For these of us who grew up watching Dustin Nguyen on “21 Leap Road,” seeing him again on our TV screens lately — most lately on Apple TV+’s “Dope Thief” — has been akin to reconnecting with an previous buddy. So the place has Nguyen been, and the way did he make his method again to Hollywood?

Seems Nguyen had been constructing a busy and profitable movie profession in Vietnam, the place he had born however left as a teen (together with his household in 1975 after the autumn of Saigon). He first returned to the nation to shoot the 2007 Vietnamese language movie “The Insurgent”— which turned an enormous blockbuster there.

“Individuals have been saying, ‘hey, it’s best to come again right here and be part of this renaissance with the film business,” Nguyen recollects. “I decided to only transfer and hope for one of the best. I opened a manufacturing firm there, and I began directing and producing and telling tales that I actually wished to do, and by no means regarded again.”

That even included internet hosting and producing an area model of my favourite actuality present, “The Superb Race,” which he admits now was fairly a tough studying expertise.

“It’s a brutal present to supply when it comes to logistics, and to do it with the Vietnamese funds, which was most likely a tenth of what they’d do within the US and Australia,” he says. “We didn’t have sufficient manpower, so I ended up operating forwards and backwards as a director. And you then throw within the host obligation. It was brutal. You sleep for 2 hours, and also you’ve bought to be the primary to rise up to examine the primary website that the contestants will begin from. That was 30 days straight. Trying again, I believe I most likely misplaced 5 organic years.”

OK, maybe that wasn’t for him. However nonetheless, he was making a very good life for himself in Vietnam when an opportunity electronic mail from an previous “21 Leap Road” colleague bought him again on Hollywood’s radar. In 2018, Steve Beers, who labored as a producer on “21 Leap Road,” was an exec producer on “This Is Us,” and had been contemplating taking pictures some episodes in Vietnam.

“I’d been in Vietnam so lengthy I had bever even heard of the present,” Nguyen says. “I mentioned, ‘Steve, come over, I’ll present you round. We are able to deal with the manufacturing service for you.’ He provided me a few visitor spots on these episodes, and I ended up doing one, as a result of that specific one was taking pictures in Vietnam. It was a really small half, however I began getting emails from associates. Even one in all my favourite casting administrators, April Webster, reached out to my agent. ‘My God, I simply noticed Dustin on “That is Us,” and I used to be questioning the place the hell he’s been and what he’s been doing!’”

Across the identical time, his pal Justin Lin additionally reached out. “I had executed a film for him as an actor some years again, and he was like, ‘man, what are you doing in Vietnam?’ I instructed him I used to be making motion pictures right here and dwelling right here. He requested to see these movies. And so sometimes I’d ship him movies I used to be doing and we stored in contact. So, he referred to as me sooner or later out of the blue and mentioned, ‘I’m doing this challenge “Warrior,” and I need you to be part of it.’”

Nguyen was wrapping up directing a film in Vietnam, however made it to the “Warrior” set in time to seem towards the tip of Season 1. Finally, Nguyen was provided the possibility to additionally direct episodes of “Warrior,” and that led to his full-time transfer again to the USA.

“It simply all form of fell collectively,” he says. “I used to be anxious as a result of I’ve been away for thus lengthy, and there is perhaps an ‘out of sight/out of thoughts’ form of factor. So I needed to form of get reacquainted with the business, or let the business get reacquainted with me.”

From there he starred within the Netflix movie “Blade of the 47 Ronin” and the crime drama movie “The Unintentional Getaway Driver,” which premiered at Sundance in 2023. Then got here “Dope Thief.”

“It’s been an awesome determination to maneuver again, and life simply has a humorous method of steering you in sure instructions,” says Nguyen, who’s now based mostly in Hawai’i. “’Unintentional Getaway Driver’ and ‘Dope Thief’ are two of one of the best issues which have come my method within the 30-plus years I’ve been as an actor. I’m so proud to be concerned in these two tasks.”

Within the case of “Dope Thief,” Nguyen recurs as Son Pham, a drug trafficker that was pitched to him as “a Vietnamese Tony Soprano.”

“I’ve by no means seen Vietnamese American male characters portrayed like this on display screen,” he says. “After we did the deal I used to be imagined to die in Episode 6, after which as I used to be taking pictures, [exec producer] Peter Craig stored writing increasingly more stuff. Then I came upon I used to be in Episode 7.” Ought to there be a Season 2, Nguyen says Craig has hinted that his character, Son Pham, is perhaps seen on the run with the cartel.

For Nguyen, it’s additionally been a bit unimaginable to listen to from youthful performers and artisans who say his visibility — as one of many only a few Asian Individuals on TV within the Eighties — helped their determination to get into the enterprise.

“’Leap Road,’ that was the jackpot for me, when it comes to having a personality like that,” he says. “Again then, it was actually troublesome to search out components for Asian Individuals… Some actors on ‘Warrior’ got here as much as me on my first day on the set, and instructed me how impressed they have been seeing me on ‘21 Leap Road.’ That simply meant lots to me.” Glad to see Nguyen getting his due.