This past week, actor, comedian, writer, director, and UCLA Alumnus Randall Park delivered the keynote speech at all three UCLA 2023 college commencements. In this speech, he walks through his career ups and downs and how they shaped himself to the person he is today – that the adversity you face may help pave the way for future success. His speech is both funny and wise – worth spending the time to listen to it. It’s also fascinating to see how his career has evolved since we interviewed him in 2011.
I first blogged about Randall Park way before I knew who he was in one of my first ever “Asian American Commercial Watch” series of blog posts, Asian Americans going on a date in a Wells Fargo commercial. In the ad, Park is portraying a man getting ready to go on a date. Since then, Park has had quite a career as you can see from his IMDB listing. That’s quite remarkable to see for an Asian American male actor (or for that matter, Asian American female actor), especially if you’ve grown up in the 1970s and 1980s seeing a paucity of Asian American faces in TV and movies.
