No Typecasting

He played a “nice geek” in “Real Genius.” A “fresh-off-the-boat Japanese kid” in “Aloha Summer.” Ralph Macchio’s nasty nemesis in “Karate Kid II.” He’s a Korean-American gang member wrongly sent to prison in Columbia’s “True Believer,” and has just opened in a new play.

Just becoming established as an actor at 29, Yuji Okumoto feels fortunate about the range of characters he’s been able to portray.

“Shu Kai Kim (his ‘True Believer’ character) starts out looking stereotypical--all you see is this hardness,” Okumoto said. “Then he starts dropping layers, and you finally see the sensitivity. His humanity comes through.”

Clean cut and strikingly handsome, Okumoto is relaxed and unusually affable during an interview. Yet he relishes the chance to play against that image.

“I love playing bad guys. There are so many layers to them, they’re so unpredictable. The audience doesn’t know where they’re going, what they’re going to do next.”

Okumoto, who attended Hollywood High and Cal State Fullerton, spent four years in classes, stage productions and student films before earning a coveted Screen Actors Guild card six years ago for two days’ work on a little-seen movie, “The Check Is in the Mail.”

He’s now appearing in “Webster Street Blues,” which opened Wednesday at East/West Players in East Hollywood. Written by the late Warren Kubota and directed by Nobu McCarthy, the play follows the lives of four friends in San Francisco’s “Japan town” during the early 1970s. Okumoto will portray an insecure, sensitive man hiding behind a tough exterior. It’s the first production at East/West since founder Mako stepped down as artistic director after 23 years.

As for his film and TV career, Okumoto said, “As an actor and as an Asian individual, you want to avoid stereotype; you don’t want to embarrass your race. (But) I don’t even think about (ethnic) typecasting at this point.

“I just want to work and learn.”