The Performance

When he and Huang started work on the Venom ads, Tsai was no slam-dunk to play C-Dub; the acting novice was looking for an actor who could not only play that character but appear in many more of his projects, a De Niro to his Scorsese or a Chow Yun-Fat to his Woo, if you will. When he and Huang couldn't agree on a star, the role fell to him.

"Most of my friends will probably say it's a slight exaggeration of my persona," Tsai says.

While working for Cherry Sky, he met director Jessica Yu (Oscar winner for the documentary "Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O'Brien"), who had seen the Venom spots. Huang mentioned an idea for a comedy centered on Ping-Pong to Yu, who came up with the idea of transplanting C-Dub from the courts to the tables. So, the die-hard baller Tsai picked up the paddle (and calculator and broom, as the budget required). But it's all just an expression of his hoop dreams.

"You know how there's no Asian American players in the NBA yet? There are Asians -- Yao Ming, Wang Zhizhi -- but no Asian American has yet broken that barrier. My theory is that that guy exists or did exist who had the natural ability and the physiology and everything, but his parents were so fixated on him playing the piano or violin, studying for the SATs, that they didn't cultivate his natural talent. So that guy is probably now doing bookkeeping," Tsai says, laughing. "Or in the IT department of a big company."

--

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Where you've seen him

Jimmy Tsai is a new presence in front of the camera. His appearances as C-Dub in the Venom Sportswear ad campaign can be found at www.venomsportswear.com or on YouTube. He produced the upcoming documentary "The Killing of a Chinese Cookie," which he says is about the history of the fortune cookie "and its place in the pop culture pantheon," and is working on another script with "Ping Pong Playa" director Jessica Yu.

-- Michael Ordona