Fantastic Voyage: 'Voyager's' Garrett Wang

Singled Out
There's a lot of buzz in Hollywood these days about the lack of minority faces in prime time TV. The NAACP is talking about boycotting ABC and Latino groups are calling for more Hispanic roles across the board.

Asian Americans are blatantly missing as well. Currently, only 2 percent of all roles cast go to Asian American actors, according to The Hollywood Reporter. And, while you may find a handful of female Asian-American actresses in prime time, Asian male actors in non-stereotypical roles are extremely rare.

Actor Garrett Wang (pronounced "Wong") is one of those few and shining exceptions.

View From The Bridge
Garrett Wang answers the door in a baseball cap, sweatshirt, and athletic pants. Gone is the make-up and Starfleet uniform he was wearing just 20 minutes earlier.

At 5:00 this morning, Wang had been called to the set of "Star Trek: Voyager," where he co-stars as Ensign Harry Kim. He was hurried into make-up, then sent to sit his dressing room for five hours before his scenes. That's showbiz, folks. Hurry up and wait.

The day now wrapped, Wang is relaxing at his spacious Hollywood Hills home.

"Come on in," Wang says and walks me into his living room.

The home is his pet project and he has been busy remodeling it for the last three years. New hardwood floors, modern furniture, and fresh paint in place; the house is stylish, masculine and welcoming.

Wang takes me out to the sprawling deck and shows me the view. It's spectacular.

He points in different directions and plays tour guide. "There, you can see Madonna's old house. Well, . . . before the stalker. Oh, and there's downtown." The famous Hollywood sign is also clearly visible.

At 31, the view for Wang's life is spectacular, too. He is living the Hollywood dream.

Having landed the role on "Star Trek" when he was just 25, Wang has achieved enviable star status, crossing into prime-time television with relative ease. On the way, Wang has not only become a notable actor, but an accidental heartthrob. E! Entertainment Television recently named him one of the 20 coolest bachelors.

But, despite his success, Wang knows all too well that his story is rare for an Asian male actor in Hollywood and he's not afraid to talk about it.

Light Years Away
Wang grew up in California, Bermuda, and Tennessee. As a kid, he found his love of acting by entertaining family guests with skits and imitations of people they knew.

But life was also a challenge as one of the few Asians in his schools. Wang was often targeted for no other reason than for not looking like the other kids.

He says, "I wasn't weird, unathletic, or anything. But kids often made fun of me simply because of my appearance."

This experience has given him a determination to increase awareness about Asian American images in U.S. society. Wang also notes that Asian Americans are severely underrepresented in the entertainment industry and uses humor to highlight the discrepancies.

He tells me, "Look at any of the medical dramas, there aren't any Asian characters."

He is laughing now at the absurdity.

"Or what about the college shows? No Asian characters. But, if you go to a college in this country and can't find an Asian, I'll give you a thousand bucks. Unless you're talking about Spelman or one of the black colleges, the percentage of Asians that go to college after high school is probably 98 percent, come on."

And Wang is putting his energy where his mouth is.

Wang serves as the national spokesperson for Asian American Media Development (AAMD), an organization dedicated to developing Asian talent and projects that promote positive non-stereotypical images.

The organization has backing from major sponsors including Paramount and the restaurant chain Denny's. Like Wang, AAMD believes there is a vast untapped talent pool of Asian artists and writers and an overlooked audience.

Acting His Age
Wang tell me that he had to sneak into his first acting classes at UCLA.

He says, "I was a premed major and you had to be a theater major to get into the theater classes."

Thankfully, an acting instructor allowed him to enroll in the introductory acting class anyway. He loved acting so much, he continued to take classes despite his lack of a major.

But Wang faced an even tougher challenge with his acting -- his parents. Though very proud of his success today, his parents were not too keen on the acting idea.

Wang says his parents used to say to him: "Name one American Asian star in television and the movies. And I really couldn't. It was sparse."

He tells me "My parents were so against it, they threatened to disown me . . .'You should keep this as a hobby,' (they said). I succumbed to their wishes and didn't become a theater major. But for five years I took classes and did plays -- a stage-combat class, speech class, and dialect class -- all geared to the stage and live theater."

Why were Wang's parents so adamant?

Wang says the trouble started with a bizarre twist of fate.

That 70s Show
Wang notes that his parents' feeling about his career choice was "underlined by a meeting that my mother had while flying back from Hawaii to the Mainland" several years ago. He tells me that "sitting next to her was actress Bonnie Franklin." His mother started a conversation with the "One Day At A Time" star about show business.

When Wang's mother told Franklin that her college-age son wanted to become an actor, Wang says that Franklin's response was less than generous.

Wang says in his best Bonnie Franklin impression: "Tell your son to get out of the business, because there is no way he will ever make it." The implication was that as an Asian actor, he would never find work.

After his mother heard that, it was one difficult day at a time for Wang.

Wang laughs now, but he wasn't laughing then. He tells me that Franklin's words "became scripture, the law, and edict. Bonnie Franklin's word is the word. She became The Woman (in the Wang house)."

He says: "From then on, every conversation we had was 'you know what Bonnie says, Bonnie knows best, just follow Bonnie's words."

Did he ever meet Bonnie Franklin after he had made it in Hollywood? Amazingly, he did.

Wang says: "I saw (Franklin) at an opening of a play in Los Angeles. She was waiting outside with her husband and it was right after I booked 'Voyager.' I walked right up to her and she (was) expecting me to ask for an autograph."

Wang told her the story about the chance meeting on the plane and the actress didn't remember. Wang admits that his youth got the best of him.

He told her flatly, "I just booked my first series and it's going great and I don't want you to worry about me."

She was speechless.

"It was closure," he tells me of the encounter.

Voyager Docking
"I had six auditions for the show. It was between me and a kid from New York," Wang says of his "Star Trek" role.

The character of Harry Kim is immensely popular and I ask him about the part.

Wang notes that Kim "started out as the inexperienced, yet knowledgeable Ensign, the most-junior officer on the ship. Just graduated Starfleet Academy. (Voyager was his) first mission and it gets lost in space. (It will take 70) years traveling to get back to Earth."

We laugh about how much that would stink if the fictional plot were real. First mission: lost in outer space trying to get back to Earth. What luck.

Wang says it's okay now because "we're about 50 years out now. Magic of television, almost home."

So how much of Kim is Wang, and vice versa?

Wang tells me that, "In the beginning, the character was younger than me. I needed to be a little less mature than in real life. The kid has slowly but surely matured. Now, he's not as serious, now you definitely see traces of humor in him."

And how has Wang influenced his character?

He says, "I've always told them (the writers) more humor. There are sides of Kim that exist in Wang. I have a very very serious side to me. But the real me, the true me, definitely enjoys being the person who makes them laugh."

And apparently, the cast never stops laughing on the "Voyager" set.

Wang says that "Everyday we're there we have gags. If someone were to take a camera and tape between our takes, you could make it into a sitcom. We laugh so hard on that set, that we practically bust our guts. Anyone who gets to visit and see some of the magic that happens, they really go away with a great feeling inside."

Down to Earth
Wang is playfully imitating Kate Mulgrew, who plays "Voyager" Captain Janeway. He admires his costar, but loves to tease her.

Wang sounds just like her and I practically fall of my chair laughing as he tells me the secret to imitating her.

He says, "Well when you do Janeway, you've got to make sure it's a little bit of Katherine Hepburn and Smurf mixed in there. And every time I do it, (Mulgrew) says 'I don't sound like that.'" But Mulgrew often laughs in spite of herself.

In fact, Wang's knack for making people laugh landed him a role on the short lived ABC sitcom "All American Girl," starring Margaret Cho. And Wang believes the future may hold another sitcom role.

"It's what I really want to do next," he tells me of his post-"Star Trek" plans.

But whether it's a sitcom or another project, clearly, Wang is beating the odds.

And he's just getting started.

Fan Pages:

• Garrett Wang Online, fan page
• Harry Kim fan page

What's The Buzz?

After investigating the 98 percent fat-free peanut butter yogurt, the final verdict was fat-free coffee flavored yogurt with loads of fat-free fudge topping. That was the case for Monica Lewinsky, spotted at the Cultured Class in West Hollywood this week. Sticking to that Jenny Craig plan, I see.