John Cho is (in) famously known as “MILF Guy #2” from American Pie, as well as proudly known as the lead in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. Now, in Bassam Tariq’s Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, the 54-year-old is playing something far darker: Pastor Hwan, a Korean American faith leader in Texas whose militia declares holy war on pornography.
The film, which began a limited theatrical run on September 25 before expanding on October 2, stars Mahershala Ali as Latif, a Muslim contract killer trying to raise his three children after his wife’s death. Latif’s path crosses with Hwan’s when the pastor’s anti-porn crusade turns violent, setting up a collision between two men of deep, conflicting convictions.
A villain built on belief, not caricature
Cho was careful not to play Hwan as a one-dimensional extremist. “I didn’t want to judge him,” he told Character Media. “I didn’t want to make a political statement. I wanted to make a character statement and an emotional statement.”
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He worked closely with Tariq and Ali to shape Hwan’s background as a specifically Korean American pastor who grew up in Houston. “It was Bassam who said, ‘Let’s build this guy together.’ Then we widened out to Mahershala. We spent time talking about our pasts and our beliefs,” Cho said.
The goal was authenticity on both sides. “I wanted this to be about two authentic believers who collide with one another. I didn’t want it to be about two religions colliding,” he added.
From “MILF Guy #2” to deeper roles
Cho’s career has spanned nearly three decades, from his breakout as a high-school party boy chanting “MILF!” in American Pie to leading roles in Harold & Kumar, Star Trek and the thriller Searching. He has often spoken about the scarcity of Asian American roles in the ’90s and early 2000s, and the racist stereotypes he encountered in auditions.
“I didn’t grow up wanting to be an actor or even conceiving that that was possible,” Cho told Variety. “All of it seemed so far beyond the realm of possibility for me, so I was on an island.”
A college production of The Woman Warrior introduced him to other Asian American actors and gave him a sense of community. Still, he says the lack of precedent made it hard to envision bigger opportunities. “It felt very lonesome at times. It doesn’t feel as lonesome anymore,” he said.
With the 25th anniversary of Justin Lin’s Better Luck Tomorrow approaching, Cho reflected on how representation has evolved. “In terms of Asian American representation and the questions as it relates to my career, it’s never felt like I was on the bad side and now I’m on the good side,” he said. “It’s never been binary like that.”
What matters to him now is depth, not variety. “My objective really is to go deeper. More than the question of variety, it’s like, can I just get better and deeper as the years go on? That’s what I’m thinking about.”
Faith, Houston and a machine-gun hymn
Cho drew on his own upbringing to inform Hwan’s conviction. His real-life father was a minister in the strict Church of Christ. “The thing that I took from that experience for the role was conceiving of Hwan as someone who, even though his actions are megalomaniacal, he thinks he’s a servant,” he explained.
One of the film’s most striking scenes features Hwan leading his congregation in an a cappella hymn while wielding a machine gun. For Cho, raised in a tradition that rejects instruments, it felt natural. “It was very natural to go into an a cappella performance and sing… Mahershala was shocked that that was my first scene and I could walk right into that,” he said.
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Houston also holds personal significance. “Houston was the first place we immigrated to from Korea, so playing Pastor Hwan touched a lot of nerves for me,” Cho said. “But it was pleasurable also to return to Houston wearing a cowboy hat in this marvelous action package.”
