One of Jimmy O. Yang’s first TV roles was Asian Teenager No. 2, in a 2013 episode of “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”

歐陽萬成最早得到的電視劇角色之一是在2013年的《神盾局特工》(Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)中扮演亞裔少年二。

“The part was for someone who could speak Cantonese; I think that’s why I got it,” he said in a recent interview. He remembers the constant competition back then among Asian actors for roles with one or two lines, “an episode of something shooting in Chinatown,” he said, “or a part in the background at a community college.”

「那個角色需要一個會講粵語的人，我認為那是我被選中的原因，」他在最近的一次採訪中說。他記得那時候，亞裔演員們總在為只有一兩句台詞的角色競爭，「比如劇中在唐人街拍攝的某個情節，」他說，「或是社區大學的一個背景角色。」

Such work might sound like small potatoes. But in an industry that has historically struggled to put Asian actors and characters in the foreground, every rung of the ladder counts.

這種工作聽起來也許微不足道。但在一個亞裔演員和角色歷來難以成為主要角色的行業，事業階梯的每一級都很重要。

Now Yang, who was born in Hong Kong and came to the United States when he was 13, is at the center of a limited series that turns the struggle into mind-swirling metafiction. “Interior Chinatown,” adapted by the showrunner Charles Yu from his own 2020 novel, is a TV series based on a book about a life unfolding inside a TV series.

歐陽萬成出生在香港，13歲時來到美國。如今，他成了一部限定劇的主角，該劇以令人神魂顛倒的敘事有意識地讓觀眾意識到亞裔演員所處的困境。《唐人街內部》(Interior Chinatown)由製片人游朝凱根據他本人2020年出版的同名小說改編，這是一部關於在電視劇中展開人生的亞裔男性的電視劇。

“The elevator pitch is that it’s ‘Law & Order’ meets ‘The Truman Show,’” Yu said. “It starts as a straightforward mystery and gets into something weirder, a metaphysical mystery hopefully.”

「簡單地說，這是一部《法律與秩序》(Law & Order)和《楚門的世界》(The Truman Show)的結合，」游朝凱說。「開始時，它是一部簡單的懸疑劇，然後變得更加怪誕，希望它是一部形而上學的懸疑劇。」

“Interior Chinatown,” premiering with all 10 episodes Tuesday on Hulu, is also an affectionate sendup of the police procedural, and a sly piece of media criticism about Asian stereotypes in entertainment.

《唐人街內部》已於週二在Hulu首播，共10集。它也是一部善意戲仿警匪劇的嘲諷片，巧妙地批評了娛樂界的亞洲人刻板印象。

“I feel like I’m a background character in somebody else’s story,” Yang’s Willis Wu tells his friend and Chinatown restaurant colleague, Fatty Choi (Ronny Chieng), early in the series. As it turns out, that is exactly what he is.

「我總覺得我是別人故事裡的背景人物，」歐陽萬成飾演的角色威利斯·吳(Willis Wu)在劇情開始時對同樣在唐人街餐廳打工的朋友蔡肥仔(Fatty Choi，錢信伊飾）說。結果他真的是。

When Willis witnesses an abduction outside the restaurant, he begins to toggle between two worlds. One is his humdrum restaurant routine. The other is a “Law & Order”-style procedural series called “Black & White,” starring Sullivan Jones as Detective Turner (he’s Black) and Lisa Gilroy as Detective Green (she’s white).

威利斯在餐廳外目睹了一起綁架事件後，他開始出入於兩個世界之間。一個是單調乏味的餐廳打工日常。另一個是劇情與《法律與秩序》類似的《黑與白》(Black & White)警匪劇世界，在警匪劇中，蘇利文·瓊斯飾演偵探特納（他是黑人），麗莎·吉爾羅伊飾演偵探格林（她是白人）。

The series and the series-within-the-series are lit differently, and the police precinct, in fictional Port Harbour, is presented as a backlot set. Every now and then the camera pulls back and shows Willis on an old television, watched by an invisible viewer. The festive, TV-friendly bar that Willis visits in the first episode with a sympathetic detective (Chloe Bennet) turns out to be the set for a hard seltzer commercial.

這部系列劇的各集與劇中劇的各集用不同的布光，虛構的波特港警察分局用外景場地來呈現。鏡頭時不時地拉回來，從一個劇中看不見的觀眾的角度看一個老式電視螢幕裡的威利斯。威利斯與富有同情心的偵探（汪可盈飾）在第一集裡一起光顧的那家上鏡的歡樂酒吧原來是一個硬蘇打水廣告的拍攝地。

“Interior Chinatown” uses such postmodern strokes to wrestle with the collision of race and authenticity. Willis is both a background character — think Asian Teenager No. 2 — and, outside the world of his restaurant, the Asian guy, standing out in a crowd. He’s like the protagonist of Ralph Ellison’s novel “Invisible Man,” imperceptible but impossible not to see.

《唐人街內部》用這種後現代手法來努力處理種族與真實性的碰撞。威利斯既是一個像「亞裔少年二號」那樣的背景人物，也是他打工餐廳世界之外的亞洲人，在人群中頗為顯眼。他像是拉爾夫·埃里森的小說《隱形人》的主人公，雖然難以覺察，但不可能看不到。

“We’re building off of work that others have done in other traditions, Ellison being the best example,” said Yu, whose parents emigrated from Taiwan before he was born. “The show and the book are really about being an authentic self, and what that means, and how we piece that together both for ourselves and for other people. Hopefully we came up with some fun and entertaining ways to explore that idea.”

「我們借鑒了他人在其他文化傳統中的工作，埃里森就是最好的例子，」游朝凱說，他的父母在他出生前從台灣移民到美國。「這部劇和這本書實際上講述的是做一個真實的自我，以及這意味著什麼的故事，還有我們如何將這些組合起來呈現給自己和別人。希望我們在探索這個想法上找到了一些有趣的和使人愉快的方式。」

Yu started hashing out the novel, which is written in the form of a screenplay, when he was working in the writers’ room of the HBO series “Westworld.”

游朝凱在HBO劇集《西部世界》(Westworld)的編劇室工作時開始構思他的小說，後來以劇本形式寫成。

“I was part of the big machinery of making a TV show and seeing how the sausage was made from the inside,” he said. “And I’ve always been really interested in roles and performance, and how we are or are not trying to project a certain impression of ourselves at potentially any moment.”

「我曾是製作電視節目大機器的一部分，從內部看到了製作的全過程，」他說。「我一直對角色和表演，以及我們在任何時候如何嘗試或不去嘗試投射某種我們給人的印象非常感興趣。」

The novel, which won the National Book Award, rang true to Asian actors who are often confined to the background.

他的小說獲得了美國國家圖書獎，對那些經常只能扮演背景人物的亞裔演員來說，書中情節很真實。

“This book speaks to every single Asian actor in Hollywood,” said Chieng, born in Malaysia and raised in New Hampshire and Singapore, whose character, Fatty, gains a cult following when he becomes the rudest waiter imaginable. (The tourists love being insulted.) “Asian actors were always comedic relief, maybe the villain, maybe the henchman, maybe the best friend.”

「這本書吸引了好萊塢所有的亞裔演員，」錢信伊說，他出生在馬來西亞，在新罕布什爾州和新加坡長大，他扮演的角色蔡肥仔成了人們想像中最粗魯的服務員後贏得了一批狂熱粉絲。（遊客們喜歡被無禮對待。）「亞裔演員總是扮演喜劇角色，可能是反派人物，可能是小嘍啰，也可能是主角最好的朋友。」

“When you see that in the book,” Chieng added, “you recognize it.”

「在書中看到這些東西時，你馬上就能辨別出來，」錢信伊補充道。

Bennet, who was a regular on “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” when Yang played his bit part, has her own personal connection to the series’s exploration of Asian performers in Hollywood. Born in Chicago to a Chinese father and a white mother, her real name is Chloe Wang; she moved to China when she was 15 to pursue a singing career, then to Los Angeles to become an actor.

歐陽萬成在《神盾局特工》扮演龍套角色時，汪可盈也經常在該劇露面，她與《唐人街內部》系列劇中對好萊塢亞裔演員的探討有親身關係。她出生於芝加哥，父親是華人，母親是白人；她15歲時曾去中國當歌手，後來搬回洛杉磯當演員。

She recalled what a casting director told her during an early audition: “You’re not Asian enough to play the best friend, but you’re not white enough to play the lead. That’s tricky.” She soon changed her stage name to Bennet, her father’s first name. “And I booked the first part I auditioned for,” she said.

她還記得早期試鏡時一名選角導演對她說的話：「你的樣子不夠亞裔，演不了最好的朋友，但你也不夠白，演不了主角。這很難辦。」不久後，她把自己當演員用的藝名改為貝內特，那是她父親的名字。「然後我得到了第一個我試鏡的角色，」她說。

The work has continued to flow, but Bennet’s feelings about changing a part of herself in order to succeed in Hollywood remain complex. “There’s real psychological danger, because it’s a form of internalized racism,” she said.

雖然之後工作源源不斷，但汪可盈對為了在好萊塢取得成功，需要改變自己的某個方面仍有一種複雜的感受。「真的有心理危機，因為這是一種內化的種族主義，」她說。

She sees the police procedural genre as a perfect way to tackle such thorny issues. “It’s so classically American,” she said. “It’s in your home every day, every week. It’s telling you what you think of yourself. I know I watched ‘Law and Order’ all the time as a kid.”

她把警匪劇視為解決這些棘手問題的完美方式。「這是美國經典，」她說。「你每天、每週都能在家裡看到。它告訴你如何看待自己。我知道我小時候就經常看《法律與秩序》。」

Yu is particularly partial to “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.” (In the series-within-the-series, Turner and Green lead the Impossible Crimes Unit).

游朝凱尤其喜愛《法律與秩序：特殊受害者》。（在《唐人街內部》系列劇的劇中劇裡，特納和格林領導的部門叫「不可能的犯罪」）。

“It’s comforting, the idea that you can package a story and solve a crime in 42 minutes,” Yu said. And yes, “Law & Order” episodes often have Asian characters in the background (and occasionally even in the foreground: Rachel Lin is a regular on “Law & Order: Organized Crime,” as Detective Victoria Cho).

「在42分鐘裡能講完一個故事，破獲一起犯罪，這是令人欣慰的事情，」游朝凱說。是的，《法律與秩序》劇集中經常有亞裔的背景人物（有時甚至也有主角：雷切爾·林（音）就經常在《法律與秩序：有組織犯罪》中露面，她飾演了偵探維多利亞·曹（音）。

“Interior Chinatown” plays with the idea of Willis stepping up and becoming a star on the series and in his own life. In his daily reality, he has always taken a back seat to his missing older brother (Chris Pang), who, in the “Black & White” world, goes by the generic Asian movie name of Kung Fu Guy. The novel offers a list of the roles Willis and, by extension, other Asian actors have historically played. Among them: Disgraced Son; Delivery Guy; and of course, Generic Asian Man.

《唐人街內部》巧妙地將威利斯在劇中和生活中逐漸成長為明星的故事穿插起來。在日常生活中，他總甘願居於他失蹤的哥哥（吳育剛飾）之下，而哥哥在《黑與白》的世界裡用的是亞洲電影中常見的「功夫小伙」名字。小說裡開列了威利斯（以及引申到其他亞裔演員）歷史上經常扮演的角色，其中包括：失寵的兒子、送貨員，當然還有普通亞洲人。

“Willis doesn’t know he’s trapped in this show,” Yang said. “He just wants to get out of Chinatown, make a better life for himself and his family, and all that stuff is very relatable to everyone. You don’t need to know about acting or getting a SAG card or central casting.”

「威利斯不知道自己被困在這個劇裡，」歐陽萬成說。「他只是想離開唐人街，讓自己和家人過上更好的生活，每個人都能夠理解並同情這種想法。你不需要懂得演技，或者有美國演員工會會員卡，或著通過了角色分派部門的選拔。」

This relatability also helped Yang navigate the series’s many layers and find Willis’s core. “He’s someone who’s been stuck in a rut, stuck in a restaurant, and he feels like he’s been stuck in a loop,” he said.

這種理解也有助於歐陽萬成探索系列劇的多個層次，找到威利斯的核心。「他過著一成不變的生活，整天生活在餐館裡，他覺得自己陷入了一個死循環，」歐陽萬成說。

There’s another main character in “Interior Chinatown,” hiding right in the title. The series takes a tongue-in-cheek-approach to depicting Chinatown as a place of dark mystery and perceived exoticism, an idea that has long persisted in the American imagination. Think Roman Polanski’s bleak 1974 neo-noir and its famous final words: “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.” It’s where outsiders don’t want to ask too many questions.

《唐人街內部》還有一個隱藏在標題中的主角。該系列劇用開玩笑的方式描述唐人街，將其描繪為一個充滿黑暗神秘氣氛且有異國情調的地方，這是美國人長期以來一直存在的想像。想想羅曼·波蘭斯基1974年的暗淡新黑色電影和它著名的最後一句台詞吧：「算了吧，傑克。這是唐人街。」唐人街是外人不想問太多問題的地方。

In researching the novel, Yu leaned heavily on the Bonnie Tsui book “American Chinatown,” which gives a historical overview of five different Chinatowns (including those in New York and Los Angeles). Yu quoted it for his novel’s opening epigraph: “If a film needed an exotic backdrop … Chinatown could be made to represent itself or any other Chinatown in the world. Even today, it stands in for the ambiguous Asian anywhere.”

在為寫小說做研究時，游朝凱在很大程度上依賴了崔靈鳳的書《美國唐人街》(American Chinatown)，該書概述了五個不同的唐人街（包括紐約的和洛杉磯的唐人街）的歷史。游朝凱在小說的引言中用了這句話：「如果一部電影需要一個異國情調的背景……唐人街既能用來代表它自己，也能用來代表世界上任何地方的唐人街。即使在今天，它仍是任何地方身份含混不清的亞洲人的象徵。」

But Chinatowns, including the one in Los Angeles, where many exteriors in “Interior Chinatown” were shot, are also specific places where real people live and work. And they have historically functioned as vital entry points for immigrants arriving to America.

但唐人街，包括拍攝《唐人街內部》許多外景的洛杉磯唐人街，也是真實的人物生活和工作的具體地方。它們在歷史上為抵達美國的移民起過重要的入口作用。

For Yu, this dichotomy was a perfect match for the story’s metafictional world.

對游朝凱來說，這種兩面性與故事的元虛構世界完美匹配。

“Is this a Chinatown of Willis’s mind, or is it an actual place?” Yu asked. “I don’t know that there’s a simple answer. It’s both a set and a mind-set, a physical space and an imaginary cultural space. We got to film that paradox. That was what was really fun.”

「它是威利斯心目中的唐人街呢，還是一個真實的地方？」游朝凱問道。「我不知道是否有簡單的答案。它既是一個場景，也是一個觀念模式，既是一個物理空間，也是一個想像中的文化空間。我們要把這種悖論拍出來。這才是真正有趣的東西。」