When Chloe Bennet changed her surname from Wang to her father's Christian name, she says her fortunes in Hollywood changed immediately.
"I mean, the first audition I went on, I booked," Bennet told the ABC.
"So, I [had] auditioned for about two years, and [after then I changed my name I] didn't have the same issue back and forth. And then the first thing, I booked."
Despite that, Bennet, who played the lead role in Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. series, has regrets about her decision.
"That's not really a decision I'm necessarily happy with," she said.
"I think that there can be a lot of repercussions for changing yourself to fit into someone else's idea of what you should be.
"And I think that that was damaging to my understanding of who I was as a young girl, and navigating the industry after that was, I don't think it was something I could really fully understand until now, maybe, because I never actually did change.
"For me, my name is Chloé Wang. I don't know Chloe Bennet. She's kind of not real.
"So, I only changed people's perception of me. I didn't really actually change anything."
It took a name change for Chloe Bennet to book work in Hollywood. (Supplied: Disney+)
She finds the discourse around this "interesting".
"People assume you're better for your proximity to whiteness, and I don't agree with that," Bennet said.
"And I think that you are afforded different privileges, and you are let into something, but you're never actually a part of it in the same way."
'It's a meta commentary on a television program'
Bennet stars as Detective Lana Lee in Interior Chinatown, a series based on the award-winning Charles Yu novel of the same name.
Yu is an executive producer on the show, as is Taika Waititi, who directs episode one.
Willis Wu (Jimmy O Yang) dreams of a life beyond Chinatown. (Supplied: Disney+)
The series follows Willis Wu (Jimmy O Yang), a background character trapped in a police procedural TV program. Willis goes through the motions, waiting tables and dreaming about a world beyond Chinatown.
When he witnesses a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web and discovers what it feels like to be in the spotlight.
Ronny Chieng plays Fatty Choi, Willis's best friend.
"There's a lot of dynamic action scenes," Chieng told the ABC.
"There's lots of jokes to keep it fun and light, but I think the coolest part of this show, in my opinion, is it's a meta commentary on a television program.
"So, I think that's what's really fun and interesting, is that we're characters in a TV show that don't know that we're in a show, and so we're constantly questioning our reality, some questioning more than others.
"And I think that's a very fun premise to play with."
Ronny Chieng plays Willis Wu's sidekick Fatty Choi. (Supplied: Disney+)
Talented minorities often under-utilised
Unlike Willis, Fatty is comfortable with himself and content with his life working at a restaurant in Chinatown and being the sidekick in the story — until he, too, enters the spotlight.
Chieng, who has been a correspondent on Comedy Central's The Daily Show since 2015, got his comedy start in Australia. He has starred in the ABC sitcom Ronny Chieng: International Student and was also in the movie blockbuster Crazy Rich Asians.
Chieng knows what it's like to be a background character. (Supplied: Disney+)
He says he knows what it feels like to be a background character in someone else's story.
"In Australia, I think it's tough to be a main character in an authentically told story," Chieng said, saying he attended the 25th annual SAG awards in 2019 at which the Black Panther cast was honoured.
"Chadwick Boseman was receiving an award for Black Panther, and he came on stage and he said, to be young, black and talented, always below, never above," Chieng said.
"He wasn't just talking himself up. He was saying to be a minority and talented [is to] be under-utilised in Australia or in America or wherever."
Bennet says there is another side to the coin, in which people are sometimes brought in for "cultural reasons" — something Interior Chinatown highlights in the first episode with the character she plays.
Lana is brought on as a "cultural expert" in Chinatown to assist police officers Sarah Green (Lisa Gilroy) and Miles Turner (Sullivan Jones). (Supplied: Disney+)
"Lana is definitely kind of a bridge between both worlds," Bennet said.
"For me, it was a lot of fun to kind of go back and forth and be the storyteller of both.
"And the audience certainly thinks in the beginning of the series that she is this Chinatown expert who has all the answers. And then, depending on which side you're on, you have a different perspective on Lana.
"And then I think it unravels that maybe neither of those are true.
"So, that's a fun kind of mystery within the show of who is she and why is she here?"
Creative team understands stories at centre of show
Taika Waititi directs episode one of Interior Chinatown and is an executive producer on the series. (Supplied: Disney+)
Bennet says the creatives behind Interior Chinatown have a clear understanding of the nuances explored.
"Inherently, the show is created by, show run by, created on and off camera by people who deeply understand the stories that we're telling," Bennet said.
"I think inherently, the show just is an extremely high-quality piece of work that really just tells an authentic story.
"And that's really all we can do, and we do it at the best of our ability, across the board.
"The way that it looks, the way that it's shot, the way that it's directed, the way that it's written, you can't really knock the quality of it."
All 10 episodes of Interior Chinatown are available on Disney+.