Joy Ride’s Ashley Park admits code-switching ‘really helped’ her as an actor

Ashley Park has opened up about her experiences as a Korean-American actor in Hollywood.

After three years of starring as sidekick Mindy Chen in Netflix’s comedy-drama Emily in Paris, the 32-year-old is now taking her first lead role in Adele Lim’s directorial debut Joy Ride, alongside fellow Asian-American actors Stephanie Hsu, Sherry Cola and Sabrina Wu.

Reflecting on her long-fought journey in an industry where she says Asians have been “conditioned to be supporting characters”, Park admits that “code-switching really helped me as an actor”.

Code-switching is the way in which a member of an underrepresented group (consciously or unconsciously) adjusts their style of speech, behaviour, appearance and expression to fit into the dominant culture, as defined by Betterup.com.

“I realised how good I am at code-switching. We code-switch because we’re trying to find a way to be indispensable to people, whether that be as their buddy or their confidant,” Park told People in a new interview.

“I think code-switching really helped me as an actor because I’m really good at immediately observing what somebody needs and what somebody feels safe with, it makes me feel good to be that for them. But that compromised me as a person a lot.”

Following the 2021 Atlanta spa shootings, in which a gunman targeted Asian spa workers, leaving eight dead and one injured, Park addressed anti-Asian hate in an Instagram video.

“I’ve lived my entire life trying not to be bitter and trying to move forward in a society run by White supremacy,” she said in the video at the time.

“But this racism starts at a very small level. … The amount of times in my life where I am asked where I’m from before I’m asked what my name is. You don’t understand the undervaluing that that does… It starts with stupid jokes, even with your close friends. It starts when you say, ‘Oh, this is a good time to be in this industry because ethnic is really in right now.’”

The latter example referred to a racist comment she alleges a former Mean Girls castmate made to her.

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However, looking back on her candid remarks, Park told People: “What’s interesting to me is if I had been talking to a friend, I would not have painted it that way. I would’ve accommodated them. I would not have been as explicit.

“I’m the kind of person, when something bad happens, I can vent, go to sleep and the next day I’m like, ‘It’s a new day,’ and I actually forget [what I was upset about].”

Joy Ride follows four friends who embark on an epic, no-holds-barred trip throughout Asia. What’s intended to be a journey of self-discovery, though, soon becomes an adventure of wild debauchery.

Joy Ride is out now in the US and will be released on 4 August in the UK.