In a recent interview as part of the #SaveDaredevil virtual meet up panel for San Diego Comic-Con, actor Peter Shinkoda, who played Nobu, recently detailed that Jeph Loeb told the Daredevil writers’ room on numerous occasions that “no one cared about Chinese people or Asian people.”
Shinkoda’s comments came during the #SaveDaredevil panel as part of San Diego Comic-Con’s virtual panel line-up. Shinkoda was joined on the panel by Geoffrey Cantor, who played Mitchell Ellison, and Tommy Walker, who played Francis.
At around the 8 minute mark, Shinkoda is asked about whether he had his own headcanon for Nobu’s backstory. As he’s answering the question he also discusses a story arc that was planned, but never made it into production involving his character and Madame Gao.
Shinkoda would then state why the story arc never made it into the actual show.
He began around the 10 minute mark saying, “I’m kind of reluctant to say this, but I’m gonna take it. And I apologize to Tommy and to Geoff because I’m going to take this moment, but I have to. Because… Because I just have to. I’m not into really protecting you know, certain things anymore but -“
He then continued, “Jeph Loeb told the writer’s room not to write for Nobu and Gao, and this was reiterated many times by many of the writers and showrunners. That nobody cares about Chinese people and Asian people.”
He added, “There was three previous Marvel movies, a trilogy called Blade that was made where Wesley Snipes kills 200 Asians each movie. Nobody gives a sh**, so don’t write about Nobu and Gao. And they were forced to put their story line down and drop it.
“I have privy to that storyline because he explained it to me. They were very apologetic that they couldn’t follow through with it. That their hands were tied. It was a very interesting storyline about having to go there under the guise getting some kind of transplant and it was medical reasons and a lot of paper work and bureaucracy was fudged and they carry out his Black Sky plans,” Sinkoda elaborated.
He went on, “But all that backstory was dropped and the writers told me that they regretted it and they were reluctant to do it because they were so stoked about including that in the story line. But they were prevented so I had to concoct this other storyline and then you know rock that material that I was given. Regretfully, I didn’t get to ever explore that.”
Cantor at that point asked Shinkoda if things would’ve been handled differently with Hollywood’s current sensibilities.
To which Shinkoda responded, “I absolutely do because the fact that you’ve spoken and just eloquently explained that all. How people are more in touch, more familiar, and more less in denial about the issues that we’re dealing with nowadays.”
He added, “Yeah I think it would be approached a hell of a lot more delicately. Definitely, because I can see the difference. I think that two, three, four years difference. Huge. “
Not Invited To Season 2 Premiere
Shinkoda would go on to list other grievances he had with his time on Daredevil. At the 17:50 minute mark of the video above, he detailed that he was not invited to the Season 2 premiere of the show.
Shinkoda stated, “It would’ve been nice to be invited to the second season premiere also. Sitting there with Wai Ching Ho, and I mention ‘Did you go to the premiere?’ ‘I never got an invite, Peter.’ Neither did I. I found out watching it on live news that the red carpet, that there was a Daredevil Season 2 premiere and I was sitting at home, going what, watching commercials of me fighting people.”
Beautiful people, fighting, & BREAKING NEWS! Have a look at last night’s NYC premiere for @Marvel‘s #Daredevil.https://t.co/NvHhd7SKAk
— Daredevil (@Daredevil) March 11, 2016
He reiterated that on Twitter writing, “Wai Ching Ho aka Madame Gao and I, aka Nobu of Daredevil weren’t at the season 2 premiere…because we weren’t invited.”
He added, “Wai was insulted…and that pissed me off A LOT. We found out about the event as it live-streamed. ‘They’ were sorry we were ‘overlooked.'”
What do you make of Shinkoda’s accusations against Jeph Loeb? What about his comments about the current Hollywood landscape? Sound off in the comments below or let’s talk about it on social media!