I feel like I’ve aged 40 years in 5 days. The beginning of the week I had time to read stuff, the kind of time where I felt like I could make a tiny dent in my “to read” list, and suddenly it’s Friday and I’ve had approximately 6000 emails and 2000 phone calls today alone (and it’s only 11:13 am–I answered my last call “good afternoon,” because it feels like 1 pm…
I feel like some of those stories are private. … But I will say, when we started to rehearse this scene, which was all of us in the agency, we had taken the weekend to rework that particular scene and Bill Murray was not able to come because he had to attend some family gathering. So it was everyone else, and we just made the scene more fluid. I wish I had more to do with it but I didn’t, because I was the last one cast and I probably had the least amount of privilege in terms of creatively participating at that time. …
As we’re doing the scene, Bill starts to sort of hurl insults, and I won’t get into the specifics, but it kept going on and on. I was, like, “Wow, he seems like he’s looking straight at me.” I couldn’t believe that [the comments] could be towards me, because what do I have to do with anything majorly important at that time? I literally do the look around my shoulder thing, like, who is he talking to behind me? I say, “I’m so sorry. Are you talking to me?” And clearly he was, because then it started to become a one-on-one communication.
Some of the language was inexcusable and unacceptable, and I was not going to just sit there and take it. So, yes, I stood up for myself, and I don’t regret it. Because no matter how low on the totem pole you may be or wherever you came from, there’s no need to condescend or to put other people down. And I would not stand down, and nor should I have.
I remember years later, maybe even decades later, some crew members that I didn’t even know at the time came up to me on other sets and told me that they were there at the time and they were really grateful that I did that. I have nothing against Bill Murray at all. I’ve seen him since then at a “SNL” reunion, and he came up to me and was perfectly nice. But I’m not going to sit there and be attacked.
I don’t know if it goes back to what happened to my mom in the store. But I don’t want to be that person that is not going to speak up for myself and stand by the only thing that I have, which is my dignity and self-respect. Because in the end, we all end up in the same place as time goes on. Nobody is immortal. But in that time, no matter what happens between now and whatever career choices I make or whatever life decisions I make, I will walk away with my dignity.
I remember after that time, what came out in the press was that I was this and I was that. It was incredible to me how it was turned around and they automatically thought that the woman was the difficult one. … But I didn’t understand how it got flipped when I had nothing to do with instigating it or creating that platform of confrontation or anxiety. So even though it’s been decades, it’s something that obviously I remember very intimately and have not forgotten.
Your name is in a Destiny’s Child’s song about being an independent woman. Your off-screen life embodies that spirit. Where do you think that independence comes from?
I think I was born with it. I’ve always felt this wonderful urge to explore and be free, and I really love the idea of having that freedom creatively and as a woman, as a mom. There is something very freeing about that curiosity. And I love having people around me all the time and exploring that.
You were born and raised in Queens, N.Y. Your parents are immigrants from China. You have two older siblings. Did you always know that you wanted to be an artist — to be an actor?
When I was younger, I was intrigued by this neighbor who lived across the street who had done some commercials. I thought, “That’s what I want to do.” I didn’t know anyone in the business. I think the naiveté of not knowing anything actually helped me charge forward because I didn’t know how bad rejection could be and what kind of rejection lay ahead of me. And there was plenty of rejection — but I didn’t mind it because to me, it wasn’t personal. It was this quest to keep moving forward and keep discovering.
A lot of people said to me: “There’s nobody that’s out there. There’s not a lot of Asian presence in media, television, film. You’re going to be very limited and you’re never going to make it.” I just thought: I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what “never” means. So let’s just try. It’s just one foot in front of the other. To me, the glass is always half full. I don’t even see it being empty at all. I guess I’m an optimist.
You’re an accomplished artist, and one of the pieces you have on exhibit is a painting of your family. Paint a picture for us of your childhood home.
We grew up in attached housing … everyone’s houses are connected to each other, and you can hear everything that’s going on in everyone’s homes and how they relate to one another. We didn’t have very much money, so we grew up with whatever we grew up [with]. It’s that idea of, you get what you get and you don’t get upset. And if you do get upset, you get a mouthful of why you shouldn’t be upset.
We were left to our own imagination and curiosity to do whatever we wanted. I’m not saying it was a simpler time, but there was not the complication of technology.
There was no possibility of not attending high school and college. We didn’t discuss art and theater, and we didn’t do any of that because we had very limited funds. It was all about survival. And I think survival creates a very different environment than, let’s say, my child now has. It becomes a much more insular world in a way, and because of that your imagination can be bigger and it can puff out like a cloud, keep growing and absorbing.
When you talk about survival at that point in your life, it sounds like you’re talking about your parents’ survival. Is that something that you were very conscious of as a child?
My parents worked all the time, and that was something that we absolutely knew. I think the survival, for them to be in another country and to be not speaking their main language, was something that I learned was not necessarily welcome. I remember going to the store with my mother and she was asking someone for something very basic. I remember how condescending that person was towards her, and I was so angry and felt so unable to speak.
I [wasn’t] able to use my voice because I was a child, No. 1, and my mother — I wanted her to stand up to him. I knew that wasn’t her personality and that was not her nature. But I was angry, because it wasn’t like she was asking for anything more than some household item. I think being stifled like that also resonates as you get older and you have to break out of that pattern.
It’s great to hear some of these more personal stories from you because a lot of people out there know you only from your work. Was this a side of yourself that you felt you had to protect from public view intentionally?
I’m not a very open person regarding my life, because I feel like sometimes when you expose yourself, people then start to mix what they see and what they know about you. If you want to say, “She is a bitch from ‘Ally McBeal,’” OK, that’s fine; I did my job. If you want to think, “She can do martial arts really well from ‘Charlie’s Angels,’” or she can wield a sword or whatever you want to believe, let that be what it is. I don’t need them to know me in order to understand my work.
I think discovering a character is much more interesting than getting to know what this person likes to eat or who they like to date. … That’s a very protected side of myself. And it could be cultural, absolutely. But it’s given me a lot of length in terms of how far I want to go, because nobody really knows me on a personal level.
In your Washington Post op-ed you referred to “moving the needle” for AAPI representation with the mainstream success you were able to find. What do you feel like it took to push the needle in the way that you were able to?
Every ounce of willpower and persistence that one can have. I think when you do move the needle, or you do interact with the people and the career that you want to go towards, you are going to be the first to get cut by the thorns and the bushes. You will also therefore be standing in front of the spotlight to be criticized and to be somewhat crucified. And you have to be OK with that.
To me, the experience of doing [the] work and the people that I interact with — that’s what I take away. There’s something wonderful about it, because you’re stepping into the snow for the first time. And I’m not alone in that. There are people that have been doing that before me, and the snow keeps coming down and then the tracks keep getting covered, but you just keep going forward.
Did you know that recently you became somewhat of a feminist icon when a story about you standing up to Bill Murray on the set of “Charlie’s Angels” went viral? What do you remember about that?
I feel like some of those stories are private. … But I will say, when we started to rehearse this scene, which was all of us in the agency, we had taken the weekend to rework that particular scene and Bill Murray was not able to come because he had to attend some family gathering. So it was everyone else, and we just made the scene more fluid. I wish I had more to do with it but I didn’t, because I was the last one cast and I probably had the least amount of privilege in terms of creatively participating at that time. …
As we’re doing the scene, Bill starts to sort of hurl insults, and I won’t get into the specifics, but it kept going on and on. I was, like, “Wow, he seems like he’s looking straight at me.” I couldn’t believe that [the comments] could be towards me, because what do I have to do with anything majorly important at that time? I literally do the look around my shoulder thing, like, who is he talking to behind me? I say, “I’m so sorry. Are you talking to me?” And clearly he was, because then it started to become a one-on-one communication.
Some of the language was inexcusable and unacceptable, and I was not going to just sit there and take it. So, yes, I stood up for myself, and I don’t regret it. Because no matter how low on the totem pole you may be or wherever you came from, there’s no need to condescend or to put other people down. And I would not stand down, and nor should I have.
I remember years later, maybe even decades later, some crew members that I didn’t even know at the time came up to me on other sets and told me that they were there at the time and they were really grateful that I did that. I have nothing against Bill Murray at all. I’ve seen him since then at a “SNL” reunion, and he came up to me and was perfectly nice. But I’m not going to sit there and be attacked.
I don’t know if it goes back to what happened to my mom in the store. But I don’t want to be that person that is not going to speak up for myself and stand by the only thing that I have, which is my dignity and self-respect. Because in the end, we all end up in the same place as time goes on. Nobody is immortal. But in that time, no matter what happens between now and whatever career choices I make or whatever life decisions I make, I will walk away with my dignity.
I remember after that time, what came out in the press was that I was this and I was that. It was incredible to me how it was turned around and they automatically thought that the woman was the difficult one. … But I didn’t understand how it got flipped when I had nothing to do with instigating it or creating that platform of confrontation or anxiety. So even though it’s been decades, it’s something that obviously I remember very intimately and have not forgotten.
At this stage in your life, after accomplishing so much as an actor, director, an artist, what do you want your legacy to be?
I think my legacy is to stand behind my choices, regardless of whether they do well in the box office or not. It’s about always striving to better myself as an artist and to be open to trying new things, whether they succeed or fail, and not to be afraid of that. I think that fear starts to impact your choices and it also starts to make your world smaller and tighter. I think we all feel that — you can’t really breathe when that happens, your lung capacity shrinks and your brain capacity shrinks. If you get too immersed in what people want from you, you start to lose your way and you start doing things for other people instead of yourself. It’s already hard enough to figure out on a personal level what you want for yourself.
I make choices because I’m willing to go there and willing to fall on my face, and I think that’s important. If you don’t risk, you don’t gain. And gaining should be for yourself. It’s like a slow climb. And I do think slow and steady wins the race.
If you know me, you know I don’t really care about end-of-year lists. So instead of looking at 2014, I’ve decided to look at 2004. No, I will not be posting a list, I’m just glancing at stuff. There is no list here.
I always find it interesting to see how well a film holds up years later, which I think is the only real judge of quality in filmmaking.
Earlier on Twitter, I posted two images. One is a comparison of 2004 worldwide box office to the 2004 Village Voice aggregated film poll: http://imgur.com/03HhFAO
The other is a bunch of individual American film critics’ lists from 2004: http://imgur.com/DWWpHsA
After checking out some 2004 films again, I (completely unscientifically) made these conclusions:
1) Important Movies / Oscar Bait Do Not Last
If somebody tells you a film is capital-I Important, you can bet we’ll have forgotten it by next year (see also: Argo) (see also also: Stanley Kramer).
The Aviator Fahrenheit 9/11 Hotel Rwanda Million Dollar Baby Sideways
2) That Movie with Great Performances? Also doesn’t last
Initially, actors help determine how likely we are to leave a house to see a film, but 10 years later, it hardly matters. I don’t know a single person who would rather watch Jamie Foxx in Ray than Jamie Foxx in Collateral. Because adapt, improvise, Darwin, shit happens, I Ching, whatever man.
All of these films were nominated/campaigned for acting awards:
Being Julia Closer Finding Neverland Kinsey Ray
3) Comedies Have Crazy Longevity
There’s something about laughter that makes a movie “stick.” Even if you dislike these films, their quotes, jokes and impact are very palpable even today.
Anchorman Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle Mean Girls Shaun of the Dead Team America
At the same time, the humor has to be distinctive. Anchorman has jokes that could only happen in the world of that film. Assembly-line comedies do really well their year of release and then die off. Bad animation has the steepest drop:
Garfield the Movie Meet the Fockers Scooby Doo 2 Shrek 2 Shark Tale
4) We Don’t Want to Admit It, but Trilogies/Series Matter (even for art-house films)
If you can group films together, it plays well on a double or triple bill / in a box set. People might not leave the house for one film by their favorite director, but in 2024, those Cornetto Trilogy 6-hour marathons will be sold out, mark my words.
Also people like trilogies b/c they see links between the films and those details pay off in their minds.
2046 (Days of Being Wild / In the Mood for Love) Before Sunset (Before Sunrise / Before Midnight) Kill Bill Vol. 2 (technically one film split into two parts) Shaun of the Dead (Hot Fuzz / The World’s End) Spider-Man 2 (Raimi trilogy is apparently still getting some love)
5) Directors Matter Most
I heard from someone that Netflix has a specific bit of internal user data: the longer you use Netflix, the more likely you are to care about the director of a film, and you gravitate to watching the director’s other films. Loving a filmmaker is the same as loving a band. Once you love someone, it’s about seeing their entire body of work. Even if the individual songs/albums aren’t as amazing as you expected, you’re more willing to go back and revisit them.
These directors already had fan bases in 2004. Every single one has expanded that base over the last decade.
2046 (Wong Kar-Wai) 3-Iron (Kim Ki-Duk) Before Sunset (Richard Linklater) Collateral (Michael Mann) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry) Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban (Alfonso Cuaron) Hellboy (Guillermo Del Toro) Howl’s Moving Castle (Hayao Miyazaki) The Incredibles (Brad Bird) Kill Bill Vol. 2 (Quentin Tarantino) The Life Aquatic (Wes Anderson) Shaun of the Dead (Edgar Wright)
6) Stay true, keep the band together
It is better to make something true that appeals to a small group of people (who will keep it alive) than something a whole bunch of people like but not enough to rewatch it.
Having a distinctive tone, visual style, world, etc. pays off financially and critically in the long run b/c it attracts a following (see: Wes Anderson, a niche economy unto himself). Once the fanbase starts going, it just keeps snowballing. Not everybody’s going to be Wes Anderson, but even the Adam McKay/Will Ferrell partnership’s been doing well.
And if the director is a good leader, then actors, cinematographers, editors, production designers, producers, etc. all enjoy coming back over and over as recurring collaborators.
7) These Are the 2014 Directors
If I had to make a wild guess as to which 2014 films we’ll still be caring about in 2024, I wouldn’t guess the films, I’d guess which directors/studios this year had the most fervent fanbases: Wes Anderson, Richard Linklater, Bong Joon-ho, Christopher Nolan, Paul Thomas Anderson, David Fincher and Studio Ghibli
Less so but some fans care: James Gunn, Jean-Luc Godard, Lars von Trier, Jim Jarmusch, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Mike Leigh, Jonathan Glazer, Lukas Moodysson, Phil Lord & Chris Miller, James Gray, Sion Sono, Luc Besson.
May build a fan base but only one or two movies so far: Dan Gilroy, Damien Chazelle, Richard Ayoade, Jennifer Kent.
Obviously, I’m totally forgetting a ton of people. Throw out whatever names you want.
8) Conclusion: Pick Your Horses
So ultimately I think making a top 10 list is silly. As Steven Soderbergh said last year: “Hollywood thinks its about races, but it’s actually about horses.” In other words, pick the directors that are distinctive enough for people to care about their vision, regardless of material.
Oscar bait is entirely a perception created by marketing to get your ass in the theater between November and February, because the movie isn’t good enough to attract attention otherwise. So always ignore it. Do you really want to watch The Theory of Everything?
So if you like, pick your horses and bet on them for 10 years. Everything else is just noise.
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