In news that’s disappointing yet entirely unsurprising, “The Killing” creator Veena Sud has revealed that when she was first pitching the crime drama, she wanted the homicide cops at the center of the story to be portrayed by people of color. No one wanted to buy it. When she said she’d make the characters white, the show sold. Sud shared this piece of trivia during a recent discussion on the state of Asian-American representation in Hollywood hosted by the Television Academy. Variety reported on the event.
“We want to be the heroes,” Sud said. “We want to be the protagonists. We don’t want to be the quirky best friend … or the person who dies at the end of the thing. That’s old. We’ve done that.” The writer-director also addressed how diversity mandates can lead to less-than-impressive results. “People can feel good that the diverse quirky best friend makes a few jokes and goes home and the love story is with two white straight people,” she observed.
Sud explained, “As a showrunner, I can pitch any story, but if it doesn’t sell it doesn’t get on the air. So I can go ahead and pitch every Filipino [or] Indian story known on the face of the Earth, but if it doesn’t sell, it doesn’t matter. And so there is a radical sea-change necessary, not only in our group represented here but in the entire industry,” she emphasized.
The “Seven Seconds” creator added, “[We can’t lose] sight that this has to be a movement. We can knock on the door until our hands fall off, but if those shows are not being greenlit and those writers are not being hired [nothing will change].”
Head over to Variety to read more about the discussion.
“The Killing” debuted on AMC in 2011.The show ran for three seasons on the cable channel before being cancelled and revived for a fourth and final run on Netflix. Sud’s newest show, “Seven Seconds,” premiered on Netflix this February. The ensemble drama wasn’t renewed for a second season.
Sud is reteaming with “The Killing’s” Mireille Enos for “Between the Earth and the Sky,” a family drama that went into production in January.
