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.”

欧阳万成最早得到的电视剧角色之一是在2013年的《神盾局特工》(Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)中扮演亚裔少年二。

“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.”

“那个角色需要一个会讲粤语的人，我认为那是我被选中的原因，”他在最近的一次采访中说。他记得那时候，亚裔演员们总在为只有一两句台词的角色竞争，“比如剧中在唐人街拍摄的某个情节，”他说，“或是社区大学的一个背景角色。”

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.

这种工作听起来也许微不足道。但在一个亚裔演员和角色历来难以成为主要角色的行业，事业阶梯的每一级都很重要。

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.

欧阳万成出生在香港，13岁时来到美国。如今，他成了一部限定剧的主角，该剧以令人神魂颠倒的叙事有意识地让观众意识到亚裔演员所处的困境。《唐人街内部》(Interior Chinatown)由制片人游朝凯根据他本人2020年出版的同名小说改编，这是一部关于在电视剧中展开人生的亚裔男性的电视剧。

“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.”

“简单地说，这是一部《法律与秩序》(Law & Order)和《楚门的世界》(The Truman Show)的结合，”游朝凯说。“开始时，它是一部简单的悬疑剧，然后变得更加怪诞，希望它是一部形而上学的悬疑剧。”

“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.

《唐人街内部》已于周二在Hulu首播，共10集。它也是一部善意戏仿警匪剧的嘲讽片，巧妙地批评了娱乐界的亚洲人刻板印象。

“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.

“我总觉得我是别人故事里的背景人物，”欧阳万成饰演的角色威利斯·吴(Willis Wu)在剧情开始时对同样在唐人街餐厅打工的朋友蔡肥仔(Fatty Choi，钱信伊饰）说。结果他真的是。

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).

威利斯在餐厅外目睹了一起绑架事件后，他开始出入于两个世界之间。一个是单调乏味的餐厅打工日常。另一个是剧情与《法律与秩序》类似的《黑与白》(Black & White)警匪剧世界，在警匪剧中，苏利文·琼斯饰演侦探特纳（他是黑人），丽莎·吉尔罗伊饰演侦探格林（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.

这部系列剧的各集与剧中剧的各集用不同的布光，虚构的波特港警察分局用外景场地来呈现。镜头时不时地拉回来，从一个剧中看不见的观众的角度看一个老式电视屏幕里的威利斯。威利斯与富有同情心的侦探（汪可盈饰）在第一集里一起光顾的那家上镜的欢乐酒吧原来是一个硬苏打水广告的拍摄地。

“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.

《唐人街内部》用这种后现代手法来努力处理种族与真实性的碰撞。威利斯既是一个像“亚裔少年二号”那样的背景人物，也是他打工餐厅世界之外的亚洲人，在人群中颇为显眼。他像是拉尔夫·埃里森的小说《隐形人》的主人公，虽然难以觉察，但不可能看不到。

“威利斯不知道自己被困在这个剧里，”欧阳万成谈到他扮演的角色时说。“他只是想离开唐人街。”

“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.”

“我们借鉴了他人在其他文化传统中的工作，埃里森就是最好的例子，”游朝凯说，他的父母在他出生前从台湾移民到美国。“这部剧和这本书实际上讲述的是做一个真实的自我，以及这意味着什么的故事，还有我们如何将这些组合起来呈现给自己和别人。希望我们在探索这个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.”

游朝凯在HBO剧集《西部世界》(Westworld)的编剧室工作时开始构思他的小说，后来以剧本形式写成。

“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.”

“我曾是制作电视节目大机器的一部分，从内部看到了制作的全过程，”他说。“我一直对角色和表演，以及我们在任何时候如何尝试或不去尝试投射某种我们给人的印象非常感兴趣。”

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

他的小说获得了美国国家图书奖，对那些经常只能扮演背景人物的亚裔演员来说，书中情节很真实。

“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.”

“这本书吸引了好莱坞所有的亚裔演员，”钱信伊说，他出生在马来西亚，在新罕布什尔州和新加坡长大，他扮演的角色蔡肥仔成了人们想象中最粗鲁的服务员后赢得了一批狂热粉丝。（游客们喜欢被无礼对待。）“亚裔演员总是扮演喜剧角色，可能是反派人物，可能是小喽啰，也可能是主角最好的朋友。”

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

“在书中看到这些东西时，你马上就能辨别出来，”钱信伊补充道。

前景从左至右依次是汪可盈、丽莎·吉尔罗伊、苏利文·琼斯，他们在《唐人街内部》的警匪剧里滑稽模仿《黑与白》中的角色。

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.

欧阳万成在《神盾局特工》扮演龙套角色时，汪可盈也经常在该剧露面，她与《唐人街内部》系列剧中对好莱坞亚裔演员的探讨有亲身关系。她出生于芝加哥，父亲是华人，母亲是白人；她15岁时曾去中国当歌手，后来搬回洛杉矶当演员。

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.

她还记得早期试镜时一名选角导演对她说的话：“你的样子不够亚裔，演不了最好的朋友，但你也不够白，演不了主角。这很难办。”不久后，她把自己当演员用的艺名改为贝内特，那是她父亲的名字。“然后我得到了第一个我试镜的角色，”她说。

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.

虽然之后工作源源不断，但汪可盈对为了在好莱坞取得成功，需要改变自己的某个方面仍有一种复杂的感受。“真的有心理危机，因为这是一种内化的种族主义，”她说。

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.”

她把警匪剧视为解决这些棘手问题的完美方式。“这是美国经典，”她说。“你每天、每周都能在家里看到。它告诉你如何看待自己。我知道我小时候就经常看《法律与秩序》。”

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

游朝凯尤其喜爱《法律与秩序：特殊受害者》。（在《唐人街内部》系列剧的剧中剧里，特纳和格林领导的部门叫“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分钟里能讲完一个故事，破获一起犯罪，这是令人欣慰的事情，”游朝凯说。是的，《法律与秩序》剧集中经常有亚裔的背景人物（有时甚至也有主角：雷切尔·林（音）就经常在《法律与秩序：有组织犯罪》中露面，她饰演了侦探维多利亚·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.

《唐人街内部》巧妙地将威利斯在剧中和生活中逐渐成长为明星的故事穿插起来。在日常生活中，他总甘愿居于他失踪的哥哥（吴育刚饰）之下，而哥哥在《黑与白》的世界里用的是亚洲电影中常见的“功夫小伙”名字。小说里开列了威利斯（以及引申到其他亚裔演员）历史上经常扮演的角色，其中包括：失宠的儿子、送货员，当然还有普通亚洲人。

“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这个剧里，”欧阳万成说。“他只是想离开唐人街，让自己和家人过上更好的生活，每个人都能够理解并同情这种想法。你不需要懂得演技，或者有美国演员工会会员卡，或着通过了角色分派部门的选拔。”

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.

这种理解也有助于欧阳万成探索系列剧的多个层次，找到威利斯的核心。“他过着一成不变的生活，整天生活在餐馆里，他觉得自己陷入了一个死循环，”欧阳万成说。

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.

《唐人街内部》还有一个隐藏在标题中的主角。该系列剧用开玩笑的方式描述唐人街，将其描绘为一个充满黑暗神秘气氛且有异国情调的地方，这是美国人长期以来一直存在的想象。想想罗曼·波兰斯基1974年的暗淡新黑色电影和它著名的最后一句台词吧：“算了吧，杰克。这是唐人街。”唐人街是外人不想问太多问题的地方。

系列剧制片人游朝凯说，剧中的唐人街“既是一个场景，也是一个观念模式，既是一个物理空间，也是一个想象中的文化空间”。

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.”

在为写小说做研究时，游朝凯在很大程度上依赖了崔灵凤的书《美国唐人街》(American Chinatown)，该书概述了五个不同的唐人街（包括纽约的和洛杉矶的唐人街）的历史。游朝凯在小说的引言中用了这句话：“如果一部电影需要一个异国情调的背景……唐人街既能用来代表它自己，也能用来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亚洲人的象征。”

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，包括拍摄《唐人街内部》许多外景的洛杉矶唐人街，也是真实的人物生活和工作的具体地方。它们在历史上为抵达美国的移民起过重要的入口作用。

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

对游朝凯来说，这种两面性与故事的元虚构世界完美匹配。

“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，还是一个真实的地方？”游朝凯问道。“我不知道是否有简单的答案。它既是一个场景，也是一个观念模式，既是一个物理空间，也是一个想象中的文化空间。我们要把这种悖论拍出来。这才是真正有趣的东西。”