Anna Akana of "Jupiter's Legacy": Actor, Activist, Author ... and Advertising Creative

Following her sister Kristinaamp8217s suicide in 2007 she dealt with serious depression choosing to share her journey online in the hope of helping others By also sharing her own Asian American experience tackling all manner of racism sexism and homophobia she is working to motivate change amp8220I39ve seen the empirical data that39s come out about how representation matters and how the way you see people reflected onscreen influences your career choice hobbies whether or not you get married and your belief systemamp8221 she explained during an exclusive interview with MediaVillage amp8220There is such power in media and educating people on the kinds of things that they should believe about othersamp8220Selfexpression and being creative is what I doamp8221 she continued amp8220When I was young my mom was adamant that everything you experience is going to be so much more bearable if you turn it into something outside of yourself I took that to heart and anytime I was in pain I could make something out of that pain and sort of expel it from who I am Transmitting pain into something emotional to share with others has been such a natural and muchneeded part of my lifeamp8220Growing up in the 3990s for the most part the message I got was that Asians are invisibleamp8221 she added amp8220If you saw them it was only in a karate movie because that39s the only way we ever saw ourselves reflected Moving forward weamp8217re getting beautiful diverse stories Crazy Rich Asians was a fun romcom Minari is a quintessentially American story of an immigrant I39m very excited to see when we evolve into the phase where you39re seeing diverse characters on screen and their race has nothing to do with the story we39re tellingamp8220Itamp8217s great that we39re now having all of these Asian Americancentered stories but to an extent it almost feels tokenizedquot she continued quotLike the whole story is this person is Asian or this person is gay and this is their coming out story I believe moving forward having stories where race or sexuality is just a part of who that person is and the story isn39t all about how their entire life hinges on their identity will be such a wonderful and beautiful evolution of cinemaamp8221Tackling issues is something Akana has done her entire career first as a standup comedian before taking her show to YouTube amp8220I was doing standup as a teenageramp8221 she recalled amp8220I was very inspired by Margaret Cho Seeing her do standup was really empowering But when you39re starting out you39re doing jokes in a laundromat where nobody wants to listen I loved the idea that I could make a video put that online people could choose to click on it and I wasn39t imposing on their time Back in the day there was so little Asian American representation in traditional media so all the biggest YouTube stars were Asian I felt that YouTube was really a place for the Asian American community as well as other Asian communities to see themselves reflected on screenamp8221She successfully made the transition to acting via a variety of roles most recently in Jupiteramp8217s Legacy portraying Raikou a superheroamp160amp8220Series creator Steven S DeKnight really liked the quirky nature I brought to the roleamp8221 she said of her audition amp8220It was so great I got to train like a superhero weight training all the time I was in the best shape of my life I think Marvelamp8217s XMen is the only property that has liveaction Asian superheroes if I39m not mistaken so things definitely are changingamp8220When I first started auditioning every Asian role was kind of racistamp8221 she pointedly continued quotYou were either a student crying over getting a B on a test or I would go out for the massage therapist who gave happy endings It was awful to be 1920 going out for these horrifically degrading characters and casting would ask for an accent Nowadays I can confidently say and maybe this is my privilege in that I have succeeded in my career enough to not have to go for those roles but it seems like we39re starting to understand how that39s wrong and people are writing threedimensional flawed human beings rather than these stereotypical charactersamp8221In addition to her aforementioned talents author clothing designer singer and now superhero are a smattering of the additional skills in Akanaamp8217s arsenal Sheamp8217s also a proficient advertising creative via sponsored YouTube content all to finance her endeavors although advertising was never a dream amp8220I39ve done commercials through my channel for Fabletics Google and Audiamp8221 she shared amp8220There39s a fine line between brand deals and being an actual creative advertising exec I39m not too interested in editorial commercials as I much prefer a narrative Still I39m down to do a YouTube commercial when people give me creative freedom I just did this thing with Fabletics and was like 39I39ll do it but can run away from a dinosaur in Fabletics attire39 They loved it Iamp8217ll do brand deals where there39s room to be creative while selling a product Most of my audience understands I have a mortgage and three cats to feed so they39re very sweet about itamp8221With so much already achieved the sky is the limit for Akana who has one more achievement on her bucket list amp8220I need to direct a filmamp8221 she shared in closing amp8220Iamp8217ve directed a few shorts Iamp8217d also love to keep acting in bigger fun things I love stunts and would love to do more actioncomedy stuff It feels like you39re only as good as your last project so it never stops quite being fun and challengingamp8221Jupiteramp8217s Legacy is currently streaming on NetflixClick the social buttons to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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Anna Akana of "Jupiter's Legacy": Actor, Activist, Author ... and Advertising Creative

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Anna Akana of "Jupiter's Legacy": Actor, Activist, Author ... and Advertising Creative

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