Summary

• HBO's miniseries The Sympathizer is based on Viet Thanh Nguyen's novel and focuses on a North Vietnamese spy continuing his mission as a South Vietnam plant after the end of the Vietnam War.
• The show features a diverse ensemble cast and crew, showcasing Vietnamese representation and collaboration among Asian cultures.
• Phanxinê and Kieu Chinh open up about their character arcs in the show, how their real-life experiences informed their performances, and the importance of the show's Vietnamese representation.

Get a new perspective on the Vietnam War and its fallout with the HBO miniseries centers on the Captain, a North Vietnamese spy working as a Communist plant in the South Vietnamese army in the '70s. When the war comes to an end, and he's forced to escape his home to head to America, the Captain finds his loyalties and beliefs tested as he's meant to continue his mission.

Among those who escaped with the Captain to America is the Crapulent Major, another high-ranking member of the South Vietnam army who looks to take advantage of his new life in the country to leave behind the high-risk politics of his past for a quieter life of distributing counterfeit ports for more refugees to build new homes in the US. ing the Crapulent Major in his new home are his mother and wife, who are struggling to adjust to their new lives, particularly after he was forced to leave his daughter behind in Vietnam.

Phanxinê and Kieu Chinh portray the Crapulent Major and his mother in the ensemble Sympathizer cast alongside Hoa Xuande as the Captain, Robert Downey Jr. in a four-character role, Sandra Oh, Toan Le, Fred Nguyen Khan, Duy Nguyễn, Vy Le, Ky Duyen, VyVy Nguyen and Alan Trong. Alongside Downey Jr. and his wife/production partner Susan Downey, the show is executive produced by author Nguyen and creators Don McKellar and Park Chan-wook, the latter of whom also directs the first three episodes.

In honor of the show's premiere, Screen Rant participated in a roundtable interview with stars Phanxinê and Kieu Chinh to discuss The Sympathizer, how they resonated with the themes of the HBO thriller, the importance of its Vietnamese representation and the standard they hope the show sets for the future.

Phanxinê & Kieu Chinh Found A Lot To Pull From For Their Characters

With a 416-page source material to dive into, both Phanxinê and Kieu Chinh were very moved by The Sympathizer's depictions of their characters, as well as the scripts' translation of them for the screen. When it came to doing research for their roles, the duo had interesting paths for discovering the core of the Crapulent Major and his mother, particularly after a tragedy:

Kieu Chinh: Thank you. Yeah, well I read the book years back, but the book turned into scripts by those brilliant writers. So, they created some characters in an amazing way. My character, for example, wasn't that much in the book, but on the mini-series, you would see the mother appear more. And I'm honored to be part of this project because, besides my character as a Vietnamese woman, most of the Vietnamese characters are played by Vietnamese, and speaking the language.

So, this is a big change to compare with other shows from a long time ago. For example, like in the movie, the Vietnam officer was played by a non-speaking Vietnamese person. So, I'm very happy that this is the very first mini-series that's trying their best to go as close as possible to real life.

Phanxinê: For me, the way I prepared for this character, besides the book and the script, I read more about how a lot of Vietnamese people, they'd come to America and they want to start a new life. But also how people can leave behind a lot of trauma, and their family, their country. Especially for Vietnamese men, a lot of them, they don't really express their emotion and then they just do things that they think is right, and they keep all the difficult part for themselves. They always tell their family that it's okay, they show that they're doing okay. So, I met a lot of people like that, and then I took that into my character. A man who just left behind his country, his daughter came to America and started a new life, and then goes after the American dream.

And then, he just wants to enjoy life. He doesn't want to be involved with any political things. He's just like, "Okay, I'm doing the business" — even though it's a dirty business, but it's still helping him to provide food for his family, his mother, his wife, and his newborn. He tries to enjoy his life, he looks happy. So, for my character, I always like, when I get into the scene I say, "Okay, I have to smile and be happy. Everything is okay."

It's very different from episode 1, you will see him with a lot of trauma, a lot of depression. And then, after that, when he becomes the ghost is a different story. But that's how I prepared for this. And I have also had conversations with the director, especially when we do the parts where I become the ghost. I had a long talk with director Park about spirit culture in Vietnam, and how people see ghosts, how ghosts appear, things like that.

Asians Coming Together "As An Ensemble" Was Impactful For The Sympathizer's Themes

While primarily focused on the Vietnamese experience and comprised of such cast , the entire Sympathizer ensemble both in front of and behind the camera features creatives of other Asian cultures, including the South Korean co-creator/director Chan-wook and star Sandra Oh. For Phanxinê and Kieu Chinh, this collaboration made the show's themes and Vietnamese representation all the more impactful:

Kieu Chinh: Well, in The Sympathizer, I think it's Asians working together as an ensemble, from director Park to Ms. Sandra Oh, to even among the Vietnamese actors. We came from different locations in the world. Phanxinê, playing my son, he came from Vietnam, and his mother, me, from America, and Hoa Xuande, the Vietnamese leading man, the Captain, came from Australia, and Fred Nguyen came from Canada, and Vy also from Canada. So, we came together to work together as a team to bring the story onto screen and under the brilliant direction from director Park and director Mark and Fernando Meirelles. So, it is a teamwork together to bring Viet Thanh Nguyen's novel into screen.

Phanxinê: For me in this series, when we were doing this, of course because the language of the series is in English and Vietnamese, but the script is actually written in English and then translated into Vietnamese. A lot of times, the translation, it'll have the mindset of English-speaking sentence structure, it's not how Vietnamese people would say the line. But for me, for myself, I asked the writer and director, "Can I change this line so it feels more natural for me?" And they welcomed those ideas. But I also understand it's very hard for Hollywood and Western productions to fully understand Vietnamese culture and Vietnamese language.

But it's okay. I think it is very good that now we have a series that portrays Vietnamese people playing Vietnamese characters, and we can speak Vietnamese in the series, in the Hollywood series. And there's a lot of moments, actually, we felt very meta in a way, especially episode 4 is about Hollywood production, doing a movie about Vietnam War. We were in a similar situation too, but I hope that in the near future, we will have more representatives from Vietnam, or Asia people, in the behind-the-camera team, in the creative team, to make the shows. They're getting better.

The Crapulent Major's Family-Changing Decision Resonated Deeply For Phanxinê & Kieu Chinh

In his need to escape the country as the Vietnam War comes to an end, the Captain makes a deal with his CIA mentor in order to secure two cargo planes to carry him and other high-ranking in the South Vietnam army to safety in the US. This comes with the caveat, however, that only a limited number of people can board the planes, resulting in some drastic decision-making for all involved, including the Crapulent Major, as he leaves his daughter behind while bringing his wife and mother.

For Kieu Chinh and Phanxinê, this decision resonated deeply not only for their performances but also for their own lives, with the former recalling her life as a refugee in Saigon and having to leave behind loved ones when the country endured a new regime, while the latter found he would similarly struggle between letting one of his family sacrifice themselves for the other in the real-world situation:

Kieu Chinh: Well, this is a very tough decision for everybody. For anybody who are falling into their circumstances, when the country's divided, and family is torn apart, leaving or not leaving, staying or not staying. So, it's a very difficult decision, and some were lucky to still be staying together. But some, unfortunately, have separated for the rest of their life. For my own life, my real life, I have been suffering for my family, my father and my brother and me. We've been separated for the rest of our life, we don't see each other. And also, for the second time, I became a refugee when Saigon changed with the new regime, I had to leave the country and leave my loved ones behind, or left most of my friends behind, things like that.

Your life changes completely, and it could never be forgotten. It is there, it's your life. I think it's not only happened to me, but to many others as well. And not only to Vietnamese, to other refugees as well, it's the same thing. So, that's why I keep mentioning that, I hope when people see any movie, any TV show about war, they would think about it, think about how lucky they are to live in peace and don't it take for granted. Make peace instead of making war, and let us, the universe, unite so that we can have a better life with love, with care, and we don't have to be suffering pain and losing each other, things like that.

Phanxinê: I think, for my character, the decision is a hard decision, but I understand my character, because I kind of related to my character in the way that I really love my mom. And I think in that situation, I would go for my mother, but I know if that was really the situation, my mom would say "No, I don't want to go", be she also would sacrifice her life for me. Actually in the early script, you [Kieu Chinh] said to my wife, "Why don't you just let me stay and bring your daughter?"

And that's the tragedy of the family. They both want to sacrifice for the ones they love, but that also makes them haunted, because they are the one who created this trauma. And then also, I think in those critical moments, the character had to decide as a person, you have to go with one choice, and then the choice you make will make the person you become later. And I can relate to that.

This real-world experience carried on even further for Kieu Chinh when it reached the point of the story in which the Captain must kill the Crapulent Major, as his business of distributing counterfeit ports conflicts with his mission. The actor recalled filming the funeral scene in particular, in which she found her emotions carrying on even after the cameras stopped rolling.

Kieu Chinh: For my character, I'm playing an old woman who had to leave her country to start her new life in a new country, where she feels very lonely, she's always thinking of her home. She misses the culture, the languages, and she also feels kind of guilty that my son had to sacrifice too. He can bring only a certain number of family with him, so he decided to bring his mother, me, instead of his own daughter.

So, the mother always had the guilty feeling that my son had to sacrifice to leave his daughter behind to take me with him to America. And that's why my character is in such a situation that I miss my home, I miss my languages, and I hope things like this will not happen to me or to anybody else. And that's why she feels so lonely, especially more lonely, more pain, when her son is killed.

I the scene at the funeral where I'm sitting there, my only family was my son and now he's killed. I sit there at the cemetery, the whole time, even when the camera was not on, tears kept coming out of my eyes. I kept thinking of that situation. Can you imagine if you are in that situation how you'd feel?

So, that situation did not happen to me at my age or now, but it happened to me when I was young. I was thinking of my father, who stayed behind in the north, then he had to let me go. He had to sacrifice his life for his children. That's how it is so close to me, only changing the timing of my age of my life, but it comes so close to the reality.

The Captain's Betrayal Was A Heartbreaking Reveal For Both Phanxinê & Kieu Chinh

With the Captain being the one to carry out the Crapulent Major's murder, both Phanxinê and Kieu Chinh found their characters' relationship with the lead to be a complex one, particularly as the Crapulent Major's mother has no knowledge of his involvement in her son's death. For Kieu Chinh, this betrayal proved to be an emotional one that she hopes raises distrust for audiences in the protagonist, while Phanxinê found himself torn:

Kieu Chinh: Yeah. I have one important scene with the leading man. I did not know the background of the Captain, that he was a spy, a man with two faces, a man with two duties on this side and the other side. I didn't know that. I only knew that he was the friend of my son. And here comes the old woman who came to America, she feels that she's still lost. She misses her country, so when her son's friend comes to visit, she was so happy. So happy that she can have some Vietnamese visit her, she can speak the language, and she even brings the best food of her house, the best cookie biscuits to offer to their guests.

But she didn't know that he was a spy, that he was later in the team of killing my son. So, it's a perspective of a different character from innocent turned to — I didn't know what would happen later, what these two young men could do to my family. So, that kind of thing that the audience would choke, hurt, that you don't know, in this life anymore, who you can trust, who you can believe, or who you know is a real friend or not a real friend.

Phanxinê: So, for my character, in real life, I became friends with the Captain, and I think it's good for our character in the show, because I always look at Crapulent Major like a man of family and friendships and brothers. So he always, even though Captain is the one who gives him a hard choice, you can only bring two of your family, and then he had to decide to leave his daughter back and then bring his mother. But at the same time, Crapulent Major looks at Captain as a brother from Vietnam, and when they evacuate on the plane, Major is the one who gives his hand and try to get the Captain on that plane. He never really thinks anything bad about his friend.

Later, we found out he's a spy, but of course Major never knows. And then, when he comes to America, even though he decides to move on with his life and he decides to just leave everything behind, his past, his country, his family. But he wants to move on to start a new life, become American, and he gets his brother on the trip with him by doing the business, even though it's a dirty business, but still it's like "Okay, this is how we become American, this how we going to make money." So, for me, that's growth, a character arc for my character, the relationship between him and the Captain.

So, when the finale of the relationship, when Captain comes and tries to kill the Major, the Major looks at the Captain and he couldn't believe the brother that he saved his life would do such a thing to him. So, there's a lot of things going on in his mind. And then, when he becomes the ghost, the relationship becomes a different thing. Actually, at that moment, the ghost is a new character who is really a projection of the Captain, what he thinks of the Crapulent Major, but not the Major himself. So, that's how I played the character. I tried to mimic some of the Captain's movements, because it is the imagination of the Captain. It's himself, he talked to himself, he's haunted by himself in the vision of Crapulent Major. And then, in the end, Crapulent Major's ghost actually becomes his friend again in a way.

About The Sympathizer

Based on Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, THE SYMPATHIZER is an espionage thriller and cross-culture satire about the struggles of a half-French, half-Vietnamese communist spy during the final days of the Vietnam War and his new life as a refugee in Los Angeles, where he learns that his spying days aren't over.

Check out our other Sympathizer interviews with:

• Fred Nguyen Khan & Duy Nguyễn
• Vy Le, Toan Le & Ky Duyen
• Sandra Oh & Hoa Xuande
• Susan Downey & Niv Fichman
• Park Chan-wook
• Don McKellar

New episodes of The Sympathizer air Sundays on HBO and Max.