by TVLine interviewed Reggie Lee, who plays Sgt. Wu on NBC’s Grimm, about the Wu centric episode that will introduce his character to the wesen world in a traumatic and creepy way, and the different choices for Wu’s first name. Here’s an excerpt of the article. Source: TVLine
TVLINE | Tell me about how this Wu-centric episode came about? Did you have any hand in saying like, ‘Hey, maybe it’d be nice to flesh my character out a little bit’? Or was it brought to you by the producers?
They actually came to me. Most of my background is Filipino and partly Chinese, but mostly Filipino. They asked me for any kind of Filipino/Chinese fairytales, so I gave them three from each. And I didn’t even know they started working on the outline on one of them until I said, “Hey, did you guys get my email?” because I hadn’t heard, and they’re constantly busy… They’re like, “Oh yeah, we’ve already got an outline on the Ass-wang.” [Laughs] I said, “Uh…that is fantastic, but that’s not how it’s pronounced! But you can pronounce it like that — and maybe people should in the episode just for a laugh!” But it’s the Aswang [pronounced ahs-wong].
They’re so great at being collaborative, so they wanted to tie in this whole thing – about [Wu] seeing something for the first time — with my actual background, and they succeeded. They did a great job. Brenna Kouf, who wrote the episode, she did a fantastic job. From the first draft that I saw, it was already very true to everything about this particular folklore. And also, she really brought out some different dynamics in Wu that you don’t expect. You see him in a very sardonic state most of the time, so when you see him care about something or when you see him be upset about something, it’s not usual.
