Vietnamese Group Drops Casting Call Protest Plans : Dispute: Co-producer Oliver Stone, whose comments touched off the controversy, says he was misquoted.

A local Vietnamese group on Wednesday dropped its threat to protest a motion picture casting call in Little Saigon over the involvement of acclaimed director Oliver Stone, who is a co-producer.

On Saturday, Carolco Pictures will invite prospective actors to audition at the Community Church of the Nazarene for a movie about a Vietnamese woman and her odyssey in Vietnam.

Chuyen Van Nguyen, general secretary of the Vietnamese Community of Southern California in Westminster, said earlier this week that he was offended by Stone’s participation in a 1989 Vietnamese-U.S. film symposium at UCLA, and by a recent comment attributed to the Oscar-winning director in the Los Angeles Times Orange County Edition.

On Wednesday, however, Nguyen called off the demonstration after receiving a typed missive from Stone that addressed both of Nguyen’s concerns.

“He was one of the sponsors that brought the Viet Congs to UCLA,” Nguyen said. “He also taunted us (in The Times) as right-wing Republicans still fighting the war.”

In an interview this week, Stone denied making such a remark to The Times and said his movie would strive to portray Vietnamese characters in an entirely positive light.

“I was talking about the casting session in Orange County. . . . I have no idea how (the controversy) got started,” the director said from a West Los Angeles office where he was editing his latest film, “JFK,” scheduled to be released next week. “First of all, it’s a stupid thing to say, and I didn’t say it.

“I’m aware there are a lot of divisions within the Vietnamese community and I’m respectful of that,” Stone added. “I know that the war is still an issue for some people in the community, but we want to put that behind us and we want to move into an era of reconciliation.”

In Stone’s letter to Nguyen, he wrote that he appreciated “your expression of concern about the sensitivity of the people of the Vietnamese Community of Southern California. We share the same concerns.

“The misunderstanding is due to a miscommunication. I was misquoted. . . . It is contrary to my feelings.”

During an interview with The Times on another subject, Stone had been asked about the controversy surrounding him in the Vietnamese community.

“I haven’t heard anything about it,” Stone told the reporter. “If there were one, though, it wouldn’t surprise me. This picture represents a reconciliation, a conciliatory point of view, and the Vietnamese in Orange County are right-wing Republicans who probably want to continue fighting the war.” The last phrase of Stone’s quote appeared in the Dec. 3 Newswatch column.

As for the UCLA event, Stone wrote Nguyen, “I attended as a curious filmmaker and nothing else.”

In response to Stone’s letter, Nguyen said that while his group still is not “supporting” the casting call, “we will not be opposing it.”

Casting directors who for the past month have interviewed more than 8,000 Vietnamese throughout the country met with Nguyen this week to discuss the still unscripted movie and how the impending protest would have hampered their efforts to film a narrative about the war from the Vietnamese perspective.

“We’re just trying to make a little movie here, about a young girl and her family trying to hold on to each other during hard and painful times,” said Risa Bramon, casting director and associate producer. “This is not a political issue. The movie is not a political statement.”

The movie is scheduled to be filmed next spring partly in the United States and partly in Southeast Asia. Casting directors are searching for about 50 people for significant speaking roles.

Stone and his personal and political ideas have nothing to do with the making of the movie, Bramon said.

“Oliver Stone is not involved in this project except as a producer,” she said. “We’ve been using his name because it’s a very accessible name, the one that people pick up on.”

“His previous movies and attendance at a conference somehow got mixed up with our work,” added another casting director, Heidi Levitt.

She was referring to Stone’s Oscar-winning movies, “Platoon” and “Born on the Fourth of July,” which some critics feel exploited Vietnamese people.

After their meeting with Nguyen and his associates, Bramon said: “We feel that they ultimately understand that Oliver is not an enemy and (that) we’re not an enemy. We feel like now everything has been put to bed.”

Many other Vietnamese groups this week applauded the efforts of Bramon and Levitt to cast Vietnamese actors rather than other Asian actors in a movie about the victimization of Vietnam.

If Stone “is portraying from the Vietnamese viewpoint about the Vietnamese--and he has a reputation for producing movies of quality--then I encourage our people to go out for it,” said Mai Cong, chairman of Vietnamese Community of Orange County Inc.

Levitt said that half a dozen other casting calls, from San Francisco to the Washington area, were received with enthusiasm by the Vietnamese people in those cities.

“We’ve had successes all over the country,” Levitt said. “Everyone has embraced us for our efforts.”