Peter Shinkoda is accusing Jeph Loeb of making anti-Asian comments during production of the Netflix series Daredevil.
While appearing on the virtual Comic-Con @ Home, the 49-year-old actor – who played Nobu Yoshioka – claimed that the former head of Marvel Television purposefully minimized Asian characters on the show.
Peter said that there was a story about Nobu in the works that would dive deeper into his relationship with Madame Gao (played by Wai Ching Ho), but it was scrapped by Jeph.
“Jeph Loeb told the writers room not to write for Nobu and Gao…and this was reiterated many times by many of the writers and showrunners,” Peter recalled via Entertainment Weekly. “He said, ‘Nobody cares about Chinese people and Asian people. There were three previous Marvel movies, a trilogy called Blade that was made where Wesley Snipes killed 200 Asians each movie. Nobody gives a s–t so don’t write about Nobu and Gao.’ So they were forced to put their storyline down and drop it.”
Peter went on to say that writers also dropped plans to explore Nobu’s journey to America under the guise of a medical procedure so he could help Gao and the Hand carry out their Black Sky plans.
“All that backstory was dropped,” Peter continued. “The writers told me they regret it and they were reluctant to do it because they were stoked about including that in the storyline but they were prevented so I had to concoct this other storyline and rock that material I was given.”
Jeph was let go last fall when Marvel TV was officially absorbed into Marvel Studios, and after Kevin Feige‘s promotion to Chief Creative Officer for Marvel.
Peter appeared on the first two seasons of Daredevil. Netflix canceled the series after three seasons in 2018.
Actor Peter Shinkoda, who played Nobu in Netflix’s Daredevil talks about how Jeph Loeb, the head of Marvel Television (at the time) forcibly cut his character’s original story arc because ‘nobody cares about Chinese people and Asian people’.
Absolutely appalling. pic.twitter.com/bGbIycbc7R— Will (@WilliamD1123) July 26, 2020
