AAPI stars shine bright at Hollywood's Unforgettable Gala

The cast of 'Fresh Off the Boat' was honored with The Legacy Award at the Unforgettable Gala.

ASAM NEWS

Asian Americans in Hollywood gathered to honor their own at the 18th annual Unforgettable Gala last weekend in Beverly Hills. 

Put on by Character Media (formerly Kore Asian Media ), a who’s who of Asian American and Pacific Islander entertainers featured in 2019 came together to celebrate the icons in the entertainment industry.

Awkwafina won the best actor/actress award for The Farewell, the film’s Lulu Wang won in the director category and its entire cast received the Vanguard Award, reports The Hollywood Reporter.

“It’s almost rebirth time,” said Tzi Ma who played Awkwafina’s father in The Farewell. “We’re not stuck with all the flash and the special effects. To be able to tell a story with no thrills and just people talking, and 80 percent in a foreign language, something’s going on.”

Other winners, according to Deadline, included NBC Superstore's Nico Santos for TV actor, Charles Melton as breakout star for The Sun is Also a Star, Maya Erskine as breakout star in TV for Hulu’s Pen 15, Ali Wong for comic performance in Netflix’s Always Be My Maybe, and Bobby Hundreds as digital influencer.

The entire cast of Fresh Off the Boat won the Legacy Award which wraps up its sixth and final season February 21.  The show's stars Randall Park, Constance Wu, Hudson Yang, Forrest Wheeler, Ian Chen, Chelsey Crisp and Lucille Soong were all on hand to accept the award from Ken Jeong and Ming-Na Wen.

“It seems to have inspired other people to tell their stories, one story can’t represent a whole,” Constance Wu of Fresh Off the Boat said to The Hollywood Reporter. Wu said she felt a mixture of sadness that the show was ending, but also happiness that it inspired other stories to be told.

The cast of 'The Farewell' won the Vanguard Award and Awkwafina (left, front) was named Best Actor/Actress at the Unforgettable Gala last Saturday.

The Unforgettable Gala through its 18 years has become the AAPI equivalent to the entertainment industry's awards shows that often overlook the work of AAPI artists. 

"This year, we have seen more Asian American faces on screen and more Asian American projects green-lit than in the decades past. It is more important now than ever that we take this moment to award these individuals who are paving the way, because of course – we still have a long way to go," states the evening's program.

Simu Liu, who emceed the show with singer/rapper/songwriter Amber Liu (no relation) included a zinger aimed at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, according to Variety. The actor, set to  star in Marvel’s “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” noted that the voting body of the Golden Globe Awards nominated Awkwafina for best actress in a motion picture musical or comedy for her performance in “The Farewell” and the film itself for best foreign language film.

“Awkwafina is also having a really good year. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance in The Farewell, or as the Hollywood Foreign Press Association calls it, ‘That movie with all the foreign people that speak Asian,'” Liu cracked, echoing a criticism that the film — while mostly in Mandarin Chinese — is an Asian American story, written and directed by an Asian American and starring an Asian American.

Writer Adele Lim who won for Crazy Rich Asians last year reminded people what the night is all about.

“We have all these stories that we’ve been sitting on and burying because we’ve been told over decades that it’s not gonna sell. We’ve seen over the few years that it’s simply not true. That’s a bigger truism we can take to the bank.”

Views From the Edge contributed to this report.