Friends actor Stephen Park recently looked back at a racist incident that happened on the set of popular American sitcom Friends. This happened in early 1990s when racism wasn’t as widely discussed as it is now. 

Advertisment

Stephen Park appeared on Friends twice – first when he filmed an episode called The One with the Chicken Pox in season two and the second time on The One with the Ultimate Fighting Champion in season three. 

Stephen Park experienced racism on the sets of Friends

Appearing on the recent episode of Pod Meets World podcast, he addressed the toxicity and said, “It was at the time, I felt it was kind of a toxic environment. James Hong was the actor who was also on the episode with me, and [the AD] was calling him to the set and you know, essentially saying, you know, ‘Where the fu** is the Oriental guy? Get the Oriental guy.'”

Advertisment

Stephen said that he knew it was “bigger than this show” and that “this isn’t the first time that this happened, you know, but this is the environment where this is business as usual in Hollywood in 1997, I guess it was. And nobody felt the need to correct this or say anything about it. So this is normal behaviour.”

Stephen wanted to talk about the experience and even went to Screen Actors Guild complaining about it but he was recommended to “write an article to the L.A. Times.” He said, “I started writing this mission statement and I sent it to the L.A. Times. They sent a couple of reporters and interviewed me, and then they never printed it.”

Jesse Eisenberg granted Polish citizenship after A Real Pain Oscar win

Advertisment

Stephen then took it upon himself and wrote an open letter. On the podcast, he said that the letter “went viral before ‘viral’ was even a word.”

“I had become so race-conscious and so angry that I was looking at everything through the lens of race. I felt like there was no freedom. I didn’t feel any freedom. So, I didn’t have any idea what I was going to do, but I just decided to drop out. I told everybody, ‘I’m not acting anymore’,” he said. 

Emmys 2025: When and where to watch TV Academy's awards this year

Stephen was last seen in Mickey 17

Stephen Park was recently seen in Mickey 17 which stars Robert Pattinson in a leading role. 

As for Friends, the show ran for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004, and starred Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, David Schwimmer and Matthew Perry.