Keiko Agena shares her dream job, growing up in Hawaii as a budding Asian American actor

Jul. 25—"Irony " is one of the most misused words in the English language.

It isn't mere coincidence or bad timing as so many seem to believe (thanks, Alanis ). Rather, it's when the effect of an action is the opposite of what's intended, or when reality is at odds with what you'd expect.

Would an example make this clearer ? Well, it just so happens Hawaii has produced a living, breathing example of irony.

Keiko Agena is one of the most prolific television actors born and raised in Hawaii. Along with seven years as a regular on "Gilmore Girls, " the 1991 Mid-Pacific Institute graduate has compiled an impressive list of credits in TV's biggest dramas.

She's co-starred with Sean Penn in "The First " and with Michael Sheen and Lou Diamond Phillips in "Prodigal Son " and appeared in "Better Call Saul, " "13 Reasons Why, " "NCIS : Los Angeles, " "Scandal " and "E.R., " to name just a few.

Among the shows Agena has not landed a role on ? The "Hawaii Five-0 " and "Magnum P.I." reboots and the forthcoming "NCIS : Hawaii " and "Doogie Kamealoha, M.D."—all shows that have filmed in Hawaii over the past decade.

An actress from Hawaii who gets cast in so many shows but none from Hawaii ? Now that's irony. But in this case, Agena is not a fan of it. She wants a shot to do a show filmed in her home state.

"That would be the dream, " Agena said from her home in Los Angeles during a recent phone conversation. "If that somehow worked out, that I was the right fit for a show that was filming in Hawaii, oh my gosh ! I would die. ... And my husband (musician Shin Kawasaki ) would love it too. The stars have to (align )—at some point, they will. I'm crossing my fingers that something will happen that I can be on a show that films in ­Hawaii !"

Agena's schedule opened in an unfortunate way a few months ago when Fox canceled "Prodigal Son "—in which she played medical examiner Dr. Edrisa Tanaka—after two seasons. While there's a movement to get the procedural about a profiler whose father was a serial killer picked up on another network or platform, Agena knows the odds against that are long.

"There are even now people who would love for us to have a third season, (but ) I don't think it's possible, " she said.

While exploring what role might be next for her, Agena has been doing some things she's always done—taking classes and performing onstage to stay sharp.

"I still take a bunch of classes, whatever kind of classes I can, (and did ) even while I was working on 'Prodigal Son, '" Agena said, mentioning her participation in the bicoastal live shows "Upright Citizens Brigade Comedy " and "Asian AF."

But she's also doing one thing she hasn't done as regularly—writing.

"For good or ill, part of the challenge of being Asian American is that a lot of times it behooves us to create our own content, " she said.

Having her ethnicity play a role in the work she got was something Agena never had to deal with growing up in Hawaii. She worked on several productions through high school after winning her first role at age 10 in a production of "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever."

"I had four lines and I fell in love with it so much that I cried when it ended. I knew instantaneously that this was what I wanted to do for my life, " Agena said.

Landing parts came less easily once she left Hawaii for Whitman College in Washington, where she quickly learned that the colorblind casting she took for granted in Hawaii was not the norm.

"Hawaii is an incredible place to grow up as an Asian American performer, " Agena said, "because you can play any role, and that's not the same in other cities and it was not until I was in college that I truly understood that."

The summer after her freshman year at Whitman, Agena visited her boyfriend in Los Angeles and it was clear that was where she needed to be.

"I just realized that it made more sense to stay because of the people I met, the classes I was taking down here, " she said, adding that she didn't want to burden her parents with tuition given that they had three more daughters to send through Mid-Pacific.

Some parents might balk at the idea of their child dropping out of college, but Agena's had always been supportive of her pursuing her dream.

"It was never their wish to send me to Whitman, " she said. "I was the one that wanted to go to Whitman because I knew that I wanted to have a chance to find my feet on the mainland. ... They never pushed college of any kind on me."

In some ways they had no choice, since it was a series of performance classes her mother enrolled her in—starting with a mime class that led to that first role—that put Agena on that path.

"My mom is very into classes. She always wanted her daughters to do a lot of after-school projects. So I was always in some kind of class, " she said of her growing-up years in Makakilo and Pearl City.

Agena spent her freshman year at Pearl City High School, but on the side she took a playwriting class from Brian Clark, who also taught at Mid-Pacific and recommended she try to enter the school's budding arts program.

"I kind of pressured (my mom ) to think about that school, " Agena said. "She actually went to work at Mid-Pac so we could afford for me to go there." School employees got discounted tuition for up to two kids at a time, she said.

"Yeah, it was a very big move and a big time investment on her part because she stayed there so that my sisters could go as well, because I'm the oldest, " she said, adding that her youngest sister is 10 years her junior. "So she stayed working there at Mid-Pac for a long time."

Agena's three years at the school saw her love for acting—and her skills—grow under the mentorship of Linda Johnson.

"She really changed my life ... she really took me under her wing, " Agena said. "I think a lot of my commitment to acting was very much reinforced by her, and she definitely took care of me even outside of the acting program."

For her part, Johnson, who's currently the head of the school's theater and film department, saw something special in Agena from the beginning—her charisma, emotional depth and effort were at a higher level than that of the average student.

"If I asked her to do a background for her character and say, 'Students, give me one page, ' she would give me four or five, " Johnson said. "Just always very thorough. She had that passion that was in her blood.

"There is training in theater—it's not just learn your lines and get up on stage and perform, " she added. "There is actual technique and training that goes into it, and it's a lot of hard work, and she always did the hard work."

Johnson's guidance helped Agena win awards at the school's Shakespeare Festival, a Po 'okela Award nomination for featured actress in a play for Kumu ­Kahua Theatre's "Manoa Valley " and, most prestigious, a Presidential Scholar in the Arts award her senior year. That honor took her to Washington, D.C., to meet President George H.W. Bush.

Ultimately, it led Agena to a career doing what she loves.

"I love getting to work, and I love television as well, " she said. "Even more than movies, because I've done just a couple of short movies, but television and especially getting to work on a character over the course of a couple of seasons is amazing."

Agena hopes to take that type of character exploration to another level with her own scripts.

"I'm interested in writing something where I am the lead, " she said, "because that's part of the challenge that I've found in my life is that even though I am very happy to be a supportive player, I feel like I don't always get to stretch out and find all the little nooks and crannies of this person that I care deeply about—this character that I care deeply about—and I wanna share all of that with the audience, not just a tiny little sliver of that person."