Troy Iwata: A Taste of Both During the Holidays

Hapa Mag - DECEMBER 9, 2020

By Melissa Slaughter

Photos by Lauren Nakao Winn

It can go without saying that this holiday season feels less festive than previous years, but I was determined this year to keep the holiday spirit. My personal theme for this season is “Force a Vibe.” I bought a tree, hung up my ornaments, and filled my Netflix queue with holiday cheer. That included Dash and Lily, the YA novels-turned-television romcom. The series stars two Hapas — Midori Francis and Troy Iwata — and this bubbly, effervescent, frothy show cheered my cold, shriveled, elder millennial heart. 

The story follows Lily, a half-Japanese native New Yorker who loves Christmas. Except she’s having the worst Christmas when her family decides to spend it far from home. She leaves a book of dares at the iconic Strand Bookstore, where Dash, a moody teen fresh off a breakup, finds it. Their dares push each other’s boundaries, and push the holiday spirit into the viewers’ psyche.

I got the chance to speak with Troy Iwata who plays Langston, Lily’s older brother going through his own romantic foibles. You might know Troy from the original cast of the Broadway show Be More Chill. We talk about what it was like to film Dash and Lily, what input he had on his character, and how Troy spent his holidays growing up.  

So in this show, your character is a gay, mixed, Japanese man. How often do you get to play something that closely mirrors your own identity?

I think that, honestly, this was a personal exception because I had worked with the creator, Joe Tracz, previously. He wrote Be More Chill, the Broadway show. In the midst of that rehearsal, he came up to me and said he was working on a new Netflix show. I don't think that they were specifically half-Japanese, but I knew that they were mixed-Asian, and I think, based on the casting, they decided to make them half-Japanese because most (I think all?) of us are Japanese.

I think so!

Yeah, with the exception of maybe some of the people who played our extended family. It’s extremely rare. I think this is the first time that I've actually played something that was so close to myself. I've rarely gotten to play a mixed-Asian person, I usually go out for full Asian or a part where the ethnicity doesn't matter, and those roles are great, but to be able to play something that feels specifically catered toward you, it makes the experience a lot more special. I'm really thankful that they wanted to do that and wanted to celebrate our mixed background.

Yeah, it's nice that you can have that spectrum of playing something close to you and then playing something opposite.

Yeah. And I also love the way our show handled it. They were like, we're going to make this a half-Japanese, half-white family, but we're not going to talk about what it's like. I think that there's a time and a place to talk about the struggles of being mixed, and I think we do hit on it at a few points, but that's not what the show is about. Instead it says, “No, here's this beautiful family during the holidays.”

I agree. One of my favorite scenes was the New Year's scene in the final episode, because New Year's is my personal favorite holiday, specifically Japanese New Year’s. So I was just curious, what kind of personal traditions were you able to bring into the show, or are there any traditions that you celebrate that weren't in the show that you wanted to explore? 

You know, it's interesting being mixed, or being anything people think, “What's it like to be this?” They like to put that experience on the entire community. Personally, my parents split when I was 3, and I was mostly raised by my mom, who's white. So, filming this was a real joy because I got to learn a little bit more about my Japanese culture, which I haven't really been that attached to my entire life. Learning about all of these wonderful Japanese New Year's traditions, that was really fun. As far as input, literally the only input that I had was like, I wouldn't have my shoes on.

Yes, yes, yes! That's a big thing.

It is a big thing! There's one scene where Midori goes out and gets a Christmas tree by herself. She bursts into the door holding this giant Christmas tree that she can barely hold, but she still tries to take her shoes off. I watched her film that scene, and I thought, “This is such a relatable, lovely moment.” They were like, “Let's get a far shot so we can see her like, ‘I'm holding this heavy thing, but I still have to take my shoes off.’”

What is your relationship like with your TV sister, Midori? 

She's wonderful. She's one of the only cast members that I actually got to film with because Langston didn't really leave his room. I mainly just shot with Diego [Guevara, who plays Benny, Langston’s boyfriend] and Midori. This was my first time working with her. She's very meticulous and thorough in her character work, yet so much fun. And she has a very infectious laugh. I think that she took the role very seriously, but not in an unprofessional way. You can see the detail in the work and character, because she is both a lot like Lily, and also not. 

But you have that big scene at the end where the whole family is together, and you're working with James Saito, who’s like everybody's Asian grandfather [and plays Lily and Langston’s grandfather, Arthur].

Exactly. I was so excited. I was so excited to be with him. I actually did a reading with him years ago, and he remembered! It was such a joy to work with him. My mom loves him, and I called her (she doesn't know his name), but I was like, “Randall Park's dad from Always Be My Maybe,” and she was like, “Oh!!!”

So we've talked a little bit about your TV family. I want to go back to hearing about your family and what your holidays were like.

I am a holiday person. Holidays to me, when I think back on them, are a lot of traveling. Again, I would have my mom's side of the family and my dad's side of the family. So each holiday was double. My mom's side is a lot smaller, so for Thanksgiving and Christmas, it was literally just like the four of us: me, my brother, my sister, and my mom. We would do stockings. We would open one gift on Christmas Eve. It was always very quiet, but very charming and lovely. And then we would go to my Japanese side. They have a big Iwata Christmas family where everyone's there. I remember my dad being like, go say hi to your uncle, and I'd be like, who is this man? Like, I don't know who this is.

And that was always interesting because being mixed, it was like my brother and I never really fully felt like a part of that family, until later when we actually got to spend more time with that family. So it was kind of my brother and me coming in every Christmas being like, “Hello, we are also part of this family. Where would you like us to sit?”

Yeah, yeah. It's like we are, but we're a little bit outside.

Yeah. And it's definitely gotten more comfortable. But even so, we are Japanese American, and capitalize every letter of American. We would have like, spam sushi. That would always be on the buffet, but that's kind of as far as it goes. I mean, to me, (this is just a personal thing) my biggest thing I associate with my Japanese family during the Christmas time is anytime anyone opens a gift, literally everyone in the room unanimously goes, “Ooooooh!”

I love that! In print, I think even people are going to hear exactly what that sounds like.

Because it's the sound of, “Let’s all be polite and make sure everyone knows that this is a good gift.”

Yeah, and Japanese people love to give and receive gifts. 

We give gifts at weddings. We give gifts when people are born. We give gifts when people die.

We give gifts when it's family members we haven't seen in years. “I haven't seen you in five years. Here's one hundred dollars.”

And it's always like, here's a Three Musketeers bar, but there's a $20 bill wrapped around it.

Yes. Yes. “And you don't tell your grandma that I gave you this!” But I like that you can have both experiences. You can have both Christmases and have them all tied up in you.

Yeah. They were so different. My mom's side is so quiet and small. My dad’s side, kind of bigger and more crazy. So I got a taste of both.

You said before that Midori is both kind of like Lily, but not like Lily at all. Do you feel the same way about Langston?

I mean, I think I was really lucky that they were open to me bringing a lot of myself into Langston. I remember at the reading, Joe Tracz, the creator, came up to me and was like, “So Langston spends most of his time in his room. If you have any ideas for what his room wants to look like, let me know.” So, I would just text him every once in a while and I'd be like, “I feel like he would have cross country trophies in his room. I feel like he was on track. And like he'd have a lot of like Polaroid photography and like poems that he doesn't really know. But it's poetry and he wants to feel like he's artistic, so he just puts it up.” On the first day of filming, I walked in, and there was this beautiful room with all the little details that I brought in. When I wasn't filming, I would hang out in there also because the bed was real. I think the only way in which I am the polar opposite of Langston is being hopeless romantic. I am not in any way. 

So Dash and Lily is a show that's founded upon a series of dares. What is the craziest dare that you've ever accepted or done? 

In my life? I don't know. Because when I think of truth or dare, that brings me back to elementary school, and they'd be like, “I'm going to put all the condiments in a cup and you have to drink it.”

Definitely have done that dare.

I can't think of anything else that's not, like, inappropriate. Let's leave it up to everyone's imagination!