John Cho at SundanceJohn Cho got emotional at the world premiere of his film “Searching” at this year’s Sundance Festival. “It was unexpectedly moving for me to see a family that looked like mine, a loving family that looked like mine portrayed on American screen,” he told Super, recalling the moment.

It was six months later and the actor was in Hong Kong to promote the film, which had been picked up by Sony for worldwide release.

In “Searching,” John plays David Kim, a dad who, in his frantic attempt to find his missing 16-year-old daughter, breaks into her computer. “The one tragedy is he loses his daughter physically… but when he goes onto her laptop to find clues, he realizes he lost his daughter long before that. As a parent, that is a punch in the gut.”

(READ: “Searching” is a must-see twisty thriller)

The role had been written with John in mind. Aneesh Chaganty, who directed and co-wrote the film with producer Sev Ohanian, said, “John is an incredibly talented actor, he’s extremely empathetic. He’s a cerebral and an incredible processor of information. And he’s extremely underutilized. He’s one of those actors who consistently get the comment, ‘Why isn’t he in more stuff?’ He’s just, bar none, the incredible star of the movie. Everyone sees him and they think, this guy’s great, he’s such a good actor.”

Plenty of people agree. In fact, two years ago, there was the #StarringJohnCho movement, which had people photoshopping John’s image onto movie posters, reimagining him as the star of all sorts of films—from “Avengers” and “Magic Mike” to “Me Before You” and “Mission Impossible.” It was a stand against whitewashing in Hollywood and a call for more Asian-American actors to be given the spotlight. And it was also universal acknowledgment that John, who played Harold in the “Harold & Kumar” films, Sulu in “Star Trek,” Henry Higgs in ABC’s short-lived “Selfie” plus dozens and dozens of small roles both in film and on TV, is leading man material.

He proves it in “Searching”—his gripping performance has won praise from both critics and moviegoers alike. We talked to John about the film, about Asian representation in cinema and about the dangers of the internet.

Did working on the film change your relationship with the internet in any way?

I’m a conservative poster to begin with but the movie made me think about how I would approach social media with my own children, how to manage that. I’m sure social media would look completely different by the time they’re of that age but I guess that’s something that’s not too early to start thinking about.

You have a 10-year-old right?

Oh my god, that’s creepy.

Does he use the internet?

He doesn’t use it for social media, he uses it to watch YouTube videos… We watch movies, streaming and stuff like that. And sometimes games. But he’s not on social media.

Do you have rules for him?

No, he can do whatever he wants. No, we try to limit screen time in general but you know, he has a laptop for school. It just seems like screen is part of existence today and it wasn’t before. It feels like part of everyday life.

Do you worry that your kids would get obsessed with their digital devices?

Sometimes I feel like there’s a danger of living electronically. The concerns are all the same. I was told “watch out for strangers” and “don’t get lost.” That was on a physical world and now… the strangers are in my hand. All the strangers in the world are in my hand, all the woods in the world are in my hand. Your child could get lost but be in her room… We have this parallel existence that’s up in the cloud and we kinda live more there than here and I guess that’s fine. But the problem is you have a wife and kids and you do have to be present for them. You cannot maintain a marriage through the cloud. You cannot take care of your children electronically. There’s a balance that one must strive for… As with anything that tastes good, it’s possible to eat too much of it.

How would you describe your character David and in which ways are you similar to him?

We look a lot alike. David feels like a lot of people I know. He feels like my dad and a lot of fathers I know. I’m already at an age with my kids where I feel that generational gap. My son is a preteen and I can sort of feel that “what are you doing, what are you talking about” distance. That distance David had with his daughter felt familiar even though I’m not quite there yet.

You talked about how this was your weirdest acting experience, how you didn’t have a chance to make eye contact with your fellow actors.

It was the most extreme version of green screen. When you’re looking at the computer screen… On the Starship Enterprise, you have other castmates there but the screen is green. Here, when you’re looking at the computer screen, there was no graphics, all that stuff was created after we shot our stuff.

How did you manage to create that bond with Margot and with Pam and make the rest of us feel emotional along with you?

I’m glad it worked, I’m very grateful that it worked. We tried along with Sara Sohn who plays my wife and Margot’s mother and Aneesh. We talked constantly about making all those bits of memories, the little QuickTime videos, the photographs from the camera roll… All those events we tried to make those feel very authentic. We tried to imbue those moments with life so it would pay off later on… We did get into it, we got to know one another. Credit to Aneesh for recognizing the importance of that and working with us to spend the time to make those feel right.

You had this emotional moment at Sundance seeing a family like yours onscreen. How important is that to you and do you feel that it’s finally the time for Asians to see themselves onscreen with this film and with “Crazy Rich Asians?”

We’re past the time. We’re long overdue. It’s really important to me. You know, I’d seen Asians on film, I’d seen lots of Asians on film, but it was very special to see a family, a Korean-American family on film loving each other… So often I feel like Asian characters in American cinema are running away from their Asian parents in order to feel freedom or love or any of those things. I felt like the Asian family was not represented in a particularly good light. In this film, first off, we don’t justify seeing a Korean family onscreen, it just is. Secondly, they obviously care about one another and they’re trying to be whole again. It wasn’t about culture, it’s much more universal.

If you went missing, what would your loved ones find on your computer?

A mess. I wish somebody invents an app where if I go missing, my computer would explode.