Élodie Yung Breaks New Ground With The Cleaning Lady

MIXED ASIAN MEDIA - JANUARY 7, 2022

By Olivia Truffaut-Wong

Fox’s new drama, The Cleaning Lady, is unlike anything else I have ever seen on network television. The show follows Thony, played by Élodie Yung, an undocumented immigrant from Cambodia by way of the Phillipines who overstayed her visa after a bone marrow donor for her son, Luca, backed out of the procedure. Living in Las Vegas with her sister-in-law, also undocumented, and her niece and nephew, Thony works as a cleaning lady, getting paid under the table. It’s at one of her less-than-legal gigs that she finds herself forced to work for the mob, and things only get more complicated from there. On the surface, The Cleaning Lady has everything you expect from a network thriller: good guys, bad guys, murder, intrigue. But, what makes the show so unique is that it turns what would typically be a side character — a specifically Cambodian character — into the lead.

“When I landed the part, I had this conversation with my friend, and he was like, ‘Élodie, you don’t realize, I think this is a historical moment because we’ve never seen this on broadcast TV.’ I’m like, ‘Are you sure? No, that can’t be,’” Yung tells Mixed Asian Media during a short zoom call. Yung, best known for playing Electra on Daredevil, is a French Cambodian actor who has only been working in the U.S. for the past 10 years, so you’ll have to forgive her for not realizing right away how groundbreaking The Cleaning Lady is for American television. But now that she does, she’s already looking ahead to what The Cleaning Lady might mean for the next generation of shows about Asian women.

“That’s our little contribution, but I’m sure it’s just us starting to pave the way for other shows like this one,” she says of the show, noting that she hopes the on screen representation of Asian women continues to grow. “This time, it’s a Southeast Asian woman, but it could be somebody else next time. And then another minority that we’re not used to seeing often.”

The fact that Thony is specifically Cambodian, reflecting Yung’s own heritage, is no small thing. As Electra in Daredevil, Yung’s character didn’t really have an ethnicity other than vaguely East Asian. It’s rare for Asians in Hollywood to actually play their authentic ethnicity. (For example, Daniel Dae Kim famously said he’d never played a Korean man until Lost.) And it’s not something Yung takes for granted. In fact, nailing down Thony’s backstory was her first priority after booking the role.

“That was my first conversation with [showrunner] Melissa [Carter] and [creator] Miranda [Kwok] right after I booked the part. And they said they wanted to turn it into a Cambodian woman. I was like, ‘OK, great, wonderful. Now let’s make it as authentic as we can.’” Everything from little terms of endearment to her character’s own name came from Yung. “For me, details are so important, and they’ve been very open to all of that. They never pretended to know better.” 

Thony’s story is far from Yung’s, but the character is definitely someone the actor can relate to, specifically as it connects to her father’s experience. A political refugee from Cambodia, her father moved to France, where Yung was eventually born and raised, and she feels a great connection to the immigrant experience. “You’re an immigrant, you are catapulted in a new environment, new country, new language. You don’t recognize anything, and yet, you have to carry on and you have to thrive in this new environment.” It’s with this perspective that she approaches Thony’s story.

Yung herself is also an immigrant. Though she doesn’t speak with Thony’s Cambodian accent, she does have a slight French accent. In fact, she started her on-screen career in France, appearing in a handful of films and television shows. “I’m not working in my own language,” she admits, but it’s not a challenge that she sees as a disadvantage in her work. In fact, it’s the opposite. “In a weird way, I think it also helps me not be so self-conscious in my work. It adds a little distance, so I can dig in deeper actually,” she says.

As for what it’s been like adapting to working in Hollywood as both an immigrant and as an Asian actor, Yung sees her career as “my own little American dream.” Though she’s not “booking jobs every day,” Yung says that Hollywood has something other film industries around the world might not: talent FOMO. “No one wants to miss a chance in America, so they give you the chance.”

Olivia Truffaut-Wong is a movie and TV obsessed writer and editor who loves to spotlight Asian voices in Hollywood. She can be found in many corners of the internet, and is most likely currently marathoning a Netflix show with her cat, Minou, by her side. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram @iwatchiam.