00:00 You guys are so cool.
00:01 This might be one of my favorite films of all time.
00:04 No.
00:05 Yeah, no, it's up there.
00:07 Evelyn feels like so much like my own mother in a lot of ways.
00:21 Michelle, my first question is for you.
00:23 I wonder what does this role mean to you
00:25 in getting to work with geniuses like the Daniels?
00:28 I think I'm still coming to terms with it.
00:30 I think the first day when I received the script,
00:33 it was a little unbelievable.
00:37 It's like I've been waiting so long, my God, so long,
00:40 to actually have an aging Asian immigrant ordinary woman
00:45 turn into a superhero and a story all about her.
00:50 But the Daniels, like you say, are evil geniuses
00:53 because they put it in a sci-fi world
00:56 where all this craziness, this ordinary craziness,
01:00 can happen.
01:01 And I'm very proud.
01:04 I must say, I am very, very proud of not just myself,
01:09 but all my co-stars, like Jamie.
01:12 My God, all right, I don't have to tell you
01:14 what how brilliant she is.
01:17 But Kee Kwan, Stephanie Hsu, it's
01:20 like every single performance was crucial and tied up
01:24 to this bagel.
01:25 Honestly, I just showed up and they would say,
01:27 OK, now we're doing this.
01:28 And I'd be like, OK.
01:31 Because the truth of the matter is, as Michelle just
01:34 beautifully said, this is a movie about real people.
01:38 Like the performances have to be real.
01:41 And I know Deirdre's.
01:44 I just know them.
01:46 The world exists partially because of Deirdre's.
01:51 If there were no Deirdre's, it would be anarchy.
01:54 So she's a bit of a police officer in a way.
01:57 And she takes her job very seriously.
02:00 And I just knew women like her.
02:02 And so for me, it was just making sure
02:04 that I was being true to her.
02:06 I can see where this story is going.
02:08 It does not look good.
02:15 I was the daughter of an immigrant.
02:24 I am the daughter of an immigrant.
02:25 I never thought that I could even be in this industry.
02:30 I never saw myself on the screen,
02:32 maybe a little in the goonies.
02:35 And I just think so many people in our community
02:43 really relate to this story.
02:45 And it is something that they've never seen before, right?
02:48 And especially with everything that's going on in the world
02:51 right now and specifically in our country, in America,
02:55 with the violence against Asians.
02:58 People just need to know that we are so full of history
03:05 and messy and love.
03:08 And it's not a stereotype.
03:10 It's just life.
03:12 It's Michelle Yeoh as the owner of a laundromat.
03:16 And we never get to hear that in a way that is just honest.
03:20 I think this is maybe one of the most honest portrayals
03:23 of an Asian family that I've ever seen.
03:26 And I'm just excited and honored to be a part of it.
03:29 Who was in charge of continuity on this film
03:32 and keeping track of the narrative behind the scenes?
03:34 Because it had to be a logistical nightmare,
03:37 I would say.
03:39 Yeah, logistical nightmare is the right word.
03:41 So our wonderful script supervisor, Julia Sector,
03:44 she was sort of the one who had to protect the continuity
03:48 as much as possible.
03:49 But then with this movie, after a certain point,
03:53 the continuity doesn't matter.
03:55 It's like there are certain scenes where, yes, we
03:56 have to be really careful.
03:58 And then there's other scenes where
03:59 we knew how it was going to edit.
04:01 And as long as everyone trusted us,
04:03 we could kind of say, that matters, that doesn't matter.
04:06 Let's keep shooting.
04:09 And so Julia Sector kind of protected it all.
04:12 We threw away a lot of rules.
04:15 And then the rest of our key crew
04:17 kind of had to also hold on to just their own departments.
04:21 Because each department had a nightmare scenario when it
04:24 comes to keeping track of it all.
04:26 The thing that mattered most to us
04:28 was the emotional continuity and working with the actors
04:33 to make sure they knew where they were and why
04:34 and how they felt. And kind of like, as long as you have that,
04:38 you're 90% there.
04:40 We go onto the set every day, Michelle.
04:43 Michelle would be like, you know I don't know what's going on.
04:47 We're the same.
04:48 We're like, OK, how are we supposed to--
04:50 how are we supposed to choreograph the action when--
04:53 when we don't even know exactly what's going on.
04:56 And they're like, it's OK, just run wild and then we'll--
04:58 you know, we'll--
04:59 They will-- we'll put it together for you.
05:02 This is the first movie where I've cried back and forth
05:04 five times.
05:05 I cried.
05:06 I dried up and laughed my ass off.
05:08 Then I cried.
05:09 Then I laughed so I had a cramp on my cheek.
05:11 And I cried again.
05:12 I'm like, god damn, bro.
05:13 And then-- and then we still don't know what the hell's
05:16 going on.
05:16 Growing up, Hong Kong action movies were all I watched.
05:19 And that's because my father comes from Hong Kong.
05:22 And so he showed me all of his favorite movies growing up.
05:25 And to-- to us, if we were going to do an action movie,
05:28 we-- that was the only way we could imagine doing it.
05:31 And so even though a lot of Hollywood
05:33 isn't doing that these days, we-- we searched high and low
05:36 for the right partners and collaborators.
05:38 And the Marshall Club, who we found from YouTube,
05:41 were perfect.
05:42 They blew us away.
05:43 And we were like, these people can do the--
05:46 they do the fight choreography.
05:47 They understand the camera work.
05:48 And then on top of that, they're funny.
05:50 They understand that it can be funny when you fight too.
05:53 So I'm so excited that the movie has really good action
05:58 sequences in it, which is something that we weren't
06:00 sure we could pull off.
06:01 My favorite genre right now might be generational trauma.
06:04 I wonder why you think that this movie or this story
06:09 is so important to tell right now.
06:12 It is true because it is happening right now, right?
06:15 The world-- because your generation is a generation that
06:19 lives with over--
06:21 overwhelming information and constant and nonstop.
06:25 And for us, we look at you and go like, can you just hold on?
06:30 I can't even do one task.
06:31 And you guys are multitasking and pulling things out
06:34 of everywhere.
06:36 And it is hard to communicate when you--
06:39 you're not on the same page.
06:41 And I think that is one of the things.
06:42 It's like-- it's like the Daniels.
06:44 They grew up with very strong women around them.
06:48 And I think this is their story.
06:50 This is their sort of like therapy as well,
06:53 getting it out there, you know, and then working it through.
06:56 Because at the end of the day, this generational trauma
06:59 just needs to sit down and have a real conversation
07:03 without judging each other on both sides,
07:07 not just on one side.
07:08 I think sometimes parents, because they have lived
07:12 the experiences, and what they are trying to say is like,
07:16 don't make the mistakes that I did.
07:18 Don't go down that path.
07:19 And I think that is always the biggest miscommunication.
07:23 It's like, you know, don't force me to be who you are,
07:26 because I am me.
07:28 And this is a conversation to be had.
07:31 Of all the places I could be.
07:32 [MUSIC PLAYING]
07:35 I just want to just share with you.
07:38 What has happened in the last few years,
07:40 you know, with Asian representation,
07:42 you know, with Crazy Rich Asians and Shang-Chi
07:45 and the farewell.
07:46 I mean, here we are.
07:47 I mean, I know, you know, things haven't
07:50 moved as fast as we want.
07:52 But with all sustainable improvements,
07:54 you know, they happen gradually.
07:55 And I'm just so hopeful that Hollywood is allowing us
08:02 to tell stories like this.
08:05 And that's why it's so important.
08:07 And it's a testament to how, you know, why not just Asians,
08:10 but all groups of people to be represented in entertainment.
08:13 In my 70 years, you know, I've gone from--
08:17 when I started, it was not long after that the exclusion
08:22 was still active.
08:23 So I come from that era.
08:26 And now there's that feeling.
08:28 And we transcend into more of the part of the American
08:34 society, you know, as being artists and accepted.
08:37 And all of a sudden, right now, we're
08:39 back into the other side when I started.
08:43 And there's this kind of discrimination, you know.
08:46 And I hate to see that.
08:48 I've given my whole life to do films and TV,
08:52 500 or more of them.
08:53 And you know, and you've accepted me
08:56 as a part of your family.
08:58 And these people, you know, they show you in this film,
09:02 especially, what their expression can
09:04 mean to the community and to society and to the world.
09:09 Early drafts of this, our producers rightfully
09:12 were like, this is an unproducible script
09:14 for the budget that we could, you know, possibly get.
09:18 And so we did a lot of planning to try to make it manageable.
09:23 So we shot six of eight weeks in one Simi Valley location
09:30 and tried to use it in as many different ways as possible.
09:33 We turned the cafeteria of that building
09:34 into like a mini soundstage.
09:36 And we built the apartment set there.
09:38 We built the inside of the sci-fi RV in there.
09:42 And so we tried to do our best to just be
09:46 really resourceful with the one location that we had.
09:49 Yeah, and then our last week of the shoot,
09:51 we ran around like crazy to get as many short locations
09:54 as we could.
09:56 My favorite day was we rented this space in LA
10:00 that just has like 30 very poorly built sets just
10:06 pre-built in there.
10:07 It looks like a high school theater production.
10:10 Yeah, but with the right lighting,
10:12 we could just run from room to room to room.
10:14 And so we probably did like 20 or 30--
10:17 Universes in that one day.
10:18 Yeah, in just one day.
10:19 Amazing.
10:19 I can't wait to show this to my own parents.
10:21 I already have a date blocked out for all of us.
10:24 Oh, wow.
10:25 Thank you.
10:26 Biggest compliment.
10:26 Thank you.
10:27 Thank you.
10:27 Thank you.
10:28 Thank you for your time.
10:29 [MUSIC PLAYING]
10:32 [VOCALIZING]
10:36 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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