When Charles Jang realized that he might want to be an actor, his parents, who had immigrated from Korea, begged him not to do it. At least not as a full-time career. They said no one would ever marry an actor. They said he’d be throwing away everything they came to America for.

 

So today, Charles works full-time in marketing at Google in New York, takes NYU classes for his MBA at night and acts. He’s the star of “Take Out,” a gritty, mostly Mandarin-language indie flick about a Chinese restaurant deliveryman that debuted in Manhattan last month to rave reviews from every paper in the city.

 

As you might guess, Charles pushes himself. As he walks into the East Village Starbucks juggling his iPod, cell phone and laptop out of the way to hold out his hand, he apologizes for being late. In fact, he is five minutes early.

 

“I didn’t start out to be an actor,” Charles says, sipping a black Americano. “I took a few acting classes in high school, for the easy A. Then I pulled the same hustle in college.” He occasionally worked as an extra on film sets. It was easy money. For the most part though, he drifted, going to Taiwan in 2000 to pick up some Mandarin and work on applying to a new school. His parents weren’t thrilled about this move either.

 

Acting wasn’t completely out of his system when, back in New York in 2003, he saw a casting call for a low-budget flick in need of a leading man. Leading roles being what they are for Asian actors, it was a rare opportunity. The script was in Mandarin. As Charles read, director Shih-Ching Tsou couldn’t quite figure out what part of China he was from.

 

“I didn’t tell them I was Korean until the call back,” Charles remembers, a slightly mischievous look spreading across his face.

 

Turns out it wasn’t an issue. “We cast Charles because he was so enthusiastic,” says “Take Out” co-director Sean Baker. “He was really willing to do the acting.”

 

Charles’s character in “Take Out” is Ming Ding, a quiet deliveryman at a tiny Chinese restaurant who finds his back up against a wall when the gangsters who smuggled him to America give him until the end of his shift to make an $800 payment: 10 times what he makes in tips on a good night.

 

Charles brings a textured mix of stoic action and agonizing vulnerability to the role. As the clock ticks down, every picky customer, barking dog and non-tipper becomes a micro-drama in itself, as well as a prick at the conscience that makes you vow to tip better next time you order out, or at least find out your delivery guy’s name.

 

Charles modestly denies going above and beyond for the role, but the evidence backs Baker’s account. With only a $3,000 budget, “Take Out” was shot in a month, in a tiny, Upper West Side Chinese take-out place, as it was open for business. Charles huffed up countless stairs, following the restaurant’s actual deliveryman as he made his rounds and shook off two colds from filming the biking scenes in the rain. In a pivotal scene, the script called for Ming Ding to throw up. Baker had planned to simulate it with pudding. Charles insisted on taking vomit-inducing ipecac, to make it as real as possible.