Posted in: ABC, Netflix, TV | Tagged: Crazy Rich Asians, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Fresh Off The Boat, Hymnson Chan, The Brothers Sun

The Brothers Sun: Hymnson Chan on Stunts, Asian Representation & More

Hymnson Chan (The Brothers Sun) spoke with Bleeding Cool about his stuntwork career, the importance of Asian representation, and more.

Hymnson Chan is a jack-of-all-trades talent in Hollywood as an actor and stuntman. When he's not appearing in a variety of action, comedy, and dramas like ABC'sGrey's Anatomy, and Showtime's Shameless, he's performing stunts on NBC's Superstore, Netflix's The Brothers Sun, Marvel's The Avengers: Endgame (2019), Sony's Bullet Train (2022) and FX's American Horror Story. Chan's pulled double duty on ABC's The Rookie and Nickelodeon's Danger Force. While promoting his work on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm, Chan spoke to Bleeding Cool about the rigors of vehicle stunts, why he feels stunt women have a taller task than their male counterparts, and how far along Asians and Asian storytelling have come in terms of Hollywood.

The Brothers Sun: Hymnson Chan on Crazy Road Stunts & Asian-Centric Projects

Bleeding Cool: Was there a particular stunt in your career that was the most difficult and profoundly satisfying once you completed it?

Chan: It's all about the preparation [when it comes to stunts]. We're training pretty much seven days a week so that when you show up on set that day, you don't have to take that hit repeatedly. At the same time, the difficulty of doing stunts isn't necessarily the stunt itself; it's the actual filmmaking process. You must make sure the lighting is correct; camera angles are all right, and even the timing of the camera movement. A movie that I was working on a couple of months ago hasn't been announced yet, so I can't give any real details.

Once, I was getting thrown by a moving car. Other cars were speeding around the street. I'm hanging on the hood, I get spun off, and I hit the ground and cement. It's a wide shot, so we can't hide pads. It's a very technical shot because there's a lot of camera movements at the same time. I ended up doing that maybe eight to 10 times, riding on a car, getting spun off, hitting the cement, like maybe around 20-25mph. Doing that over again took a toll afterward. That's probably one of the more difficult days I've had.

At the end of the day, you see how happy the directors, producers, and actors are I'm working with. They're so impressed that you have that determination and that toughness to sacrifice your body. I feel like some people are undervalued that way in that we put our lives on the line a lot of times, and that's just like another. It becomes just like another throwaway thing in a movie. At the end of the day, some of us get a couple of bruises here and there. Some people end up in the hospital and that's I feel like people forget that. Those days can be difficult, and thank God I haven't had those issues yet because I'm an extremely prepared person, almost to an OCD point. All the preparation goes into making sure that we have a safe day.

If you don't have a crash pad at the time, I'm guessing there's padding on your clothing at least to kind of soften the impact, right?

It's 50/50, sometimes depending on what the wardrobe is. Thankfully for this movie, I did have a jacket, so I was able to hide a back pad underneath, but I still ended up with a bunch of road rash because my arms were exposed and, like, the back of my neck. When you're rolling and hit the ground that hard on cement, you're going to end up with some road rash at the same time. That's also why I find that stunt women are so badass. I give it up to them more than stunt guys because stunt women, most of the time, their wardrobe doesn't allow them to wear pads. They're taking licks that make me cringe sometimes, like, "I know that hurt," but they do it repeatedly and never complain. Whereas, guys, we are a little bit spoiled. We're usually in maybe a big jacket, leather pants or not, long leather pants and we can hide as many pads as we need. Major props to stunt women who can do all this without padding.

I was wondering how you felt about how Asians have persevered in Hollywood. As long in the industry as you have, some signature projects propelled more mainstream appeal like 'Crazy Rich Asians' (2018), the multi-Oscar-winning 'Everything Everywhere, All at Once' (2022), and the ABC hit sitcom 'Fresh Off the Boat.' Did you feel the benefit through increased opportunities?

It's the dawn of a new era. We're not necessarily in the golden era. We still have some ways to go, but we've come a long way. I've been in this industry for a little over 15 years now. When I first started, it was just the stereotypical roles like you're either the nerdy guy or techie. There's much more of a diaspora of characters for Asians. 'Everything Everywhere, All at Once' is just one of my all-time favorite movies. Deserves all the Oscars they got, and that opened the door more than naught. Maybe they didn't open the door more than like 'Crazy Rich Asians.' I feel like that got us more exposure, but at the same time may have kept us in that box of being the comedic relief.

Whereas projects like 'Parasite,' 'Everything Everywhere, All at Once, 'Fresh Off the Boat' made us more human. 'Fresh Off the Boat' is about this middle-class Midwest [family], and moving to Florida with this Asian family has made us more relatable. Same with 'Everything Everywhere, All at Once' made us more relatable as a community in that we go through the same struggles as any other race, that Asians are like anyone else. We're not this model minority that's been put out for so many years that we have different layers. We have a range of people.

Shows and movies like that have opened the door now; this year alone, there is so much amazing Asian talent that's being showcased in shows like 'The Brothers Sun.' It's so underrated and should have got another season. Hopefully, it does. Had the pleasure of doing some stunts on that show. Even on the drama side, like 'Tokyo Vice,' 'Giri/Haji,' 'Squid Game,' 'Warrior'…big shout out to 'Warrior.' The best show on TV, bar none, not even because it's an Asian show, is 'Shogun.' If you felt that I just caught up on this week's episode today and it continues to wow me. It's stories like that that show us that we have range, we have history, and we are interesting.

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