2019-09-01 Emmy Magazine

48 EMMY

mix

in the

A writer-producer recreates a dark time

in modern American history.

POETIC

INJUSTICE

“It is a piece of our history that is criminally underserved,” he says. “There is

still a great deal of misconception of what the camps were. Just because peo-

ple were not being exterminated does not mean their rights were not taken.”

Woo’s take on this dark period in U.S. history is reflected in The Terror:

Infamy, the second installment of the AMC anthology series (season one

focused on a nineteenth-century Royal Navy expedition that met a bad end

in Arctic seas).

Theseries’showrunnerandcocreator,Woorelatestotheimmigrants’

plight.Asa first-generationChinese-American,hespokeCantoneseathome.

AfterstudyingatPrincetonandYale,heexaminedtheintricaciesofbeingan

Americaninhisplays.Later,heexploredthenatureoffearasanexecutive

producer on True Blood. These experiences made

him uniquely suited for The Terror.

“If this were only a ghost story or supernatural

thriller, he would have been a great writer,” says David Madden, AMC’s

president of programming. “But this had a larger narrative. As somebody

who has felt disenfranchised and disrespected, he had a strong desire to

respect those people and tell it as honestly and in as nuanced a way as he

could.”

“In television, you are not given that many chances for a bit of poetry,”

Woo says, “which occasionally I strive for.”

Asheembarkedontheproject,Wooconsulteda neighbor,GeorgeTakei.

MostfamousforhavingplayedSuluonStarTrek, Takeiwasinternedwhen

hewasfive.Noweighty-two,he’skeenlyawarehe’samongthelasttobear

witnesstothishorror.

Lostonnoonearetheparallelstotoday.

“WhenTrumpgotintooffice,hisfirstactwastosignanexecutiveorder

characterizingallMuslimsaspotentialterrorists,”saysTakei,whocostars

intheten-hourseries.“ThatisthesamethingthathappenedtoAmerican

citizensofJapaneseancestry.Wewerecharacterizedaspotentialspiesand

traitors.”

Takei’s family was detained first in a converted stable at Santa Anita

Park, just outside Los Angeles, and then in an Arkansas detention camp.

Woo’s dedication to authenticity led him to shoot at former camps and cast

only actors of Japanese descent.

Despite the gravitas of the topic, Woo wove in an Easter egg. “He

organically worked in a scene where I said, ‘Oh, my!’” Takei says of his

catchphrase. “Some scenes need a little levity.”

With the intense four-month shoot behind him, Woo says he hopes to

attract “a few million viewers, and if some portion did not know about this

and now care, that is a really important accomplishment.” —Jacqueline Cutler

Growing up in New Jersey, Alexander Woo knew much about the Holocaust,

but little about Japanese-Americans interned after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

MATT SAYLES; ED ARAQUEL/AMC

The Terror: Infamy