Hoa Xuande on his breakout role in 'The Sympathizer' and his journey from Australia to Hollywood

Capehart

The Washington Post

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.6 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 23 May 2024

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Actor Hoa Xuande, star of the new espionage thriller "The Sympathizer," talks about his role as a double agent in the miniseries, how the show reexamines the Vietnam war through the Vietnamese perspective and how growing up in Australia led him on a path to "figure out who he really is." Conversation recorded on Thursday, May 23 2024.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Jonathan Kapart and welcome to Kapart.
0:03.0	The sympathizer is a seven-part espionage thriller following The Captain,
0:08.0	a French Vietnamese communist spy in the last days of the Vietnam War,
0:12.0	and it tells the story of the Vietnam War
0:14.9	from the Vietnamese perspective. It's so fabulous that the Washington Post has
0:20.1	named it one of the best new TV shows in 2024 so far.
0:24.0	And having watched five of the seven episodes,
0:27.0	I can say that's an accurate assessment.
0:29.0	Part of it has to do with its breakout star. Hua Shonday.
0:34.1	In this conversation first recorded for Washington Post
0:37.0	live on May 22nd,
0:38.8	Shonday talks about his first ever leading role,
0:42.0	why he wanted to play the captain, and what it was like working
0:45.4	with Sandra O and Robert Downey Jr.
0:48.4	More importantly, Hua Shanday talks about what it was like to see the first episode of the
0:53.6	sympathizer at the Hollywood premiere with his parents who fled Vietnam during the
0:59.2	war spent months at sea before eventually starting life over in Australia.
1:07.1	Let's bring people into this conversation.
1:09.0	Your character, the Captain, is a North Vietnamese spy who has infiltrated the South Vietnamese Army.
1:16.0	So how does he end up in Los Angeles?
1:21.0	Right, the thing is, it wasn't his wish to end up in the States or Los Angeles. I guess it was a part of his mission that he thought would be ending but his blood brother man who is his
1:36.7	communist handler and a confidant decides that you know even though the physical war
	...

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