‘Chris Grace: As Scarlett Johansson’ pokes fun at cross-racial casting

A live version of the special was staged for Edinburgh Fringe in 2023, where it received strong reviews. The comedy special was also filmed and is available to watch on the comedy streaming service Dropout. 

Grace, who is perhaps best known for his role as Jerry in the beloved NBC sitcom Superstore, sat down with JoySauce to chat about Johansson’s acting choices and the inner conflict one feels as an Asian American artist in Hollywood. 

This interview has been edited for clarity and length. 

Samantha Lui: I think it’s a pretty common joke amongst the Asian community anytime an Asian role comes up that Scarlett Johansson is going to star. Can you tell me a bit about the inspiration for this special?
Chris Grace: I think it came from thinking about how many perceived or real limitations you feel as an Asian artist, and envying the freedom that somebody like Scarlett Johansson has. I don’t think, necessarily, that she did something malicious to take the role in Ghost in the Shell, but to have the freedom to not even worry about it is something to be envied. 

The idea of not even having to really think about how your artistic choices are received by the larger society, I think is a great luxury. I feel that if you're an Asian artist, you can't come up through the ranks without ever wondering how your work is perceived by white people. There just isn't a way to become successful without going through the eyes of white people, at least in America currently. 

The idea that Scarlett Johansson is in such a position that you could accept a role and just be sort of blithe about it in a way where it would surprise you that people were mad about a choice that you made, just feels so alien to me.

The idea that Scarlett Johansson is in such a position that you could accept a role and just be sort of blithe about it in a way where it would surprise you that people were mad about a choice that you made, just feels so alien to me. The idea of not considering how the wider world takes your choices just sort of festered in my brain until the show came out. 

SL: The show is very meta. You’re playing Scarlett Johansson. But then your version of Scarlett Johansson plays you. Why do you use that choice to tackle the issue of casting?
CG: A long time ago, I had this idea to do this commedia dell'arte show with masks to become different characters. But what if one of the characters puts on the mask of another one so that you’re two layers deep? It’s functioning off of the same sort of dynamic. 

There were parts where I thought, “Okay, if I'm making a case against the choices that Scarlett Johansson has made, I also need to put a voice to what she would say in response.” And in doing that, I also realized that her character might also have heard of my show, so she might, in her freewheeling nature, also decide to cast herself as me in a version of my own show. It sort of just spiraled from there. 

SL: Your show has been described as meta-contextual theatre. Were you inspired by other pieces of work that take on a similar form?
CG: I was definitely inspired by Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal. I was also inspired by a video game called Undertale. There’s also a book called Trust Exercise that starts over in a form of artifice that makes you think about what is real and what isn’t. I guess I’m just influenced by things that have multiple framings. 

In his special, Chris Grace plays both himself and Johansson in a nesting doll-style performance involving costume changes.

Brian Morris

SL: Throughout the show, you mention your mom a lot. What has she meant for you in your comedy and acting career?
CG: She was one of the only people that was encouraging me to be an artist. She had this colorful background. She had been in San Francisco and New York City, had been in a writing group with Allen Ginsberg, and was sort of a hippie and had this romantic view of artists and what they do. 

She created art her whole life, so she was very encouraging of me to do those things. I think in a way, I felt I was fulfilling her vision of being an artist by pursuing those things. I don't know if I would have thought it was a viable thing to do unless she encouraged me, so I don't know if any of this would have happened without her.

SL: You also express some sadness or bittersweetness about how she wasn't able to see you in this particular role after her death. What do you think she would have felt about this show?
CG: I think that she would have thought it was interesting. I mean, she and I watched a whole documentary about Ai Weiwei at one point, and one of my cherished photos of her is that I got her to give the middle finger to Ai Weiwei on my laptop. So, I think she was aware of hipster art or whatever. I don't know if she would have laughed at a single moment in this show, but I think she would have been happy that I made it. 

She was definitely somebody who always wanted to go to a museum to see paintings, and she was not a person I ever heard say, “You know, this art isn’t worth making.” In that sense, she was not like the trope of the hard-driving Asian mother. 

SL: In this special, it also seems like you deal with a lot of inner conflict around being a working Asian actor. You mention Ke Huy Quan, and how it took him 37 years to be cast in Everything Everywhere All At Once. You also name projects like Beef or Joy Ride, but also not having any friends in the industry who can cast you in such projects. Can you unpack those feelings a bit?
CG: I think part of it is expressing a bit of helplessness in the industry. I think it’s such a great story that Ke Huy Quan won the Oscar, but it's kind of scary that it didn't seem like he was able to do anything in the 37 years in between Goonies and Everything Everywhere All At Once. That's pretty scary to tell somebody that, “Hey, if you just hang on, you'll get your due.” I think Hollywood specifically, and America in general, has a bit of a like, “Just hang on to your dreams. You'll achieve them eventually.” It’s almost like he's a bit of the exception.

I wonder if that's a dangerous thing for people to believe, because it assumes that the system is a meritocracy. It also assumes that the people that make it, are the ones that deserve to be there.