Yeun, who is promoting his new South Korean film Burning, tells Slate the AMC series limited him to the "American white gaze." "I won’t speak for other Asian American actors, because I don’t know what they’re being offered. But for me, it’s like: nice guy, dependable, supportive, benign. Beige. And as a Korean man, I am not beige. Was he playing beige on The Walking Dead? "Yeah, I felt beige with Glenn," he responds. "That was a little bit of the frustration that I could never explain to the wider society, to fans of the show. Am I incredibly grateful, and did I have a wonderful time on that show? Yeah! I wouldn’t take that experience back at all. I made lifelong friendships. I got to learn so much. But I will say that I felt cramped. I felt like there wasn’t space for me to fully spread all of who I was, and that was partly due to me, too, because when I started, all I was trying to do was to work within the parameters that they were giving me. And then, over time, I just outgrew it."
TOPICS: Steven Yeun, AMC, The Walking Dead, Asian Americans and TV