Dear Gossips,
Two LaineyGossip favorites sat on a couch together, as both Kirsten Dunst and John Cho appeared on The Late Late Show with James Corden last night. As Corden notes, both appear in the 1997 film Wag the Dog, though Cho is quick to clarify that he was basically an extra, while Dunst had a proper role and shared a scene with Robert DeNiro and Dustin Hoffman. It’s an interesting contrast, the child star turned prestige actress enjoying the “work when I want” phase of her career, and Cho only just now getting leading man roles, well into his forties. In some ways different and others, the same, the industry works against them, but both have found their own ways forward. Now, Dunst is a Best Supporting Actress contender, and Cho has Cowboy Bebop on Netflix, and a novel coming out next year.
It’s called Troublemaker (check out an excerpt here), and it’s about a boy who tries to help his dad in a misguided way during the 1992 LA riots. You can feel the exact moment Cho gets too real for the Corden audience, who literally do not seem to know how to react to John Cho talking about anti-Asian racism and how the events of 2020 derailed his original writing plan and led to Troublemaker. I would love to see Cho talk about this with someone better equipped to handle that conversation than James Corden, hopefully we will get to next year when Troublemaker comes out.
In the meantime, we can enjoy the mini-Dunst and Cho renaissances, as Dunst has The Power of the Dog coming in December, and probably also an appearance in Spider-Man: No Way Home. And Cho has Cowboy Bebop and his novel, and at some point, that cursed fourth Star Trek movie that keeps getting pushed back. It would be great if, by the time that movie happens, John Cho is just too busy to play fourth fiddle to Chris Pine.
Live long and gossip,
Sarah
