TAKAYA LLOYD

The creator of the mini series Hapa explores the intersections of his multiracial identity.

Photo by Karen Anne Patti

Takaya Lloyd is ready to break boundaries in Hollywood. Rather than waiting around for the right role to come along, the LA-based actor, director, and writer is creating his own mini series Hapa, portraying the titular character Graham Yamamoto.

Born of Okinawan, Italian, and Egyptian descent, Lloyd often feels a certain divide in his life due to being mixed race. “It's not something I had to spend a lot of time thinking about growing up because, for me, it's just what I am,” he says. “So it was really interesting; I felt forced to put a stamp on it or really carve out a clear definition for my background once I came to LA."

Originally a ballroom dancer, Lloyd has always been fond of and immersed in the arts. He decided to pursue a career in acting when he was 16 years old, appearing in several films and TV shows over the years including On the Verge and Marvel’s Legion.

Hollywood has made some breakthroughs in terms of minority representation, but Lloyd believes there’s still room for improvement. “You step in the room and they’re like, ‘Hey, where are you from? What are you? What's going on here?’ And sometimes it's just genuine curiosity, which I totally understand. But other times, I feel like they work really hard to put you in a box and that's challenging,” he continues.

Thus, Hapa was born.

Could you tell us what Hapa is about?

​Hapa is basically a satire, so it touches on a lot of timely things that are happening in the world right now regarding Asian Americans, but also looks at a lot of other things that aren't really spoken about and are really a more personal experience for me. I'm mixed, right? My grandmother's from Okinawa and that's always been a big part of my life. But finding your place in the community as a mixed race person, that's its own experience, and the show touches on a lot of those aspects.

The story is about this mixed race guy who is a gangster. He joins this Yakuza gang in LA that operates out of a mattress store. It's this heightened vehicle for all the tropes that bring the story back around and look at everything in terms of satire. It’s poking fun rather than being heavy handed with it. I definitely want the show to be something that people of all backgrounds can appreciate and enjoy. But it's also speaking a lot to the Asian American experience.

The characters are very rich and full and unique, and they all have their own problems and stories that we can all relate to.

Still from Hapa

You touched upon wanting to build a sense of community with this project. Were there any other intentions you had for Hapa?

It was really born out of wanting to control my own narrative. I was really feeling, and still sometimes feel now, a lot of frustration with acting and auditioning and some of my experience over the years — what I would hear when I would go up for a project. I would hear a lot of things like, “Oh, we were looking for somebody more Asian or authentic.”

That has and always will rub me the wrong way. Who is anybody else to say what you are or are not, or whether or not you're authentic? Especially coming from people who are not a part of that community. It's kind of a slap in the face, to be honest, and I was just really tired of it. So I wanted to make something that would be the complete opposite.

I like to think of Hapa as made by and for Asians. We get to control the narrative. We get to have a lot of unique characters that fight against a lot of stereotypes and tropes, and our entire cast is AAPI [Asian American and Pacific Islander]. And pretty much everybody — even the crew behind the camera — are people of color.

Was this your first time directing, writing, and starring on a project? Was it very challenging to do all those roles?

Not my first time. Over the years, I've had to make many of my own things because I wanted to act more, or whatever the case. There are a lot of stories I care about that I haven’t seen represented on screen. That's another reason I've taken to writing and directing so much. I have learned that it's such a big task to do all of those things together, which is why I made a very conscious effort for this show to bring some other people on and really try and build our team. It's really nice to get, first of all, other people's perspectives. I like to be very collaborative with the team.

How does it feel to work with an all-Asian cast?

When we did the proof for the short film in 2019, it was initially written as very Japanese-centric because that's my background. But then, it was really nice and refreshing to get, again, those other perspectives — even from the actors. We had one of our actors, K. Kevin Choi, he is actually Korean and he was initially playing a Japanese character. But when I rewrote the series, I wrote it for him and I changed the character to be Zainichi, which is ethnically Korean, but culturally Japanese. Usually they're Korean immigrants or have Korean parents, but were born in Japan, and they actually have a name for that. So I changed his character to be Zainichi.

The show has turned into more of the Asian American experience in general and not just Japanese because there are so many unique things within that. We all have our different core experience or things we're used to, but it's really nice to have more of a melting pot where you get to see them all together.

What do you hope viewers will take away from their experience watching Hapa?

For people in the Asian American community, I hope they feel very seen and at home and relate to the broader experiences of mixed race people, not mixed race people, etc.

And for people outside the community, I really hope that it brings empathy and understanding and turns the focus back on themselves, through satire. I hope they’ll say things like, “It didn't occur to me that I had a stereotype or prejudice towards that group of people. But I see it, and it doesn't need to be that way anymore.”

The audience gets to see a lot of really strong Asian characters, which is cool. Not in a martial arts way; that's its own thing as well where sometimes people think Asians are only strong if they do martial arts.

No, that's not the case. You have a really badass, cool group of people. You've got very strong female characters who are unique, with their own perspectives and their experience. I just feel like I really want people outside the community to gain some understanding after they watch the show.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. All images courtesy of Takaya Lloyd.