![]() There, people would speak to me as if I’m a smart native woman and it’s embarrassing when I have to explain I don’t understand them, or that I am not used to the local customs. I have the body of a Chinese adult but with the linguistic skills of a 5-year-old – the age I left. There’s a phenomenon where you look like you should belong (as I do in China), but yet are so divorced from the culture – and language. On the other, I felt like a total stranger. I was 15 when I was first returning to China since I left. I came from the other end of the spectrum to the life of luxury portrayed in Crazy Rich Asians. I mean, I can’t quite identify with the rich extravagance of it, as my family were extremely poor and we left China in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution. And the rest, as they say, is history.ĭo you feel that being British-Chinese has influenced your identity growing up, and does it relate at all to Crazy Rich Asians’take on cultural clash – East vs West? I’ve always said, if the audience could feel just a fraction of what we felt making it, the film was going to be a success. When you have some of the funniest people amongst you, Awkwafina, Ronny Chieng, Jimmy O Yang, Nico Santos, you never stop laughing. When we filmed the night shoots in Singapore, we would wrap at dawn, go back to the hotel and all have breakfast together. On Crazy Rich Asians, we were actually happy to work overtime! When we filmed in Langkawifor the Samsara Island bachelorette party scene, upon wrap, we would walk all of five meters, sit on the beach, drink beers and chat for hours. The environment was very collaborative, which you do not get on every project. We could feel it in the joy, the energy, and the way people put everything into it. Even talking about it now, I’ve got goosebumps. What a legacy to carry!īut we all knew, when we were making it, that we were making history. The fear of course, was that we knew if the film bombed, people would turn around and use it as an excuse to say: “You see, no one wants to see Asians on screen, so let’s never do that again.” We would forever have felt like this is the film that killed it for all Asians. When Jon signed on, he said to the studio, “You know you need to prioritize casting, right? The cast is the most important thing about the film.” So with the combination of everybody, down to the cinematography, down to the costumes, everything, was what made it so synergistically successful. But our guys knew the importance of needing to pride quality and authenticity above all else. If our creatives were motivated by other factors, such as financial gain and convenience, the world could have seen a very different film. Jon Chu and the producers, Nina Jacobson, John Penotti and Kevin Kwan had a very strong vision for the movie from the start, and made some very hard decisions to preserve its integrity, such as choosing Warner Bro’s theatrical release deal over Netflix’s triple movie deal. However, it may not have had the same outcome if different people were involved in the film. Yes, and I’m glad it passed with flying colors. A few of us ended up playing roles we didn’t audition for – and it’s the biggest compliment the movie found a home for us within.ĭo you believe the success of Crazy Rich Asians was a litmus test for Asians’ financial value in the film industry, and proved to Hollywood that diversity should be invested in? Jon Chu later told me that they’d seen some great actors during the casting, and were intent on having them in the movie even if in a different role. They really scouted the earth it was a pretty epic endeavor. This process went on for about a year, as they had previously asked me to audition for Rachel in the summer, Astrid in December, and finally Amanda a month before we began filming. The casting director Terri Taylor called me to have a Skype audition for Amanda, and that was it. It was a pretty standard process considering the revolutionary impact the movie would go on to have. How did you land your role in Crazy Rich Asians? ![]() If Jing’s ambition and aptitude is any indication, the future for Asians in the media is bright. Jing rejects the film industry’s painful inclination toward harmful Asian stereotypes, and, instead, disrupts that prejudiced narrative by mirroring reality: by playing a police officer, detective, and doctor - all of whom just happen to be Asian.Īs her career unfolds, she becomes the story-teller for the next generation, by creating authentic stories with Asian leads and playing multifaceted Asian characters just as we see in real life. She’s been wrestling with negative typecasting and stereotypes her whole life and is unafraid to challenge them. Jing is considered a voice of her generation as she stands up against discrimination in television and film.
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