John Cho addresses the Cowboy Bebop cancellation: "It was very shocking"
Cho also has a new middle-grade novel, Troublemaker, set during the 1992 L.A. riots
It’s been almost four months since Netflix released the live-action Cowboy Bebop show—which means it’s been almost three months since the streaming service abruptly canceled it, after just a single season on the air. Reactions to the show were decidedly mixed, but it was still somewhat surprising to see the streamer pull the plug so fast, especially given how much time and energy it had invested in the series.
So far, series star John Cho has been resolutely quiet about its quick death, outside of a few oblique references to the cancellation on Twitter. He addressed it more directly this week, though, as a small part of a much larger Hollywood Reporter interview primarily focused on his new middle-grade novel, Troublemaker, which is set during the 1992 riots in Los Angeles. (He also talked, very briefly, about recording a musical duet with his Star Trek co-star Chris Pine, and teased the existence of a video out there somewhere of the franchise’s stars singing together, in character.)
In his response to the Bebop question, Cho foregoes raging at the TV gods, and instead simply emphasizes what a huge part of his life the show was for the past several years:
I put a lot of my life into it. I’d gotten injured shooting that show and so I took a year off because of the surgery and devoted myself to rehab, came back and finished the show. It was this huge mountain for me to climb, healing from that injury. I felt good about myself as a result. We also shot the show in New Zealand, so my family moved there. It was just a huge event in my life and it was suddenly over. It was very shocking and I was bummed.
That being said, he also emphasized the positive aspects that the show’s short run, and fan’s reactions to the cancellation, have had on his life:
But I was very warmed by the response. I wish I could have contacted everybody and gotten hugs. You can’t do that now, but … I don’t know what this is. I’m mystified a little bit about how you can connect with people that you don’t know doing your work, but I won’t question it. I will value it and treasure it. I’m just really deeply appreciative that anyone would care. It’s stunning to me.