Fresh Off the Boat—ABC's sitcom inspired by a memoir of the same name by chef Eddie Huang—returns for a second season on September 22. Earlier this summer, we had a chance to catch up with the breakout star of the show, Constance Wu, who plays Eddie’s strict and often very hilarious mom Jessica Huang on the show. She told GQ about the upcoming season of Fresh Off the Boat, why she's still warming up to the idea of being a TV star, and why she won't let anyone laugh on set while she films her funniest scenes.

In your interview with the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment (“CAPE”), you talked about how Asian American roles shouldn’t be neutral, and they should show who these people really are in terms of their race and the backstory related to that. Why is that important to you?

It’s something I’ve started to think about in the past year. I came to the realization that too many Asian actors would say, “I just want to have a role that has nothing to do with me being Asian, and that’s when we’ll be successful, when I can be like Tom Hanks or Jennifer Lawrence.” I understand that, because we’ve always been peripheral characters who have supported other characters with actual, real stories. But the thing that’s alluring about those other characters isn’t their whiteness, it’s that they’re given rich stories that have a complete emotional arc, and those stories often times have to do with their background.

I think wanting a role that has nothing to do with your racial identity can actually be indicative of an element of shame and embarrassment, and I don’t think that’s healthy for us. Now, I definitely don’t think every Asian actor’s story should revolve around their race. After all, we have problems—like heartbreak, financial difficulty, or dealing with death—that everyone deals with.

But the lens with which we go through those experiences is special, and it’s unique to us. If there’s a reason Asian Americans haven’t broken through in entertainment, it’s probably because we haven’t taken advantage of how special our viewpoint is. It’s not something to be ashamed of. If some motherfucker made you feel ashamed for it and teased you about it on the playground, then they’re the asshole. Don’t let that be the thing that dictates how you’re perceived.

So, have a bit of pride about your Asian background.

Right. I don’t know, it’s a difficult question to look at from a big perspective. For example, I was talking to a friend the other day about HBO’s Togetherness. I was like, “It’s a show about white people.”

And he said “Oh, come on, they’re just people.” But if somebody says my show is about Asian American people, nobody bats an eye. If you think about what that says about the normative context of TV, white people are allowed to exist as just people.

And everyone else is defined separately.

I don’t think it’s bad to say our show is about Asian people, but if you’re going to do that, then qualify other shows too. It gives creators an awareness of what they’re creating. Right now, shows that are accused of being too whitewashed have this defensive tactic in which they respond with, “I didn’t even think about that; it didn’t even occur to me.” So, instead of using your intelligence to escape culpability, use it to consider the framework from which you speak.

I could talk about this all day; it really pisses me off. It’s not an easy topic to talk about. You have to take ego out of it to talk about it in an intelligent way, and that’s hard to do about anything.

"There was a line that she had that said, 'I’m sorry, I have to go. A wasp just flew into my mouth.' I remember reading it like, That’s weird, but I completely got it."

So, I want to go back a little, because I know you’ve been doing this acting thing for awhile. At what age did you know you wanted to pursue this career?

I was a theater actress when I was 10. I always did it because I enjoyed it, because it felt more like family. The theater community felt like such a wonderful place where you could be creative and there was almost zero judgment. I’m learning how to make television people my tribe and seeing if that works. I’m actually not sure if it does, to be honest.