Frank Wu is part of the core dreamer group on the Bottom Rung. Much like Tim, though, the term “schemer” would be more appropriate. Deep down, he knows he was probably a gaming nerd who did not get a lot of girls. Now he’s hell-bent on trying to be a big shot like the people he sees in the movies—at least that’s what he tells other people.
I got the idea for a fake Japanese accent because, on every document review people, are always talking about how much more the foreign document reviewers get paid, especially the Japanese ones.
I heard a story about a couple of girls who faked their way onto a Russian job for a few weeks at $65 an hour, so I thought it would be funny if nobody even noticed that, not only does Frank not speak Japanese, he’s an American guy from Buffalo who happens to have Chinese heritage. But now he has decided to use his heritage to be the king of Chinatown.
I also used a few guys whom I met on jobs for inspiration. One guy I know actually represents Asian massage workers—apparently they get harassed by cops a lot. So I thought it would be awesome if his main clientele were masseuses and gang members. Throughout the season, you will see his ridiculous attempts to become a mob lawyer fail, to our comedic delight.
Roy Vongtama plays Frank, and he was a big get for us. Someone put me in touch with him through a fellow Penn alum, as he graduated from Penn and he’s an extremely established actor. You might have seen him in “The Bucket List” with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, in which he played a doctor. He also happens to be a medical doctor in real life. Yes, this guy is like Ken Jeong, only tall and good looking. And, yes, the Corvette that we use to shoot the scenes with Jess’s boyfriend . . . also his.