He answered through a series of tweets, “This is something I am happy to talk about! I can tense up when asked about my mistakes (because I’m worried I’ll say the wrong thing) but it’s good for me to reflect on them and I hope others seeing me do so will help them not make the same mistakes!”
“In the first few seasons of BoJack, I was asked about the casting of Diane a few times on twitter and reddit but I evaded the question, mostly because my own understanding of the issue was evolving (it still is!) and I didn’t want to give a defensive or half-thought-out answer,” he added. “I thought when I was ready I’d write something – like a blog post or twitter thread – explaining why I had cast a white actress to voice an Asian character and why it was okay, but the more I thought about it (and listened to other people) the more I felt like it WASN’T okay.”
He explained that after season 4, he was “never going to feel ‘ready’ to talk about it, and I just had to do it, ready or not.”
Further, this isn’t the first time a fan has brought up these concerns. In January 2018, he addressed the issue after a fan asked why it was Brie, a white woman, voicing the Vietnamese-American character. “Short answer: I love my entire cast, but if I were doing it today, I would not cast the show (or any show) with all white people. I’ve really soured on the idea of “color-blind” casting as an excuse to not pay attention,” he said at the time.
