Actor Peter Shinkoda details his experiences spending thousands to keep Marvel from recasting his character of Nobu Yoshioka on Daredevil. The show premiered on Netflix in 2015 and follows the adventures of Matt Murdock, aka Daredevil. Despite garnering positive reviews and becoming a fan favorite, Daredevil was cancelled in 2018.
Shinkoda is one particular actor who shone in his role as Nobu, the leader of the Hand. However, Shinkoda has spoken out about Marvel Television's predilection towards cutting the storylines of Asian characters in the past. More specifically, Shinkoda stated at SaveDaredevilCon that Marvel Television head Jeph Loeb continuously vetoed stories focusing on Asian characters and sidelined Nobu whenever possible, despite Nobu's sustained popularity among fans.
Now, Shinkoda has further detailed his experience working with Daredevil, stating on Twitter that Marvel TV forced him to pay significant out-of-pocket expenses in order to make shoots. In a scathing Twitter thread, Shinkoda writes that Marvel TV threatened to replace his character with "another Asian" and gave him an ultimatum of "5 pm or we cast someone else." As a result, Shinkoda was forced to pay thousands of dollars - including $5,000 for a US permit and continuous travel costs for each episode - in order to keep his place as Nobu. You can see Shinkoda's tell-all tweets below:
Although Shinkoda highlights that he asked for cost reimbursements, his requests were constantly denied. He also details his experience with last-minute reschedules, stating that he would arrive at New York just to have his shoot "cancelled and rescheduled for 10 days later," forcing him to buy a return flight to LA. Shinkoda emphasizes that all costs were out-of-pocket, in spite of Daredevil's massive success. As such, Shinkoda's experience only further highlights the discriminatory nature of Marvel TV that he had previously called out.
According to Shinkoda, this is only the beginning of discriminatory practice at Marvel Television; the actor has also publicly stated that he and fellow Asian actress Wai Ching Ho weren't invited to Daredevil's season 2 premiere. Instead, the two only heard about the event as it was being live-streamed. Shinkoda's stories show the disturbing underbelly of Marvel Television; despite the company's supposed push towards more diverse stories, it seems that this is nothing more than a facade, whereas minority actors continue to experience racism on set. It's clear that Marvel - regardless of the diversity-friendly narrative it's sold - has quite the ways to go. That being said, it truly goes without saying that both Peter Shinkoda and his character of Nobu Yoshioka deserved far better.
Source: Peter Shinkoda/Twitter