been much, much worse. I'm grateful and very thankful for the fact that I was spared. I did feel that part of reason it happened to us was because I was supposed to share it in some way. The book was part of that.

Jackson is four now. Does that mean you're going through the whole private-school admissions process?
That's right, and that's another book in itself! [Laughs]

Is fatherhood what you expected it to be?
Yes and no. Nothing that is so wonderful and amazing can be what you think it's going to be. But it is as powerful as I thought it would be. And it's really good for me. Being an actor is a self-centered kind of existence, and it helps to realize that there are many other aspects of life. The three of us--Richie, his other dad, and Jackson and I--are extremely grateful. He's such an amazing little guy. He has a joy for living and is full of laughter and appreciation for things, which I think has something to do with the three months he spent in intensive care at the hospital.

What are your hopes for him? Do you think about him becoming an actor?
I don't even care. Part of the reason we're putting a certain amount of care in choosing a kindergarten is because we really want to find a place that can help him to discover who he is. The idea that we don't really know what that is yet is wonderful.

Was turning 40 traumatic for you--even though you don't look 40?
Not at all. There's a manic actor's neurosis about "Will I have done all I needed to do when I get to be this age?" But there was no trauma. Turning 40 was the threshold of fatherhood itself, so there was no downside to it.

Well, you've got a Tony Award and a son, you're on a hit TV show, and you've directed a movie, so there can't be much left on the checklist.
The key is not to have a checklist--to be open to experiencing new things. Letting go of the past and leaving yourself open to new experiences is what's important.