Animation has featured Awkwafina before. She is a professional rapper as well, and she has provided the voice of several series, including Raya and the Last Dragon, The Little Mermaid, The Angry Birds Movie, and Migration. But the actor finds a deeper, more intimate connection with Jack Black’s character Po when he plays the corsac fox Zhen in Kung Fu Panda 4.
Awkwafina, whose mother is Korean American and her father is Chinese American, was born in New York and raised distant from her native Asia. But Awkwafina was raised by her paternal grandparents after her mother passed away when she was four years old. She was quite close to her grandmother, but she didn’t speak English. Therefore, in order to converse with her, the actor studied Mandarin. Interestingly, her great-grandfather built Lum’s, one of the earliest Chinese restaurants in Queens, after immigrating to the US in the 1940s. In her family, dumplings were just as frequent and revered as they were for Mr. Ping in Kung Fu Panda.
Awkwafina discusses collaborating with Jack Black on Kung Fu Panda 4, the franchise’s benefits for Asian Americans like her, and more in an exclusive interview.
“Watching Kung Fu Panda as an Asian American child growing up… At the time, I felt that there weren’t many films depicting the more traditional cultural customs that I had grown up with in my family. The relationship with his (Po’s) father, the love of dumplings, the filial piety that permeates it, and even the way it portrays the Valley of Peace physically is how I picture a hamlet. Therefore, it was great to see a film that appropriately honored ethnic traditions, Awkwafina explains in a special interview.
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