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In his decades-long career, John Cho has covered quite a bit of ground. He broke out playing comedy, then deftly transitioned into drama and now easily moves between the two. He has tackled prestige TV (The Sympathizer), blockbuster franchises (Star Trek) and festival-favorite indie films (Better Luck Tomorrow). Onscreen, he has gone everywhere, from outer space (a couple of times) to White Castle.
One thing he can’t remember doing? Playing a villain. But with Bassam Tariq ’s Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, which premiered Sept. 12 at TIFF before being released by Amazon MGM, he finally gets the chance.
The movie stars Oscar winner Mahershala Ali as Latif, a devout Muslim and contract killer in Texas who is grieving the loss of his wife and struggling to take care of his three children as a single father. Both Latif’s job and attempts to look after his kids put him in the crosshairs of Cho’s Haun Yoon, an Army veteran whose near-death experience prompted him to start a militant Christian church that uses violence as a righteous way to rid their community of what they see as even greater evils.
Cho describes the movie as “this spectacular combination of the story about family and faith, but set in this action thriller.” Ahead of its premiere, the actor talked to THR about the nerves he felt working with Ali and the transformative power of teeth grillz.
What was it about your character in particular that made you want to sign on to the movie?
Well, cosmetically, he’s such a different role for me. It felt like such a gift to be able to do something that looks so different. I immigrated from Korea to Houston, Texas as a kid. And I recall my mother, when I must have been seven years old, being told that there was something called “Western Heritage Day” at school, and her having to scramble as a 28-year-old Korean mother trying to get a cowboy hat and cowboy boots for her boy. It was kind of a full-circle moment for me to play a character who grew up in Houston and looked like this.
How did Haun’s audacious look influence your performance?
It takes me out of myself, which is something that was a little hard for me. This is really different than any other way I’ve worked. I usually work from the text and then work backwards, but this seemed like we should go back to creating an origin story and then trust that that would serve the script. The designers and Basam had such different ideas, and Basam was so open to exploring where this guy was coming from with me. So, the hat came, the boots came, and I liked how it affected my physicality. It took me out of myself, made me feel more physical, made me feel more dangerous. It made me feel more like a leader who was comfortable having all eyes on him. And then the final piece was a Basam suggestion, which was the grill. And I resisted that at first. I’m not sure if I voiced it, but I was like, “Can I carry this off? Will this work?” Yeah. Well, we just walked forward with it, and it’s my favorite thing about my character is the grill because it took me away from myself.
In terms of Huan being this faith leader, were you and Bassam looking to real-life churches for inspiration?
There’s a reading of the character, and there’s the possibility of playing him as a charlatan or a crook. The first thing that Bassam and I decided together was that he had to come from an authentically inspired place; he had to have a real mission. So, rather than draw inspiration from existing churches, we were trying to come up with a character history first, and then think, ‘What would that church look like?’
While Pastor Haun may not think of himself as the villain, he is undoubtedly the main villain in this movie. Looking back on your career, I don’t remember you ever playing the straight villain before.
I’m trying to think back. I was on a show called The Exorcist on Fox years ago, and I played someone who was possessed, but I wouldn’t consider that the villain. But to your point, this is not what people would expect from me, so it makes it all the more special. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten to play anything, even in this neighborhood, really. So to get a chance like that, well into your career, I just can’t believe it.
Having not played a character like this before, what did that preparation look like?
Rehearsal time is harder and harder to schedule these days, and Basam really made sure that we had the time. And Mahershala came to these rehearsals, and we talked through both our characters and talked about where we were coming from as actors. The content of that, I’ll keep private, but it was so important in order to play someone who could potentially take on this imposing character, Latif, and the actor, Mahershala, I had to be welcomed to do that. Basam and Mahershala just brought me in, invited me into their story, and made me feel empowered so that I could empower the character. Beyond that, I had to keep in mind that I was a soldier and I am capable of killing, and clearly willing to do it. You carry yourself a certain way when you have the ability and are willing to do damage like that. My takeaway from these rehearsals was that, in some ways, [Latif and Haun] were the same person, presenting in vastly different ways, but both driven by their own versions of faith.
Outside of the mental preparation, this is a heavy action film, with your character in plenty of fight sequences. What did that physical preparation look like?
I’m trying to stretch and not get hurt. [Laughs.] We had to learn the choreography, and it was an incredible piece of choreography. They were doing a lot of fight beats per shot, where a punch is one beat, a duck is the second beat, then a roundhouse kick is the third beat. It felt like Mahershala was doing like 30 beats in a row during these takes. Mahershala had the much heavier lift. Sometimes it felt like he was using a sword with one arm, shooting a gun with the other, and kicking somebody in the face with his leg. It was just making sure we were in sync and not punching each other accidentally.
Heading into filming, was there any one scene that you were most anticipatory of being able to pull off?
I’m sure the scene that I was sweating was my introduction when I first meet Latif. I was nervous for a lot of reasons. There was a lot going on in that scene in terms of everyone’s hidden motivations. And honestly, I was just really nervous about working with someone I admired so much. Sometimes it can be distracting. I am just such an admirer of his work and of Mahershala’s work, and then I met him, and I couldn’t love him more. So then I don’t want to let him down. He went to bat for me. All of that came to a head on this one day when we had to maintain a connection with each other for a really long time. I remember being quite exhausted, but feeling so invigorated from what I felt was a really deep connection with this other actor.
And then right after that, you all are jumping into an intense fight sequence.
And, by the way, I walked into that set, and I was like, “It’s all mirrors in here!” We’re doing a fight sequence in a mirrored room. It was like a Nordstrom dressing room. [Laughs.]
English (US) ·