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Alison Brie has said she regrets voicing Vietnamese-American character Diane Nguyen on BoJack Horseman.
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Sharing a statement on Instagram, the actress, who has also starred in the shows Community and Glow, said: “In hindsight, I wish that I didn’t voice the character of Diane Nguyen.
“I now understand that people of color, should always voice people of color. We missed a great opportunity to represent the Vietnamese-American community accurately and respectfully, and for that I am truly sorry. I applaud all those who stepped away from their voiceover roles in recent days. I have learned a lot from them.”
BoJack Horseman creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg recently responded to resurfaced concerns of whitewashing on the show.
“This is something I am happy to talk about!” the showrunner said quote-tweeting a user who had asked why Diane Nguyen was voiced by a white woman. “We should have hired a Vietnamese writer, and a Vietnamese actress to play Diane – or if not that, changed the character to match who we did hire.”
Brie’s statement comes after Mike Henry, a white actor who has voiced black character Cleveland Brown on Family Guy for over two decades, announced he was stepping down from the role.
Henry has appeared as Brown since the show’s very first episode broadcast in 1999, and starred in spin-off series The Cleveland Show which ran for four seasons between 2009 and 2013.
On Friday (June 26), producers of The Simpsons announced that they will no longer be using white actors to portray people of colour on the show.
Elsewhere, white actor Jenny Slate announced that she would no longer be playing biracial character Missy in the Netflix series Big Mouth. Shortly afterwards, Kristen Bell left her role as a mixed race character on new Apple TV+ animated show Central Park.
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