The best way most individuals in all probability remembered Galen Yuen — in the event that they knew or knew of him in any respect — was as a working actor with just a few dozen minor film and TV roles, enjoying characters like “Yakuza Member,” “Smuggler” or “Low Life #1.” He additionally had a sprinkle of screenwriting credit, together with an episode of the short-lived TV collection Vanishing Son, and a direct-to-video film known as Loopy Six. Yuen died in 2015 at 63.
Quick ahead just a few years later, when journalist Maya Lin Sugarman finds a field of forgotten screenplays — written by her late uncle, Galen — that units her on a journey to uncover the reality about his tumultuous life. She discovers, amongst different surprising issues which will or is probably not true, that Galen was a frontrunner of a Chinese language gang, that he went to jail, and, in a remaining twist, that he poured his life story right into a screenplay that was changed into a Nineties Hollywood motion film… starring Rob Lowe, Burt Reynolds, and Ice-T.
Maya shares her journey to find the reality about Galen within the new podcast Magnificent Jerk, “the true story — of a faux story — about an actual life.” Hearken to the trailer:
I’ve had the prospect to listen to all seven episodes of Magnificent Jerk, and the podcast is simply straight down the center of my strike zone — untold tales about not-so-model minorities; Asian American actors toiling away in roles like “Labour Camp Guard,” circa Nineties; Hollywood whitewashing by the use of Rob Lowe; and naturally, Albert Frickin’ Pyun. For anybody who’s ever puzzled “how the hell did this film get made?”
Magnificent Jerk is an Apple Unique podcast produced by Audacy’s Pineapple Avenue Studios. The primary two episodes are out now, and new episodes drop weekly on Mondays. Hear on Apple Podcasts.
