00:00You guys are so cool.
00:01This might be one of my favorite films of all time.
00:04No.
00:06Yeah, no, it's up there.
00:17Evelyn feels so much like my own mother in a lot of ways.
00:21Michelle, my first question is for you.
00:23I wonder what does this role mean to you
00:25in getting to work with geniuses like the Daniels?
00:28I think I'm still coming to terms with it.
00:30I think the first day when I received the script,
00:33it was, you know, it's a little unbelievable.
00:36It's like I've been waiting so long, my God, so long
00:40to actually have an aging Asian immigrant,
00:44ordinary woman turned into a superhero
00:47and a story all about her.
00:50But the Daniels, like you say, are evil geniuses
00:53because they put it in a sci-fi world
00:56where all this craziness, this ordinary craziness can happen.
01:01And I'm very proud, I must say.
01:05I am very, very proud of not just myself,
01:09but every, all my co-stars like Jamie, my God, all right.
01:13I don't have to tell you what, how brilliant she is.
01:17But Kee Kwan, Stephanie Hsu,
01:20it's like every single performance was crucial
01:23and tied up to this bagel.
01:25Honestly, I just showed up and they would say,
01:27okay, now we're doing this.
01:28And I'd be like, okay.
01:31Because the truth of the matter is,
01:33as Michelle just beautifully said,
01:36this is a movie about real people.
01:38Like the performances have to be real.
01:41And I know Deirdre's.
01:44I just know them.
01:46You know, the world exists partially because of Deirdre's.
01:51If there were no Deirdre's, it would be anarchy.
01:54So, you know, she's a bit of a police officer in a way.
01:57And she takes her job very seriously.
02:00And I just knew women like her.
02:02And so for me, it was just making sure
02:04that I was being true to her.
02:06I can see where this story is going.
02:12It does not look good.
02:22I was the daughter of an immigrant.
02:23I am the daughter of an immigrant.
02:25I never thought that I could even be in this industry.
02:30I never saw myself on the screen,
02:32maybe a little in the goonies, you know.
02:35And I just think this, so many people in our community
02:43really relate to this story.
02:44And it is something that they've never seen before, right?
02:47And especially with everything that's going on
02:50in the world right now,
02:51and specifically in our country, in America,
02:55with the violence against Asians,
02:58like people just need to know that we are
03:01so full of history and messy and love.
03:08And it's not a stereotype.
03:10It's just life.
03:12It's, you know, Michelle Yeoh as the owner of a laundromat,
03:15you know, and we never get to hear that
03:18in a way that is just honest.
03:20I think this is maybe one of the most honest portrayals
03:23of an Asian family that I've ever seen.
03:25And I'm just excited and honored to be a part of it.
03:29Who was in charge of continuity on this film
03:32and keeping track of the narrative behind the scenes?
03:34Because it had to be a logistical nightmare.
03:39Yeah, logistical nightmare is the right word.
03:41So our wonderful script supervisor, Julia Sector,
03:44she was sort of the one who had to protect the continuity
03:48as much as possible.
03:49But then, you know, with this movie,
03:52after a certain point, the continuity doesn't matter.
03:54You know, it's like there are certain scenes
03:56where yes, we have to be really careful.
03:57And then there's other scenes
03:58where we knew how it was going to edit.
04:01And as long as everyone trusted us,
04:03we could kind of say that matters, that doesn't matter.
04:06Let's keep shooting.
04:09And so Julia Sector kind of protected it all.
04:12We threw away a lot of rules.
04:15And then the rest of our key crew
04:17kind of had to also hold on to just their own departments
04:21because each department had a nightmare scenario
04:24when it comes to keeping track of it all.
04:26The thing that mattered most to us was,
04:29you know, the emotional continuity
04:31and working with the actors to make sure they knew
04:33where they were and why and how they felt.
04:36And kind of like, as long as you have that,
04:38you're 90% there, you know?
04:40We go onto the set every day, Michelle.
04:43Michelle would be like,
04:44you know, I don't know what's going on.
04:45And we're the same.
04:47We're like, okay, like, how are we supposed to,
04:50you know, how are we supposed to choreograph the action
04:51when we don't even know exactly what's going on?
04:56And they're like, it's okay, just run wild.
04:57And then we'll, you know, we'll-
04:59They will, we'll put it together for you.
05:01This is the first movie
05:02where I've cried back and forth five times.
05:05I cried, I dried up and laughed my ass off.
05:08Then I cried.
05:08Then I laughed so I had a cramp on my cheek.
05:11And I cried again.
05:12And I'm like, God damn!
05:13And then we still don't know what the hell's going on.
05:16Growing up, Hong Kong action movies were all I watched.
05:19And that's because my father comes from Hong Kong.
05:22And so he showed me all of his favorite movies growing up.
05:24And to us, if we were going to do an action movie,
05:28that was the only way we could imagine doing it.
05:31And so even though a lot of Hollywood
05:33isn't doing that these days,
05:34we searched high and low for the right partners
05:37and collaborators and the Marshall Club,
05:39who we found from YouTube, were perfect.
05:42They blew us away.
05:43And we were like, these people can do the fight choreography.
05:47They understand the camera work.
05:48And then on top of that, they're funny.
05:50They understand that it can be funny when you fight too.
05:53So I'm so excited that the movie
05:56has really good action sequences in it,
05:58which is something that we weren't sure we could pull off.
06:00My favorite genre right now might be generational trauma.
06:04I wonder why you think that this movie
06:08or this story is so important to tell right now.
06:12It is true because it is happening right now, right?
06:15The world, because your generation is a generation
06:19that lives with overwhelming information
06:23and constant and nonstop.
06:25And for us, we look at you and go like,
06:28can you just hold on?
06:29I can't even do one task.
06:31And you guys are multitasking
06:33and pulling things out of everywhere.
06:36And it is hard to communicate
06:38when you're not on the same page.
06:41And I think that is one of the things.
06:42It's like the Daniels.
06:45They grew up with very strong women around them.
06:48And I think this is their story.
06:50This is their sort of like therapy as well,
06:52getting it out there, you know,
06:54and then working it through.
06:55Because at the end of the day,
06:57this generational trauma just needs to sit down
07:01and have a real conversation without judging each other
07:05on both sides, not just on one side.
07:08I think sometimes parents,
07:10because they have lived the experiences
07:13and what they are trying to say is like,
07:16don't make the mistakes that I did.
07:18Don't go down that path.
07:19And I think that is always the biggest miscommunication.
07:23It's like, you know, don't force me to be who you are
07:26because I am me.
07:28And this is a conversation to be had.
07:35I just want to just share with you
07:37what has happened in the last few years,
07:40you know, with Asian representation,
07:42you know, with Crazy Rich Asians
07:44and Shang-Chi and the farewell.
07:46I mean, here we are.
07:47I mean, I know, you know,
07:49things haven't moved as fast as we want,
07:52but with all sustainable improvements,
07:54you know, they happen gradually.
07:55And I'm just so hopeful that Hollywood is allowing us
08:02to tell stories like this.
08:05And that's why it's so important.
08:07And it's a testament to how, you know,
08:08why not just Asians,
08:10but all groups of people to be represented in entertainment.
08:13In my 70 years, you know,
08:15I've gone from when I started,
08:18it was not long after that,
08:20the exclusion act was still active.
08:23So I come from that era and now there's that feeling
08:28and we transcend into more of the part
08:32of the American society,
08:34you know, as being artists and accepted.
08:37And all of a sudden, right now,
08:39we're back into the other side when I started.
08:43And there's that, this kind of discrimination,
08:46you know, and I hate to see that.
08:48I've given my whole life to do films and TV,
08:52500 or more of them.
08:53And, you know, and you've accepted me
08:56as a part of your family.
08:58And these people, you know,
09:01they show you in this film,
09:02especially what their expression can mean
09:05to the community and to society and to the world.
09:08Early drafts of this,
09:11our producers rightfully were like,
09:12this is an unproducible script for the budget
09:15that we could, you know, possibly get.
09:18And so we did a lot of planning
09:22to try to make it manageable.
09:23So we shot six of eight weeks
09:26in one Simi Valley location
09:30and tried to use it
09:31in as many different ways as possible.
09:32We turned the cafeteria of that building
09:34into like a mini soundstage
09:36and we built the apartment set there.
09:38We built the inside of the sci-fi RV in there.
09:42And so we tried to do our best
09:43to just be really resourceful
09:47with the one location that we had.
09:49Yeah, and then our last week in the shoot,
09:51we ran around like crazy
09:52to get as many short locations as we could.
09:55My favorite day was,
09:57we rented this space in LA
10:00that just has like 30 very poorly built sets
10:05just pre-built in there.
10:07It looks like a high school theater production.
10:09Yeah, but with the right lighting,
10:11we could just run from room to room to room.
10:14And so we probably did like 20 or 30.
10:16Universes in that day.
10:17Yeah, in just one day.
10:19Amazing, I can't wait to show this to my own parents.
10:21I already have a date blocked out for all of us.
10:23That was great.
10:24Oh wow, thank you.
10:26Biggest compliment.
10:27Thank you.
10:28Thank you for your time.
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