Steven Yeun: Walking Dead actor tells Conan O'Brien 'not all Asians look alike'

The actor complained that lots of people are told they resemble him - even though they have nothing in common other than race

Steven Yeun stars in drama The Walking Dead (Rex Features)

Steven Yeun has criticised racial attitudes in the West.

On Conan O'Brien's talkshow, the Walking Dead star said that he was baffled by how many people said they were mistaken for him.

"It’s wild, people come up to me and go: 'I get mistaken for you all the time', and I’m like: 'You’re 55 years old' or: 'You’re a 12 year old girl, what are you talking about?' Once and for all, we don’t all look alike," Yeun said. "That’s what I’m here to tell you, this is my mission."

Talking about how uncertain some fans of the drama are when they actually do recognise him, Yeun joked about wanting to almost congratulate them.

"Sometimes people will come up to me and they won’t know if I am [in The Walking Dead] so they won’t really ask," the Korean-American actor said, "but then if they do ask... I want to be like: 'Once and for all yes you’re right – the one Asian guy you recognise is the Asian guy you thought it was'. We don’t all look the same."

To prove that people can look like each other, even if they're of different races, Yeun found a black man who looked like Matt Damon, and a picture of an Asian man who looks uncannily like Brad Pitt.

"If all Asians look alike then Brad Pitt’s Asian," Yeun said. "And I'll take that."