It all started with cat sick.
Having moved with his family from Shanghai to Minnesota when he was six, Ben Wang learned English by consuming nine hours of television a day. Most helpful of all? Infomercials. “There would always be the same ones,” he says now, “with a guy carefully explaining what he was doing. Like, ‘Watch how the chamois absorbs your cat’s puke,’ doing the motion. And I’m like, ‘Ah, absorb. Yes, absorption.’” Fluency followed, as did debut forays into filmmaking: with his grandfather’s camcorder, he’d make his own infomercials. “I’d sell garbage,” he explains. “Because there was garbage around the house. So those were the first pieces of media I created. It wasn’t good!”
Today, at 25 years old, Wang is involved in more significant pieces of media: he was one of the stars of Disney+ drama series American Born Chinese, and is now the star – in a film that also boasts Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio – of Karate Kid: Legends. He’s only been acting professionally for a few years, but since wrapping on the film, this suddenly, he says, feels like a viable career. “There have been a lot of sleepless nights, wondering if I’d made a terrible decision with my life,” he admits of choosing this profession.
He only considered it in the first place because, by his own admission, he “wasn’t really good at anything else. I couldn’t throw a ball or catch one, and those are the two big things that you need if you want to be cool in rural Minnesota. So I went and hung out with the theatre nerds instead.” He rather liked theatre, so kept doing it, eventually studying drama at New York University. From there he started scoring bit parts, including, in 2021, a spot on MacGyver (“as a kid who hacks a car”; a character played by Robocop’s Peter Weller informs him that his parents were secret spies, and were murdered); and in 2023 came American Born Chinese, adapted from Gene Luen Yang’s graphic novel, in which downtrodden high-school misfit Jin Wang is introduced to a world of Chinese gods and monsters.
Not just because of the surname, the role fit Wang like a glove: he hadn’t had the best time during his own education. “The part felt like it was made for me,” he says. “I didn’t have to go into a cave for two months and find my character. I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I remember being in this exact situation from when I was 14.’” Alas, the show was cancelled after a solitary season, just as the plot was about to really kick off for Wang – the finale ended with Jin poised to be taken into the Heavenly Realm, where the gods dwell. Wang was gutted; everybody involved expected another season, and it was an eight-month wait between the show airing and being killed. When that happened, he “spent a whole day calling the showrunner and the producers and all the actors, commiserating, and then at the end of the day, I got another call from my manager, saying, ‘Oh, you’ve got a callback for this Karate Kid audition.’ So that was a really emotional rollercoaster of a 24-hour period.”
“I go fight Jackie Chan. You’re gonna shit your pants. But that’s okay.”
In Karate Kid: Legends, Wang plays Beijing teenager Li Fong, who moves to New York and, with help from sensei stalwarts Daniel LaRusso (Macchio) and Mr Han (Chan), blends karate with kung fu in a bid to ace a tournament. The team put out an open casting-call, and 10,000 wannabe karate kids submitted videos, including Wang, showing off some martial arts in his mum’s school gym. “You try not to get your hopes up too high,” he says. “It was like every single Asian American person in the world maybe auditioned for this part.” He knew, at least, that he hit a few requirements, being fluent in Mandarin, having some A-grade acting experience, and, well, knowing how to punch and kick a bit. And as more and more callbacks came his way, his confidence grew: “At a certain point I was like, ‘I know I can do this.’” So did the producers.
On set, familiar faces added to the sense of security: the film boasted the same stunt team that worked on American Born Chinese. “So I knew that the action would be unlike that of any other Karate Kid film,” says Wang, “and unlike most other action films in the West, because it’s a Chinese stunt team: these guys know how to shoot action in that Hong Kong, Chinese cinematic way. I grew up watching those movies. So I wanted to do that stuff – I wanted to wrap a wire around my waist and get yanked through a wall. And I did. It was awesome!” Other things were less comfortable, not least working alongside Jackie Chan. “Yeah man, I was shitting my pants. But… how could you not? On a month-and-a-half of training, I go fight Jackie Chan. You’re gonna shit your pants. But that’s okay,” he laughs.
Next up: Francis Lawrence’s The Long Walk, adapted from Stephen King’s horror novel; Wang stars opposite David Jonsson and Cooper Hoffman. “That’s a fantastic one, and completely opposite to Karate Kid in terms of tone,” he says. How, specifically? “It’s Stephen King, so there’s a lot more swearing. And a lot more gore. A lot more people getting shot in the head than in Karate Kid,” he laughs, with some glee.
The small screen taught him English and made him a young filmmaker. Now the big screen is his for the taking. God bless cat sick.
The Album: Omnibus by Tarkio
“Tarkio were from Montana, then broke up, and Colin Meloy formed The Decemberists. But I’m listening to Omnibus. There are loads of songs on it, it’s a two-disc special. It’s crazy.”
The Book: Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami
“This is a collection of short stories, and it’s great. [Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s] Drive My Car is based on one of them, and that’s one of my favourite movies of all time.”
The Podcast: Omnibus
“It’s hosted by Ken Jennings and John Roderick. Ken Jennings is the current host of Jeopardy!, he had the longest win streak on that, and he’s also got a podcast where he talks about esoteric bullshit. And it’s awesome.”