The Actor Who Is Changing How We See Asian Men On Television

In a leading role as an Asian character who’s not desexualized like most portrayals of Asian men, Christopher Sean — who plays gay baseball player Paul Narita on Days of Our Lives — is breaking new ground.

Macey J. Foronda / BuzzFeed

Asian-American men on television have long been relegated to sidekick status (B.D. Wong's Dr. George Huang on Law & Order: SVU), and on the rare occasion that they do step into the forefront, it's often in the form of desexualized characters (Masi Oka's Hiro Nakamura on Heroes). But when half-Japanese, half-white actor Christopher Sean joined Days of Our Lives in November 2014, he took on a role unlike any other character on television, let alone daytime television: closeted baseball player Paul Narita.

"I had a big poster of Bruce Lee on my wall, and it is quite stereotypical ... I didn't really have someone that was relatable to me in that world for myself," Sean, who grew up in Southern California, told BuzzFeed during a recent visit to the Days of Our Lives set. "Only until recently, now that NBC is really opening the doors of diversity, they're really giving [me] an opportunity to jump into the front light and give others a role model in some way."

Since he first appeared on the series, Paul's had his own arc — one involving the typical twists, turns, and love triangles of a daytime series. When he arrived in Salem for surgery on his arm, he found ex-boyfriend Sonny Kiriakis (Freddie Smith) was living there as well. Sonny once proposed to Paul, but because he was in the closet, Paul turned him down. After admitting his feelings for Sonny again and being rebuffed, Paul had an affair with the man writing a magazine cover story on him. That man ended up being Will Horton (Guy Wilson), Sonny's husband.

NBC / Sony Pictures Entertainment

Yes, these are stories we've seen for years in soaps, but definitely a first for an Asian-American male character, let alone a gay Asian-American male character with a leading role. And Paul didn't have to abandon his Japanese ancestry to have the spotlight. In fact, Days of Our Lives embraced it.

As Paul's storyline played out, Will urged him to come out in the cover story he was writing, but Paul feared coming out to his parents because of his grandfather, who only spoke Japanese. When Paul called to speak to his mother, he came out to her in English and she rebuffed him, also not wanting to upset his grandfather. But when Paul spoke to his grandfather in Japanese, he was stunned by his acceptance.

Sean's own upbringing — his father was a member of the American military and his mother was raised in Japan — helped bring authenticity to Paul's coming-out scene. His father and mother learned each other's languages when his father was stationed on the USS Tripoli, which helped Sean learn the conversational Japanese he put to use when filming the episode.

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