Gedde Watanabe

The Accent That Never Existed

Gary Gedde Watanabe was born in Ogden, Utah, and did not speak a word of Japanese when he auditioned for John Hughes in 1984. To win the role of Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles, he had to fake an exaggerated accent that he copied from his Korean uncles. The act was so convincing that for years American audiences believed a foreign Asian actor had just been imported who barely spoke English.

That character brought him fame but also locked him into a caricature he would take decades to escape. The script required that each of his appearances be underscored by the sound of a gong. It was a production decision that is still studied in film schools today as the perfect example of racial bias in 1980s comedy.

And Watanabe played along because it was the only way to work in a Hollywood that did not know what to do with an actor of Asian features unless it was to get laughs at the expense of his origin.

But the reality on the set was very different from the screen. His castmates remembered a methodical and extremely polite man who transformed when he heard the word action. After the film's release in 1984, his phone never stopped ringing. The problem was that every script he received called for exactly the same clumsy, loud character.

The industry had typecast him before it knew him.

Surviving Between Factories and Hospitals

In 1986, he starred in Gung Ho under the direction of Ron Howard. He played Oishi Kazihiro, a Japanese executive trying to save a car factory in Pennsylvania. The movie did so well that it became a TV series the same year, with Watanabe reprising his role for nine episodes. It was one of the few times he was allowed to show a more human and less buffoonish side.

His talent for physical comedy led him to work with Weird Al Yankovic on the cult film UHF in 1989. In it, he played Kuni, the host of an extremely violent game show called Wheel of Fish. The scene where he forces a contestant to choose between an empty box or a red snapper remains one of the most memorable moments of low-budget independent film.

So he decided that if movies didn't offer him depth, he would look for it on quality television.

In 1997 he joined the cast of ER. For six years he played Yosh Takata, a nurse who did not need to rely on jokes about his race to carry the storyline. It was a professional relief. He appeared in a total of 58 episodes until 2003 and showed he could hold his own in a top-tier medical drama without losing his composure.

The Refuge of the Voice-Over Booth

Watanabe's voice work became his most lucrative career move from the late nineties onward. In 1998 he lent his voice to Ling in Disney's Mulan. The film's success allowed him to establish himself in animation, where his physical appearance did not limit the roles he could get. He reprised the character in the 2004 sequel and in several video games in the Kingdom Hearts franchise.

He never stopped working, but his on-screen appearances became more selective and brief. In 2008 he took a supporting role reminiscent of his early days in the comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall. By then, the actor no longer felt pressure to prove anything to anyone. He devoted himself to his stage work in productions in Los Angeles and San Francisco, where his baritone voice was highly prized.

Watanabe always kept a low profile away from the spotlight.

In 2023 he appeared in the Netflix animated series Blue Eye Samurai, lending his voice to several supporting characters. A year later, in 2024, he joined the voice cast of Kung Fu Panda 4, playing Wadlow. The production of this fourth installment of the franchise cost 85 million dollars and grossed more than 500 million at the global box office. The syndication contract for his voice work from the nineties allows him today to live with a stability that many of his Sixteen Candles co-stars lost long ago.