Daredevil actor Peter Shinkoda has claimed a Marvel executive cut the backstory for his character Nobu because "nobody cares about Chinese or Asian people".
The Canadian actor, who is of Japanese descent, made the allegations during a roundtable event on Sunday, July 26, at the virtual #SaveDaredevilCon.
Shinkoda said he had a storyline with Madame Gao (Wai Ching Ho) cut because Jeph Loeb, an executive producer on the now-cancelled Netflix series, stopped the team from writing it.
Daredevil actor Peter Shinkoda says Jeph Loeb told writers not to develop Asian characters https://t.co/cwNNwBL7nz pic.twitter.com/rKRE02tWuX
— io9 (@io9) July 26, 2020
"I'm kind of reluctant to say this but ... I'm going to take this moment, I have to because ... because I just have to. I'm not into really protecting certain things any more," Shinkoda said during the Zoom event.
"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 – [because] nobody cares about Chinese people and Asian people.
"There were three previous Marvel movies, a trilogy called Blade that was made where Wesley Snipes kills 200 Asians each movie. Nobody [cares], so don't write about Nobu and Gao, so they were forced to put their storyline down and drop it."
Shinkoda said the writers had wanted to explore Nobu’s journey to America.
"It was very interesting, the storyline about having to go there under the guise of getting some kind of a transplant and medical reasons," he said. "A lot of paperwork and bureaucracy was fudged so that Nobu can get into the country.
"But then the backstory was dropped. The writers told me they regret it and they were reluctant to [drop] it because they were stoked about including that in the storyline but they were prevented.”
Shinkoda added that he felt the industry had "developed" since the incident, which occurred between 2014 and 2015, and that people were more aware of the issue now.
Despite being a fan favourite on Netflix, Marvel chose to cancel Daredevil in November 2018, bringing it to a close along with the extended TV universe it had built with Luke Cage, Iron Fist and Jessica Jones. Since then, fans have rallied to bring the show back.
