The HBO series “ The Sympathizer ” might be most known as an adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book of the same name by Viet Thanh Nguyen or the one show where Robert Downey Jr. brings a busload of eccentricities while playing multiple characters. But the show, now streaming on Max, also represents a significant moment both professionally and personally for Seattle actor Toan Le.
In his first series regular role, Le strikes a delicate balance between comedy and tragedy from the first moment he appears. In playing The General, a high-ranking South Vietnamese general who flees the country once it’s clear that Saigon is going to fall and settles in the United States, he had the opportunity to reflect on his own life experiences. “I [play] the pain that I had observed my father suffering through the years ever since we’d been to this country as refugees in 1975,” Le said.
“It’s very close to me, this project. It’s a miracle that I got to do it out of all the other people who had wanted the part. But it’s my story as well.
” That story centers on a young Captain (played by Hoa Xuande) who, while working for the South Vietnamese army, is actually a plant for the North. As the war reaches its imminent conclusion, The Captain joins The General as he leaves for America. There, the two grapple with their new lives far from home.
Le himself left Vietnam when he was 15 in much the same way as a scene from the show’s first episode plays out: by taking a bus t.
