Helen you are eating your words. Period
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/helen-shen-maybe-happy-ending-tonys-2025-interview?fbclid=PAQ0xDSwL5J1hleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABp-1mcDsLR9K3rirux5rnUweU5TlSeayHMuAjDSSdKpNO3ZkQfgwu5KAwyL4Z_aem_ShOv_aXutN0OPnj-xUsP2Q
TV: So according to Playbill, Darren's the first Asian actor to win Best Leading Actor in a Musical. I wanted to talk to you about Asian representation on Broadway — there’s yourself, Darren, the entire show of Maybe Happy Ending is a breakthrough in so many ways. So talk to me about getting to be that beacon for other young Asian kids now at this moment.
HS: Firstly, Lea Salonga [introduced us] before our performance. She has been such a huge champion of our show. She's come to see it a couple of times and has just always been such a loud advocate for us. But she was my beacon growing up, and I attest a lot of my thoughts that this was ever a possibility [for me], to her career.
We've had Asian families at the stage door say, “I bring my kids to Broadway shows all the time and I never thought in my lifetime that I would see a show like this where these characters are portrayed by Asian actors, and the story feels very inherently Asian.” It feels like baked in the bones, and yet it's not about that, it's actually about the universality of humanity. And I feel really excited that it's reached kind of mainstream in this way. It's just not to say that let's tell Asian stories for Asian people. These stories matter because everyone can be seen in them.
It trickles down to, then, what people think is possible. I feel very emotional thinking about if 11-year-old Helen saw Maybe Happy Ending, listened to the cast recording, knew the journey of where it came from in Korea, that it's not just about trying to be a Western idea and trying to fit yourself into this mold…All you can do is keep being yourself, and that will click at some point. I feel it so profoundly.
Also in the microcosm way at the theater, we get to really celebrate what's fun about it and order dim sum and go out to the barbecue. There's little things like that when you're not the minority in a cast, you can kind of experience in a way that you didn't really experience before. And we have AAPI representation across the board — the stage managers and our designers, and everyone at the Belasco, even though it's a four person cast, it is filled to the brim with the most amazing women, the most amazing queer people. It's just the best building to go to work in. And I'm going back to work tomorrow. It feels like there's an ending of some sorts that feels like a conclusion or a culmination, a chapter ending [with the Tonys wins]. But actually, we go to work.
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