Since the Teen Wolf movie was announced, fans of the MTV series have been working to keep track of which cast members are returning and which are not. One who is not coming back is Arden Cho, who played the Kitsune Kira from seasons three to five of the series.
During an interview with The Cut, Cho publicly addressed the reason why she is not returning for the film and the answer was simple: money and respect. “I think I was actually offered even less,” Cho said. The reason that Cho gave for turning down even the smaller sum was wanting to set a precedent for other Asian-American actors. “I could probably, off the top of my head, think of over 10 Asian-American actors I know who were paid significantly less than their counterparts,” Cho said. “Sometimes you don’t have a choice to say ‘no.’ Sometimes you just need it. You’ve got bills to pay.”
She continued, “I wasn’t saying ‘no’ necessarily for me or because I was angry. I was saying ‘no’ because I hope that there will be more equality in the future.” Cho’s character, Kira Yukimura was a love interest for lead Scott McCall (Tyler Posey) but was written out suddenly. “I was in shock. I couldn’t believe it. There wasn’t room for Kira.”
As someone who stopped watching Teen Wolf in season four, one of the glaring issues was the show’s struggle to have good representation of women and non-white characters. Despite how much I love Scott, it seemed like, at times, even the show struggled to understand what made that character work.
I was a huge fan on Allison Argent, the character who was a love interest for Scott previously, but I still really enjoyed Kira. Still, when I rewatch her, there was a lot of Orientalism with her character, and it was frustrating to watch as a woman of color. I think Cho is making a hard but smart call, especially since the show didn’t want to make room for her. Why should she make room for them now?
(via The Hollywood Reporter, featured image: MTV)
