Harry Shum Jr. Gleeful About his Role as the “Other Asian”
Check out these two articles from Mochi and Deseret News on Harry Shum Jr.! He talks about his path to becoming a performing artist, his high school experience, and of course, performing on Glee!
Article 1: Harry Shum Jr. is ‘Glee’-ful about his role
LOS ANGELES — One of the more indelible images from the first 13 episodes of “Glee” wasn’t on the stage, it was on the football field.
Specifically, when the woeful McKinley High football team performed a dance number to Beyonce’s “Single Ladies,” stunning their opponents and scoring the winning touchdown.
And it wasn’t easy. Dancing in football uniforms, that is. Even for the cast’s resident professional dancer, Harry Shum Jr. (who plays glee club member Mike Chang).
“It’s very difficult to dance in football gear. It really is,” Shum told the Deseret News on the set of “Glee.” “You have to exaggerate all the movements. It was actually, I think, one of the hardest dances we’ve had to do. Because you’re just constricted.
“We’re out there and the director is yelling, ‘Make it bigger! Maker it bigger!’ And I’m, like, ‘I am making it bigger,’ ” he said with a laugh.
Shum hasn’t exactly been front and center on “Glee” — although he’s been in just about every episode, he’s billed as a guest star.
And, while he hasn’t had many lines, you’ve heard more of him than you’re probably aware. Shum is singing on numbers like “Don’t Stop Believing” even though his character wasn’t on camera.
Article 2: Glee’s Harry Shum, Jr. is Much More Than Just “The Other Asian”
No one wants to go through life known as “the Asian dude.” But for Harry Shum, Jr., it’s a dream come true. The 27-year-old plays football player and show-choir member Mike Chang on the hit show “Glee,” but he’s much better known for being “the other Asian,” a nickname dubbed by Jane Lynch’s scary cheerleading coach character, Sue Sylvester.
Shum is no stranger to being a token Asian. Growing up in Costa Rica, he was often the only Asian in a crowd of Latin American faces. “My parents spoke three different languages in one sentence, and I would get so confused as a kid,” he recalled. While he spoke Spanish and English at school, it wasn’t until he moved to San Francisco at age six that he began to learn Cantonese as well. But that wasn’t the only difficult part of his childhood. “I was a really shy, really quiet kid—almost to the point where my parents thought something was wrong with me,” he said. So how did a young child who never spoke or socialized with others end up with a life in the spotlight?
