TGIF Feature: 'Hollywood' with Darren Criss available for streaming on Netflix

Darren Criss will play a Filipino American in Netflix's 'Hollywood.'

Finally, it's May 1 and AAPIs will get a chance to view the much anticipated Hollywood, starring Darren Criss, who plays an aspiring Filipino American director during Tinseltown's so-called Golden Age, right after WWII.

The sprawling 7-part drama is an alternate history of that era, mixing fictional characters with real-life figures of that period. Certainly, the depiction of the movie industry fully accepting People of Color and LGBTQ in this day and age would be labeled a fantasy, much less, in 1940s Hollywood.

"It is sort of a Hollywood-ization of Hollywood itself, or the Ryan Murphy version of that fantasy," Criss, who also served as an executive producer, told Deadline. "I hope people watching it go in taking it with a grain of salt that this isn't sort of a grand expose of the time, or some sort of factual recounting.

"I think that it will become very clear from the tone that things happen [in the show] that, clearly, didn't happen, otherwise you would've heard about it. It becomes pretty clear that this is, again, Hollywood getting the Hollywood treatment."

For AAPI fans, the depiction of Raymond Ainsley (Criss) as a half-Filipino, as the lead character is historic in itself. But the series also serves as an introduction of the real-life travails of the legendary Anna May Wong, played by Michelle Krusiec, to today's audience are major reasons to watch to watch the mini-series.

Criss, who is of mixed Filipino and white heritage, describes his characer "as an outsider, which is usually ground zero for anybody feeling isolated but in Raymond's case, he has a bit of a chip on his shoulder for being of half-Asian descent, which I think is just something that Ryan has always been interested in, especially being white passing."

The line uttered by Ainsley, "I am half-Filipino" will probably bring an audible cheer and high-fives from Filipino Americans because it is so rare that a Filipino American character have such a prominent role in a US-produced project.

The only other time a Filipino American played a lead role in a Hollywood production is 2018's The Assassination of Gianni Versace in which Criss portrayed Filipno American serial killer Andrew Cunanan. Criss won a Golden Globe and an Emmy for his work in that dramatic series.

Michelle Krusiec will help tell Anna May Wong's story in Netflix's 'Hollywood.'

In the little-known story of Wong, Krusiec was able to find common ground. In an interview with Deadline, Krusiec identified with Wong's plight.

“I’m constantly being underestimated and being reduced or relegated to side parts, supporting parts or parts where the characters are in service of someone else’s narrative,” said Krusiec. “I felt during [Wong’s] entire career, she was constantly cast in these kinds of roles because it brings so much to the table in terms of what she was actually doing with those parts. She was really hard to ignore and it was really hard to dismiss her. She became brokenhearted by her career, but she still persisted.”

“As an Asian American actor, I’ve been treading that road for a long time and trying to understand my own wrestling with identity and how do I persist and how do I have resilience,” she told Deadline.

EDITOR'S NOTE: As Hollywood unfolds on Netflix, check back on Views From the Edge for more articles about the series.