'Interior Chinatown' stars Tzi Ma, Archie Kao praise the 'no ego' set of the Disney+ show with Jimmy O. Yang

The genre bending story from Charles Yu's novel "Interior Chinatown" moves to the screen in the new Disney+ series of the same name, starring Jimmy O. Yang, Chloe Bennet, Ronny Chieng, Archie Kao, Tzi Ma, and Diana Lin (on Disney+ in Canada, Hulu in the U.S.). Willis Wu (Jimmy O. Yang) works as a waitor at his uncle Wong's (Archie Kao) restaurant Golden Palace in Chinatown and can't escape the confines of being a background character, until he gets pushed into an investigation with rookie detective Lana Lee (Chloe Bennet), connected to Willis' missing brother.

For Kao, he saw a lot of his personal story in Willis, both in his personal and professional life. Primarily from the story's commentary on Asian-American tropes and stereotypes in TV.

“This is a tongue in cheek sort of look at this world within a world, set against a procedural drama, which is really where I cut my teeth in Hollywood,” Kao, who has been on shows like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Chicago P.D., told Yahoo Canada. “I felt like that was the journey I had, personally and professionally, as the Willis Wu character, as the character that kind of always felt relegated to being the Asian tech guy. I know that they're not going to write me to be the hero character, I don't even know if it was a thought, back in the day."

"So the fact that this story actually dares to go there was like, oh I have to be part of it to pay homage to my personal journey.”

'We all know the same fundamental needs and desires to belong'

As Ma describes the show, it's a "story within a story," a "theme within a theme," and "Chinese boxes in a Russian doll."

"All of these things are such a kaleidoscope of images and senses and emotions that continue to challenge the audience in some way," he said. “We want the audience to not feel like everything's just handed to them. … We respect our audiences. We respect the fact that they are an audience that will want to come on this journey with us, as opposed to us paving the road and just saying, ‘OK well, ... you're going to go see this now.’" ... We're going to come and explore, hand-in-hand, step by step, without really jumping the gun and going ahead of ourselves"

Kao added that this isn't a show that is "spoon-feeding" its audience.

"I hope the audience will invest a little bit more and actually study it and see that the expression of it is actually larger," he said. "It's set against the milieu of Chinatown, but it's not actually just about being Chinese, it's the bigger stories about our humanity that we all have, regardless of where you come from."

"We all know the same fundamental needs and desires to belong, and to be important and relevant to your community."

'Everyone is very self-assured. There's no ego involved'

While Ma, who plays Willis' father father Joe, is one of our favourite on-screen dads from his roles in films like The Farewell and Mulan, something he finds important in any project he takes on is being a real collaborator on set.

"I can be a pain in the you know what, because I'm not going to change my ways in that sense, because I feel it's much more productive that way," Ma stressed. "And I always try to find myself in positions [where] my opinion is something that people will say, 'There may be some something to be offered here,' and I think in this set, it's really an incubator of that kind of collaboration, that kind of challenge."

"Everyone is very self-assured. There's no ego involved. ... Everyone really is very generous and at least listens. It may be completely wrong, but people still listen and say, OK let's try it. And you know what? It's OK. Tzi, that's a bold choice, but wrong. It's OK. We're human beings, we're not perfect and it's what we learn from these mishaps, these obstacles that we face every day. It's life, right? So we rise to the challenge and I think that's very exciting."

"Tzi's not afraid to be bold," Kao added. "But, yeah, I mean it unearths some really ... important and vital questions, like are we getting, hopefully, the highest and best use of this time and what we hope to express with it."