Dustin Nguyen is a Vietnamese American actor whose credits include 21 Jump Street starring alongside Johnny Depp and V.I.P. starring alongside Pamela Anderson. This year, he can be seen in two projects, including Apple TV+’s Dope Thief and The Accidental Getaway Driver. Dope Thief has consistently been a top show on Apple TV+, with the show currently at the number 4 spot this week.

Dustin Nguyen plays Dope Thief’s Son Pham, a connected drug trafficker who works with Brian Tyree Henry’s Ray Driscoll. The series features a Vietnamese American family, and the actor collaborated with showrunner Peter Craig (The Town, The Batman) to make sure that there was authenticity in the Vietnamese language and portrayals on the set.

“Peter completely trusted me with it, which was a pleasure,” Nguyen tells Nerd Reactor. “He didn’t bring on an interpreter or anything. He completely trusted me to do the translation and and I wholeheartedly gave him all the extra time he needed to make sure that the translation works well and it’s appropriate. I was very grateful for that. He knew it was important. It’s important for him too, but he cares a lot about what he does and and it showed. He’s such a wonderful writer. He wants the Vietnamese language done right, but also right for film dialogue. You know, there’s a big difference in terms of nuances.”

The Accidental Getaway Driver is a crime drama film by director Sing J. Lee. It’s inspired by the 2016 abduction of Long Ma, a Vietnamese American taxi driver in Orange County. Nguyen portrays one of the three prison escapees who forces Long Ma to help them flee the country.

“It’s an incredible story, first of all, right?” Nguyen asked. “I mean, the fact that it really happened, it’s an incredible story, and the producers, and everybody, again, I’m so grateful that not only did they get behind this project, but there are so many different versions of this story that you can make. Everybody got behind Sing’s vision, which is, he’s not interested in the kidnapping, breaking out of prison kind of thing. It really examined the toxic masculinity that men face in society, and the fragility that comes with it. The isolation, the loneliness that comes with all of these things, that these men face, that I think a lot of men, people in general, certainly men can relate to on a universal level.”

The final episode of the Dope Thief miniseries airs on Apple TV+ on April 25, 2025.

The Accidental Getaway Driver was released in theaters on February 28, 2025.