Steve Park revealed recently that a racist incident in 1997 on the sets of the hit NBC sitcom Friendswas what convinced him to write his “mission” statement calling for Hollywood to treat Asian Americans better.

In an appearance on the Boy Meets Worldrewatch podcast Pod Meets World, the actor and comedian said he found the set to be a “toxic environment”, and witnessed a crew member referring to veteran actor James Hong in racially offensive language.

“It was at the time, I felt it was kind of a toxic environment,” Park said about Friends, then in its third season. “James Hong was the actor who was also on the episode with me, and [the AD] was calling him to the set and you know, essentially saying, you know, “Where the f*** is the Oriental guy? Get the Oriental guy.”

Park starred on two episodes of Friends – the first time on the second season in 1996, in the 23rd episode titled The One with the Chicken Pox, and in 1997 during season 3, on the 24th episode, The One with the Ultimate Fighting Champion.

Friends, which starred Jennifer Aniston, Matthew Perry, Courtney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, and David Schwimmer, continues to be one of the most popular shows in the US, and ran for more than 10 years from 1994 to 2004.

Park went on to explain that he called the Screen Actors Guild to file a complaint, and was recommended to write an article for The LA Times. However, he added that while the LA Times did send reporters to talk to him about his mission statement, they “never printed it”.

“So when I called Screen Actors Guild after that, it happened, and the person I spoke with recommended I write an article to the LA Times. And I thought, ‘Oh, okay, that’d be a good idea,’” Park told podcast hosts Danielle Fishel, Will Friedle, and Rider Strong.

“This is bigger than this show. This isn’t the first time that this happened, you know, but this is the environment where this is business as usual in Hollywood in 1997, I guess it was. And nobody felt the need to correct this or say anything about it. So this is normal behaviour.”

Continuing, Park said he sent out his statement to everyone on his email list, writing that “if this moves you, please send it along”, which led to “responses from all across the country from publications that were asking permission to reprint it”.

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“It went viral before ‘viral’ was even a word,” Park said.

Park’s letter, which was published in several outlets in spring 1997 and can still be found online, called for better representation of Asian Americans in Hollywood, as well as better treatment for people of colour within the industry.

“Working with the people involved with this show was an extremely painful experience for me. A disturbing lack in generosity of spirit and basic human courtesy, in addition to a racial incident on the set, has forced me to speak out,” Park wrote in his mission statement, going on to describe the racist incident he witnessed.

“These people, by virtue of their status, money and power, are among the most privileged people walking the face of the earth, yet they behaved as if they were bankrupt in spirit and incapable of expressing simple human kindness… And on top of this, the 1st AD (assistant director), in a short tirade, called an Asian-American actor to the set over a walkie-talkie with the words, ‘I don’t have time for this! Where’s Hoshi, Toshi or whatever the f*** his name is. Get the Oriental guy!’ He did not even have the respect to learn the name of the actor, a veteran of 40 years.”

“I was the only one who took notice, while all others proceeded as if it was business as usual. Given the atmosphere on the set, it did not feel safe to say anything,” the statement continued.

“After all, on the average Hollywood set, finding a person of colour is much like trying to find Waldo. It is a white, exclusionary culture. If this was an isolated incident, I would not have felt compelled to write this mission statement. Unfortunately, I find this attitude and behaviour commonplace in Hollywood. I know many people who have experienced this kind of indignity on a movie or television show set, and you can be sure this kind of thing is going on in the corporate culture as well.

“Hate crimes against Asian-Americans are on the rise in this country, and negative portrayals of Asians in the media only encourage this trend.”

On Pod Meets World, Park then said that this experience, in addition to writing and talking about the mission statement left him wanting to take a step back from the industry and acting.

“I had become so race-conscious and so angry that I was looking at everything through the lens of race,” he said. “I felt like there is no freedom. I didn’t feel any freedom. So I didn’t have any idea what I was going to do, but I just decided to drop out. I told everybody, ‘I’m not acting anymore.’”

He added that listening to comedian Bobby Lee’s podcast, where an offhand comment said Park had been “blacklisted” led him to realise that his hiatus could easily be seen that way, though the birth of his son around the same time, the statement, as well as the scarcity of good roles for Asian American actors all contributed to him taking time away.

Park has returned to acting since, playing Fuyu in Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s 2013 dystopian film Snowpiercer and Agent Zeke in the director’s 2024 sci-fi black comedy feature Mickey 17; Lieutenant Nescaffier in Wes Anderson’s 2021 anthology film The French Dispatch.

Friends has been called out multiple times over the years for its lack of diversity, and what many viewers have called transphobic, homophobic, and sexist storylines.

In 2023, Quinta Brunson called out the lack of Black characters on the series, by comparing it with her own sitcom Abbot Elementary.

“It’s a network sitcom like, say, Friends. Except, instead of being about a group of friends, it’s about a group of teachers. Instead of New York, it’s in Philadelphia and instead of not having Black people, it does,” she said.

Kauffman has acknowledged the criticism in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, saying: “It took me a long time to begin to understand how I internalised systemic racism.”

The Independent has reached out to Friends creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane, and James Hong for comment.