NRI Press on
the red carpet at the 2008 Asian Excellence Awards
Los Angeles, April 24, 2008
NRI press
Mandy Tung
The Asian Excellence Awards is the only annual nationally televised
event celebrating the outstanding achievements of Asians and Asian
Americans in film, television, music, and the performing arts.
Held on the evening of April 23, 2008 at Royce Hall on the UCLA
campus in Los Angeles, we decided to have our reporter Mandy Tung
cover the award ceremony because there were seven Indian nominees
that included Parminder Nagra, Navi Rawat, Naveen Andrews, Sendhil
Ramamurthy, Janina Gavankar, Kal Penn & Padma Lakshmi. Sadly,
we didn’t see any of them on the red carpet. Not sure as
to the reason why (shy maybe), but hey - at least the evening
wasn’t a total bust since we got to meet comedian
Russell Peters who was a cohost for the evening.
Our reporter Mandy said, “He is the nicest guy and surprisingly
fame hasn’t made his head blow up like we have unfortunately
seen with other actors/personalities. Russell Peters was very
friendly and the crowd just loved him.” He is a hardworking
guy – next up at his sold out shows in Sacramento from April
24-27th.
Also in attendance was Pond’s Femina Miss India-Universe
2006, Neha Kapur from New Delhi. Kapur represented India at the
Miss Universe 2006 pageant but failed to become the third Miss
Universe from India. After making it to the top 20 she was eliminated
in the second round. She was a very pretty girl with a beautiful
personality to match.
In addition, the Asian Excellence Awards presented two honorary
awards. YouTube co-founder Steve Chen was presented with the Pioneer
Award and Olympic Figure-Skating Champion Kristi Yamaguchi received
the special Inspiration Award. Quentin Tarrantino presented a
special tongue-in-cheek "Half Asian Award" to actor/comedian
Rob Schneider.
The Asian Excellence Awards also included such celebrity presenters
and attendees as Steven Seagal, Quentin Tarantino, Kelly Hu, Lindsay
Price, Sonja Sohn, Verne Troyer, B.D. Wong, Andre Royo, Ian Ziering,
Carrie Ann Inaba, Bobby Lee, Jack Yang, Rob Schneider, Daisy Fuentes,
Roger Fan, Russell Peters, Devon Aoki, Sharon Leal, Tamlyn Tomita,
Bai Ling, Cheryl Burke, Cristián de la Fuente, Se7en, Daisy
Fuentes, Will Yun Lee, Michelle Krusiec, Michael Yo, Brenda Song,
Rex Lee, Navi Rawat, Jack Yang, Michaela Conlin, James Saito,
and Teresa Cheung.
Tune in to see who won on E! Entertainment Television on May 1
at 6 p.m. ET/PT, 5 p.m. CT and will be available on Comcast on
Demand, beginning May 7.
