Henney grew up in a predominantly White town in Michigan, and his mom had been adopted and raised by a White family. “My mom and I were outliers,” he tells Timid, “but maybe I needed that. Maybe I wasn’t ready yet, because my mom wasn’t. It wasn’t until she started searching for her roots when I was about 14 years old that my Korean mind started to open up for me.“
Henney moved to Asia when he was 20, which he describes as the perfect time. “I had this formative period as a young man when I was old enough to process and make choices within my world and my culture. I was wide open for the experience mentally.”
The Asian-American experience is varied, but a common struggle is finding the balance among intersecting identities. Am I Asian enough? Am I American enough? What does it mean to be Asian-American? During our conversation, Henney muses that “no matter what side you’re leaning towards, it might never feel ‘enough.’”
“I think it’s about letting go and knowing that it’s okay to be leaning towards one identity for a while. You’re going to get there eventually if you want. If you really want to, it’s in your core, and you will get there, no matter if you’re 30, 40, or older.” He adds, “You’ll eventually find it, but I think if you pressure yourself too much to ‘find’ it, it can start to become tricky.”
With all the heart and humor audiences expect from Walt Disney Animation Studios, Big Hero 6 is an action-packed comedy-adventure about robotics prodigy Hiro Hamada, who’s catapulted into the midst of a dangerous plot and must transform his closest companion - a robot named Baymax - and a diverse group of friends into a band of high-tech heroes.
