How the creators of HBO’s The Sympathizer turned the bestselling novel into a dark, comic romp for TV

On the floor, Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer is the proper goal for adaptation.

First off, it is a novel — one of many extra profitable supply supplies for an trade perpetually hungry for present IP and a built-in viewers. 

Second, it is a Pulitzer Prize winner, a badge of honour that already proved a boon for related adaptees like Highlight, Driving Miss Daisy and Glengarry Glen Ross. 

However in actuality, there was an issue. Not solely is the story advanced — following a supposed communist double agent as he travels forwards and backwards between America and Vietnam in the course of the Vietnam Warfare — it’s additionally deeply tied up in illustration and tradition.

“The literary trade and the whole social and cultural system of the USA work to tempt writers of color into writing for white individuals,” Nguyen was quoted as telling the Guardian after his Pulitzer win in 2016.

“If I had written the e-book for a white viewers, I’d have bought it for lots more cash and lots of extra publishers would have been bidding for it.”

WATCH | The Sympathizer trailer: 

Ngyuen did signal on to work on the HBO adaptation and even not too long ago pulled over on the facet of the street to take footage along with his household in entrance of the billboard. 

However that pleasure with the ultimate product doesn’t erase the issue in bringing to the small display screen a narrative so centered on the expertise of Vietnamese individuals. Making it no easier was the truth that one of many collection co-creators, Don McKellar, is from midway internationally. 

“It is clearly not my heritage,” stated McKellar, the Canadian actor and creator recognized for The Pink Violin, Blindness and a slew of Canadian tv.

“It is the story about Vietnam after the Vietnam Warfare, the Vietnamese diaspora group. That is — no, I am not related to that.”

Canadian affect

He first bought the decision when his previous pal and now co-creator Park Chan-wook — recalling their previous expertise writing a screenplay collectively — requested McKellar to assist shoulder the burden. 

After studying the e-book — which focuses on a half-French, half-Vietnamese man who feels so conflicted and at warfare along with his identities that he describes himself as a “man of two minds,” McKellar started to see that impediment as extra like a profit.  

Being from Canada, he stated, gave a singular mirror to a minimum of feeling like an American, however considerably eliminated. 

“We have now this type of distance on America, and we do really feel like we’re within the center generally,” McKellar stated. “So I feel we’re properly outfitted for it.”

That feeling was injected in every single place into the completed product. It additionally knowledgeable how they might bridge the hole of what was primarily a darkish story of oppression, warfare and ache that was advised in a sardonic, wry voice. 

That was completed partially by hiring Robert Downey Jr. for quadruple responsibility — the actor holds down 4 roles in a psychedelic type of comedy that solely comes collectively within the finale.

Downey Jr. was the primary identify thought of for the function, McKellar stated, because it required a technically expert actor who might do greater than “solely play themselves.” And after a gathering with McKellar, by which the actor riffed, improvised jokes on the characters and scenes, he was instantly employed.

Casting the Captain

However a very powerful function was the star — the Captain. It required a younger, bodily match man who might converse each English and Vietnamese higher than common — to not point out be a gifted actor. 

McKellar stated they have been initially spoiled for selection, however finally landed on Hoa Xuande, an Australian of Vietnamese background.      

After touchdown the function, Xuande needed to undergo a two week “crash course” to relearn each his language and heritage. 

Rising up in Australia, he stated he felt a sophisticated — however robust — connection to the nation, and by no means felt comfy talking Vietnamese.

And as soon as once more, one thing that was a hurdle grew to become a bonus.

“That is the duality that you just see inside the Captain, that he is by no means this sufficient and it is by no means that sufficient,” Xuande stated.

“, what a part of himself does he establish with extra? What elements of himself does he love or hate? And that was one thing that I felt like I did not should play too laborious. It was inherent in me after I learn the e-book.”

‘Put your self on the opposite facet’

The e-book reads as a confession personally written by the Captain, so together with the character’s voice was essential. And although the narration does carry over into the collection, there have been some modifications needed for a TV adaptation.

Attempting to take that inherently private storytelling from the web page to the display screen offered extra of an issue than typical, because the present grapples with a fancy warfare advised from the attitude of a person sympathizing with, and discovering fault in, each ingredient — with out ever understanding the place he belongs.

Their aim in creating the collection, McKellar stated, wasn’t to keep away from that, however to use it. 

“It is saying ‘Put your self on the opposite facet.’ And there is all the time one other facet,” he stated. “It is essential to grasp if we will have any empathy or objectivity, after we talk about wars, [when] we talk about something.” 

“It is type of liberating, in the end, to throw apart these type of preconceived concepts now we have. And I feel, I hope, that is what individuals get from it.”