In our interview with Michael Tow, we discussed his guest-starring role on Law & Order: Organized Crime 3×17 “Blood Ties.” There are a lot of aspects that make this role, as Tow called it, “a pretty rare one.” While some of that comes down to the series’ particular method of storytelling, which generally tends to take a deeper look at its characters — even those not on our task force — that’s not all that made this experience memorable. There’s another vital piece of the puzzle here — onscreen representation for the Asian American, specifically Chinese American, community. In short, this isn’t just another procedural dabbling in stereotypes.
Playing the hero
We’re all used to the standard narrative for guest characters on procedurals. As Tow put it, “there’s the issue — and then someone else solves it.” Usually, he told us, it’s “like that same character is kind of stuck in the beginning. And then…the team solves it. And from the Asian American side,” as we’ll get into more below, it’s even less common to have “the follow-through of being [on] the hero side, the protagonist side.” That is, of course, not the case in “Blood Ties.” Wen Shao, Michael Tow’s character, is the hero. And he does work with the established team, rather than being left on the sidelines.
“That’s why it’s pretty amazing,” according to Tow. Because it’s an opportunity for the writers to “give a full story arc to this character, this father.” So, as a guest actor, “to get that chance for a character to have those different layers, and the different storylines,” was a truly welcome departure. “I’m so grateful for that storyline. I’ve never had a story like that.”
On creating Wen’s depth of emotion
As viewers, we felt Wen’s desperation — right from his first moments on screen. But it had to also be at least somewhat believable, even with all of Bell and (to a much lesser extent) Stabler’s concerns, that he could put those emotions aside enough to pull off his part of the plan to take down the traffickers. We asked Tow how he worked out the very tricky balancing act involved in that kind of performance. And, well. Even if it looks effortless on screen, it’s certainly not.
Regarding “the desperation of needing the son,” he said, “I had to go there. I couldn’t phone that part in.” Since the first scene he filmed was “the reunion scene where everyone was kind of getting to know each other, meeting each other and hanging out,” Tow had to go “into a corner, and just separate room. Because I really wanted to portray this need for this son. The son is just everything. It’s his life,” and Wen “would not be able to survive without his son. This is his only family as a single father.”
While creating that distance was necessary to keep the emotions from coming across as “potentially put on,” it wasn’t easy. Instead, Tow described it as “tough. Because here you’re on a set with this great cast. And there are times where there’s a lot of guest cast, too.” So, “as a very social kind of person,” the actor “wanted to be in there and talking to Chris Meloni and Danielle [Moné Truitt].” But the sacrifice had to be made. Because he “wanted to make sure that it was as authentic and desperate as authentically possible.”
Two fathers, two sons, one common bond
That’s not to say, though, that his time at Organized Crime was all about difficult isolation. Quite to the contrary. In the first place, Tow described working with Meloni as “pretty amazing,” noting that the series’ star is on “just another level. And I’ve worked with some very good actors—he’s just at another level.” So, “when he brings it…I’ve got to do whatever I can to try to match his presence as in the scene.”
The key to building those more impactful moments, like when Wen and Elliot are sharing pictures of their kids in the car, or the restaurant scene when Stabler has to help Wen get his focus back after the buy goes wrong, is “just being present and falling off each other. [Meloni’s] going one way; I have to do what I can to kind of stay there — just stay with him. And if he gives me something different, I need to react to that.”
Tow also noted that he and Meloni “had great guidance from Jonathan, the director. Then, Chris and I talked a lot about where this father was coming from.” And that place is one Meloni’s character could easily relate to. Because, “at the end of the day, it’s two fathers. Two fathers who understand the bond between fathers and their children.” So, the actors had discussions about “understanding that connection there, and the love, and how you’d give anything for your children.” Because that’s why Stabler “takes that step to help this father,” even though “he didn’t have to.” It’s all down to “the connection between the two fathers and understanding, even though they’re halfway around the world, normally where they’re from, they can connect to this fatherhood.”
So, as viewers, what should we take from this? “When you kind of break all that surface stuff down, we are very similar — and the same — in many ways.” So, it doesn’t matter that Stabler’s a detective in a busy city like New York, while Wen is a teacher in China. And it doesn’t matter if one man is “very take charge,” while the other probably doesn’t have “a very exciting kind of life.” Despite having “different foods, different language, and then to have that same bond, to see that how similar we are…Whether it’s aside from clothes, aside from the way we look, aside from language, at the end of the day, there is this commonality.”
Representation isn’t about a “broad sweep”
Even if there are many things that tie all of us together, each community does still have its own heart and soul. And making sure communities like the Chinese American one depicted in Organized Crime‘s latest two-parter are well represented is vitally important. So, what’s Michael Tow’s take on how “Blood Ties” did on that? The way the community appears on camera is actually part of what he “loved about this episode, and actually this two part series.”
Basically, it’s all about showing many different types and layers of characters. “If you think of this episode,” Tow said, “there is this character — my character, Wen Shao — who has an accent, who is not familiar with this country, who is a foreigner. But, at the same time, he’s in the same office with Captain Lin, who is this guy from the fourth precinct, [who has] a New York type of accent. Then, you have the new detective, Detective Chang, that’s in there. Along with the politician.” And they’re all their own people.
“It’s so many different representations of Asians to me that I loved it. Because a lot of times, it’s just that one. It’s this one line of type of character, like maybe the one line of bad guy — the gangster kind.” But this two-parter is “not like that at all,” Tow pointed out. Instead, “this is different levels of accent, even the level of…being assimilated. Or being different levels of immigrants, different generations here.” So, “to see that many different types of characters in an episode, playing all these different types of characters, I love that. And that to me, was really special.” Yes, there’s still a villain — Michael Quan and his organized crime operation. But there’s a stark contrast with someone like Wen, or Detective Chang, or even just other characters going about their usual business.
Not only is there a great value in seeing this level of representation now, but “to see an episode like this, where an Asian is the protagonist and the hero to some degree,” can also provide hope for the future. And Tow’s certainly not taking it for granted. “To have this scenario where you can be the hero of an episode, what an opportunity,” he said. Adding, “I really am so grateful for Dick Wolf and the team to give me that.”
He also mentioned looking forward to a watch party during the episode’s broadcast premiere. “My friends have not seen me in this kind of role,” he told us. “They’ve seen me as the bad guy. They’ve seen me as…I don’t know…the stereotypical kind of restaurant owner. But this is different. My daughters get to see me as a hero for once. And other than stuff that I produce, I’ve never been that.”
So, it’s not that Asian characters can’t be the villains; it’s that they shouldn’t always be the bad guys. There needs to be this type of mix because that’s how the real world looks. “You can’t just do a broad sweep of a race being as, ‘all right, these are the bad guys.’ You know what I mean? Or ‘these are the good guys.'” Instead, “within the community, there’s the good guys, [and] there’s the bad guys.” That’s true of any group, really, and good and evil are “much more about the individual.”
And the individual, in the case of Wen Shao, is one that, it bears repeating, Michael Tow truly appreciated getting to play. “I just love the fact that there’s a, maybe middle-aged, Asian — Chinese — dad that’s the hero.” Wen may even be “one of the biggest Asian roles in the Law & Order franchise” in terms of depth of character. “I’m proud to be able to portray that kind of character and for the people to watch it. And that the Asians were able to see that represented on screen.”
Up next for Michael Tow
Tow is “a series regular in a new series called City on Fire on Apple TV that comes out May 12,” and he’s “excited for that,” too.
